South Dakota Politics

Gas Prices Cont.

Daniel Drezner:  What is so special about gas prices?

Things Fall Apart

Remember this W.B. Yeats poem:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What leads me to post this apocolyptic poem?  Is it the war in Iraq?  The rising concern over illegal immigration?  Is it the prospect of a nuclear Iran? 

No.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have signed on to make a film version of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  The hapless pair are fans of Rand's work, which doesn't say much for their taste in literature.  Even Randians admit that Rand's novels favor philosophy over story telling.  For a take on Rand's philosophy as expressed in Atlas Shrugged, read this classic Whittaker Chambers review of the book.  Too bad as Randians Pitt and Jolie are probably atheists, because this is just one more piece of evidence that every day they should get down on their knees and thank God that they are pretty. 

Blogs

Donald Sensing:

I have also contemplated the future of blogging and have concluded that single-author sites are the wave of the past. Group blogging, with only a few exceptions such as Instapundit (of course), is becoming the norm. I think it almost certainly because the time requirements for a single author to keep a site going are oppressive, if the site is to have a significant daily readership - say, more than 2,000. I was blessed to have attained a respectable daily readership number, but good heavens, it was work to keep it going. Group blogs are able to spread the labor, and that’s why they are becoming more and more common.

Daschle

Reuters:

Former U.S. Senator Thomas Daschle has joined the board of directors of Apollo Investment Corp., the company said on Monday, entering the growing ranks of politicians turned private equity advisers.

Daschle, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, representing South Dakota, having served four terms as a Congressman. Daschle lost a reelection bid in 2004.

Daschle is currently a policy advisor for Alston & Bird, a Washington D.C.-based law firm, specializing in public policy issues.

Apollo Investment Corp. is a publicly traded fund affiliated with New York private equity firm Apollo Management. The company, technically known as a business development company (BDC), went public in 2004.

UPDATE:  A reader sends along this link about Apollo Advisors.

Weather

Associated Press:

Lead - the mile-high town in the northern Black Hills - is approaching 7 feet of snow this month.

The 82.7 inches that has fallen is just shy of the April snowfall record of 86.7 inches, set in 1984.

Spring storms with a lot of snow are not unusual in the Black Hills area. The all-time record for a 24-hour snowfall at Rapid City Regional Airport is 18 inches - set on April 22, 2001.

The largest late-season snowfall in Rapid City was 10 inches on June 13, 1969.

Economic Development

Rapid City Journal:

Seminar looks at tribes’ future

SIOUX FALLS (AP) — Economic development on American Indian reservations helps tribes become more independent and develop a strong future for their members, according to Rodney Bordeaux, president of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs brought tribal leaders, entrepreneurs, business strategists and investors together in Sioux Falls for a two-day economic-development seminar.

“The main important thing is providing jobs for our people because we have upward of 60 to 80 percent unemployment,” Bordeaux said.

It’s important to expand existing businesses and also to have tribal members start their own ventures, he said.

UPDATE:  The Argus Leader has more in an editorial:

Job training. Work force development. Business creation.

Add basic education and we have the core of what’s needed to raise Indian reservations out of their crushing poverty.

That’s the focus of the Great Plains Regional Tribal Economic Development Summit in Sioux Falls this week.

Of course, none of this is a great secret.

“We know we can create jobs in Indian Country. It’s been done,” said Onna LeBeau of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who has organized the event for four years.

“The challenge is to get people living on the reservation trained and equipped to take on those jobs and keep those jobs,” LeBeau said.

Yes, that’s the challenge, after years of failed attempts, especially on remote reservations, such as those in South Dakota. But there’s a different attitude now. Both a greater recognition of the importance of job training and economic development, as well as an understanding of what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t.

One key: Economic development can’t be imposed, but rather has to come from the ground up. We see that in the successes:

The Winnebago reservation in Nebraska began Ho-Chunk Inc. with small construction projects and now has industries including online publishing and auto sales. Ten years ago, unemployment on the reservation was more than 60 percent. It’s now estimated to be half that.

The Four Bands Community Fund on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota has helped several businesses get off the ground, including an espresso shop and a plumbing business. Its director, Tanya Fiddler, is one of the speakers at the event.

