South Dakota Politics

Jeff Goldstein

Jeff Goldstein of the blog Protein Wisdom has come under the most vile attack of a blogger I've seen.  Apparently a professor at the University of Arizona, Deb Frisch, has leveraged threats against Goldstein and his wife and child.  Michelle Malkin has a good overview.  More can be found at Instapundit and Captain's Quarters.

UPDATE:  Sioux Falls blogger Jay Reding has some more observations that are worth reading.

UPDATE II:  Just as a footnote, I'd like to say that I agree with what my friend Prof. Schaff says above.  The leftwing blogosphere is not responsible for what happened to Jeff Goldstein (and I also agree that Coulter is shrill and disrespectful).  Captain Ed is right about the Goldstein/Frisch episode: "Now, if someone uses their blog to defend her comments, then that's a basis for criticism. Otherwise, further commentary is not a requirement."

UPDATE III:  Euphoric Reality has more, as does INDCJournal, who also writes:

Achieving Malkinesque levels of hate mail is a noteworthy event; achieving Malkinesque levels of hate mail that actually reference Malkin, racism and chimpmunks has got to be some sort of milestone in the annals of online animus.

Economy

Glenn Reynolds notes some great economic news via Larry Kudlow:

Did you know that just over the past 11 quarters, dating back to the June 2003 Bush tax cuts, America has increased the size of its entire economy by 20 percent? In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy, and much larger than the total economic size of nations like India, Mexico, Ireland, and Belgium.

Read the whole post, which includes a discussion over Kudlow's report.

Daschle Resigns From Apollo

 Reuters:

Former U.S. Senator Thomas Daschle resigned from Apollo Investment Corp. less than three months after joining the board of directors, the company said on Friday.

"Former Senator Daschle advised the Company that his resignation was due to other commitments that made him unable to continue as a Director," Apollo Investment said in a brief statement, offering no other details on his quick departure.

Is this a sign that Daschle is running for president?  Perhaps he will also resign the Mayo Clinic board of directors and stop trying to kill the biggest construction project in South Dakota history.

The Clean Cut Klan on Global Warming and Freedom of Thought

Praise be to the Internet gods,  Clean Cut Kid is back up again.  We here at SDP sorely missed it.  Apart from a few hundred apparently loyal readers, no one else pays any attention to us.  Chad the Righteously Indignant takes time to make me feel valuable, so I will return the favor.  Since Chad obviously regards his opinions as articles of faith, which only sinners can doubt, I will treat his post in the manner of a Medieval gloss.  The offset lines are mine, the italics, his.  He is responding to my post here.

What would a morning of posting at CCK be without pointing out the wackiness that goes on over at the Thune/Heppler/Lauck/VanBeek blog?

Chad's first line suggests the degree of confidence he has in his own writing.  Before he dares to approach me, he has first to suggest that there is a diabolical influence operating behind the scenes at SDP. Thus the faithful are warned in advance that everything I say is devil's writ. 

Professor Ken Blanchard of Northern State University -- political scientist -- thinks he knows more about the global warming problem than the overwhelming consensus of the entire scientific community.

Chad Shulte, political hack, is an odd person to be speaking for the "entire scientific community," since so far as I know, he is not a scientist in any sense of the word.  If I can't challenge "scientific consensus" on the grounds of my professional training, surely he can't object.  So Chad is contradicting himself.  I am in fact an enormous admirer of modern science, and I know enough about it to know that it doesn't respect the authority of consensus, among scientists or anyone else. 

Moreover, Chad seems blissfully unaware of the distinction between scientific and political questions.  The likely effect of greenhouse emissions on global temperatures is of the former sort; whether to ratify the Kyoto treaty belongs to the latter.  Since Chad has graciously (or more likely accidentally) conceded my authority on the latter field, he can hardly complain that I write about it.  It's no surprise that Chad missed this.  If you want to find out what CCK is saying, don't ask the folks at CCK.  They are usually the last to know.

What is even more amazing is that the Aberdeen American News -- newspaper prints his stuff as if he has some kind of authority on the subject.

In these United States, citizens are allowed to have opinions on any topic they choose to think about.  Newspapers are also allowed to print those opinions regardless of how offensive they may be to our moral and intellectuals betters at such venues as CCK.  What steps the U.S. government takes on global warming will be decided on not by any groups of scientists, however large and unanimous, but by Congress and ultimately by the American people.  Like any citizen, I am free to listen to both sides on this question, form my own opinions, and express them. 

Maybe this is a bad idea, as Chad obviously believes.  Maybe the Clean Cut Klan should have to clear any articles before they see print in newspapers.  But until the revolution,  the CCK politburo can't keep me off the net or out of the newspapers.

Blanchard's reasoning on the issue?  It's not something we can solve in the immediate future, so let's not worry about it.  Of course that reasoning wouldn't stop him from digging holes in the ground in Alaska and not pumping oil for at least 10 years.

