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March 29, 2009

What da boss wants, da boss gets

Is this feeling a little like Chicago writ large? A little banana republic-ish?

Drudge leads with this report from Politico about Da Boss making a corporate titan an offer he couldn't refuse.

The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.

On Monday, President Obama is to unveil his plans for the auto industry, including a response to a request for additional funds by GM and Chrysler. The plan is based on recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, headed by the Treasury Department.

The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government's behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

The surprise announcement about the classically iconic American corporation is perhaps the most vivid sign yet of the tectonic change in the relationship between business and government in this era of subsidies and bailouts.

Wagoner has been CEO for 8 years and at GM for more than 30. The company has not said who will replace him. GM has received $13.4 billion in government aid, and has been seeking $16.6 billion more.

Industry sources had said the White House planned very tough medicine in Monday's announcement, which turned out to be an understatement. And it went to the very top. The measures to be imposed by the government will have a dramatic effect on workers, unions, suppliers, bondholders, shareholders, retirees and the communities where plants are located, the sources said.

GM and Chrysler have to prove their viability as a condition of a federal bailout released under former President George W. Bush, and both have asked the current administration for more money. Ford has not sought federal funds because it had secured a line of credit just before money dried up.

Obama said Friday in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” broadcast Sunday, that the carmakers were going to have to do more.

“There's been some serious efforts to deal with a combination of long-standing problems in the auto industry,” the president told host Bob Schieffer. “What we're trying to let them know is that we want to have a successful auto industry, U.S. auto industry. We think we can have a successful U.S. auto industry. But it's got to be one that's realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge at the other end much more lean, mean and competitive than it currently is.

“And that's gonna mean a set of sacrifices from all parties involved — management, labor, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, dealers. Everybody's gonna have to come to the table and say it's important for us to take serious restructuring steps now in order to preserve a brighter future down the road."

Schieffer followed up: “But they're not there yet.”

Obama added: “They're not there yet.”

GM's Wagoner may very well deserve the sack, given the automaker's dismal performance during his tenure, but that's for the shareholders to decide -- not Pres. Obama.

Historians have documented political systems wherein the Supreme Leader dictated how companies are run, and by whom. It didn't work out that well for the Germans. It won't work any better for us.

I won't draw a direct comparison between the Soviet Union and the U.S. -- not yet, anyway -- so long as private ownership still exists. But the National Socialist German Workers' Party combined private ownership of business, with economic policy -- what should be manufactured and by whom-- dictated by the national government.

Are we seeing the creation of the American Reich? I don't think so, but perhaps we're witnessing the destruction of the American free-market system.

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Orson Welles: Best interview

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:16 AM

March 28, 2009

Harpo speaks

Harpo Marx, attending a movie premiere in 1936, is caught on a live mic whispering to his friend, "You gotta do the talkin' on air," in a surprisingly deep New York accent, before leaning in and adding in the finest Harpo fashion, "Honk! Honk!"

I believe it's the only time he was captured on camera speaking, although some film buffs claim he can be seen -- and heard -- singing with his brothers in a couple of their films.

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March 27, 2009

Massachusetts gun storage law fires blanks

UCLA ConLaw Prof. Eugene Volokh notes that a Massachusetts judge has ruled a gun storage law unconstitutional in light of Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court case that invalidated the Washington, D.C., gun ban.

After a police officer's 12-year-old son got access to the officer's handgun, the officer was prosecuted for violating Mass. Gen. Laws. ch. 140, § 131L:

It shall be unlawful to store or keep any firearm, rifle or shotgun ... in any place unless such weapon is secured in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock or other safety device, properly engaged so as to render such weapon inoperable by any person other than the owner or other lawfully authorized user. For purposes of this section, such weapon shall not be deemed stored or kept if carried by or under the control of the owner or other lawfully authorized user.

Last month, the court held the statute was unconstitutional (Commonwealth v. Bolduc), and dismissed the prosecution. I only just now managed to get a copy of the opinion, and here's the relevant discussion:

The locking mechanisms [required by the statute] are the functional equivalent of those enumerated in the D.C. statute struck down in Heller.

In Heller, the Court held that the Second Amendment not only protects an individual's right to possess firearms but that the right requires that the firearms be available for "the purpose of immediate self-defense." The Massachusetts statute mandating lock boxes or similar devices would frustrate an owner's ability to immediately access an operable weapon.