“I think we have a good start, but there’s a lot more we can do,” Fiddler said. “Everybody wants an opportunity.”

There are serious impediments to doing more – or even getting started:

Unemployment is dramatic, as high as 80 percent on South Dakota reservations.

The high school dropout rate is just as dramatic.

There’s little money to invest in job training.

There’s a lack of money to invest in businesses.

Even if there were jobs and trained workers, there’s a lack of reliable transportation.

LeBeau said it will be up to tribal and business leaders to develop plans to provide that training and get workers to their jobs.

Maybe – with jobs and a way to get to them – that will encourage students to stay in school.

Just about everyone recognizes the importance of such a plan. Dependence on inadequate federal funding and a lack of options have led to a culture of despair on reservations. That culture has led to high dropout rates, increased alcoholism and additional health problems – in turn discouraging investment and making economic development less likely.

We’re a long way from success, but this summit and similar programs demonstrate that reservations are headed in the right direction.

For the first time in years, there’s at least some reasonable hope of progress. That’s a start.

Ten Years After Welfare Reform

Kay S. Hymowitz,  writing in the City Journal, has a marvelous piece on the 1996 welfare reform engineered by the new Republican majority in Congress, and signed into law by Bill Clinton.  Here is her summary of the effects of that legislation: 

This, then, is where we find ourselves today, ten years after reform: a record number of poor single mothers off the dole and the majority of them gainfully employed; less poverty among single mothers, especially black single mothers, as well as their kids; children adjusting well enough; and state governments taking care of their own. The situation is so far from what experts predicted that, as New York University political scientist Lawrence Mead has put it, it brings to mind the Sovietologists at the fall of the Soviet Union.

In short, welfare reform was one of the most successful pieces of social legislation ever enacted.  But she goes on to point out that it was less successful than its conservative backers hoped.

All of this might seem to lead to the conclusion that welfare reform has been a triumph for conservative thinking. That would be overstating things. TANF was never simply about ending welfare dependency. As part of a larger bill called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), it was designed to improve the lives of the formerly dependent more broadly by nudging them toward middle-class life.

The Left always thought of moving up as a matter of money, not behavior: if people earned a middle-class income, they believed, middle-class conduct and aspiration would be sure to follow. Conservatives tend to see it the other way around: middle-class mores are necessary for economic success. If people adopt bourgeois habits and ambitions, they will work hard, save, and plan, and eventually have the money to make a down payment on a house or pay parochial school tuition. In the case of PRWORA, supporters took this idea a bridge too far. They imagined the work ethic as the engine that would carry all other virtues in its train. Jobs would bring discipline to the lives of poor single mothers and transform them and their children. Work would turn them into bourgeois strivers.

And you do hear stories that seem to support that theory. Take Jewel, one of the three protagonists of Jason DeParle’s American Dream. After failing repeatedly, she finally got her GED after the book came out, and is now studying for a nursing degree, even while she holds down a full-time job. She is still with her boyfriend of ten years, and he, in turn, has kept straight in the six years since he was released from prison, working during most of that time. Though they haven’t married, they are raising their son together, pooling their money, and behaving in most respects like a married couple—helping, as DeParle told me, to “stabilize and encourage each other.”

But taken as a whole, you’d have to conclude that welfare reform has not been the extreme makeover that supporters had sought. And the reason is that it has barely touched the single-mother problem. Reform optimists predicted that by heightening women’s self-respect and belief in their future, work would make them more marriage-minded. “Women, realizing welfare won’t support them, may begin to make better choices: demanding more from the men in their lives, delaying childbirth, teaming up with breadwinners,” journalist Mickey Kaus theorized. Reformers also hoped that work requirements would act as a deterrent: girls seeing their mothers and older sisters juggling a low-paying job, an apartment, and children, all without a husband’s help, would shun such a life.

Welfare reform had robust beneficial effect on women, but not so much on men.  That is the remaining problem for social reform: how to persuade men at the low end of the economic spectrum to commit to their children.  Its not clear that anyone knows how to do that.

Michael Totten

Michael Totten:  "After living in an Arab country for nearly six months, arriving in Israel came like a shock."

The Trouble Started because the Chimps weren't Union

From WPMI in Florida:

Sierra Leone police are searching for a group of chimpanzees who escaped from a wildlife sanctuary after attacking a group of construction workers.