This is the closest thing to an argument that Chad himself can come up with.  He gets my position half right.  We can't in fact do anything about global warming in the short term.  That may be an inconvenient truth, but it obviously is the truth, for reasons that Robert Samuelson states.  When Samuelson and I write about this issue, we bother to articulate our arguments and present evidence. 

Consider the following: 1) the nations that ratified the Kyoto treaty have, almost all of them, failed to live up to its terms; 2) if the treaty had been really honored by all the parties including the U.S., it would have slowed down global warming by a mere six years (if the calculations of the treaty backers are accurate); 3) the treaty would have cost a cool $150 billion a year, for no appreciable cooling.  From these facts I infer what the various nations are trying to do now is hopeless.  Maybe there are other, better proposals; but so far the global warming crowd doesn't seems to be advertising them because they have too much political capital invested in Kyoto.  By the way, my view that global warming cannot be halted is back up by Professor Kenneth Miller, who led a Rutgers study in sea level rise.  No doubt Chad would purge him from the list of people allowed to express their opinions.

Samuelson points out some more inconvenient truths.  With the projected growth in world populations, and the rising standard of living in India and China, to name only the big two, energy use is going to go up dramatically.  No government in the developed or developing world is going to strangle its economic growth in order to meet greenhouse targets.  That just isn't going to happen, no matter how dearly we want it to.

I do not think, however, that we need not worry about global warming.  I think it should be carefully monitored, and I would support research in any technologies (like nuclear power) that might one day make a real difference in greenhouse emissions.  That's part of what I would spend that $150 billion on.  I'd spend the rest on providing clean water and other benefits to those peoples who do not yet enjoy them.  Chad is free to disagree with this.  Unlike him, I would not object to seeing objections to my view in print.

Of course that reasoning wouldn't stop him from digging holes in the ground in Alaska and not pumping oil for at least 10 years.

This sentence, incoherent as it stands, is in fact a sterling example of Chad's reasoning.  It has almost nothing to do with the question at hand.  I take it that for the sake of global warming, Chad doesn't want the United States to exploit a cheap source of energy.  If that is the Democratic position, I wish it were more widely known.  But Chad also has this odd idea that because it would take ten years to begin pumping oil out of ANWR, it makes no sense to begin now.  That is not the dumbest argument I have ever heard.  It probably does make the top twenty dumb ideas.  If getting that oil is a good idea, then we have to start sometime.  Ten years up the road, when the demand for oil is much greater than now, we may be very glad we did.   

The idiocy at the political science department at Northern has now surpassed the world records set by Steve Sibson and Bob Ellis.

I don't read Siby or Ellis much (only on account of lack of time), so I don't know who should feel more insulted.  Occasionally, very occasionally, CCK posts include facts and arguments.  I once hoped that we and CCK could engage in conversation about these questions.  But the truth of the matter is that they don't know how to engage in civilized argument.  Chad cares deeply.  He can't imagine that any person could disagree with him on the issues he cares about without being an idiot, or a scoundrel, or both.  He thinks that such dissidents should not be allowed to teach at universities or write columns in a newspaper.  He has become a left-wing Archie Bunker, intolerant, bombastic, and invincibly ignorant. 

When I first came to Northern, I was the only conservative in the social science division.  But such men as Jerry Rosonke, and Bob Web, and Walter King in history, however much they may have disagreed with me on many issues, were scrupulously respectful of my right to speak my mind.  I think the same is true of my sociologist colleagues now, and especially of Jim Seeber whom I converse with often.  What has happened to the political left that it now falls so short of the standard that these men set?

Update:  mollym64, left-wing Archie Bunker in residence at the American News Discussion Forum, republished Chad's post, with comments.  Molly is another person who wants to see offensive voices silenced. 

Churchill Appealing to Keep Job

The New York Times reports that Ward Churchill, who has been indicted for academic misconduct and dismissed from the University of Colorado, is fighting to keep his job.  Note that the Times article starts out in a way that makes it seem Churchill has been fired because of what he said about September 11th:

The University of Colorado professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi official has appealed to keep his job as university officials move to fire him for what they say is research misconduct.

For "what they say is research misconduct"?  As if it hasn't been proven?  I wrote about the decision to fire Ward Churchill a couple of weeks ago, which I basically argued that there is no reason Churchill should be fired because of what he said (despite how contemptuous those comments were) but rather because of what he has done (meaning his academic misconduct).  Read my entry to see my full argument.  Anyways, the decision to fire Churchill rests on the investigative report of his academic fraud, which you can read here (pdf alert), though you'd never know it reading the introduction to the Times article.  The Rocky Mountain News has a much more informative report.

