"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
A telepathy charge is quickly gaining ground around here and Tacitus.org lately. Every time someone suggests the Bush Administration has some unexpressed motive as the only way to rationalize seemingly contradictory or otherwise inexplicable evidence, Bird Dog starts handing out his coveted Carnak Awards, and Slartibartfast virtually hurls the Tarot Cards from the card table. … Read more
The AP is reporting that President Aristide has left Haiti. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left Haiti on Sunday, bowing to pressure from a rebellion at home and governments abroad, his Cabinet minister and close adviser Leslie Voltaire told The Associated Press. At least three other sources confirmed the information, including diplomats and a … Read more
Link to a couple of Tacitus posts and all of a sudden every site referral comes from there. I will therefore take it as a sign for… hmm, a poem seems appropriate, although I canna say why.
Thus, I give you a commemorative poem from my past blogging activity:
Instalanchy
(With apologies to… come on, everybody knows the poem I butchered.)
…blogging has become a part of the mainstream. Why do I say that? Easy: because somebody’s written a book telling us how to get rich from this hobby. While the Commissar has demonstrated his ability to succinctly both review the book and give his own, honest-to-Historical-Imperative* way to enrich his readers, I’d just like to … Read more
Well, seeing as all the cool kids over at Tacitus.org are posting from the road* (Tac’s in the Middle East and Mac’s in Prague), I thought that I’d do the same. ‘Course, in my case it’s a bit less glamourous, as I’m posting from my girlfriend‘s grandmother’s house… just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. An added … Read more
Steve Mumford, an artist I know, has now made at least three trips to Iraq to document the war. He’s very good at mixing with our troops, and more and more he’s getting up close to some serious conflict. He’s also very good at getting Iraqi’s to share their experiences with him. The last time … Read more
Andrew Sullivan (who doesn’t have a comments function on his blog) has been posting letters from folks alarmed by the President’s announcement about the FMA. This one from a Republican Lawyer suggests there’s a much larger objective than stopping gay marriage behind it. Pertinent paragraphs: Under the Constitution of the United States there is no … Read more
… that it’s a bad thing to blog just to give your readers something to read. I dunno if that’s true or not, but it’s been a busy week for me (had to actually concentrate on work for a change; oh, the horror), so here’s an open thread. If you’re strapped for a comment, I … Read more
Sasha and Eugene Volokh have put up a couple of interesting posts about the limits of Congress’ ability to strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction in a particular area. Well worth checking out. BTW, ‘interesting’ in this context translates to ‘I understood what the heck they were talking about’. You’ve no doubt noticed that I … Read more
I’ve been meaning to blogroll QandO for a bit, now, so I’ll introduce him with this post about Representative Corrine Brown. I’ll be honest: I couldn’t believe at first that any Congressperson could be enough of a fool to say “You all look alike to me” in public, but apparently she did. Brown has since … Read more
My first, very partisan response to seeing this: Bush Tightens Rules on Travel to Cuba was “He’s such a whore!” What other voter block is he going to throw a meaningless bone to? Then, I stopped and thought, well, what if he’s right. What if “Fidel Castro government [really] has taken steps to destabilize relations … Read more
While I agree with John Cole that this article draws an incorrect conclusion from a tragic event – it’s about that poor woman who died of a heart attack while watching Gibson’s new film – I’m actually surprised that John might have expected anything like a different spin on events. I’d normally be unpacking a … Read more
Tbogg and Wonkette are, between the two of them*, collecting campaign slogans: tbogg’s covering the mean-to-Bush ones and Wonkette’s got the mean-to-Kerrys. Here’s your chance to realize your dreams… …well, maybe not, but some of the ones so far are funny. Moe *Yet independently.
A note to Kalle Lasn, editor of Adbusters Magazine.
I noted with some interest your recent editorial discussing American / Israeli relations and the reasons for same. I was remarkably impressed by how easily you were able to shrug off both Bush’s call for a Palestinian state and recent criticisms of Israel in your drive to indicate that the neocon movement was both running the the WoT and dominated by Jews, especially your dedication in determining and indicating those Jewish members of the ’50 most influential neocons in the US” (whether they would identify themselves as neocons or not). How – lucky – for you that half of them turned out to be Jewish! Why, it couldn’t have come out better if you had assembled the list deliberately!
