South Dakota Politics

Chaos Theory and Immigration Reform

I read somewhere that a physicist could predict the movements of a single ball bouncing around inside a small, frictionless box, say in outer space (removing gravity helps to imagine this).  All he needs is the state of the system at one point in time, and he can tell you precisely (that is, within a small margin of error), where the ball will be a year from now.  Put a second ball in the box, allowing for frequent collisions, and he can still do it.  But this would take enormous computing power.  Put a third ball in the box, and a computer the size of planet earth couldn't do the job.  I don't know if this is true, but if it is it stands as a good illustration of chaos theory.  Beyond a certain degree of complexity, even systems consisting of very simple parts become unpredictable. 

This occurred to me as I was thinking about immigration reform.  The economic consequences of immigration are usually described in this way: the supply of cheap labor lowers the costs of labor at the entry level.  This is bad for the least competitive native workers.  It is good for the immigrants, for the businesses that hire them, and probably for the American economy as a whole.  This helps to explain why developed nations don't really try to control immigration: those who benefit from it are more numerous and more politically powerful than those who do not.  However, say advocates of reform, reducing the flow of immigrants to a trickle would do wonders for the least advantaged native workers, and legalizing undocumented workers would mean a lot more people paying their full share of taxes, etc. 

An article in the LATimes suggests that this model is too simple the capture the dynamics of immigration reform. 

Legalizing the immigrants already here will move some of that competition up the labor ladder. Hanson gave the example of hotel workers. Many are illegal, which means they're stuck in the worst jobs. As their status changes, so will their positions. The result: more people will compete for the post of, say, assistant manager.

Suppose we shut off illegal immigration completely (a goal which seems unrealistic), and legalize the existing immigrant population.  We then have only to calculate the effect of millions of newly documented workers in the work force.  These workers will suddenly be able to compete for jobs that have hitherto been closed to them.  This would have the effect of driving down wages in middle tier jobs.  Unions are going to be vociferously opposed to this. 

It looks to me as though this has to be good for entry level workers, at least at first.  As many of those struggling with hotel mattresses or walking in fruit groves leave to take better jobs, the wages of those who remain will have to rise.  But that means that the magnetic pull of jobs seeking workers will tug irresistibly against any legislative/security force barrier we try to erect across the border.  Unless that barrier is very effective, we may end up reducing average wages of workers currently protected against competition from immigrants without in fact reducing labor competition for entry level workers.  We will end up with the same problem we have now in short order. 

The truth is that no one knows what the effect of any proposed reform will be.  There are too many balls bouncing around in this box, and the box geometry is just too complex for prediction.  But if we could establish some measure of control over the border, as well as enfranchising the existing population, then at least we would have our hands on the levers.  Moreover we would be able to measure the effect of reforms over time.  Maybe that's the best we can hope for.

Janklow

As soon as South Dakota gives him his law license back, Bill Janklow goes to work for Minnesota and against South Dakota, putting the new railroad project at risk.  The head of the railroad calls it a "most extraordinary sellout and betrayal of South Dakota interests" (and Prof. Blanchard gets quoted):

Former South Dakota Gov. BIll Janklow has been retained as counsel by the Mayo Clinic and other Rochester, Minn. organizations who say they’re concerned about safety if the Sioux Falls-based Dakota Minnesota and Eastern Railroad cuts through the area.

Some see the battle as Minnesota vs. South Dakota. And the move by Janklow is being questioned today by his critics. They say he is betraying South Dakota interests by lining up on the other side of economic development.

Several consultants are being hired by the Rochester groups because of concerns about the health and safety of Rochester residents if the railroad goes as planned through the city and near Mayo’s facilities, said Chris Gade, a clinic spokesman.

“There are several things we are pursuing and mediation is one of them,” says Gade. “We made a good faith commitment to pursue mediation and expressed our willingness to come to the table as early as Monday.”

Rochester City Attorney Terry Adkins says Janklow is one of a group of consultants who will help on several fronts, including the mediation process and dealing with a possible appeal of the federal ruling, opening the doors to the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad expansion through the city and a Federal Railroad Administration application process.

Bringing Janklow aboard was an important step, says John Wood, president of the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce.

“His presence is significant because Bill Janklow’s knowledge of the railroad and his passions, not only for the people of South Dakota, but also for the Mayo Clinic, are dear,” he said.

Janklow has jumped into what is believed to be his first case since having his law license returned. He relinquished the license after being convicted of manslaughter in 2003 after a fatal accident that killed Minnesota motorcyclist Randy Scott.

...

Janklow’s involvement here again puts two adversaries on opposite sides. The former governor and Schieffer have clashed from time to time when Schieffer worked for then-Sen. Larry Pressler.

Schieffer was surprised by the retaining of Janklow, saying it would go against what is best for South Dakota, agriculture and economic development in the state.

“I can’t believe it. It is incredible. I guess if it is true, and I have a hard time believing it, it is the most extraordinary sellout and betrayal of South Dakota interests,” Schieffer said.

Kenneth Blanchard, a political science professor at Northern State University, says it looks like a case of “not in my back yard” from the Rochester community.

“There is nothing wrong with that, but on the other hand South Dakota looks at it in terms of economic interest,” he said. “Given that, what is Janklow’s responsibility as former governor and congressman in what looks to be lobbying for the other side. It is a matter of perception. There is no reason why he cannot accept this job, and I can understand why they want him. But it will irritate some of his allies, seeing it as a betrayal.”

Herseth

From the Washington Post's "The Fix":

Posted at 04:04 PM ET, 03/30/2006

Crying Foul, Netroots Note Some Big Wins

In a post yesterday, The Fix wrote about Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb's (D) potential to be the first candidate backed by the Democratic "netroots" to win an election. The word "first" prompted several of the most prominent members of the liberal blogosphere to take issue with me.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the influential Daily Kos blog, said the netroots played a major role in the special election victories of Reps. Ben Chandler (D-Ky.) and Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.) in 2004 and were also prominent (and early) backers of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) during his 2004 campaign.

Kos said the progressive online community raised $80,000 for Chandler in the final week of his campaign and $100,000 for Herseth. As evidence of the impact the netroots had on the two campaigns, Moulitsas points to a Wired magazine story on the Chandler race and an attempt by the South Dakota Republican Party to make an issue of the role the liberal blogosphere played in that state's special election.

The folks at Swing State Project made many of the same points as Daily Kos.

The Fix reached out to the offices of both Herseth and Chandler for comment on just how large a role the netroots played in their victories.

Russ Levsen, communications director for Herseth, confirmed that the netroots played a major part in her special election victory. We definitely benefited from the activism, the support online ... and a lot of people coming out to South Dakota because they believed in Stephanie's campaign," Levsen said.

Jennifer Spalding, a Chandler spokeswoman, said the Democratic netroots played a "critical role" in her boss's special election victory.

Hotline

From today's The Hotline:

DASCHLE: Just Call Him Mr. Kansas

Ex-Sen. Maj. Leader Tom Daschle (D) will deliver the 3rd annual Dole Lecture 4/10 at KS U. Daschle's wife, Linda Hall Daschle, "grew up in Kansas and won the Miss Kansas title in 1976" (Lawrence Journal-World, 3/31).