Although the statute exempts firearms that are "carried" or "under the control of the owner" from the requirement that they be locked, the statute applies to the lawful owner of a firearm even when he is at home. People can be subject to prosecution whether they are home or not. The term "under the control of the owner" is a question of fact and subject to interpretation. Any ambiguity in the statute as applied to a person lawfully keeping a firearm in the home must be resolved in favor of the holder of the right. Legislation requiring an owner to store firearms in a place inaccessible to children or unauthorized persons would satisfy the Supreme Court's holding in Heller and protect the safety of others.

In light of the foregoing, the Court finds that, based on the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, G.L.c. 140, sec. 131L is unconstitutional.

According to a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly article, Massachusetts courts seem split on this. It also reports that the prosecutor "agreed with [Judge] Lynch's analysis and decided not to appeal. 'I've read the Heller case,' he says. 'Judge Lynch read the Heller case, and the Heller case seems to say very clearly that these kinds of blanket restrictions are unconstitutional.'"

Interestingly, the court seemed to assume that the Second Amendment applies to state laws -- what lawyers call the "incorporation" issue -- which is something Heller pointedly declined to resolve.

California has an analogous law on the books; I wonder how long before it too is successfully challenged at the trial court level.

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California: No black cars for you!

If you think there's a limit to how intrusive government can be, rest assured there's no area of your life into which your alien bureaucratic overlords aren't willing to get their busybody tentacles into.

TTAC reports on California's latest coming regulation, intended, of course, to save the children and cute animals.

Autobloggreen recently got its paws on a presentation (PDF, read the whole thing) from the California Air Resource Board’s public “cool cars workshop.” And let’s just say the thing exudes the kind of bureaucratic overreach heretofore only imagined by folks sporting the latest in tinfoil chapeau.

Here’s the logic: cars that get hot when they sit require greater air conditioning, which increases fuel consumption and (tada!) air pollution. And since architectural surface coatings are 25-35 percent reflective, there’s no reason not to require similar levels from auto paint, right? Skyscrapers, cars; potato, potahto. CARB will require vehicle surfaces to reflect at least 20 percent of solar energy by 2012, a figure that no black auto paint can currently achieve. One third of OEM palettes must meet the 20 percent mark by then, and all OEM paints must meet the goal by 2016.

Oh, yes, and by 2016 even collision repair shops have to use the special paint. The only mitigation for these rules are if you sufficiently increase the Rd factor of your cars windshield glazing. And just to keep a song in your heart, “other compliance options are under investigation.”

Personally, I have an abiding dislike for black cars; they seem to look dirty just about the time your done toweling one dry after washing it, and they are bloody hot in the summertime.

On the other hand, they look great when clean. Which ought to be reason enough.

Soon, we'll all be driving white People's Cars, as we head to work at our state-owned collectives, dressed in our all-organic, hemp fiber Mao suits.

Happy days.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 25, 2009

Wednesday Bogie

Bogie fixed me with a penetrating gaze this morning; we stared at each other, me trying to understand the meaning of his intense stare. What lay behind those clear, brown eyes? Then, suddenly, he relaxed, his eyes softened, half closed, and he seemed to retreat within himself, the contact broken. (Click on images for full-size versions)

Meanwhile, at the other end of the hound, his feet -- paws? -- seemed braced for sudden action. Seconds later I heard the FEDEX truck pull up, and Bogie was charging the door, fur standing on end, deep, bellowing barks keeping the driver far away from the porch.

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March 24, 2009

You think you've got bad luck? Meet Mr. Yamaguchi

Tsutomu Yamaguchi, 93, is the unluckiest man in the world. He's also the luckiest man in the world, too.

According to Donald Sensing, this fellow may be the unluckiest man in the world. In fact, Sensing says he may be the unluckiest guy in the history of the world.

TOKYO — A 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, officials said Tuesday.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified "hibakusha," or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well, city officials said.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.

The U.K.'s Guardian has more details on Yamaguchi's incredible luck.

According to a newspaper interview Yamaguchi gave on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Pacific war, he had spent the conflict designing oil tankers for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a wartime zaibatsu, or conglomerate, whose shipyards dominated the Nagasaki skyline.

After a three-month stint at the firm's yards in Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and two colleagues, Akira Iwanaga and Kuniyoshi Sato, prepared to return to Nagasaki on 7 August, 1945. The day before, they woke early, collected their belongings and prepared for the train journey west.