Now, I am not myself a neoconservative, although I agree with a fair number of their policy positions. As for Judiasm… well, to echo Professor Tolkien when he was faced with a not completely dissimilar situation, “…I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.” Nevertheless, please note this symbol (regrettably made nortorious by certain other individuals dedicated to searching out hidden Jewish influence and power) –
– anyway. I find the thought of confusing people like you about just who is and who isn’t Jewish around here to be a strangely compelling one. Not to mention probably a mitzvah.
Moe
PS: Shorter Moe Lane: Kalle Lasn, Geh kak afen yam.
…as I’m sure that you’re all getting tired of bouncing back and forth between the two threads already devoted to it. Everybody play nice.
There’s no way around it. The FMA is either 1. anti-Liberty 2. anti-Sanctity or 3. anti-Equality To defend the FMA, you must own up to one of these stances. 1. Anti-Liberty In this context, anti-Liberty means anti-gay. One must believe that sexual orientation does not fall under the umbrella of the “liberty” we believe is … Read more
Something Andrew Sullivan wrote today made me want to recall that seemingly perfect morning in September, 2001. Consider this an open thread, regardless of whether you feel the same.
…Kerry won Idaho and Utah; Hawaii’s… shoot, are the polls still open for those guys? Could be. Anyway, no surprises and no insights, except that Kerry’s current glidepath doesn’t seem to have wobbled any. One week to go before the fireworks… And now, to sleep. It’s been a day.
1). I do not support a constitutional amendment defining marriage. 2). I do support the right of two consenting adults to enter into what arrangements suit them, explicitly including the ones traditionally associated with marriage (including the name). 3). I do not believe that everyone who disagrees with my stance on #2 is either a … Read more
Well, Bush did it:
“Today,” Bush said, “I call for the Congress to promptly pass and send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman, as husband and wife.”
Bush could have endorsed an Amendment that merely held that a gay marriage in one state need not be recognized as a marriage in another — an Amendment that lets the states decide. It would’ve had broad support.* (Indeed, even Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Congressman, has endorsed this approach.) Instead, Bush has endorsed an Amendment designed to prohibit the states from conducting their own affairs. Bush — the freely-spending champion of “limited” government — has decided that the federal government should now reach into the bedrooms, town halls, and churches of communities around the nation.
And so Bush feeds a narrow constituency, at the expense of the whole.
von
Interesting NYT article about some of the issues involved in fixing the appalling ecological damage done by the Hussein regime as part of his attacks on the Marsh Arabs. Apparently, the marshes will never fully recover, but there are things that can be done and people are finally getting a chance to do them; the … Read more
Secretary of Education Rod Paige, that is. I don’t care how much you may not like the National Education Association (I don’t, much): explicitly calling it a terrorist organization – even if it was supposed to be a joke – is not appropriate behavior. This looks like the best quote about it: Gov. Jennifer Granholm … Read more
I mean, really, Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You? Weird questions, especially the ones that don’t have anything to do at all with the law, I think. Still, Katherine and von are legal eagles; maybe this’ll make more sense to them.
(Via Pejman and Michelle Boardman, both of whom are equally confused)
Moe
… I’m still going to note that James Joyner of Outside The Beltway has been laid off. He’s looking for work, so if you happen to know of a think tank / defense / natsec job in the DC area give him a head’s-up. (pause) Yeah, those sorts of jobs do sound pretty interesting. Academic, … Read more
Or, Why Progressives are going to have to vote for Kerry
A Speaking Truth To… Well, Not Impotence
Tomorrow are three more primaries – Hawaii, Idaho and Utah… and, apparently, nobody really cares, including the candidates. Granted, Utah’s Democrats are running their campaign out of the public library system because the (Republican-controlled) legislature decided not to fund primaries this year, Idaho’s Democrats are just downright rare and Hawaii… sorry, if I was running for President I’d visit Hawaii at least once to ‘canvass’. Just like Dennis Kuchinich, who’s apparently the only one who bothered – I’m telling you, this entire primary is apparently just one long Spring Break for this guy. If I was single, I’d be deeply envious.
Anyway, there are three primaries tomorrow, and everyone’s assuming that Kerry will win them, but nobody really cares too much by how much. So be it: I’ll say Kerry by double digits in all three and no three-way splits, just to keep up with my usual obsessive look at the primaries. We’ll discuss the alternate title of this post under the fold. Warning: you may not like it, much. I’m in Giving Advice That I Know Probably Won’t Be Followed Mode again.