Useless Criticism

On the other hand, there's Chad Schuldt, for whom every day is Groundhog Day, as he seems to be wrong in the exact same manner so terribly often.  First, note the passion.  Chad can't muster an argument. All he can do is get mad.  Chad's politics are pure passion.  If an argument upsets him, it must be an illegitimate argument.  Chad is convinced that he cares more than everybody else, and that is all the proof he needs that he is right.  He does not need reasons for his positions.  It is enough that he cares.  Thus his total misreading of my post.  First, one can "respect immigrants" and find the multicultural left in deep error.  In fact one can respect immigrants and be a conservative!  Also, just because the multicultural left "respects immigrants" doesn't mean they don't hate America and what it stands for.   I really don't have time to explain "multiculturalism" to Chad.  He might want to note that this was a qualifier in front of "left" as in "the multicultural left." That means a part of the left, not all of it.  And there are those who are committed to "multculturalism" who really do love America.  Just as the political right is divided on immigration, so is the left to a certain extent.  I realize that makes it complex, and that is likely to confuse Chad, but politics is not nearly as nicely differentiated between good guys and bad guys as he thinks it is.  But for Chad there are only good guys who care (e.g., him) and then bad guys who don't care (e.g., everyone to the right of Joe Lieberman, and we aren't so sure about him). The good guys are always totally right, and the bad guys are always totally wrong. Thus Chad is freed from the task of thinking. 

But more to the point, there are parts of the academic left who buy into multiculturalism as a way of attacking America.  I didn't just make that up.  For example, a liberal in good standing, Arthur Schlessinger, Jr, wrote a book called The Disuniting of America about just such a phenomenon.  I quote from page 123:

Beyond self-styled "multiculturalists" are very often ethnocentric separatists who see little in the Western heritage beyond Western crimes.  The Western tradition, in this view, is inherently racist, sexist, "classist," hegemonic; irredeemably repressive, irredeemably oppressive.

You switch "America" for "Western" and Schlessinger is saying almost the exact same thing I said (scroll to the last paragraph).  That this is a movement on the left almost beyond dispute.  Schlessinger notes the irony that those who attack the West borrow their theory from Western philosophers. Where do they get their ideas?

Marx, Nietzsche, Gramsci, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Sartre, de Beauvior, Habermas, the Frankfort "critical theory" school...(page 124)

This is more Prof. Blanchard's field than mine, so I ask him to correct me if I am wrong, but with the exception of Nietzsche, all of these philosophers are associated with the political left. There is a portion of the left, mostly in academia, that under the influence of leftist political theory hates what America stands for and seeks to undermine America through the notion of multiculturalism.  Maybe Schlessinger is right, and maybe he is wrong, but he is also one of the most respected liberal historians of the past 60 years.  If I am a dumbass, so is Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. 

Just because some on the left hate America and Western civilization doesn't mean all the left does, and I did not in anyway suggest it did.  Indeed, Schlessinger is proof positive that there are responsible liberals who are willing to police the excesses of the far left.  Chad, letting his passion get in the way of his brain, simply read something that wasn't there.  Who is the dumbass now?

Useful Criticism

Prof. Blanchard notes the criticisms of one of my immigration pieces by one Audra Bonhorst.  I want to add another. Ms. Bonhorst writes:

I think comparing Hispanics and Muslims in Europe is also horribly misguided and ignorant.  Hispanics aren't trying to change the laws in this country (aside from maybe immigration).  They are attending the same schools, churches and functions as "everyone else".  Also when America was being founded it was very common that people from the same countries lived in the same areas and spoke the same language.  In some big cities, there were Polish, Irish and Italian Catholic churches.

This is a useful criticism because it points out a weakness in my argument. So let me expand on my thoughts.  Likes should be treated as likes, and un-alikes as un-alikes.  How are Hispanics in American and Muslims in Europe un-alike?  Ms. Bronhorst is certainly right that there are distinctions.  Our Hispanic population is not violent and its basic values, so far as I can tell, are to a significant degree in line with American civilization.  So how are they alike?  They are alike in that there is considerable resistance from some quarters within those communities to the notion that these immigrants should assimilate to the host nation's mores.  While Ms. Bronhorst is correct that ethnic ghettos are part of American history, they largely disappeared after a generation or two, helped along by a societal commitment to assimilation that was once called "the melting pot."  The same pressures do not appear to be brought to bear on our recent Hispanic immigrants, and the point of my post was that to the extent there is such pressure, significant portions (I do not wish to put a precise number on it) of that immigrant community resist assimilation.  In that sense Hispanic immigrant to America are like the European Muslim immigrant in that they resist assimilation, and that resistance may create undesirable tensions at some point in the future.  I hope that clarifies and I thank Ms. Bronhorst for intelligent criticism.

Immigration

Speaking of photos, check these out. 

A reader at Instapundit wrote:

Do you know what is disturbing about that web site? At first I assumed it was something like what Little Green Footballs shows -- the absurdity of one side's argument. Not until the end did I realize that the site was done by a proponent of the movement -- those photos are a source of pride!

My goodness, this issue cries out for some cooling down. I have no problem with an immigrant having ethnic pride. Mine did (Irish, English, German and Italian. Espeically the Italians). But ethnic pride, watered down through the successive generations is a far cry from a demand to deport all Europeans.

I fear, though, that this issue is going to get uglier. The extremes on both sides are doing our great country a disservice.

UPDATE:  Captain's Quarters has more.

Blanchard on The Selfish Gene

I note my piece in this mornings American News, celebrating (sort of) the thirtieth anniversary of Richard Dawkin's book, The Selfish Gene.

Flag Factory

In 1988 George Bush (the elder) stopped for a photo-op at a factory producing American flags.  That was a good idea if Bush wanted to look silly.  Fortunately for him Michael Dukakis was riding around in a tank at the same time, so silliness was something Bush could afford. 

Just right now, factories producing Mexican flags seem to be doing a booming business.  Linda Chavez, former director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has some useful thoughts on this. 

[S]upporters of comprehensive immigration reform must be careful in their tactics, including what symbols they embrace. Although American flags were widely visible among the crowd of a half-million in downtown Los Angeles (organizers had asked marchers to bring them), reports indicated that they were outnumbered by those of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and other countries. And if history is any guide, those foreign banners could spur an anti-immigrant reaction.

That's what happened in 1994, when 70,000 people marched in Los Angeles, many waving Mexican flags, to show their distaste for Proposition 187, a California ballot initiative that denied social services to illegal aliens and their children. Initially favored by more than 70 percent of voters, the measure was losing steam as the election approached, with a poll a week before the election showing it ahead by only 1 point. But that sea of green, white and red Mexican flags flooding the streets just before the election signaled to many Californians that those demanding equal treatment were more attached to their native country than to the United States. The proposition scored a surprisingly strong 59 percent of the vote, although the courts eventually declared it unconstitutional.

Similar dynamics are playing out today. For all the talk of national security and the economic costs of immigration, the underlying issue driving the current anti-immigrant frenzy is a deep suspicion that this latest group of newcomers won't do what others have before them did: learn English and embrace American identity.