On the way to the station they became separated after Yamaguchi realised he had left his personal seal in the office.

He remembers hearing the Enola Gay circling above, but thought nothing of it: Hiroshima was an important wartime industrial base, and the sound of circling planes had become a fact of life.

Within seconds he had been knocked to his feet by the force of the blast as "Little Boy" detonated 580 metres above central Hiroshima just after 8.15 am, announcing its arrival with a blinding flash followed by a deafening boom. As he stumbled to the train station the next day, Yamaguchi witnessed the destruction and carnage left by the bomber's 13-kiloton payload.

The following day, his burns swathed in bandages, Yamaguchi reported for work in Nagasaki, like Hiroshima an important industrial and military base.

At 11.02 on 9 August, as his boss reportedly questioned his sanity for believing that a single bomb could destroy a city the size of Hiroshima, a 25-kiloton plutonium bomb exploded above Nagasaki, throwing Yamaguchi to the ground.

He, his wife and baby son survived and spent the following week in a shelter near what was left of their home.

I mentioned his luck; while it's perhaps impossible to conceive of someone being more roughly treated by fate, it's also hard to label surviving not one but two atomic bombs as anything other than being lucky on a cosmic scale.

I agree with Sensing: Yamaguchi belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records, for having the worst luck in the world. But he deserves luckiest man, too, for having survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Michael Ramirez: A Very Special President

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More Mencken

Although he's been dead more than 50 years, H.L. Mencken's dyspeptic view of politics and politicians remains timeless.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

"The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle—a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game…. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of chiropractic, astrology or cannibalism. "

As true today as it ever was. I'd like to think that Mencken, were he still writing, would gladly adopt "feckless crapweasels" when referring to the current crop of crooks in Congress.

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Why Is This Man Smiling?

Because he can't believe he's actually going to get away with it.

Got remorse?

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

How Did We Survive?

Doug Ross asks, "How did we survive?" For anyone who grew up in the days before state-mandated safety regulations governed every damn aspect of childhood, it strikes a bittersweet note, and serves as a reminder that, notwithstanding the hysteria of the "If It Just Saves One Child" Ninny Brigade, things really were better when we were free to be -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- kids.

(Hat Tip: Gerard Van Der Leun.)

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The "Anti-Constitutional" Obama regime

George Will unleashes a rip-snorting, barn-burning jeremiad against the Obama administration and its Congressional enablers for the current "anti-constitutional" government.

Along the way, Will offers examples of how we've gone off the rails, with advice on free-market capitalism from those stalwart Swedes; fiscal responsibility from the totalitarian People's Republic of China; and tips on the importance of the secret ballot and corruption-free rule and good governance from Mexico.

Mexico?

Yeah, Mexico.

¡Aye Carumba!

With the braying of 328 yahoos -- members of the House of Representatives who voted for retroactive and punitive use of the tax code to confiscate the legal earnings of a small, unpopular group -- still reverberating, the Obama administration yesterday invited private-sector investors to become business partners with the capricious and increasingly anti-constitutional government.

[...]

TARP funds have ... semi-purchased, among many other things, two automobile companies (and, last week, some of their parts suppliers), which must amaze Sweden. That unlikely tutor of America regarding capitalist common sense has said, through a Cabinet minister, that the ailing Saab automobile company is on its own: "The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories."

Another embarrassing auditor of American misgovernment is China, whose premier has rightly noted the unsustainable trajectory of America's high-consumption, low-savings economy. He has also decorously but clearly expressed sensible fears that his country's $1 trillion-plus of dollar-denominated assets might be devalued by America choosing, as banana republics have done, to use inflation for partial repudiation of improvidently incurred debts.

From Mexico, America is receiving needed instruction about fundamental rights and the rule of law. A leading Democrat trying to abolish the right of workers to secret ballots in unionization elections is California's Rep. George Miller who, with 15 other Democrats, in 2001 admonished Mexico: "The secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose." Last year, Mexico's highest court unanimously affirmed for Mexicans the right that Democrats want to strip from Americans.

[...]

[T]he Constitution ... is a cobweb constraint on a Congress that, ignoring the document's unambiguous stipulations that the House shall be composed of members chosen "by the people of the several states," is voting to pretend that the District of Columbia is a state. Hence it supposedly can have a Democratic member of the House and, down the descending road, two Democratic senators.