Part II: What the Experts Say This is the second in a series on Bush’s environmental record. Part I: Mission Statement is available here. Feedback to the first part of this series got a bit muddled, for which I’ll take responsibility, but to summarize the point: The EPA has a mission, a raison d’etre, and … Read more
…not that it was hard to find such a thing. Elections in Iran proceeded about as expected: in short, the regime threw out just about every reformist candidate that wouldn’t [elaborate obscenity deleted] like good little toadies and the voters responded mostly by reducing electoral turnout to its lowest point since 1979 (general consensus somewhere … Read more
Unlike many of my compatriots, I am not really amused at the fact that Nader has decided to run for President again. There’s something vaguely depressing about watching a 70 year old man spend valuable lifespan campaigning for a single-digit percentage of the popular vote, not to mention the fact that he’s probably going to … Read more
So the only thing I can focus on this morning is my blaring inability to focus due to a wee bit too much consumption last night. Having misspent at least 5 lifetimes of youths, I’m seasoned in the art of overcoming a hangover, but you’re never too old to learn something new, so I’m wondering … Read more
Part I: Mission Statement This is the first in a planned series on Bush’s environmental record Environmental protection is a progressive obligation. By that, I mean specifically that rolling back regulations should not be the focus of the EPA. (It’s similar to the logic that explaining to employers how to work around overtime regulations should … Read more
So Chief Justice Roy Moore might not approve, and Paula, Randy and Simon already cast their “No” votes, but the rest of the country seems to be sidestepping these authorities and creating their own Idol out of UC Berkeley student William Hung. If you were (un)fortunate enough to miss Hung’s audition on the Fox show … Read more
…I’m just not going to be around much this weekend: I’ve going to a SCA event that’s being run by my NJ friends, and to be blunt I intend to be too busy drinking lots and lots of extremely good homebrewed beer to get anywhere near a computer. Fortunately, my cobloggers will be more than adequate to fill all your blogging needs.
Don’t burn down the place and I’ll see all y’all Sunday.
Moe
It’s coming back. Praise all the gods of roleplaying gamers everywhere, it’s coming back, lasers blazing, updated for the modern era, it’s got Greg Costikyan, Aaron Allston and Ken Rolston involved and…
THERE REALLY WAS NO FIFTH EDITION.
Some of you know what I’m talking about: for the rest…
Found this nice idea on Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s blog. Send flowers to a random couple waiting in that San Francisco line.
Here’s an interesting man-bites-dog story:
A New Jersey woman, one of the hundreds of people accused of copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America, has countersued the big record labels, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal antiracketeering act.
Via Glenn Reynolds, who thinks “she might just have a case.” (Slashdot has a similar take.)
I don’t. Or, I should say (having not seen the Complaint): “I think it highly unlikely.”
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO*) was originally passed to combat organized crime. Clever lawyers, however, have tried to apply its broad language to pretty much everything under the sun — from simple fraud cases to abortion protestors.
At the heart of every RICO claim are two elements: A “pattern” of “predicate offense” (fraud, extortion, bribery, etc.) and an “enterprise” through which those offenses are committed.** Both elements need to be met to state a claim. Moreover, under the law, both elements have to be alleged with specificity: a general or blanket allegation that X is an enterprise, for example, won’t do.***
Without going into it too far, I doubt that either element can be sufficiently alleged. The alleged “predicate offenses” by the RIAA appear to be alleged “extortions.” Apparently, the theory is that each copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the RIAA is an unlawful attempt to extort money from the target. But the filing of a copyright infringement lawsuit is generally a protected activity, and you have to show bad faith to overcome that presumption and even begin to make an extortion claim. Bad faith ain’t merely a “maliciousness” (though that’s probably needed); some knowledge by the RIAA that the lawsuit itself was frivolous at the time that it was filed is likely needed. I can’t see a plaintiff making that showing. The RIAA’s lawsuits may be heavy-handed, but they ain’t frivolous — there are real copyright violations going on.
The other problem is with the RICO enterprise. An enterprise can’t be a bunch of people who get together to commit a bunch of predicate acts; in some circumstances (a RICO claim under Section 1962(c), if you must know), it also can’t be one of the named defendants. Remember — the original purpose of RICO was to target the mafia. Think of the “enterprise” as, say, the 70s Teamsters: a legitimate organization that’s been infiltrated by ne’erdowells. With this in mind, I just don’t see an “enterprise” that survives Court scruntiny.
Of course, I could be wrong ‘bout all this — as I said, I haven’t seen the complaint. But the smart money’s on the RIAA.****