Sign Language

Professor Schaff posts below a picture from the Mexican-American protesters in Southern California.  I repost it here:

We received this reply to Professor Schaff's musings, from Audra Bonhorst:

Did Dr. Schaff look at the picture that he is saying is a lack of assimilation?  I believe the point that the sign carriers are saying is that they are born Americans.  As far as having signs proclaiming peoples heritage and foreign flags, has he not been around on St. Patrick's Day? 

Well ... no.  What the sign is obviously saying is that Southern California was once part of Mexico, and still rightfully belongs to her.  These young people are in their homelands because they are Mexicans, not because they were born in the U.S. (though I suspect Bonhorst is right that many or most of them were).  This interpretation is more than confirmed by the ubiquitous presence of Mexican flags at the rally, as well as by the infamous photo that I posted below, showing an upside down U.S. flag flying below a Mexican flag.  Whatever that is, Ms. Bonhorst, it isn't pride in U.S. citizenship. 

It seems obvious that the organizers of the rally are trying to provoke a hostile reaction in Washington and in California.  They are trying to turn parts of the southern United States into our own version of Quebec.  They suppose that a large demographic group, viscerally hostile to anglophone America, would be better positioned to extract concessions from the U.S. government.  For reasons I mention in my earlier post, I think that would be a political disaster.

The developed world seems to be entering a period of immigrant militancy, as is very evident from Europe.  The U.S. is in a much better position than Europe for the simple reason that we can offer the immigrant population something that Europe can't: jobs.  But I say again that we need to do two things right now: 1) take steps to actually bring the border under control by dramatically increasing the border security forces and enacting real sanctions against businesses that hire undocumented workers; and 2) offering a real path to citizenship for those undocumented workers that are already here. 

It was true not so long ago that Hispanic Americans were more likely to assimilate than others, more likely to marry outside their own ethnic group for example.  My guess is that this is still true, but it makes little difference so long as the supply of illegal immigrants is constantly replenished.  If the border can be brought under control, the children of today's marchers will gradually find English far more useful in their lives than Spanish. 

Mexican Americans are a vital part of the Democratic coalition.  But if Mexican nationalism is to be the dominate ideology of that population, the Democrats will sooner rather than later be forced to abandon them. 

Veteran Rock

Here is a piece of patriotic art, from several views:

And the artist:

Yet More Immigration

I just stumbled across this at NRO.  Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has introduced an immigration bill with the following provisions:

This legislation, that I plan to offer as an amendment at the appropriate time during this debate, would help legal immigrants who are embarked on a path toward citizenship to learn our common language, our history and our way of government by:
• providing them with $500 grants for English courses;
• allowing those who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship one year early (that is, after four years instead of five);
• providing grants to organizations to offer courses in American history and civics;
• authorizing a new foundation to assist in these efforts;
• codifying the Oath of Allegiance which new citizens swear when they are naturalized;
• asking the Homeland Security Department to carry out a strategy to highlight the ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and
• establishing an award to recognize the contributions of outstanding new American citizens.

NRO reports this reaction from La Raza (The Race), a Hispanic interest group:

Now to La Raza's concerns. Among them, in the e-mail I'm looking at, the La Raza staffer warns: “while it doesn’t overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional american values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities.”

If this is an accurate portrayal of La Raza's reaction to this wise bill, then it is unfortunate for immigrants and America. 

Joel Arends

As was publicized here, Joel Arends, USD law student and Iraq vet, spoke in Aberdeen on Tuesday night.  Joel gave a brilliant presentation about his experience in Iraq and what lessons we on the home front can gain from that experience.  I see a consistent message coming out of Iraq vets I know, and it's that what is happening there and what is reported here are not the same thing.  Let's not sugar coat things, but there are success stories that are not getting told. 

If any group out there is looking for a speaker in the near future, I highly recommend Joel.  I think he should write a book or run for office or something.  Just do something besides the law, Joel!  The last thing we need is yet another lawyer!  Oops. Sorry Q. 

Deep Thoughts From The Deep End

My colleague Art Marmorstein has penned a thoughful column for the Aberdeen  American News.  It is worth your time. 

Movie Reviews

Must Love Dogs: Not this dog.  It needs a bath. Ever seen a romantic comedy?  Then you've seen Must Love Dogs. 

The Weatherman: Feeling a little blue?  Life got you down?  Having a tough time at work?  Things not going well with the family?  Then watch this movie.  Then you'll really want to blow your brains out.  What a depressing film.  You keep expecting things to turn around for poor Nicholas Cage. Let me ruin the ending for you.  They never do turn around.  His life sucks even worse at the end of the movie.  I can take a dark film, but this film wallows in its own crapulence.  And Hollywood wonders why box office receipts are down. 

Standing In The Shadows Of Motown:  Do you like Motown?  Heck, do you like music?  I saw this film some time ago, but recently saw it again.  It is better the second time around.  It is a documentary on The Funk Brothers, the studio musicians who played on virtually every hit Motown ever had.  It also features concert footage of the remaining Funk Brothers backing various contemporary singers on some great Motown hits.  Wow.  That Joan Osborne can sing.  And those Funk Brothers?  The name says it all.  Thumbs way up. 

More Immigration Thoughts

One thing for sure is images like this, courtesy Michelle Malkin, are not helping the immigration discourse:

Americans are rightly concerned that there are a large number of people in our country illegally who claim allegiance to another country and express the desire to reclaim land for that country.  The problems with immigrants in Europe should warn us against the danger of non-assimilation.  The unwillingness to make Americans out of our immigrants is a sign of a civilization unwilling to defend itself.  I mean, in this case, intellectually defending its principles and its way of life. 

Most people in our part of the country are only two or three generations "off the boat."  For example, my great-grandparents were Germans from Russia and I have a great-grandmother from Denmark.  Americans often have had a visceral reaction to mass immigration of people who are "different" from what we consider "normal" Americans.  Thus the unease about Germans who spoke a funny language, or Italians who looked a little swarthy and practiced an "un-American" religion (Arthur Schlessinger, Sr. once remarked that anti-Catholicism was the deepest prejudice in American, the anti-Semitism of America's elite).  The anger directed against these immigrants was, to say the least, unfortunate.  But there was also great social pressure for these immigrants to assimilate themselves to American habits and ideals, particularly by learning the language.  Thus, as I have been told by family members, within two generations in America my family no longer spoke any German.  A colleague today told me of his grandfather, an immigrant from Russia, who had to go special classes to get "Americanized."

There is a danger of a backlash against Hispanics in general and Mexicans in specific.  That would be an unfortunate return to a nativism that we should have extinguished long ago.  No doubt the Hispanic/Mexican population has already given valuable things to our culture, just as previous immigrant groups had.  But at the same time there is a claim from the cultural left (or, more accurately, the multi-cultural left) that assimilation is racism.  In my discussion with my colleague today he told of his immigrant wife having to affirm that she forswore all allegiance to other nations when she took her oath of citizenship.  This does not seem to be happening in some immigrant quarters.  The militant espousal of land claims for Mexico, or, as Prof. Blanchard noted, the placing of one's loyalties to another land above that to the United States, cannot be tolerated by a nation which seeks to have any kind of sense of who it is.  The arrogant claim to the right to be in the United States, legally or illegally, and to have all the imcumbent privileges while rejecting any attempt to adopt American mores will only alienate those who would otherwise be sympathetic to the immigrant's plight.