"Princess" Herseth

National Journal, July 7, 2006:

As the youngest woman in a Congress dominated by older men, however, Herseth finds that the media aren't always interested in focusing on her speeches and her legislative record. The politics1.com Web site named Herseth as the "hottest woman in politics" in 2004, and her switch to a new hairstyle, including blond highlights, prompted one observer to tell The Hill newspaper in May that she'd gone "from bookworm to bombshell." She has been dating former Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Texas, for several years; the two reportedly met when he served as her Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee mentor during her unsuccessful 2002 House bid.
The publicity that Herseth attracts has some Republicans grumbling. South Dakota GOP Chairman Randy Frederick noted that while the state's press corps regularly scrutinizes Johnson and Republican Sen. John Thune, Herseth has enjoyed a "free ride" in coverage. "Rarely do I see anything from the press that seems critical of her or takes her to task," Frederick said, adding that "she almost has this 'princess' aura -- she can do no wrong."

UPDATE:  SD War College on Herseth:

I'd have to agree that the media tends to focus on her looks rather than her record. But then again, most male reporters aren't going to look and fantasize like a juvenile about Thune or Johnson in pajamas having a naughty pillow fight.

Daschle

Former Senator Daschle joined Randy McDaniel on his KSOO radio show this morning and talked about his possible presidential run, stating that "it's just a matter of time."  He also said "I miss public service." 

Ben Stein's Money

On a more serious note than my last post, here is something really worth reading by Ben Stein, in The American Spectator. 

On Monday, I had dinner with a man named Sgt. John Quinones who has just come back from two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He is a wounded, highly decorated infantryman. A real hero. He said he thought things in Iraq were difficult, but the Iraqi National Guardsmen he worked with were fantastically brave. He can't wait to go back and fight more. He's in Yuma, Arizona, testing devices to jam remotely detonated IED's. Some work better than others.

He wants his wife to go see her mother but they can't afford it. Wifey and I said we would pay. It seems like little enough to do.

After dinner, he and my Boeing pal Peggy and I went to a bar where he played a message on his cell from his daughter telling him, "Daddy, I miss you. Daddy, I'm scared. Daddy, don't go. Daddy I love you. Daddy, don't go." She's almost three years old. His eyes misted over when he told me the story.

That night I read a piece in the New York Times about how the British tortured and killed American patriots in New York harbor during the Revolutionary War. Supposedly, according to the author, what George Bush is doing with al Qaeda captives is the same. Supposedly there is some connection between Patrick Henry and John Adams and Zarqawi and bin Laden. And the Democrats wonder why they can't get traction in middle America.

Too Much Fun

I second Professor Schaff's invitation to the Great Aberdeen Pig Out, though not without dissent.   No one from above the Mason-Dixon line is qualified to judge ribs, let alone someone from Minnesota.  I might make an exception had Jon ever eaten at the Rendevous in Memphis, probably the most famous rib joint in the galaxy.  I don't know that he has. 

In another post I note this comment by the newly-appointed rib expert:

There is many a day that if it weren't for shooting the gadwall, I'd shoot no ducks at all.

I'm betting there's many a day when he is shooting for the gadwall that he shoots no ducks at all.  I have no particular reason to be ribbing Jon, but I'm on a roll.  I suggest that Jon needs a little vacation.  If you will all pony up, I have found just the place.

Check out this video, at www.break.com. Its in two parts, each centering on a rigged chair in a sauna.  The first "mission" is good, but Mission 2 is absolutely hilarious.  Hat tip to my teenage son, Scott. Bon voyage Professor Schaff, or however you say it in Japanese.

Black Hills "Boycott"

A reader sends this in:

My family and I recently went on a 4-day vacation to the Black Hills.  My
boys decided to play the "license plate" game and over the course of the
trip we came up with 45 (including Alaska).

Now, what boycott was that again?

P.S.  The 5 missing states were Vermont, New Hampshire, West Virginia,
Alabama and Mississippi.

Kevin Woster was wondering the same thing.

Daschle Media Watch

Former Senator Daschle will be on Randy McDaniel's KSOO 1140 radio program tomorrow morning.  Senator Johnson will also be joining McDaniel after Daschle.

Professor To Teach 9/11 Denial

A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (a school I've been considering for graduate studies) plans on teaching 9/11 denial in class.  Excerpt:

"Why would our government do this? To trigger a War that will not end in our lifetime."  Says Kevin Barrett, a lecturer for UW-Madison who will teach a course on Islam this Fall.

Barrett is the founder of a group called the Muslim Jewish Christian Alliance for 9/11 truth, that has about 1,000 members worldwide.  He says after three years of studying the evidence, he came to the conclusion 9/11 did not happen the way the government says it did.  He believes the Bush Administration planned and executed the attacks on the World Trade Center.

''The physics of those collapses clearly could not have resulted from plane crashes and jet fuel fires with office materials.'' Barrett says jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, and says recent tests on melted steel from the building prove his theory that it was wired to collapse, by the Government.

Ann Althouse has much more.

UPDATE:  This man also claims that Osama bin Laden "has been dead for years."

Adelstein To Run As Dem

This AP story reports that former state Senator Adelstein may get a rematch, this time fighting for the other party.  Excerpt:

Republican state Sen. Stan Adelstein of Rapid City, who was defeated in the June primary by a staunch abortion foe, could get a rematch in the general election as a Democrat.