Congress rationalizes this anti-constitutional willfulness by citing the Constitution's language that each house shall be the judge of the "qualifications" of its members and that Congress can "exercise exclusive legislation" over the District. What, then, prevents Congress from giving House and Senate seats to Yellowstone National Park, over which Congress exercises exclusive legislation? Only Congress's capacity for embarrassment. So, not much.

[...]

Jefferson warned that "great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities." But Democrats, who trace their party's pedigree to Jefferson, are contemplating using "reconciliation" -- a legislative maneuver abused by both parties to severely truncate debate and limit the minority's right to resist -- to impose vast and controversial changes on the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.

When the Congressional Budget Office announced that the president's budget underestimates by $2.3 trillion the likely deficits over the next decade, his budget director, Peter Orszag, said: All long-range budget forecasts are notoriously unreliable -- so rely on ours.

This is but a partial list of recent lawlessness, situational constitutionalism and institutional derangement. Such political malfeasance is pertinent to the financial meltdown as the administration, desperately seeking confidence, tries to stabilize the economy by vastly enlarging government's role in it.

It was famed Baltimore journalist and all 'round curmudgeon H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) who famously observed about the democratic process:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

And boy, oh boy, is Pres. Obama and his enablers in Congress giving it to us good and hard, in the least surprising screw job in the history of the Republic.

Can you feel the Hope 'N Change?

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 23, 2009

Dispatches from the Nuthouse

The San Francisco Chronicle covered a protest this past weekend, with the usual Bay Area lunatics out in force, rallying against, well, pretty much everything I support, and for everything I'm against.

Umbrellas mixed with protest signs Saturday ... where demonstrators marked the sixth anniversary of the war in Iraq with speeches, chanting and a march up Market Street that stretched about three blocks.

In typical San Francisco fashion, the demonstration, which began at Justin Herman Plaza, attracted support for a broad medley of causes.

Protesters carried signs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, 9/11 conspiracies, jail time for Wall Street bankers, single-payer health care and Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban. There were grandmothers for peace, brass bands for peace and dozens of dogs for peace.

[...]

A black-and-white dog named Olive attempted to carry a sign reading "Stop U.S. Aid to Israel" in her teeth - and when she wasn't carrying the sign, she was chewing on it. "She's definitely anti-war," said her owner, Christina Susana.

Yeah, Olive the dog is definitely anti-war. And her owner is definitely anti-sanity.

Anyhow, buried in the article is this passage:

Judy Greenspan, a third-grade teacher in Richmond who recently received a pink slip, led the crowd at Justin Herman Plaza in a chant, "Jail the rich, bail out the poor, stop the foreclosures, stop the war."

"It's all connected!" she yelled. "It is time for us to take power in this country!"

Assuming that Judy Greenspan isn't licensed to teach in any other states, she'll be looking for work somewhere in California -- maybe in your neighborhood.

She's perfect for San Francisco; it'd be a shame if she escaped the Bay Area and spread the contagion.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

California goes after another industry

The do-gooders and professional busybodies in Sacramento are at it again. Next on their agendas? Plasma TVs. California wants to ban 'em.

Lost jobs? Lost revenue? Lost consumer choice? Letting the free market decide?

Please. It's for the children. To! Stop! Global! Warming!

Of course, there are LCD manufacturers funneling money to politicians and advocacy groups, all of whom mysteriously seem to want to eliminate the plasma competition.

Weird, huh?

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The Mother of All Train Sets

You'll have to go to Germany to see it in all it's glory -- all 16,000 square feet of incredibly detailed HO-scale rail goodness, with more than 10,000 cars running on almost 7 miles of track. In the meantime, watch the video (and make sure to hit the HD button).

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:13 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 22, 2009

Congress: Enemy of Competence

Powerline’s John Hinderaker thinks the outrage over the AIG bonuses is misplaced – it’s the bailout itself that ought to have us looking for the tar and feathers.

There is no legal principle that would justify not paying these bonuses. If you make an offer to someone along the lines of, if you do X I will pay you Y dollars, and he does X, it's too late to change your mind. You're on the hook for Y dollars, and you should be.

