Freestar Media wants to build on Justice Souter’s land
and have their own reality show.
Archives for June 2005
Hitchens in Iran
Hitchens ponders Iran’s Persian soul in the context of the Islamic republic in his article, Mind over Mullahs
The Islamic republic actually counts all of its subjects as infants, and all of its bosses as their parents. It is based, in theory and in practice, on a Muslim concept known as velayat-e faqih, or “guardianship of the jurist.” In its original phrasing, this can mean that the clergy assumes responsibility for orphans, for the insane, and for (aha!) abandoned or untenanted property. Here is the reason Ayatollah Khomeini became world-famous: in a treatise written while he was in exile in Najaf, in Iraq, in 1970, he argued that the velayat could and should be extended to the whole of society. A supreme religious authority should act as proxy father for everyone. His own charisma and bravery later convinced many people that Khomeini was entitled to claim the role of supreme leader (faqih) for himself.
But the theory has an obvious and lethal flaw, built into itself like a trapdoor.
A must-read.
Hugo promises plastic houses for the poor, anounces retirement
Chavez Promises Plastic Houses for Poor
Stepping through a model home with plastic walls built on the factory grounds, he touted it as an economical solution. He said such homes cost about 35 percent less than those built with cinderblocks.
I wonder how well they hold up in hurracaine-force winds?
And here’s to his retirement,
“Save me one for around 2021,” said Chavez, who has said he will retire around that year once his social “revolution” for the poor has made its mark.
Thank G-d for term limits in our country.
In further Hugo news, he’s praising the Iranian vote. Too bad Jimmy Carter didn’t visit Tehran.
Dr. Sowell weighs in on the SCOTUS
With Property rites,
What the latest Supreme Court decision does with verbal sleight-of-hand is change the Constitution’s requirement of “public use” to a more expansive power to confiscate private property for whatever is called “public purpose” — including turning that property over to some other private party.
asking,
What are legislatures for except to legislate? What is the separation of powers for except to keep legislative, executive and judicial powers separate?
When the 5 to 4 Supreme Court majority “rejected any literal requirement that condemned property be put into use for the general public” because of the “evolving needs of society,” it violated the Constitutional separation of powers on which the American system of government is based.
When the Supreme Court majority referred to its “deference to legislative judgments” about the taking of property, it was as disingenuous as it was inconsistent. If Constitutional rights of individuals are to be waved aside because of “deference” to another branch of government, then the citizens may as well not have Constitutional rights.
What are these rights supposed to protect the citizens from, if not the government?
Judges who take an oath to uphold the Constitution do not take an oath to uphold liberal precedents. If liberal members of the Senate Judiciary Committee try to impose such a commitment on judicial nominees, we can only hope that others will have the sense and the guts to expose and oppose such tactics.
No policy litmus test — “mainstream” or otherwise — should be applied to any judicial nominee by either party, not if you want judges committed to the law, rather than to particular policy outcomes.
Sluggo ponders some Shore property. . .
Two attitudes
The well-publicized attitude, The Iraq Panic: Zarqawi’s bombs hit their target in Washington
The not-so-well-publicized attitude: via Chrenkoff, Ulf Hjertstrom Ex-hostage hires bounty hunters
A HOSTAGE held alongside Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq has hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one.
. . .
“I invested about $50,000 so far and we will get them one by one.”
How about the MSM, in between making soundbites for Al-Jazeera and supporting Zarqawi, try talking about Mr. Hjertstrom?
What “Latino Power”?
Via Real Clear Politics, Robert Suro of the Pew Hispanic Center realizes that
it should come as no surprise that when it comes to matters of policy — on immigration, trade or bilingual education — Latino voters have a different point of departure than non-voting Latinos.
and that
Hispanic political power is growing, just not as fast as one might expect from the population numbers. Moreover, as Latinos become a more prominent political presence, what we hear from them may not be what people expect.
I don’t know what “people” expect (or, for that matter, who are the “people” Mr. Suro speaks about), but I know that, as a Hispanic woman, I don’t vote for anyone just because
a. they are Hispanic
b. they support “the perceived economic interests of the largely working-class Latino voters”, whoever those might be.
Additionally, I believe that
1. In-state tuition status for illegal aliens is wrong.
2. Immigrants have the duty to assimilate. The duty, as in moral obligation.
3. Bilingualism should go hand-in-hand with learning American values. Bilingualism as of itself is not acculturation.
4. The liberal mindset of the vicitimized minority is an empty premise.
Candidates trying to second-guess what an ethnic group will want will only become panderers, and I don’t vote for panderers, thank you.
I vote for candidates who I believe best represent my goals as an individual, and, on the national sphere, will best defend the Constitution and our country.
Simple as that.
Castro was to sponsor them, so the Venzuelan cadets quit
Details at Babalu
Venezuela’s anti-castro rebellion spreads
castro didn’t show up in Caracas today, even though Hugo Chavez may have had the Popemobile all ready for him, along with military honors and perhaps the command of the army itself. He was supposed to come to sponsor the graduating military class on the anniversary of the great battle of Carabobo, which secured Venezuela’s independence. castro didn’t show at all. He must know how popular he is these days.Venezuela’s military cadets have resigned their commissions rather than hand over their nation’s sovereignty to the foul barbudo.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s doctors have protested bitterly against castro’s political incompetents, chosen for their castro loyalty in Havana rather than medical skills, but coming to professional hospitals in Caracas to rule the previously free, educated, Venezuelans.
Now, a group of veterans and unemployed people have gotten bolder: they marched into – into! – the Havana embassy in Caracas and protested the takeover of their once-vibrant country by castro’s thugs. They didn’t have a permit, they just did it anyway.
Meanwhile, if you’re a Cuban doctor in Cuba, you make $20 bucks a month. If you’re a Cuban doctor in Venezuela, you make $100 to $200 a month, which means,
This $200 a month per smock in turn was undercutting Venezuela’s real doctors, same as industrial dumping, and putting those Venezuelan professionals out of business.
I know of at least two Venezuelan doctors (graduates of US medical schools) that have moved to the USA recently.
So please, don’t talk to me about Fidel’s (and Hugo’s) “free” health system.
I wasn’t going to read South Park Conservatives,
but Liesl Schillinger talked me into it,
Obviously, Anderson knows his audience: this book isn’t intended for readers of The Times and The Economist and watchers of CNN. It’s for the people who are sick and tired of mainstream media and are fans of the blogs and right-wing commentators he cites so abundantly.
Hmm.
Reader of the Times (both NY and London)? Check.
Subscriber to The Economist? Check.
Watcher of CNN? Check.
Sick and tired of mainstream media? Check.
Fan of the blogs? Check.
Liesl also states,
Perhaps the argument clinic of the Monty Python Tories can light the way.
Monty Python fan? Check.
I so love it when some New Yorker art editor writing at the NYT Book Review uses neat little boxes to categorize people! It’s like being back in high school, only without the homework. The only little box Liesl didn’t include is that of minority, which, as a Puerto Rican, I’d qualify.
Next stop, Amazon
Speaking of the NYT book review, Kathy has said it all on another book . . .
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