I should note the "strange bedfellows" aspect of this debate.  How odd that American business, which lives off of illegal immigrants in some areas, has made alliance with the multi-cultural left that simply hates America.  One loves illegals because they are cheap labor. The other loves them because they represent a blow against the racist, sexist, capitalist and thoroughly unjust American system.  How odd indeed. 

Protecting The Borders

George Will has been stealing my ideas!  His views on the rising immigration controversy eerily follow my own.  There are two facts that I think are inescapable.  First, America must do better at protecting its borders.  Will astutely give four reasons why.

But control belongs at the top of the agenda, for four reasons. First, control of borders is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Second, conditions along the border mock the rule of law. Third, large rallies by immigrants, many of them here illegally, protesting more stringent control of immigration reveal that many immigrants have, alas, assimilated: They have acquired the entitlement mentality created by America's welfare state, asserting an entitlement to exemption from the laws of the society they invited themselves into. Fourth, giving Americans a sense that borders are controlled is a prerequisite for calm consideration of what policy that control should serve.

Second, the presence of 11 million illegal aliens (let's do away with the "undocumented worker" euphemism) cannot be wished away.  Attempts to repatriate those illegals back to where they came from (we're talking mostly Mexico here, of course) are not plausible.  Too many are now too imbedded into society.  So some method of legalization and assimilation is the best policy.  George Will calls those who oppose this policy, falsely calling it amnesty, "faux conservatives."  This makes some angry, like Mark Krikorian, but Will's point is that Krikorian and his "let's deport all the illegals" crowd ignore reality, choosing to see the world as they wish it would be, rather than how it really is.  That is most unconservative. 

Our illegal immigrant problem has long passed the stage where an easy solution is in order.  I find Will's plan to be the best of various bad alternatives. 

History

For as far back as I can remember, I've always had a fascination with history.  In grade school I had dreamed of being an archaeologist traveling the world and digging up dinosaur bones (after all, what little boy didn't like dinosaurs?)  Of particular fascination was the demise of the dinosaurs:  What caused their disappearance?  Meteorites, fire storms, tidal waves, an ice age?  German scholar Niels Rattenborg offers a new theory:

DINOSAURS were most likely killed off because they never got a good night's sleep, scientists have claimed.

Giant meteorites from outer space, fire storms, tidal waves and an ice age have all been suggested by experts to explain the demise of T-Rex and other giant dinosaurs.

However, the latest theory to explain their extinction claims they did not survive because their reptilian sleeping patterns meant their brains did not learn new skills properly.

Unlike mammals and birds, reptiles are unable to experience slow wave sleep, the type of sleep believed to be responsible for boosting memories, especially those connected to performing new tasks.

As a result, reptiles are much more limited in the type of complex behaviour they can experience than other animals such as mammals and birds.

Can Summer Be Far Away?

Aberdeen plans the coming battle against mosquitoes.  I am betting on the mosquitoes. 

How Odd of Todd

Todd Epp has more fun with Jim Seeber and myself. 

More strange goings on in the Hub City according to KELOLAND:

Aberdeen Police Say Lock Your Doors

After 17 vehicles were either burglarized or stolen over the weekend Aberdeen Police are now telling residents to lock car doors.

My guess is that once NSU Hardy Boys/Super Sleuths Blanchard and Seeber complete their exhaustive probe for the Aberdeen PD and the Aberdeen American News, they will conclude that all of these burglaries and thefts were most likely self-inflicted by the victims.*  I'm surprised the Aberdeen PD would even respond to KELOLAND about such serious crimes and argue for the need for secrecy so as to not tip off the public, er, victims, er criminals.

*Yes, I do enjoy kicking dead horses.

This is good fun, but Todd seems to be rather at odds with himself.  On the one hand, he seems to be critical of the Aberdeen police for keeping too many secrets.  I share his concern.  But then why does he have so much fun attacking Jim and Me for making the Morgan Lewis investigation at least a little less secret?  Perhaps Todd only values the truth when it confirms his prejudices. 

But rest assured Sir Epp, we have out our Sherlock Holmes magnifying glasses and secret agent decoder rings, and are on the job.  May this be to the benefit of all the dead horses and live horse's asses. 

ps.  Maybe leaving the car running with the keys in is a bad idea after all? 

Houston, We Have a Problem

Michelle Malkin posts this photo, from the huge Hispanic rally in LA.

This strikes me as very, very bad.  It will become a poster for the anti-immigration movement, powerful enough perhaps to overcome the resistance of business interests in the Republican Party.  We might see really draconian legislation, which will have two effects.  First, it will drive Hispanic voters to the Democratic party in numbers that rival the current loyalty of Blacks.  Second, it will push almost every other significant block of voters toward the Republicans.  If Black voters have to choose between a Mexican and a U.S. flag, I wouldn't count on their loyalty to the Democrats holding.  Certainly white voters, who already vote reliably Republican, will find it even harder to support a party when one of its major voting blocks wants to reclaim Southern California for Mexico.  I don't see how this doesn't lead to an "emerging Republican majority" that will make the old one look shriveled by comparison.  But what would be good for the Republicans would be very bad for the country.  The last thing we need is a long secessionist party clinging to our southern border. 

Dick Morris, on Fox, pointed out that what we do need is a two-fold policy: first, really effective border enforcement; and second, a path to citizenship for Mexicans already in the country.  Once the flow of illegal immigration is brought under control, and the supply of persons fresh out of Mexico is no longer replenished daily, Mexican-Americans in the Southwest will follow the path of every other immigrant group.  But both parts of the policy have to be enacted, and visions like the one above won't make the second one easy. 

Myth of The Racist Republicans

Prof. Blanchard notes the race factor in the so-called "Southern strategy" by Republicans of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  The dominance of race in the strategy's success was refuted with some success by Gerald Alexander some time ago in the Claremont Review of Books.  Alexander's argument is essentially that if race was the primary reason the South drifted Republican in the 1970s and 80s, then why was it that the least segregationist areas were the first to switch Republican and the most segregationist the last to switch?  Let's not be naive.  Surely race had something to do with the rise of Republicans in the South.  But Alexander's evidence suggests that other factors, such as the political arousal of evangelical Christians concerned with cultural matters, were more at play in this phenomenon. 

Jacob Weisburg On Kevin Philips

If Kevin Philips had been a musician, he'd have been a one hit wonder.  In 1969 he published a famous and influential book, The Emerging Republican Majority.  In it he argued that Republicans were about to build a national majority by using the race card to attract working class whites.  There was certainly some truth in that.  As Black voters (almost all of them) swung sharply to the Democratic Party in the sixties, Southern whites began a slow but steady drift toward the Republicans.  Of course race was hardly the only issue in this drift, but by emphasizing it, as Jacob Weisburg notes in Slate, he gave the book a Machiavellian edge that made it very successful. 

Since then he has occupied the coveted space of public intellectual without coming up with any more ideas or shedding light on anything.  This is mostly because he has, in front of his name, something the chattering classes value far more than a hereditary "Lord," or academic "doctor."  Its the word "even."  Philips began as a self-identified Republican, but he was in fact a man of the left.  So liberals loved to quote him.  "Even Kevin Philips, Republican, thinks Bush is stupid."  That sort of thing. 

Well, even Slate, a mostly liberal online journal, recognizes that Philips is full of hot air. 