Police say four men were attacked on Sunday after entering the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, the BBC reported. The driver of the vehicle was killed and mutilated by the chimps. Two Americans were hospitalized for injuries.

Tourism Minister Okere Adams said police are combing the area to bring the chimps back to the sanctuary. A worker at Tacugama told the BBC that six of the 24 chimpanzees who escaped have already returned.

Herseth's Hairdoogate

Today's edition of Roll Call discusses Stephanie Herseth's new hairstyle:

Uh-oh, Capitol Police: Beware a couple of Members of Congress who have very different new hairstyles. But at least one of them promises that there will be no assaulting an officer if they aren’t recognized and get stopped at a security checkpoint.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who until Tuesday was a curly haired brunette, is now barely recognizable, sporting perfectly straight blonde hair. Regardless of whether she intended to, she’s turning heads left and right — from the left and the right, as both Democratic and GOP aides buzzed about Schultz’s new ’do Wednesday. ...

Also sporting a new sophisticated look is Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.) who, as one Democratic aide surmised, “definitely didn’t get it done in Sioux Falls.”

UPDATE:  SD War College also notes Herseth's Hairdoogate.

I Smell Gas

Jacob Weisberg:

Few topics seem to addle the collective brain of Washington like high gas prices. Politicians who raise this issue can generally be assumed to be partisan, cynical, demagogic, and dishonest. But one must not discount the possibility that something about the subject actually makes them stupid.

With gasoline prices now spiking around $3 a gallon—near their inflation-adjusted 1981 peak—we are witnessing stupidity on wheels. Republicans, who as incumbents fear that they will be blamed, are in a kind of frenzy to abandon free-market principles, basic economic reasoning, and increasingly, reason itself. Their week began with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert calling upon the Bush administration to investigate possible price-gouging and market manipulation. The Republican leaders went so far as to recommend "sweeps" of gas stations to confirm that price increases reflect "changes in market conditions" and are not merely attempts by businesses to earn money. The next day, President Bush joined in calling on the Bush administration to launch an investigation. As it happens, a Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible market manipulation is already under way from last year, when Bush and Congress asked for one following a post-Hurricane Katrina gas-price rise. While he was at it, Bush also asked Congress to repeal the tax breaks they joined together to give to the oil companies last year.

This investigation won't find anything but a market working the way it's meant to.  To understand what's really going on, see Pat Cleary, Ed Morrissey, Mike Hudson, and my colleague Prof. Blanchard, who have all written on the subject of oil prices.  Also, check out this gas price chart that shows adjustments for inflation.  And Nick Schulz of Forbes is asking a good question: if gas prices are hurting consumers as much as the media says, why haven't they changed their behavior?

But what's more interesting about these stories is what they don't tell you. For example, the Associated Press reports that "surveys indicate drivers won't be easing off on their mileage, using even more gas than a year ago." Now why is that? If prices are rising, one would expect consumers would use less.

The answer might be in some of the long-term trends that the short-term media lens is too cramped to see. Energy prices may be rising, but energy itself is much less important to consumers and to the overall economy than it once was.

According to the Bureau of Economic Affairs ( see chart here), American consumer spending on energy as a fraction of total personal consumption has declined considerably since 1980. Whereas 25 years ago, one in every ten consumer dollars was spent on energy, today it's one in every 16. In other words, what it takes to heat and cool our homes and drive to and from our jobs and vacation destinations is relatively less costly than it was then.

This goes a long way toward explaining why even when gas prices rise this summer--higher than they were throughout the 1990s--people will still be driving more; it's much more of a value than it was a generation ago.

Tony Blankley on Bush's Gaseous Rhetoric

From Real Clear Politics:

The liberal blog Daily Kos was displeased with the Associated Press report on Monday that President Bush had ordered the Justice and Energy Departments to "open inquiries into possible cheating in the gasoline markets."

What particularly peeved the Kos was the AP's reference to Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist having urged the president to order a federal investigation into price gouging or market speculation -- without the AP also mentioning that Sen. Chuck Schumer had called for the same things a week ago.

I can understand the Kos's peevement. Liberal Democrats don't like the idea of Republicans poaching the Democrats' populist economic demagoguery: Neither do I -- but for different reasons.