Tom Katus, the current Democrat in the Senate race, said today that he is willing to step aside if a poll shows that Adelstein would have a better chance of beating Elli Schwiesow, the GOP winner on June 6. Schwiesow defeated Adelstein in a bitter GOP primary race by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent, or 174 votes.

Duck Numbers

Ducks Unlimited has a report on duck numbers.  They are looking very healthy.  Interestingly they say scaup numbers are down.  I saw a trillion (slight exaggeration) of them up at Sand Lake this Spring.  Blue wing teal numbers suggest good early bird hunting, while the gadwall numbers suggest a healthy middle season.  Ah the gadwall.  There is many a day that if it weren't for shooting the gadwall, I'd shoot no ducks at all.  Here's the chart from DU:

Your Momma Wears Army Boots

Hey T.E., how many times a day does Jack Billion take you for a walk? 

Where's The Beef?

Aberdeen and Brown County officials have completed the proper re-zoning to attract a beef processing plant to the area.  Read the whole article for some good information on this proposal. 

Oink, Oink

I am judging BBQ ribs at the Great Aberdeen Pig Out on Saturday.  Come to downtown Aberdeen on Saturday night for good food and music. 

Out of State Donors

SDWC is reporting that the group opposing South Dakota's abortion law are raising a lot more money from people outside South Dakota than in the state.  Excerpt:

Yes, I'm not so naive to think that the group supporting HB 1215 isn't going to have significant out-of-state support as well. (But I needed a catchy title.)

Either way, this is an interesting look at where this side of the battle is getting their bucks from.

...

Before the listing of what is itemized, they're claiming over $65k of unitemized donations. The itemized donations account for a little over $40k of funding. Of the itemized donations, 22 donors were from South Dakota, and I counted 55 that were from other states.

Who are some of the notable donors you might recognize?

Former GOP House member Jan Nicolay, of course, who also plays a large role in the organization donated $200. Local attorney Curt Mortensen from Ft. Pierre is in for $250. One that got my attention was a donation from Western Surety's Dan Kirby for $1000. That, and the Democratic organization "Focus South Dakota" who is in for a $5000 donation. Even Maria Bell who co-chaired last year's Task Force to Study Abortion is in for $1000.

Right now, all their receipts are totalling in at $116,000+ - with much more to come. I'd watch for this battle to go far past $1 million before you-know-who sings.

He also has copies of the documents that list the donors, so go check it out.

The Inconvenient Truth

I have written on global warming here and in the American News.  I have not taken issue with the science, but with the political interpretations of that science.  My position is basically this: 1) we know a whole lot, but none of it is enough to tell us what to do unless we indulge in a great deal of groundless speculation; and 2) there is very little that we can possibly do about global warming in the short term.  Here is Robert Samuelson to back me up:

Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth,'' as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and -- barring major technological breakthroughs -- we can't do much about it. This has long been obvious. Let me explain.

From 2003 to 2050, world population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that's too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world's poor to their present poverty -- and freeze everyone else's living standards -- we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050.

There is no way on God's soon to be warmer and greener earth that we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short run.  Here are some more inconvenient truths:

No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. Still, politicians want to show they're "doing something.'' The result is grandstanding. Consider the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed countries that joined to castigate those that didn't. But it hasn't reduced carbon dioxide emissions (up about 25 percent since 1990), and many signatories didn't adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets. By some estimates, Europe may overshoot by 15 percent and Japan by 25 percent.  . . .

The practical conclusion is that, if global warming is a potential calamity, the only salvation is new technology. I once received an e-mail from an engineer. Thorium, he said. I had never heard of thorium. It is, he argued, a nuclear fuel that is more plentiful and safer than uranium without waste disposal problems. It's an exit from the global warming trap. After reading many articles, I gave up trying to decide whether he is correct. But his larger point is correct: Only an aggressive research and development program might find ways of breaking our dependence on fossil fuels or dealing with it.

If human techno-savy continues to increase at present rates (and I think it will only accelerate, barring some Biblical disaster), we will eventually solve the problem.  The the Justice Department can sue whatever company profits from the solution.

Supreme Court Balance

The situation on the Court, as viewed by Ruth Marcus, writing in the Washington Post:

President Bush or his Republican successor, if there is one, could soon have the chance to cement the impregnable court majority that has long eluded conservatives. By contrast, the election of a Democratic president in 2008 would probably merely halt the court's steady drift rightward. Unless the vacancy comes from an unexpected quarter, the best a Democratic president could hope for is maintaining the current conservative tilt -- and even that could be optimistic.

This is a simple function of age. The justices who are oldest and therefore most likely to leave are also the most liberal: John Paul Stevens, 86, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 73. (Stephen G. Breyer is 67, David H. Souter, 65.) If the Senate does not change hands (and maybe even if it does) a Democratic president's chances of getting a justice as liberal as Stevens confirmed are slim -- especially in an age when the filibuster is considered a legitimate weapon in the judicial wars.