Phillips' faults are on full, gaseous display in his latest jeremiad, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21^st Century. The book was No. 1 on Amazon before being released and has already been widely praised by liberals, who continue to welcome Phillips as a fresh convert to their side decades after his defection from the right. Alan Brinkley, a distinguished historian who should know better, last week praised American Theocracy in the lead essay of the New York Times Book Review as "frighteningly persuasive" and "a harrowing picture of national danger … that none should ignore." Time calls the book "indispensable."

Let me help dispense with it. Phillips' argument is that oil dependency, Christian fundamentalism, and excessive debt are destroying the country. He is not wrong that these are dangers. But he wildly misunderstands, distorts, and overstates all of them.

The Last Helicopter

Amir Taheri writes in the Wall Street Journal:

To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the corpses of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.

According to this theory, President George W. Bush is an "aberration," a leader out of sync with his nation's character and no more than a brief nightmare for those who oppose the creation of an "American Middle East." Messrs. Abbasi and Ahmadinejad have concluded that there will be no helicopter as long as George W. Bush is in the White House. But they believe that whoever succeeds him, Democrat or Republican, will revive the helicopter image to extricate the U.S. from a complex situation that few Americans appear to understand.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's defiant rhetoric is based on a strategy known in Middle Eastern capitals as "waiting Bush out." "We are sure the U.S. will return to saner policies," says Manuchehr Motakki, Iran's new Foreign Minister.

Mr. Ahmadinejad believes that the world is heading for a clash of civilizations with the Middle East as the main battlefield. In that clash Iran will lead the Muslim world against the "Crusader-Zionist camp" led by America. Mr. Bush might have led the U.S. into "a brief moment of triumph." But the U.S. is a "sunset" (ofuli) power while Iran is a sunrise (tolu'ee) one and, once Mr. Bush is gone, a future president would admit defeat and order a retreat as all of Mr. Bush's predecessors have done since Jimmy Carter.

Mr. Ahmadinejad also notes that Iran has just "reached the Mediterranean" thanks to its strong presence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He used that message to convince Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to adopt a defiant position vis-à-vis the U.N. investigation of the murder of Rafiq Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon. His argument was that once Mr. Bush is gone, the U.N., too, will revert to its traditional lethargy. "They can pass resolutions until they are blue in the face," Mr. Ahmadinejad told a gathering of Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Arab leaders in Tehran last month.

...

It is not only in Tehran and Damascus that the game of "waiting Bush out" is played with determination. In recent visits to several regional capitals, this writer was struck by the popularity of this new game from Islamabad to Rabat. The general assumption is that Mr. Bush's plan to help democratize the heartland of Islam is fading under an avalanche of partisan attacks inside the U.S. The effect of this assumption can be witnessed everywhere.

(via Powerline)

Wiretapping

Washington Times:

A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The five judges testifying before the committee said they could not speak specifically to the NSA listening program without being briefed on it, but that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not override the president's constitutional authority to spy on suspected international agents under executive order.

"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute."

UPDATE:  Powerline notes the New York Times has a different story. 

Dakota Sioux Language

Boston Globe:

Those who hope they can stop the Dakota Sioux language from dying have hit on the perfect word: Scrabble.

A special Scrabble tournament in the language made its debut Friday, pitting teams from Sioux reservation schools in North Dakota, South Dakota and Manitoba.

The game is part of the tribe's campaign to revitalize the Dakota language, now spoken fluently by a dwindling number of elders. One survey predicted the last fluent Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota speaker would die in 2025.

"With these efforts, we'll try to prolong that," Darell DeCoteau said as he gestured to a nearby Scrabble board. "This will probably push that back a little bit."

"Start in the middle," David Seaboy told a group of middle-school students from the Enemy Swim Day School at Waubay, S.D. "Everybody help somebody make a word."

The first word to take shape was sa, pronounced "shah" -- the color red.

After a few minutes of frantic consultation with the official Dakota Sioux Scrabble dictionary, a team built on the base to form the word sapa, pronounced "shah-pa," or dirty, a word worth seven points.

"This is a good stimulant for the mind," said Seaboy, 63, one of a group of Sisseton-Wahpeton elders, all fluent in the language, who wrote the 207-page Dakota dictionary.

Sharon Wins the Israeli Elections

Though he will probably never know it.  With 99% of the votes counted, Sharon's new party Kadima, under acting PM Olmert, has gained 28 seats in the Knesset (Israel's parliament).  Labor got 20, and Likud, the party Sharon helped to create and, in his last great act, abandoned, received only 11.  The Jerusalem Post has this analysis:

The outcome of the exit polls set up a possible center-left bloc of 60-67 seats, consisting of pro-disengagement parties Kadima 29-32, Labor 20-22, Meretz 5, and the Arab parties 6-8.

The right-wing bloc of Likud, National Union-NRP, Israel Beiteinu, Shas and United Torah Judaism won 46-52 seats (Likud 11-12; National Union-NRP 8-9; Israel Beiteinu 12-14; Shas 10-11; United Torah Judaism 5-6), not enough to keep Olmert from forming a government.

Its hard for me not to love a government in which United Torah Judaism gets at least five seats.  I wonder how Divided Torah Judaism did? 

It is worth noting that the voters were not enthusiastic.

Voter turnout in the elections for the 17th Knesset dropped to an estimated 63.2 percent, a decrease of 5.7 percentage points compared to the previous general election in 2003. The drop on Tuesday was a continuation of the downward trend that has marked participation in elections ever since the State of Israel was created.

I think that more is going on here than historical trends.  Recent Israeli elections offered voters a clear between two policies: Labor was for concessions and negotiations with the Palestinians.  The alliance between Labor PM Ehud Barak and President Clinton, culminating in the Camp David Summit in 2002, represented the last best hope for this option.  It failed miserably.  The Likud policy was never give an inch (of the occupied territories, that is).  Binyamin Netanyahu stands as the most visible spokesman for this option.  Or barely manages to stand.  David Horovitz in the JP has this analysis:

Ariel Sharon always claimed that his achievement in doubling the Likud's Knesset representation from 19 seats to 38 in the last Knesset was a success for what he saw as his pragmatism - the readiness for "painful compromise," the robust alliance with the Bush administration.

Binyamin Netanyahu, his colleague-rival, insisted the contrary: that the public had backed the Likud because of its traditional opposition to Palestinian statehood.

If the results of the Tuesday night TV exit polls are reflected in more final figures on Wednesday morning, then the 2006 elections are a vindication of Sharon - the stricken prime minister, the man who so conspicuously wasn't there for this campaign. Sharon, it appears, didn't merely break away from the Likud with Kadima. He broke the Likud.

And the results are a stinging rejection of Netanyahu - the politician and the ideology.

Sharon's new policy was disengagement.  Let the Palestinians have their state, if they can make one.  Let them have the territories.  Israel cannot absorb them anyway.  But forget trying to negotiate with the Palestinians. 

Israel has voted for resignation, rather than for hope or steely resistance.  Small wonder that the turnout was low.  It is just as easy to vote for resignation by staying home. 

 

Katrina Vanden Heuval Not Quite Practicing What She Preaches

Reader Tom Stevens sends us this note:

Good Afternoon from Chicago.  I enjoy reading your blog.  I have been looking to move out west and am interested in SD - found your site doing some Google. 