The legislation introduced by the Democrats today to tax these bonuses (and possibly a few others, although it isn't clear that any others have been or will be paid that are covered by the statute) at a 90 percent rate is an outrage. It is, in my legal opinion, obviously unconstitutional. It is evidently intended to calm the current political firestorm and not to achieve any real objective.

The Republicans' alternative, which basically just demands that AIG give the money back, somehow, is better but still silly. No doubt one could deduct $165 million from past and future bailout payments to AIG and thereby make the taxpayers "whole." But that just illustrates the foolishness of concentrating on these bonuses rather than the larger picture.

The Obama administration has done a great many things about which taxpayers should be livid--one bailout after another, mammoth tax increases, the bogus "stimulus" bill, the $410 billion leftover appropriations bill, the multi-trillion dollar budget with a $1.7 trillion deficit. Paying employees of AIG money which they have earned and are owed is at the very bottom of the list of actions for which we should be enraged at the Obama administration.

[…]

AIG, like GM, should have been allowed to go into bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, it could have wound down its financial products division just as it is doing now. Bankruptcy would not have affected the company's international insurance businesses, distinct corporate entities which are both solvent and profitable. Those businesses could have been sold, which is what AIG now plans to do.

Why did the federal government prefer to bail AIG out rather than let the bankruptcy court unwind its business? Because of "systemic" risk; that is, the feds wanted AIG in business and funded with $80 billion in taxpayer money so that it could make good on its commitments to third parties, especially third parties to whom it had guaranteed the value of residential mortgage-backed securities. But if AIG had gone into bankruptcy, and there were third parties in danger of failing because AIG couldn't pay what it owed, and it really was in the taxpayers' interest to save those third parties, then the government could have paid the bailout money not to AIG, but selectively to the third parties it deemed important to the economy.

Why wasn't that approach followed? Because of politics. Much of the money that AIG owed was due to European banks. For the American government to bail out European banks would have been a tough sell, to put it mildly. Other third parties were entities like Goldman Sachs, which said it didn't need to be bailed out but received, I believe, $13 billion in taxpayer dollars that was funneled through AIG.

What is happening in Washington is a scandal and an outrage. Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi should not be allowed to divert attention from the disastrous policies they are pursuing by focusing on the sideshow of AIG bonuses.

I don’t disagree with a word of that. Bankruptcy was always the right way to deal with failing corporations. It allows them to renegotiate everything, in order to try and save the business, something that’s in the best interest of all parties involved, including employees and their unions, who are better off with jobs, even if they have to give back some of their previously-negotiated benefits.

These bonuses – which were protected at the last minute by an amendment added to the Porkulus Bill by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), at the request of the Obama Administration – could have been eliminated, had Congress taken the time to actually read and debate the damn thing.

But, as with everything else they do, incompetence, corruption and cowardice ruled the day.

Hinderaker offers another perspective, this one from Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin:

The lesson from AIG is that the entire premise of the Obama administration – we know better – is fundamentally flawed. The Obama team can't effectively manage a single troubled company without getting itself and the whole country tied up in knots.

The notion that we should invest the federal government with authority to control vast swatches of the economy can now be seen for what it is: madness. We should consider ourselves lucky that the public is getting a glimpse of its government in action on a (relatively speaking) low-dollar item of limited consequences.

Exactly right. Letting the Washington incompetents run anything is madness, just madness. It would be crazy if we let Republicans – who supposedly believe in free markets and capitalism – do it. It’s wearing-tinfoil-helmet-make-the-voices-stop! crazy to let the socialists and their fellow travelers try and take charge of the economy.

God help us.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fox News Sunday: Charlie Rangel

The longtime New York congressman, who sounds like he gargles razor blades, is explaining why he supports taxing the bonuses awarded to AIG employees at 90 percent:

It's Congresses job to make the American people feel better.

And there you have it, ladies and gents, the Democratic Party's core principle: They exist to make you and me feel better.

Two objections spring to mind, the first being I can't find where this duty is laid out in the Constitution. I realize that for liberals the Constitution is a "living, breathing document"; what I hadn't understood was this New Age-y, "If it makes the People feel good, we must do it!" aspect of politics.

Apparently, the only way to make me feel better is to tax the crap out of people who happen to be unpopular.

Jeez, I hope you or I never become so unpopular.

The second take away for me from listening to the unlistenable Rangel is this: If Congress believes its job is to make the People feel better, then they're failing miserably.

Totally, absolutely, completely failing.