By contrast, it's far less likely that the next president -- or even two -- will have a vacancy left by a conservative justice to fill. Of the four reliable conservatives -- leaving aside the 69-year-old Kennedy -- the oldest is Antonin Scalia, 70. The other three (the new chief justice and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) are in their fifties.

Ms. Marcus focuses soley on the question of power: who is likely to have the most votes in the years ahead.  She doesn't mention that the conservatives not only have youth on their side, but intellect.  Despite the campaign against Thomas's reputation that has continued unabated since his nomination, Thomas is far brighter than anyone on the Court's left with the possible exception of David Souter.  About the remaining three, there is no doubt: they are some of the most intelligent and learner men ever to sit on that bench. 

Morever Roberts, unlike Scalia, is neither lazy nor prone to arrogance.  I suspect that he will dominate the Court in years to come out of proportion to the number of conservative judges.

Argus Blog

SDWC notes the failure of yet another Argus Leader attempt at blogging:

Anyone remember that the Argus Leader was going to make another attempt at blogging? Yes, I had nearly forgotten it as well. Back long ago when they wanted to give it another go, here was their justification:

...the reality is you - our readers - aren't that way. And our readers are getting more technologically savvy by the hour.

So we're going to use technology - the Web - to deal with a couple of niggling issues we've had on the editorial page since there have been editorial pages:

• Immediacy. We want to do things more quickly.

• Interaction. We want communication to be a two-way street.We've got new features that will allow readers to get involved in the editorial page and also allow us to get information out more quickly - specifically during the legislative session in Pierre, when events move so quickly they often can overtake the printed page

Immediacy and interaction. Well, they had one of them right. Blogs do offer interaction. But for immediacy, well..... Let's just say that one must keep up on it.

Read the whole thing.

NYT

John Hinderacker:  Secret, Not Secret; Secret, Not Secret

America

Dinesh D'Souza:  What's So Great About America?

"Boycott" Fails

Rapid City Journal:

Tourism businesses in the Black Hills and Badlands region don’t seem to be feeling the pinch from a boycott threatened earlier this year by opponents of the state’s controversial abortion ban.

Bill Honerkamp, head of the Black Hills, Badlands & Lakes Association, said Monday that travel in the region is equal to or up slightly from last year. He said there isn’t any indication that a threatened boycott has materialized over the 2006 state Legislature’s approval of HB1215, which would ban abortions except when needed to save a pregnant woman’s life.

“We’ve asked motels and other people if this has cost us any business, and we have yet to turn up a single cancellation that’s due to that,” Honerkamp said.

When the state Legislature overwhelmingly approved HB1215 in February, the Women’s Medical Fund, an abortion-rights organization based in Madison, Wis., urged its supporters to avoid South Dakota during their summer travel.

Critics of HB1215, which was signed by Gov. Mike Rounds but has since been referred to a public vote in November, complained about the bill to officials in the governor’s office. They also contacted the South Dakota Tourism Department and regional travel associations. Honerkamp said his association received about 15 e-mails from people saying they would bypass South Dakota because of HB1215.

“When the thing was still fresh and in the headlines, there was some e-mail traffic on it,” Honerkamp said. “Most of it was pretty radical stuff, even bizarre — hate e-mails, almost — saying that they were coming to South Dakota, but now, we could forget that.”

Daschle's Political Comeback

MSNBC:

The U.S. Senate's No. 1 Democrat until his ouster by voters two years ago, Tom Daschle is weighing a campaign comeback he hopes might propel him into the White House in 2008.

The first Senate leader in half a century to be voted out of office, the South Dakotan hopes to turn the outspoken opposition to President Bush that was his downfall in his home state into a plus with voters nationwide.

"I'm ready for another challenge," Daschle, 58, said in an interview, adding: "I've enjoyed underdog status."

Coy as any other presidential hopeful, he has yet to declare his candidacy for his party's presidential nomination to replace Bush, a Republican whose term ends in January 2009.

But in an interview he told Reuters, "I've been to a number of states and so far the response has been very encouraging."

South Dakota, a Republican-leaning state, elected Daschle three times to the Senate and four times to the House in 26 years before handing him his first defeat in 2004.

"A bright red (Republican) state," he calls it.

Amiable and tough, Daschle said he would decide by year's end whether to run. Early polls show him with scant support.

Read it all.

South of the Border Ballot

In case it escaped your notice, Mexico just held a presidential election.  A lot may have been riding on the outcome.  If the National Action Party wins, it seems likely that Mexico will continue on the path of rational reform.  If the Democratic Revolutionary Party has won, it will be interpreted as a sign that the irrational left wing populism championed by Hugo Chavez in Venesuala has swept up another Latin American nation.  According to Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the Wall Street Journal, the news is good.

Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party hasn't any doubt that he won Sunday's presidential election, and he says that his adversary, Andres Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), knows it, too. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal at his campaign headquarters yesterday, Mr. Calderón appeared rested and confident. "I'm not going to get into personalities," he told me, "but all the parties have copies of the tally sheets showing the voting, and the PRD knows that it lost."