 

Anyway, I saw the blog from Ken Blanchard last night regarding Katrina Vanden Heuvel. Didn't know if you saw ABC's This Week last Sunday; I tried to find the transcript on their site, but regarding Ms. V H and political rhetoric, this was rich.....

 

Vanden Heuvel told Stephanopoulos: "Tancredo, on your show today, he looked pleasant. But I will say that what's happened in our country is that some of the white supremacist thinking that used to be represented by David Duke has been absorbed by people like Tancredo."

Vanden Heuvel called the House immigration reform bill backed by Tancredo "very dangerous," "draconian" and "un-American," before praising the illegal population.

 

 

Take Care and Good Luck in the Future,

 

Tom

Thanks for the note, Tom. 

I believe that this remark of KVH was also noticed by James Taranto in his Best of the Web, at the Wall Street Journal Online.  In Ms. Vanden Heuval's defense (a role I am unaccustomed to playing), comparing Tancredo to David Duke, though altogether unfair, was not the same thing as comparing him to Hitler.  Likewise, the "very dangerous," "draconian" and "un-American," remarks applied to the bill, not the person.  Calling a proposed piece of legislation "un-American" seems to me fair under the rules of civil discourse. 

ps.  South Dakota would love to have you. 

Glenn Reynolds

I think I speak for my colleagues and our readers as I send my thoughts and prayers to Glenn Reynolds and his family.

Strategy: Invade Pakistan

Commenting on this story, Ed Morrissey writes:

Let's get this straight. The Democrats want to retreat against al-Qaeda forces assembled in Iraq in order to invade Pakistan, which is where Osama is most likely spending his time. They want to run away from the operational forces of AQ in a fashion that will remind all of them of Somalia, Beirut, and Teheran -- proving Osama right about American tenacity. Going after Osama is a terrific goal, but unless they have a better plan than to flood Pakistan with special-forces teams and spies that Pervez Musharraf will consider an act of war, then this policy is doomed to failure.

Card Resigns

Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card has resigned and is to be replaced with current OMB Director Josh Bolten. 

Obit Blogging

Caspar Weinberger, former Reagan defense secretary, has passed away.

FEC and Blogs

Here's some good news for political blogs:

The Federal Election Commission decided Monday that the nation's new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the internet.

In a 6-0 vote, the commission decided to regulate only paid political ads placed on another person's website.

The decision means that bloggers and online publications will not be covered by provisions of the new election law. Internet bloggers and individuals will therefore be able to use the internet to attack or supportwin federal candidates without running afoul of campaign spending and contribution limits.

Bloggers on the left and the right did excellent work on this.  Adam Bonin called it a "netroots win," while Mike Krempasky observed: "This is a tremendous win for speech."

(via Instapundit)

Book Blogging

Fellow blogger Hugh Hewitt's new book is out!  From the inside flap:

Bestselling author, political strategist, and nationally syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt shows you how conservatives can take down the Democrats, expose their liberal extremism, and reignite the Reagan Revolution.

Calling on his own extensive experience and on the savvy political minds of Mark Steyn, Fred Barnes, Michael Barone, and others in exclusive interviews, Hewitt reveals: € The Five Key Messages and Four Crucial Steps to a permanent Republican majority € How big is too big? Which senator deserves to get pushed out of the Republican big tent € The next generation of liberal Democrats--if you thought Ted Kennedy was bad, wait till you see the party of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Howard Dean € How extremist groups, especially on the Internet, are driving the Democrats' agenda € Why the Democrats' assault on religion is just ramping up € How Republicans can retake the courts and end Democrat obstruction € How the Democrats' alliance with liberal mainstream media can be turned against them both € Where we go from here: coming up with the right candidate after Bush

In politics, as in war, it pays to play offense, and Hugh Hewitt knows how the GOP can fight and win, coast to coast.

Moderation from the Nation

Of all places.  Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, writing in the Washington Post. 

Here's a modest proposal for improving national political discussion: Stop equating our opponents with famous dictators, their chief executioners, police apparatus or ideologies. I'm all for learning from history, but times are hard enough in American politics -- with war, threats to national security, the greatest divide between rich and poor in our history and deep cultural divisions. Present differences deserve to be described in contemporary terms. The purpose of public speech is not just to restate anger but to clarify the principles and evidence that fuel it -- in ways that invite discussion, not inhibit it. The demons are already among us -- so let's muster up some new analogies and declare a ceasefire on such demonizing rhetoric as this:

Ms. Heuvel goes on to quote a considerable number of offenders on both the left and the right.  Hat tip to James Taranto, who notes that Heuval is not altogether innocent of such rhetoric.  If she'd asked us, SDP could have suggested its own candidates. 

A Reminder

If you are in the Aberdeen area, tomorrow (Tuesday) Iraq veteran Joel Arends will be speaking at NSU.  The time is 7:00 pm and the place is Thunder's Lair in the Student Center. 

Frybread

Stephanie Woodard of Indian Country Today:

INTERIOR, S.D. - It's a cold, overcast winter day in South Dakota's rugged Badlands, with just enough of a breeze to remind you that between here and the North Pole there's little more than a few barbed-wire fences. But inside the offices of frybread mix manufacturer WoodenKnife Co., owner Ansel WoodenKnife is basking in the glow of warm memories.

The story started in 1979, when WoodenKnife, Lakota, and his wife, Teresa, opened a cafe in the little town of Interior, just 60 miles from where he'd grown up on the Rosebud Reservation. Nowadays, they count among their customers some of the nation's biggest corporations. Safeway, Stop & Shop Supermarkets, Nobel/Sysco Food Services and Wal-Mart purchase WoodenKnife Co.'s frybread mix and/or frozen dough and sell it in almost every state in the nation. In recent years, restaurants, museum stores and gift shops have joined the client list.

A Better Way?

I have long contended that the Bush Doctrine is the worst foreign policy except all the others.  Imagine my excitement when I saw that Francis Fukuyama and Adam Garfinkle had penned a piece for the WSJ arguing for "A Better Idea."  Imagine my disappointment when the article seemed to be mostly a catalog of complaints about the Bush Administration.  Its positive suggestions include such oddities as:

Just as it proved possible to stigmatize and eventually eliminate slavery from mainstream global norms without having first to wait for the mass advent of liberal democracy, it should be possible to effectively stigmatize jihadi terrorism without having first to midwife democracies from Morocco to Bangladesh.

The international move against slavery is essentially located in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.  I shouldn't have to tell these men that it was much easier to to "stigmatize and eventually eliminate" slavery from global norms when the globe was controlled by a few European imperial powers, some of whom bought at least certain essentials of liberal thought. Indeed the leading voice against slavery was that era's super power, the British Empire, the most liberal of the imperial powers.  Their task was made easier by the fact it only had to work on the self-interest of a few European powers, rather than against a whole ideology spread across three continents.  Also, it facilitates the argument slavery when certain notions of equality have already taken root to some extent in the slave holding societies.  And the continued presence of slavery in the United States well into the 19th Century shows the limits of that persuasion. 

