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Wednesday, November 29, 2006


More on Delahunty

Jonathan Adler and David Bernstein offer their thoughts on the appointment controversy over at the VC.


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Monday, November 27, 2006


Despicable

Over at JSW, there's a good post on a pressing issue here at the University of Minnesota Law School. Apparently, some are moving to stop St. Thomas Professor Robert Delahunty from being hired at the U to teach Constitutional Law, and perhaps one other class. I find the whole thing preposterous, especially the over-inflated rhetoric flying around (like "war criminal", "crimes against humanity", "breach of legal ethics", etc.). I know the prof. in question, and he's a good man. But unfortunately, the U still seems to have John Yoo fever. Even my undergrad, one of the most liberal places on the planet, was more tolerant of diverse viewpoints than this. Hopefully, the petition will be ignored by the general populace, and those interested in disagreeing with the good professor, will show up to his class and respectfully do so.


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Wednesday, November 22, 2006


Thanksgiving

Here's something to give thanks about this thanksgiving. Justin Morneau is MVP!

MVP! MVP! MVP!

(Yes, I know this is related to neither law nor politics. Sue me.)


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Thursday, November 16, 2006


Freedom

Milton Friedman, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and Nobel Prize winner, has passed away at the age of 94.  At the University of Chicago he advised both Thomas Sowell and Gary Becker on their doctorates.  

In 2002, on the occasion of Prof. Friedman's 90th birthday, Ben Bernanke, then a member, now chairman, of the Federal Reserve, remarked:

"Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry."

A titan in his field, granted a long life and active until the end.  We should all be so fortunate.

R.I.P.  


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R.I.P.

Milton Freedman has died. In our current society (and especially in our political system), his voice was still needed. The dearth of basic economic knowledge, and the continuing need for a strong voice championing freedom, both show that he died too soon. Hopefully, there will spring up an Elisha with a double portion of his spirit.


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Canadian Churches

Apparently every major institution in Canada is crazy, including the Churches. The largest protestant denomination in Canada has voted to discourage the purchase of bottled water. Is there some spiritual reason for this? Of course there is! The church "boldly voted" to "affirm its conviction that "water is a sacred gift that connects all life," and the privatization of water must be avoided." Here's my favorite quote: "Its value to the common good must take priority over commercial interests," said the Council. "Privatization turns a common good into a commodity, depriving those who cannot pay and further threatening local ecosystems." Apparently economics isn't a big subject in private religious schools these days. This illustrates my problem with the modern church perfectly. Churches are spending their time on trendy but wrongheaded policy prescriptions, while ignoring those that it is called to help. Instead of trying to make sure that people in Canada and elsewhere to help the needy, the church makes a useless statement based on a nice sounding but economically foolish principle (that privatization is inherently a bad thing in these cases). I'm not going to attack the econ of the idea, because that would take some time. I'm just going to remark that maybe the church should find more important issues, and actually DO something. For once.


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Wednesday, November 15, 2006


At Least He Admits It

I'm not a huge fan of Larry King, and I am a relatively huge fan of the internets, but for some reason this does not bother me in the least.  In fact, I think it's pretty cool.  Way to keep it old school Larry, or as they called it when you were a kid: school.  

Moral of the story: If Russell Kirk were still alive he wouldn't use the internet, so its alright if Larry King doesn't either.  

Moral of the story 2: MORE ROOM IN THE TUBES FOR ME!


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Tuesday, November 14, 2006


Appreciating Gerald Ford

Gleaves Whitney, apparently the director of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University (which is in Michigan), has an homage to Gerald Ford, who has just become the oldest former President in U.S. history, on NRO today.  Read it.


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Saturday, November 11, 2006


Borat in trouble?

This is not surprising. Borat is perhaps going to be taken to court for his film by the villagers from the opening scene. Most of them had no idea what the film was going to be about, and are taking offense at the comedy about the less than savory nature of the "Kazakh" village. One thing I noted was that the villagers all referred to Sascha Baron Coen as the "tall American man", although he's British. Hey, sometimes our country is even blamed for things that Englishmen do.


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Friday, November 10, 2006


Shoot

I sure with I would have held off on picking a journal topic. Because this would be a dandy. I don't know anything about German long-arm statutes, and I really have no idea how this would work, but things aren't going great for ol' Rummy right now. My guess is that it's just Europe attempting to pile on after the perceived failure of the President's foreign policy. In that regard, they're following the example of Al Queda in Iraq. And that is the problem with Iraq right now. The farther we get from it, the more it looks like a bad idea to go in (hindsight being 20/20), but pulling out would be seen as a huge victory for our enemies, who might decide to get around to blowing up the White House.


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Wednesday, November 08, 2006


Great Summation

Instapundit has a great statement from Mike Pence about the election. I'll present it without comment, as it pretty much sums up many of my own opinions.

Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, 'enough is enough.

Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn't quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.

As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.



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My Thoughts Exactly

I'll be posting more on the election later, which ended up annoying me more than I thought it would. I'm just hoping that now Bush will discover new depths of fortitude (or more colloquially, grow a pair), and start vetoing the nonsense that will soon be crossing his desk. Gridlock is good, in my book. And, I'll be posting later on some of the election coverage I heard, including Mr. Ellison's victory speech, which made me very upset. But now, I'll just leave you with this article on the great libertarian website samizdata. The headline sums it up for me, "I wish they all could lose".