Mr. Calderón's numbers jibe with those of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) and it seems almost certain that he won. But as we go to press, an official announcement has not yet been made. A preliminary ruling is scheduled for today, with the official decision to come on Friday. And even then the country may be in for weeks of the Mexican equivalent of challenges to hanging chads.

The big victory in this race goes to the IFE in carrying out a spectacularly clean, transparent and well-organized election. If institutions matter to development, as Nobel laureate Douglass North contends, then Mexico is well on the way to progress. Mr. Calderón echoed the sentiments of millions of Mexicans when he told me yesterday that watching the electoral process made him "proud to be a Mexican." Mexico's next test will be how it stands up to Mr. López Obrador's threat to call street protests if the IFE decision goes against him.

Americans were briefly reminded by the electile dysfunction of 2000 how wonderful it is to have elections that are over within hours of the closing of the last polls.  As O'Grady notes, the real test will be whether the losing party accepts its loss, or takes to the streets. Manuel Roig-Franzia, writing in the Washington Post has this:

On Tuesday, López Obrador's campaign demanded a ballot-by-ballot recount. And Emilio Serrano, a federal legislator from the candidate's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, said in an interview that violence is possible if the vote-tampering allegations are proven.

"We are not afraid to die in the fight," Serrano said. "We in the public are tired of the lies and the abuses, which have been demonstrated over the length of our history."

Dakota Today on the Sears Tower Plot

Alas!  The Clean Cut Kid website seems to be down and out, temporarily I hope.  Because they regularly launch the intellectual equivalents of bottle rockets at us, we are regular readers.  I hope that the problem is soon solved.  A lot more goes on in the regional blogosphere than I have time to keep up with, but I took this opportunity to stroll around. 

Douglas Wiken runs a good blog on regional politics, Dakota Today, from a very anti-Republican perspective.  I should consult it more often.  I note these comments on the Sears Tower Plot.  Seven men calling themselves the "Seas of David" (good name, at least) were arrested for planning the next 9/11: an attack on the Sears Tower in Chicago.  They entered into a conspiracy with al Qaeda, or so they thought.  It turned out to be the FBI. 

Here is Wilken's take:

Perhaps there are all kinds of stupid things these guys have said that is on tape and makes a convincing case that these are world-class dangerous dudes with really, really dangerous skills and access to tons of explosive, airplanes, etc. etc. etc.

With the Bush administration's contempt for law and the constituition, it does not seem beyond the realm of possibility that these guys aren't guilty of terrorism or much of anything else, but guilty of THOUGHT CRIME, poverty, and incredible ignorance and stupidity.

Wilken is thoughtful enough to provide us with a Wikipedia link to "Thought Crimes."  Now  the lawyers for the seven numskulls will probably try to argue entrapment, but I am guessing it won't sell.  I don't know enough about the case or the specific law, but I know plenty about the constitutional issues involved.  If the seven were predisposed to commit a criminal act, if they jumped at a chance to begin planning for such an act, then they neither deserve nor will get any first amendment protection.  If the story is accurate, they really intended to blow up the Sears Tower as soon as they acquired the means.  Just for the record, trying to commit a terrorist act is illegal, even if the bomb never goes off.

Calling this a "thought crime," is rather thoughtless of Dakota Today.  I suspect that Wilken is right about the seven fellows: they were not the sharpest knives in the drawer and could never have pulled off a major terrorist incident.  But that doesn't mean they couldn't have eventually done something very nasty.  Catching people like this before they kill anyone at all is pretty good police work in my book. 

Wilken apparently doesn't think so.  He seems to think that its a sign of Bush administration designs on our liberties. 

So, don't even think about blowing up anything. Don't even think about George Bush going AWOL from TANG. Don't even think about Dick Cheney shooting a lawyer in the face. Well hell, don't even think. It gets more dangerous everyday. You have been warned. Ignorance of Thought Crime is no excuse. Do not think about the elephant in the US Justice Department. Do not think when you see the smirking president on TV, "This guy is a dangerously vomit inducing complete idiot."

This is more than thoughtless, its stupid.  This logic is dangerous to liberty.  If one adopts it, one is forced to make a choice: either give up all freedom of thought, or never act against any terrorist group until they have already blown someone out of his socks.  Do we really want to force that choice on the American people?  Wiken strikes me as an intelligent man whose thinking is rather warped by vehement dislike of Republicans.  I hope this is not representative of Democratic thought in general, but if it is, well, I hope it gets a lot of airtime. 