About the only prescriptive plan I see in this essay is that the U.S. should work through NGOs and friendly third-party nations to distribute aid to democratic forces in the Muslim world, rather than having that aid tainted by the hands of an unpopular United States government.  The authors also counsel decoupling democratization and fighting terrorism by adopting a "go it slow" attitude toward the former.  The authors write:

Authoritarian political cultures do function as enablers of radical Islamism, but the essential cause of the latter--today as before, in dozens of historical cases concerning violent millenarian movements--is the difficulty that some societies and individuals have in coming to terms with social change. That is why rapid modernization is likely to produce more short-term radicalism, not less. Muslims in democratic Europe are as much a part of this problem as those in the Middle East. This is not a trivial point; it is a central one that directly challenges a key tenet of the administration's view.

I guess this is all wise as far as it goes, but it hardly seems like a direct challenge to the Bush Doctrine as part of modernization is democratiztaion.  Think of entering a cold swimming pool as an analogy.  Fukuyama and Garfinkle say that the Muslim world dip its toes in the waters of modernization while the Bushies say they should just jump right in.  But both agree that modernizing the Muslim world is the long term solution to terrorism/Islamic extremism.  The question is whether or how much you should put up with short term unrest in order to obtain long term goals.  I guess I will have to wait for the better idea.

Update: Joe Knippenberg has further thoughts. 

Feingold

Ed Morrissey wants to censure Russ Feingold.

Thune

John Thune will be on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" tonight.

Marriage and the Expectation of Privacy

Those who are accustomed to being overruled by their spouses can take some measure of comfort from the Supreme Court's most recent decision in Georgia v. Randolph.  Here are the facts:

Respondent's estranged wife gave police permission to search the marital residence for items of drug use after respondent, who was also present, had unequivocally refused to give consent. Respondent was indicted for possession of cocaine, and the trial court denied his motion to suppress the evidence as products of a warrantless search unauthorized by consent.

I am amused and amazed that this has not come before the Court before.  The police can search a house without a warrant if the owner gives permission.  But what if there are two owners, and one gives consent while the other explicitly refuses consent?  The Court concluded, by a five to three majority (Justice Alito not participating), that the denial is controlling. 

Held: In the circumstances here at issue, a physically present co-occupant's stated refusal to permit entry renders warrantless entry and search unreasonable and invalid as to him. Pp. 4-19.

I suppose that means first, that the police may indeed search the whole house with the permission of one owner, but that nothing that is found can be used in court against the person who refused consent to search; and two, that under this precedent the second refusal must be explicit.  Had Mr. Randolph not been present, his nose candy would have been fair game. 

I am more than a little dubious about the Court's central reasoning.  Justice Souter, writing for the Court:

[I]t is fair to say that a caller standing at the door of shared premises would have no confidence that one occupant's invitation was a sufficiently good reason to enter when a fellow tenant stood there saying, "stay out." Without some very good reason, no sensible person would go inside under those conditions. Fear for the safety of the occupant issuing the invitation, or of someone else inside, would be thought to justify entry, but the justification then would be the personal risk, the threats to life or limb, not the disputed invitation.³      The visitor's reticence without some such good reason would show not timidity but a realization that when people living together disagree over the use of their common quarters, a resolution must come through voluntary accommodation, not by appeals to authority.

Now its true that if a friend invited me into her home but her husband, standing right there, told me to get off his property, I wouldn't go in.  Or at least I wouldn't unless concern for her safety or someone else's compelled me to do so, an exception the Court notes.  But this seems to confuse social convention with legal proscription.  Surely if I did enter with her permission, no one would think that I was legally trespassing.  So I find the Court's reasoning here unpersuasive.

But just because I wouldn't be trespassing doesn't mean the police wouldn't be trespassing.  The rules governing police searches are certainly more extensive than those governing private entry.  The truth of the matter is that this is a judgment call.  Consider the words of the Fourth Amendment, brought to you by EPublius (Professors Blanchard and Schaff, presiding):

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The amendment doesn't tell us anything about when a warrant is required.  The Court answers such questions by referring to the "expectation of privacy."  If the police see a twenty foot tall marijuana plant growing in someone's front yard, they can seize the plant and use it as evidence.  No one can expect that what is visible to any passer-by is private.  But if the cops sneak up and peak through the curtains, that is an invasion of privacy.  This has been a spectacularly successful doctrine. 

But of course our expectations of privacy are as much molded by the courts as discovered by the courts.  I expect my sealed letter to be private, as well as my phone conversations.  But an e-mail posted from my office?  No one knows, yet.  The only constitution that matters is the one that lives and breathes in the people and the various branches of their government.  The Court has here put a bit more flesh on the bones of the Fourth Amendment.  Conservatives may not like it, but that is in fact one of the Court's jobs. 

Progress in Iraq

Michael Ledeen at NRO's "The Corner":

In March, 2004, nearly two hundred people were killed and hundreds more wounded in suicide attacks on the occasion of the Ashurah, the holiest day in the Shi’ite calendar. The disaster led the news. Last year Karbala was relatively calm, but there were bombings in Baghdad. Again, big news. This year, millions of people filled the streets of Karbala, and there was no violence. And Baghdad was also pretty calm. You might think this was newsworthy, but of course you’d be wrong. And you know why the MSM did not compare this year's celebration with those of the recent past: the comparison would have suggested progress, and that's taboo. Better to focus on Cheney's TV preferences.

I'd be amazed if Charlie Sheen Knows the Temperature at which ice melts.

We got this entertaining note from some mission impossible e-mail address (doc654), regarding my "Almost As Stupid as Charlie Sheen" award. 

Dear Sirs,

It is most unfortuntate [sic] that you would declare Mr. Sheen stupid without addressing any details of why he states what he states.

The interview Mr. Sheen gave was 30 minutes long.  I would hope that such bold statments [sic] concernings [sic] one's intellegence would at least address his specific points.

I would challenge you to answer two questions: 1) At what tempature [sic] does unprotected Steel Melt and What tempature [sic, part deux] does jet fuel burn? 2) What are the specific manuveurs claimed for the plane that hit the pentagon?  How feasible are the manuvers [sic yet again] to complete with the aircraft in question?

Those are only two questions of many.  Above anything else Mr. Sheen asked people to do their own deep research.  I find it ironic that the word stupid would be used when his actual argument points were never addressed.

Now I'll admit that there are a number of things I believe without having done a lot of "deep research." 

1. Elvis is dead. 
2. There are no alligators living in the sewers of New York City. 
3. Jesus didn't come to earth on an interstellar spacecraft. 
4. J.F.K. was killed by L.H.O., acting alone. 
5. No French restaurant ever cooked a tourist's poodle due to a mistranslation.

Actually, I'm not altogether sure about that last one.  After all, if the maitre'd had done such a thing, he couldn't really be fired, could he?  See post below.  At any rate I will add another.  Blowing up the World Trade Center with explosives, and making it look like airplanes, would have been a work on such a level of power and genius that the Lord himself would have had to think twice.  I don't believe that George W. Bush is as dumb as his enemies claim, but for someone to believe that he is smart enough to have pulled off  this kind of caper, well, that person would nominate himself for an ASACS award. 

France Isn't Working.