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Tuesday, November 07, 2006


Utter Nonsense

I could talk about the need to vote, but I don't believe it. Your vote doesn't count, and is waiting in line for an hour a reasonable price to pay for making a gesture? Or, I could talk about nitty-gritty politics, and try to convince all five of our readers to vote differently. Or, I could simply make fun of Keith Olbermann's latest. Keith, you're a pompous idiot. And everything you've said is utter bilgewater. Maybe later I'll actually take the time to dissect it. But probably not.


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Monday, November 06, 2006


Important Things

I'm bored with politics, and I'm tired of hearing about them. And it goes without saying that I'm extremely bored of the law by this point. So, I've been perusing blogs about econ lately as a change of pace. If you want an entertainingly cumudgeonly economist, I suggest the "angry economist". He has some interesting posts on the minimum wage, and something on the positive v. negative (or some would say, conservative v. liberal) rights argument. Or, if you're so inclined, you could check out the mises economics blog, if you're into austrian economics. They have an interesting post on the google-youtube merger, which they turn into a critique of copyright law. Good stuff.


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Thursday, November 02, 2006


The Talented Mr. Buckley

Bill Buckley has been gradually retiring since, well, since before I started reading National Review, bit by bit (editorship, ownership control, Firing Line, skiing, sailing, public harpsichord performances), which I wager is a nice way to do things, though the impression that I get is that the only real retirement he'll ever take is the "until judgment day" kind. He quit the lecture circuit years ago, but gave what was billed as his "final speech on public affairs" last night. Here's my hang up: if these Yale kids are so smart, why do they say things like (quotes from the YDN italicized) this:

Although most students said they liked the humor in Buckley's speech, others said he did not actually address the matter at the heart of the debate.

Yeah, the topic of the debate was "Resolved: The Democratic Candidates for November 7th Should Withdraw", why would you care if he focused on that? He's William F. Buckley, and you got to be there, take what you can get.

Eric Purington '09 said although Buckley was extremely eloquent and an impressive public speaker, he wanted to hear more about the actual topic in question.

"I expected a broader interpretation of everything he has stood for for the past 60 years," Purington said. "Also, his suggestions weren't really conceivable."

Eric, I know you're only a sophomore in college, but even you should be able to figure out that any "suggestions" offered probably weren't meant to be taken very seriously. Also, 60 years is a long time to condense down for your pleasure. He's probably written enough material that it would take a normal person 60 years to read it all.

Geoffrey Shaw '10 said he did not feel that Buckley's points adequately addressed the question at hand.

"It was funny that he said that the way to correct the Democrats' platform was to listen to him, but he never really elaborated on his own ideas on how to change it," he said.

Greg, I think you and Eric should hang out, maybe if the two of you put your heads together you'll be able to get the point. Buckley is good as an apologist (drop the negative connotation here), but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a better polemicist on the right. Is this because the content of his arguments is that much better than every other writer out there? Of course not. At a certain point, style matters; Buckley’s got it, the new class (Coulter, Hannity) wishes it did. Some of the younger old timers, in my opinion, come close, specifically Peggy Noonan and Pat Buchanan (when he’s not being crazy).


But others said they believed Buckley did justice to his reputation of being a good speaker in his last address.

Finally, a guy who paid attention:

"His tongue-in-cheek humor added to the effectiveness of his speech," Alexander Gregath '09 said. "He is the master of the underhanded insult, and he wouldn't be saying the things even in a humorous way if he didn't believe them."

Close enough my friend. Making fun of these kids, while not very nice, did remind me of one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, "A Tale of Two Springfields." And not just for the chloroform jokes. If you aren't familiar, the setup is that Springfield is split into two towns, Old Springfield and New Springfield. Old(e) Springfield, as Homer points out early on, is home to Mr. Burns, Dr. Hibbard, Kent Brockman and pretty much anyone with money. Homer (the mayor of New Springfield, incidentally) is watching TV. Enough set-up. This exchange gets me every time:

Kent Brockman: Scientists say they're also less attractive physically, and while we speak in a well-educated manner they tend to use low-brow expressions like "oh yeah?" and "come here a minute!"

Homer: Oh yeah? They think they're better than us, huh? Bart, come here a minute!

Bart: You come here a minute!

Homer: Oh yeah? *shaking fist*

Well, maybe it isn't as funny in plain text, since it depends on running the words "come here a minute" together into something like "comeeraminit" and on Don Castellaneta's voice work on the two key words "oh yeah" (which is completely unlike that of Duff Man, or the Kool-Aid Man for that matter). It's because of this that I often shake my fist and say "oh yeah?" for no apparent reason.

Today, however, I'm shaking the "oh yeah?" fist at these Yale kids who had the great fortune to attend a once-in-a-lifetime event and didn't appreciate it for what it was.

The notion of Bill Buckley talking election hypotheticals with college kids is funny enough; I remember after the 2004 Presidential election reading in one of Mr. Buckley’s columns in which he remarked terribly casually that it would probably be his last. There have been similar remarks in other speeches, and columns and such.

As I alluded to in the beginning of this post, Mr. Buckley seems to be narrowing the scope of his endeavors, winding up his affairs. Here's what I'm trying to say: When Russell Kirk passed away, (and now I'm copying directly from his obituary, written by WFB,how odd) on “his last day, he rose, breakfasted, sat down in his armchair, exchanged words with his wife and two of his daughters, closed his eyes, and died.” I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a freshly finished manuscript on his desk, along with a column or two.


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