   

One of the things that always made me feel good in the morning was waking up and realizing I did not belong to the same political party as Chuck Schumer. It made me feel clean -- even before I took a shower. But now, with my Republican president pulling a "full Schumer," even a series of showers will not help.

Intelligence Insurgency

Wall Street Journal:

We're as curious as anyone to see how Ms. McCarthy's case unfolds. But this would appear to be only the latest example of the unseemly symbiosis between elements of the press corps and a cabal of partisan bureaucrats at the CIA and elsewhere in the "intelligence community" who have been trying to undermine the Bush Presidency.
...

The deepest damage from these leak frenzies may yet be to the press itself, both in credibility and its ability to do its job. It was the press that unleashed anti-leak search missions aimed at the White House that have seen Judith Miller jailed and may find Ms. Priest and Mr. Risen facing subpoenas. And it was the press that promoted the probe under the rarely used Espionage Act of "neocon" Defense Department employee Lawrence Franklin, only to find that the same law may now be used against its own "whistleblower" sources. Just recently has the press begun to notice that the use of the same Espionage Act to prosecute two pro-Israel lobbyists for repeating classified information isn't much different from prosecuting someone for what the press does every day--except for a far larger audience.

We've been clear all along that we don't like leak prosecutions, especially when they involve harassing reporters who are just trying to do their job. But then that's part of the reason we didn't join Joe Wilson and the New York Times in demanding Karl Rove's head over the Plame disclosure. As for some of our media colleagues, when they stop being honest chroniclers of events and start getting into bed with bureaucrats looking to take down elected political leaders, they shouldn't be surprised if those leaders treat them like the partisans they have become.

HT to Instapundit.

SF Mayor's Race Finale

Argus Leader:

Dave Munson bucked history Tuesday by winning a second term as mayor, beating Augustana College President Bruce Halverson by almost 900 votes.

Munson, 64, became the first person in more than 30 years to win a mayoral runoff after taking the most votes in the first election. Since 1974, there had been five mayoral runoffs, and in each one of those elections, the person who won the most votes in the first election lost in the runoff.

Munson had 13,983 votes, or 51.6 percent.

Alt Fuel

I was working on a post on gas prices until I read Prof. Blanchard's excellent piece below, which is essentially the same thing I was going to write.  The only thing I have to add is be sure to check out this lengthy article by Popular Mechanics where they crunch the numbers on alternative fuel sources.

Fox Anchor Tony Snow will be the new White House Press Secretary

Fox News of course has the story.  Hat tip to Powerline.  Snow is very good at his former job, and is a very strong choice for his new one.  I can't think off hand of a better choice.  He understands how the Press works, and this may work in his favor when facing his former colleagues.  I am uncertain how this will affect his future career.  Until the rise of Fox News, liberals had almost exclusive control of the mainstream media.  Only on talk radio did conservatives have a place, let alone an advantage.  The MSM has been relentless hostile to Fox, and Snow's new position won't make them any happier.  I don't think this will make much difference.  The structural factors weighing against the administration are formidable.  Still, the occasionally appearance of the White House Press Secretary will be much more interesting than it has been in the past.

When Prices are a Gas!

From the windows of the blue line train, carrying me from my Hotel to the Midwest Political Science Conference downtown, I could see the price of gas at several Chicago service stations.  It was well over three dollars.  Facing a midterm election in November, Republicans have prodded President Bush into action.  From the Washington Post:

Amid growing Republican unrest about the politics of $3-plus gasoline, Bush told the Renewable Fuels Association he will take the unusual step of suspending shipments to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to boost supply and help hold down oil prices. The president also said he will temporarily ease environmental regulations that require the use of cleaner-burning fuel additives to cut down on summertime pollution.  Still, according to industry experts and administration officials, Bush's efforts at best are likely to shave a few cents per gallon off the cost of gasoline.

In the short run this had had some effect.  Again from the WaPo:

Light sweet crude for June delivery settled 45 cents lower at $72.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, dropping on the heels of a 4.48-cents-per-gallon decline in May gasoline futures, which finished at $2.1291 a gallon.

These are more than marginal drops, but they are unlikely to be sustained.  Bush has also taken the politically expedient but substantively meaningless step of casting a suspicious eye toward the evil oil companies. 