Happy Independence Day

I hope everybody had a great Fourth of July!  We had our traditional get-together with the family for some grilling and watching the fireworks show at Lake Mitchell in celebration of this country's 230th birthday.  Pretty good show this year.  It was good to see that Mount Rushmore was able to do their show as well (which I've never seen before but I've been told I need to).  Anyways, here's a small round-up of Independence Day links.  Of course, don't miss Dr. Blanchard's two posts here and here.  SD War College links to biographies of the signers of the Declaration.  Thomas Sowell asks "Is Patriotism Obsolete?"  Josiah Bunting wonders in the Wall Street Journal if America today measures up to our past.  USA Today looks at the ideals of 1776 and how they continue to guide America.  Pajamas Media has a big round-up.  Peter Brookes looks at what the world might be like if America didn't exist.  Recall this passage from Zell Miller's comments to the RNC in 2004:

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.

And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag.

You can see the White House's Independence Day web page here.  And finally, everybody remembers these.

Discovery

After two weather setbacks, Shuttle Discovery STS-121 has made a successful (and first-ever Independence Day) launch for its second mission since the Columbia disaster in 2003.

Historical Fallacy in the NYT

Glenn Reynolds:

HOW CAN WE TRUST THEIR JUDGMENT ON WHAT TO PUBLISH, when they can't even figure out what side we're on?  The NYT writes:

In 1985, The Times reported that a Marine colonel in the White House was overseeing the secret war against the Nicaraguan contras. The newspaper withheld the name of the colonel because the White House said printing it might endanger his life, recalled a former Times reporter, Joel Brinkley.

The Post named Oliver North the next day.

And twenty years later, they still haven't figured out that the war was against the Sandinistas, and that the contras were on our side.  Wake up and smell the coffee, guys!

Democracy

Times Online:

Pressure in Hong Kong for direct elections remains strong, newspapers said, after the annual democracy march drew a larger-than-expected turnout of at least 28,000. The fourth march marked the handover to China in 1997, under an agreement granting the territory Western-style freedoms. The marches began in 2003 after China tried to pass a national security law.

Lieberman

Joe Lieberman, who has taken a lot of heat from his fellow Democrats for supporting the Iraq war, has announced that he will run on his own if he's defeated in the primaries by challenger Ned Lamont.  Excerpt:

Lieberman, 64, a three-term senator whose outspoken support of the war in Iraq has brought months of grief and inspired a strong primary challenge from Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, announced his decision this afternoon at a brief press conference at the State Capitol.

"I've been a proud, loyal and progressive Democrat since John F. Kennedy inspired my generation of Americans into public service and I will stay a Democrat, whether I am the Democraitic party's nominee or a petitioning Democratic candidate on the November ballot," Lieberman said. He added that he would, even if re-elected as a petitioning candidate, remain a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Even should he lose in August -- and the most recent public poll shows him leading Lamont by 15 percentage points among likely primary voters -- Lieberman would retain his status as a registered Democrat. His name would not, however, appear on the ballot line with other Democrats.

Lieberman began making courtesy calls to leading Democrats late this morning. Among them were Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Connecticut's Democratic state chairwoman, Nancy DiNardo.

UPDATE:  The New Republic suggests this slogan for Lieberman: "Annoy the blogosphere, vote Joe."

UPDATE II:  The Hotline blog has more.

NYT and Finance Tracking

Here's the New York Times story on the House condemning the paper for revealing our secret terrorist tracking program, which Herseth thinks is okay.  Excerpt:

The House of Representatives on Thursday condemned the recent disclosure of a classified program to track financial transactions and called on the media to cooperate in keeping such efforts secret.

Lawmakers expressed their sentiment through a resolution that was approved on a largely party-line 227-to-183 vote after days of harsh criticism by the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans aimed at The New York Times and other newspapers for publishing details of the program, which the government said was limited to following possible terrorist financial trails.

The vote followed a bitter debate in which Republicans said news accounts had jeopardized the effort, and Democrats accused Republicans of trying to intimidate the press.

 IBD also weighs in on the Times' report with an article entitled "All The U.S. Secrets Fit To Print."

Christopher Hitchens on America

Christopher Hitchens, who, like the Founders, became an American from being an Englishman (without necessarily ceasing to be the latter), has a piece in the Wall Street Journal in opposition to an anti-flag-burning amendment.  I concur on the position, though I would not sign off on all of his arguments.  But this openning seems to me to be just right for Declaration Day.

The night before my interview for American citizenship, I suddenly decided that it was too long since I had read the Constitution. Taking it down from the shelf (I am not one of those who makes a fetish of carrying it around on my person), I found myself staying up much later than the vestigial civics exam would have required of me. To turn these pages is to revisit the record of American history. It's also a bit like viewing a cross-section of mammalian evolution, as a clumsy creature gradually acquires the needful adaptations.

The original three-fifths rule was never really designed for flight, but some wings and feathers (and talons) are then added by those amendments that abolish slavery. There are backslidings--the attempt to impose Prohibition--and there are the fossilized records of political vendetta, such as the limitation of presidencies to two terms. I have some personal favorite details, such as the provision that forbids office-holders from accepting any titles or decorations from foreign potentates. And I've never quite understood why increases in congressional pay should require an amendment of their own. But to speak generally, it can be said that the Constitution is written with admirable force and clarity, with remarkably few weasel-words and with a great respect for citizens who desire a document that is both intelligible, flexible and authoritative. With fascination and emotion, as if reading by candlelight, one watches the fledgling gradually become an eagle. The King James Bible to one side, the Constitution is probably the greatest document ever composed by a committee.