Instead, its burning again.  Claire Berlinski explains why:

France is still in the grip of precisely the political mentality that has prevailed here since the Middle Ages. As the protesters themselves cheerfully declare: It's the street that rules. Today's mobs, like their predecessors, are notable for their poor grasp of economic principles and their hostility to the free market. Only wardrobe distinguishes these demonstrations from those that led to the invasion of the national convention in 1795, when first the mob protested that commodity prices were too high; when the government responded with price controls, it protested with equal vigor that goods had disappeared and black market prices had risen. Similarly, the students on the streets today espouse economic views entirely unpolluted by reality. If the CPE is enacted, said one young woman, "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked."

Imagine that.

As a legacy of this long tradition, the choice in France now is between popular legislation -- that is, useless legislation -- and the street. Thus the paradox at the heart of the protests: Those who want power exploit the mobs to maneuver themselves into position, but having gained power cannot use it to achieve anything worthwhile, lest the same tactics be used against them. The fear of the mob has created a cadre of politicians in France who are unable to speak the truth and thereby prepare French citizens for the inevitable. No one in France -- not one single politician, nor anyone in the media -- is willing to say it: France's labor laws are an absurdity, and if they are not reformed at once, France will go under. "What do they think?" said my driver, who was not, he told me, a mover by trade but an unemployed radio journalist forced to moonlight. "Do they think that jobs just fall from the sky?"

Apparently, they think just that.

Russia and Iraq

Gateway Pundit has an excellent round-up on the Russia-Iraq connection.

Europe's Economic Woes

The Brussels Journal:

The reality of Europe's ailing economy contrasts sharply with its economic potential and with the massive resources employed to cure its ailing growth. The whole arsenal of Keynesian remedies has now been tried and has failed one by one. Massive deficit spending throughout the eighties and nineties has left Europe with a public debt unequalled in history. The size of Europe's monumental public debt is only surpassed by the hidden liabilities accumulated in Europe's shortsighted pay-as-you-go public pension schemes.
...

Europe's well-intentioned model is not working because it does not pay to work after the taxman has taken his share. Europe is not innovating because it does not pay to innovate after the huge costs of complying with all the prescriptions, limitations and restrictions in all Europe's overabundant licences and autorisations. Demoralization is the real cause of Europe's stagnation. Europe's workforce is tired of being incessantly hindered in its task of producing wealth. Demoralization is the reasen why ever more engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs flee Europe's tax misery. Paradoxically, the Old Europe of the West must now learn from the New Europe of the East, where after years of disastrous socialism, low and simple flat taxes are being introduced, luring investors from all over the world.

You can read more on their problems here (pdf alert).  This, of course, is the problem with overly socialized economies.  Larry Kudlow hits the nail on the head:

All of this is reminiscent of the British disease of the 1960s and ’70s. Back then, striking labor unions closed down the English economy again and again, and it took until the early 1980s for Margaret Thatcher to put an end to it.

(via Instapundit)

UPDATE:  Speaking of economics, the Carnival of the Capitalists is up.

If There Was True Justice

We should all be as lucky as David Hasselhoff's wife.

In other celebrity news, it is not everyday that the words "talent" and "Randy Quaid" are used in the same sentence.

Saddam: A "significant enemy of the United States."

The New York Sun:

A former Democratic senator and 9/11 commissioner says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a "significant set of facts," and shows a more detailed collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

In an interview yesterday, the current president of the New School University, Bob Kerrey, was careful to say that new documents translated last night by ABC News did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Nonetheless, the former senator from Nebraska said that the new document shows that "Saddam was a significant enemy of the United States." Mr. Kerrey said he believed America's understanding of the deposed tyrant's relationship with Al Qaeda would become much deeper as more captured Iraqi documents and audiotapes are disclosed.

Almost As Stupid as Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen is somewhat infamous for mistaking one of the Guinea Pig films for a real snuff film (one in which the actress is really murdered on camera).  Well, now he's an expert on terrorists incidents.  From the Guardian:

Pay attention, civilians. Actor Charlie Sheen has been focusing his mind on the official explanation for 9/11. And you know what? He's not buying it. "It just didn't look like any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life," the Hotshots Part Deux star told a US radio station this week, "and then when the buildings came down later on that day, I said to my brother 'call me insane', but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition?"

The Guardian thinks Sheen is crazy.  I think he's just stupid.  So I propose the ASACS award: "almost as stupid as Charilie Sheen.  The Guardian suggests some nominees. 

It's hard to be sure who's in his circles, but you'd have to think there'd be a seat in the Sheen kitchen cabinet for Spike Lee, who last year told CNN he suspected the Bush administration had blown up the levees in New Orleans.

"Remember the film Chinatown?" he began promisingly, "where they flooded the LA basin ... I believe that it's not too far-fetched to think that, look, we got a bunch of poor black people here. We got to save these other neighbourhoods. What we got to do, dump this in this ward, boom. I believe it. I don't put anything past the US government."

Also taking a position round the table comes this column's beloved Tom Cruise, who famously dismisses psychiatry as a big conspiracy. Which is a little like a dehydrated man claiming water is a conspiracy. And completing the quartet is Michael Jackson, who not only claims all his recent legal bother was a vast plot against him, but was taped espousing the oldest conspiracy of all: it's the Jews! And they're targeting people in the, um, entertainment industry. "They [the Jews] suck them like leeches," he whined in a telephone call played to a courtroom last year. "I'm so tired of it. They start out the most popular person in the world, make a lot of money, big house, cars and everything and end up penniless. It's a conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose."

Iraq

John Thune, John McCain, and Russ Feingold are traveling to Iraq:

Sen. Russ Feingold, who has called for a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq, is traveling to the country with a congressional delegation.

"I am looking forward to observing our country's mission in Iraq once again, and talking to our military commanders, Iraqi officials, and the men and women of our armed forces, who are serving our country so bravely in Iraq," Feingold, D-Wis., said in a statement.

"This is a critical opportunity to assess the mission in Iraq as I work with my colleagues to protect our national security and strengthen our global fight against terrorism."

Feingold will join Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., John Thune, R-S.D., along with several House members and governors, including Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.

This is Feingold's second trip to Iraq. He also visited last year.

Feingold's office declined to release additional details.

UPDATE:  Here's an AP story on Thune entitled "Thune makes another trip to Iraq."

A delegation that includes U.S. Sen. John Thune is telling leaders in Iraq that the country needs to get its unity government in place, Thune, R-S.D., said Saturday.

"We've stressed to them that patience is wearing thin in the United States and we need so see some progress. That's been part of our mission, to deliver that message," he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Because of security concerns, Thune said he couldn't discuss details of the trip, but said the group includes two other senators, three members of the House, and three governors.

"We've been visiting locations primarily to get an assessment of how things are going here and to convey to the Iraqi leaders the sense of urgency, the importance of getting this national unity government formed in a timely way," he said.

Thune, who's a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, visited Iraq in February 2005.

He said a noticeable change since then is the progress Iraq has made in providing its own military, police and border security.

"I think 15 of the 18 provinces have fewer than six incidents of violence per day, and that includes all violence," Thune said. "There's a big part of the country that is very much secure. The issues of concern are very concentrated (in area)."

The group has met with U.S. troops and commanders, and likely will meet with Iraqi troops before the trip ends, he said.

Others on the trip are Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis.; Reps. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Joe Schwarz, R-Mich., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; and Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Bob Riley of Alabama, and Jon Huntsman of Utah.