Under pressure from GOP leaders, the president is taking a tough public line with the U.S. oil companies that are recording record profits and paying hefty salaries and retirement packages to executives. Bush ordered three federal agencies to investigate whether companies are manipulating the cost of gasoline -- boosting prices as many report record profits. The administration asked state governments to do the same.

He probably has no choice but to dance this dance, but it has nothing to do with the actual price of oil.  Oil is a commodity.  Its price is determined over the long run by the balance between supply and demand.  At any one moment it is determined more by the expectations of traders.  Two basic facts are influencing their decisions.  One is that global demand is steadily rising.  The strong economy in the U.S. will increase the thirst for oil.  In addition, the dramatically growing economies in China and India are taking progressively larger cuts out of the world oil supply.  So much for demand. 

Oil traders have a lot to worry about when it comes to supply.  Political turbulence in the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran threaten important sources of oil.  Similarly, political instability in Nigeria and the erratic government of Venezuela raise questions about the reliability of these important sources of crude.  The Southern U.S. and Mexico have still not recovered from Hurricane Katrina. 

So why are oil companies raking in the profits?  Economics 101.  The commodity they produce is rising in value.  So shouldn't they give a little back to the children on their motorized scouters by keeping prices low?  No.  The oil industry has a lower profit margin than most industries, in large part because their business is expensive, and they reinvest a very large part of their profits in new sources.  Or at least they do when prices make new exploration and development economically viable.  Moreover, higher prices ensure that when the supply is tight, it goes to the most desperate buyers.  If prices remain high, car buyers will shift to more economical vehicles, and the auto industry will oblige by producing and developing more of the same. 

This is basic economics and, like it or not, there is no way to escape it. Government could respond by punishing the oil companies or, more robustly, by instituting price controls.  We know exactly what will happen because we have been through all this before.  Artificially cheap oil will be consumed fast, and shortages will result.  The Bush administration will not take this route because the only thing more irritating than high gas prices are long lines at the few stations that have gas to sell. 

The prosperity of the last several decades has been fueled by cheap oil.  I suspect that the era of cheap oil will continue for some time as new sources are exploited, but it won't last forever.  Complaining about the greed of oil companies make make us feel good, but it is no substitute for developing new sources of energy.

Janklow v. DM&E

Janklow found an ally in his effort to kill the railroad: the Sierra Club.  Excerpt from the Argus Leader:

Bill Janklow is getting assistance from the state Sierra Club in compiling information related to the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern railroad expansion, according to Sam Clauson, state conservation chairman for the organization.

Clauson says Janklow called him seeking facts about various issues.

Janklow, former South Dakota governor and congressman, is working for the Mayo Clinic, the city of Rochester, the Rochester Chamber of Commerce and Olmsted County in their dispute with the DM&E over the railroad expansion.

The Economist

Here's an interesting piece on "participatory journalism" and another one on blogs.

Gas Prices

Ron Bailey:

With some headlines blaring about "record oil prices," a bit of perspective is in order. It is true that in nominal dollars, the price of crude oil has never been higher. However, in inflation-adjusted terms, the picture looks somewhat different. It turns out that the price for a barrel of oil peaked at about $98 in December 1979.

Still oil prices have tripled in the past four years, but the economy nevertheless chugs along. . . . the price of oil would need to double from today's $70 per barrel to have the same impact on the U.S. and world economy that prices had during the 1970s oil crisis.

Apparently the public isn't as concerned about gas prices as the media is:

Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost four years, a private research group said Tuesday.

Then again, most of the news reports and political slogans about "record high" prices is merely sensationalism.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Altas Shrugs:  Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Argus and the Hunting List

Yesturday, Argus Leader executive editor Randall Beck took the opportunity to attack blogs for holding the Argus accountable for their headline blunder on Newt Gingrich.  There's nothing new about this, of course; remember how Beck said that criticism of the Argus was "crap" and driven by a "violent" internet "cabal" of "yahoos" and "jokers," who are full of "hatred" and "vitriol" and lacked "guts" because they hid "behind their computer screens" and wouldn't face him "man to man"?  Beck concedes that Gingrich's aides called to say the headline was wrong and heard from those that attended the speech to inform him the headline was misleading.  His response?  They sometimes "miss the mark occasionally, as any newspaper does."  How do you mix up "pull out" with "pull back"?  He continued to make excuses and wrote that "headline writing is an art form, and accurately boiling down an 850-word story into six or eight words is difficult."  The problem with this headline, however, is that it doesn't summarize the article because Gingrich never said to pull out of Iraq!  Of course, he still thinks that "the two headlines in the print edition of the Argus Leader captured the scope of [Gingrich's] comments – and needed no correction."  Nevermind that the headline was misleading.  Then in true Beck style he draws attention away from the topic and shifts to abortion and the attacks our legislators can expect. 