Twins Win 11th Straight Game

The Twins struggled back from a five-three deficit in the sixth to beat Kansas City 6-5.  The White Sox lost, but I wouldn't bet against the Tigers.  Right now Boston, Detroit, and Minnesota are playing the strongest ball.  At the end of the month our boys will play the Sox in Chicago and the Tigers at home.  That will be some baseball to watch.

Happy Fourth of July

To all our readers, friendly or otherwise.  At Powerline, Scott Johnson has an appropriate homage to Abraham Lincoln.  No man, I would argue, not even Thomas Jefferson, more deserves to be associated with the Declaration of Independence than Lincoln.  For he made the Declaration the foundation of his great purpose: to save the United States, first against an indifference to slavery, and second against secession.  The date on the Declaration is, of course, the reason that we celebrate July 4th as a national birthday.  In honor of Lincoln and July 4th, I reprint our founding document below.  Anyone who wishes to read a little more about it might consult my lecture page on the topic.  You may also find this document, with hotlinks to commentary, at EPublius!, a site produced by Professor Schaff and myself. 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of the Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and the Convulsions within.

HE has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.

HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us;

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies:

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

HE has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

iPod and the Leap into Freedom

If you are bored by technology, philosophy, and music, stop reading now and go do whatever else it is that you do.  Marx famously predicted that one day human kind would "leap into freedom."  I'm not sure quite what that means, but I think it is something like this: one day human production will so exceed demand that we will no longer be needy beings.  Virtually everything we really need (food, shelter, medicine, etc.) will be available as cheaply as air is now.  I think that Marx was onto something.  Of course it will have been achieved by the free market in spite of the dictatorship of the proletariat. 

There are two paths which have been proposed to achieve such a goal.  One (Marxism) was to radically collectivize human beings, in order that they might work together in perfect harmony and efficiency to overcome the material limits by means of which nature ruined so many good days between Monday and Friday.  Well, that didn't work.  The other (Lockean liberalism) was to free individual enterprise as much as possible, so that the most industrious and clever would compete against each other to multiply the original wealth that Nature and nature's God provides for us.  It was Locke's genius to realize how much of the value of something simple, like a loaf of bread, was due to industry rather than to natural materials.  Consider what is invested in the loat: plowing, planting, harvesting, and milling; plows, pans, and ovens; wagons and bakeries.  And of course someone has to bake the darn thing. 

As I sit here I am listening  to free jazz on my new  60 gig iPod.  Its the size of a five dollar calculator, and my entire collection of CDs, built up over twenty years, will occupy about a quarter of it.  Much of the rest will consist of music downloaded (legally!) for free.  I already have about ten hours each of Jazz, Celtic, and Rock.  Free reggae has been a little harder to find, but that seems to be coming.  Just to make sure that I don't squeeze out the storage capacity on our main home computer (we have three in the house now, and two more at work), I bought an external, portable hard drive.  Like the drive on our desk top, and my iPod, it has 60 gig capacity.  It's the size and weight of a fat wallet.  I remember a commercial a couple years back where a woman at a bar says that the juke box holds every version of every song ever recorded. Well, we are getting there. 

At least in this one area of technology, capacity is expanding much faster than need.  In a few years time I will be able to get and store more songs than I can listen to.   Of course, that presents its own problems.  But the software is getting better and better at helping us to organize the bounty.  Someone like me, who really loves a lot of different kinds of music, is richer now than anyone was a few decades ago. 

If you are the Rolling Stones, which is to say, an established player in entertainment, this is not so good.  Way too many copies of Jumpin Jack Flash are jumpin around illegally.  But in the Jazz and Rock worlds, at least, very small independent bands can now find an audience.  Small market radio stations now have listeners all over the globe.  Hobby radio stations broadcast all kinds of music 24 hours a day on Radio 365. 

Of course it will be a while before health care and houses follow the same trajectory.  But I am guessing that sooner or later they will.  Baring some ecological disaster, we just have to make sure not to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs.  Right now Apple is one of those magic geese.  With the possible exception of Walt Disney, I can think of no brand name that represents so much persistent genius.  I wonder how long it will be before the Justice Department goes after them with its axe. 

National Security

Power Line: The Test of National Security

Herseth Votes Against Finance Tracking

Sort of late news, but on Thursday night Stephanie Herseth voted against supporting terrorist finance tracking and sided with the New York Times' reporting of the secret program.   The resolution stated it was "Supporting intelligence and law enforcement programs to track terrorists and terrorist finances conducted consistent with Federal law and with appropriate Congressional consultation and specifically condemning the disclosure and publication of classified information that impairs the international fight against terrorism and needlessly exposes Americans to the threat of further terror attacks by revealing a crucial method by which terrorists are traced through their finances."  Can the left be trusted to fight this war?