Then the real off-topic spin begins: Beck takes the opportunity to attack Governor Rounds of "misinformation" for not revealing his hunting list.  Unfortunately, in the shadow of Beck's statements and his pride in the Argus' suit against the governor, this report comes out ruling in favor of Governor Rounds:

Gov. Mike Rounds can keep secret the list of business leaders he hosted for an annual pheasant hunt that was organized by a state office, a circuit court judge has ruled.

The Argus Leader filed a lawsuit against the state earlier this year seeking to make public the names of people invited to the 2005 Governor’s Invitational Pheasant Hunt, during which Rounds and other state officials host business leaders to promote economic development.

The October hunt was paid for mostly with private money. Rounds has maintained that revealing the names of people who take part could harm business negotiations.

The lawsuit argued that because it was organized by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, the list of invitees should be open to public. The list has been public in past years.

State open records law says that any list required to be kept by a state agency should be open for public inspection. But Judge Max Gors noted in his ruling that “the Argus Leader cites no requirement, statutory or otherwise, that the Secretary of Tourism and Development maintain a list of invitees.”

Gors wrote that it is simply not practical to require all government communications to be recorded.

“Taken to its logical conclusion, the Argus’ argument would require state agencies to maintain every scrap of paper generated by state government and to allow public inspection,” the judge wrote. “Every time someone called to leave a message, the phone slip that was generated would have to be maintained and available for inspection. Notes, letters and other ephemera would proliferate until storage and retrieval would be difficult, if not impossible.”

Ninth Circuit Numbskullery

If you want to know what kind of judges George W. wouldn't nominate (or at least, not by intention), look no further than the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  John Leo has the scoop.

In a 2-1 split, the court ruled that a California student, Tyler Chase Harper, had no First Amendment right to go to school wearing a T-shirt condemning homosexuality.

In response to a "Day of Silence" sponsored by the Gay-Straight Alliance at Poway High School in Poway, Calif., Harper wore a shirt that said, on the front, "Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned," and on the back, "Homosexuality Is Shameful 'Romans 1:27.'" The principal ordered Harper to take off the shirt. Harper refused to comply and sued. He argued that the purpose of the "Day of Silence" was to "endorse, promote and encourage homosexual activity" and that he was entitled to use his T-shirt message as a rebuttal. He cited his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion.

Much T-shirt jurisprudence turns on the question of whether direct threats or the likelihood of severe disruption or violence are involved. In this case Reinhardt and his colleague Judge Sidney R. Thomas argued that T-shirt messages could be excluded from First Amendment protection if they strike at a "core identifying characteristic of students on the basis of their membership is a minority group."

This ruling creates a new and large category of viewpoints excluded from First Amendment protection. It said that "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion and sexual orientation" can be banned, but not other controversial messages. Based on the ruling here, criticism of illegal aliens might be banned too, says Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA. Volokh argues that the phrase "such as" in the ruling indicates that other groups might be granted freedom from criticism at schools.  Thus homosexuality, a subject up for political and moral debate, can be argued in the T-shirt wars only on the pro side, not on the con.

Now I have little sympathy for Mr. Harper's religious views, but considerable sympathy for his constitutional views.  I believe that High Schools are entitled to ban or limit political expression on the school grounds for purposes of order and decorum.  What they are not entitled to do is to license one side in a political/religious controversy to express their opinions while putting a muzzle on the other.  In RAV v. Saint Paul, the court struck down a hate crimes law precisely because it was not even handed.  Antonin Scalia, writing for the Court, said that under the Saint Paul law

One could hold up a sign saying, for example, that all "anti-Catholic [505 U.S. 392] bigots" are misbegotten; but not that all "papists" are, for that would insult and provoke violence "on the basis of religion." St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquis of Queensbury Rules.

The hard part of freedom of speech is that really nasty people are free to say really nasty things.  But fair is fair.  If students are allowed to advocate civil liberties and civil rights on campus, then a student who happens to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan must be allowed to state his opinions as well.  If this threatens campus order, the administration can shut the whole thing down.  It can't pick and choose.  Liberals used to believe in free speech for everyone.  The 9th Circuit doesn't believe that anymore. 

Back From Chicago!

Professor Schaff and I returned from Chicago this afternoon, where we attended the Midwest Political Science Association's annual meeting.  In spite of what he will tell you, his paper was good and his panel was very entertaining.  Among the highlights of the conference was a round table discussion of Harvey Mansfield's new book, Manliness. 

After hours we were free to roam and discovered, among other things, the best jazz music shop I have ever seen.  Its just off Michigan Avenue, 27 East Illinois.  You can find it on the web at www.jazzmart.com.  Two doors down is an excellent Thai restaurant.  Last night we took the Dan Ryan out to Cellular One Park (boy that rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?) and watched the ChiSox beat the snot out of the Twins.

We also managed an hour and a half in the Chicago Art Institute, one of the best museums in the country.  We viewed the Asian art (my personal favorite), the American painting section, and the Impressionists.  I have long struggled to get such cultural treasures into my courses, something that my web pages reflect.  A thousand year old Buddhist guardian spirit carved out of wood, with most of the paint still intact, tells you a lot about the soul of Japan, and hence about the souls of human beings.  I wonder if the cranky spirit has a green card? 

The Daschle Effect

Harry Reid, Tom Daschle's hand-picked successor as Senate Minority Leader, is losing support in his state of Nevada.  During his tenure as Minority Leader, the citizens of Nevada have had a chance to see where Reid really stands.  The poll shows support for Reid dropping by 10 percentage points since 2004 (down to 43 percent), while the number who viewed him unfavorably increased 14 points to 39 percent.  The article concludes:  "Becoming Senate minority leader doesn't always help with the folks back home. Just ask Tom Daschle."

"The mushroom cloud is on its way!"

There was a rally in New York yesturday staged by the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS) outside the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan, in response to the Tel Aviv bombing that killed 9 and injured scores (but terrorism "is a result of people who believe that their lives cannot be improved by occupation and that there is nothing left for them to do except to commit acts of terrorism", according to Abourezk).  It wasn't hard to spot the members: most held Khilafah flags and signs attacking homosexuals, Jews, Christians, Danes and others.  While carrying a sign that read "Islam will Dominate" with a picture of an Islamic flag over the White House, a group of men began changing threatening slogans.  Counterterrorism Blog excerpt:

Leader (in Arabic):  With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!
[The rest also respond in Arabic:] With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!
Israeli Zionists What do you say?  The real Holocaust is on its way
Takbeer!
Response: Allahu Akbar!
Takbeer!
Response: Allahu Akbar!

Israeli Zionists, What do you say?
How many women have you raped today?
Israeli Zionists, What do you say?
How many children have you killed today?

Zionists, Zionists You will pay!  The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay!  The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!

We are not your average Muslims, We are the Muslims of Was al Sunnah

We will not accept the United Nations, they are the criminals themselves
They get paid by the Israeli and the US government to do their job.
We don’t recognize United Nations as a body
We only recognize Allah

Israel won’t last long… Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel
Takbeer! 
Response: Allahu Akbar!

* * *
No wonder they call you sons of apes and pigs because that’s what you are.

We know many government services are watching us
Such as the FBI…CIA…Mossad, Homeland Security…
We know we are getting on their nerves
And so are you….
So we say the hell with you!
May the FBI burn in Hell
CIA burn in Hell
Mossad burn in Hell
Homeland Security burn in hell!!

Islam will dominate the world
Islam is the only solution
Islam will dominate the world
Islam is the only solution
Takbeer!
La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad-ur Rasool Allah

* * *
Another mushroom cloud, right in the midst of Israel!
Takbeer!!  Allahu Akbar!

This is what we're up against.  The Counterterrorism Blog has more on their site, so go check it out.

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