Do you feel better?

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March 20, 2009

Death Penalty for LWOP?

UCLA ConLaw Prof. Eugene Volokh notes that Life Without Parole – “LWOP” in prosecutor parlance – is the latest “human rights abuse” drawing the ire of the Ninny Brigades.

International Human Rights Law as Barring Sentencing Murderers to Life Without Parole? The New Zealand Herald reports:

Foreign Affairs officials are warning the Government that its hardline sentencing and non-parole policy risk damaging New Zealand's international reputation.

They say National's "no parole for the worst murderers" policy and the proposed "three strikes and you're out" law could breach international obligations on torture and civil rights.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says such breaches would affect New Zealand's ability to influence other countries.

The ministry's advice, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, says passing the laws "would pose reputational risks to New Zealand by resulting in international criticism".

The ministry has told the Government that no parole for the worst murderers — a National election policy — would enable "indefinite detention without the possibility of release", and would probably violate two human rights conventions monitored by the United Nations.

[The] Act's "three strikes" policy, which imposes a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 25 years on the third "strike" offence, "may result in disproportionate sentences that could also breach the human rights obligations assumed by New Zealand (and most other countries)"....

Volokh, who concedes more to the coddle-the-misunderstood-crook types than I think necessary, is otherwise spot on when he comments:

I would pretty strongly resist any attempt to have our laws on these subjects be governed by "human rights conventions" that chiefly represent the views of elite lawyers in Western countries rather than of American voters, constitution-makers, or even judges (who at least have been appointed and confirmed by American elected officials and could in time be replaced by American elected officials). I would hope that New Zealand would take a similar view.

It's also important to keep in mind that the "international law"-based argument against the death penalty wouldn't be limited just to the death penalty, and in fact might end up being deployed against the very punishment that is often urged as a reason why the death penalty is unnecessary.

First they came for the death penalty, and the ACLU said nothing “Yeah, man!” Then they came for LWOP and the ACLU said nothing “Speak truth to power, man!”

What’s curious to me about Volokh’s warning at the end of his piece is the caution that international law might be used to justify going after LWOP. Hasn’t that already begun, given the U.N. conventions and treaties cited in the New Zealand Herald article quoted by Volokh?

The leftward ratchet against punishing criminals seems almost anarchistic to me, motivated by a desire to see the Visigoths burn society down to the cobblestones. The only other explanation is a complete and utter inability to comprehend how savage humans can be when freed from the constraints of morality – which is another way of saying, freed from personal responsibility for their own actions against the life and property of law-abiding citizens.

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Not-so SmartCar

My Dad has been interested in the “Smart” car – that tiny coffin on wheels that seats two – ever since he first saw it on the road, notwithstanding his son’s warnings to stay the hell away from that deathtrap.

Trust me, my Dad needs four doors, at least a ton and a half, and as many airbags as can be crammed into a luxo-sedan.

So, Joe Sherlock’s thoughts on the coffin car are well taken.

U.S. sales of the Smart ForTwo are tanking, as people who put a deposit on the diminutive two-seater are dropping out. Apparently, a large number of the micro machines were ordered up by families as second cars or as toys for the wealthy. In these tough financial times, toys and playthings are expendable.

Maybe people just woke up and realized that paying twenty grand for a golf cart with doors was a stupid idea. Consumer Reports has blasted it, giving the Smart an overall test score even lower than the much maligned Chevy Aveo. And, if fuel economy is your goal, the Toyota Prius is a better deal. Plus it seats 4-5 people.

Last Sunday, I passed a Smart ForTwo northbound on I-5 around Woodburn, OR; it was struggling along in the far right lane amid a sea of normal-sized cars, big SUVs and massive triple tractor-trailers. All were passing by at 75 mph and above. I think driving a Smart on an Interstate would make a fine cure for constipation. Maybe they should rename it Rolling Suppository.

I don’t know that Joe Sherlock – a car guy for more than 50 years – has ever likened an auto to a laxative before, but somehow the Smart car was well suited to the task.

Good riddance, says I.

Are you listening, Dad?

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March 18, 2009

65 Dems say "No thanks" to assault weapon ban

Well, whattaya know? Sixty-five House Democrats sign a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, saying a renewed assault weapon ban is a really bad idea.

I wonder how many of the sob-sister so-called Republicans in the Senate would sign such a letter.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Honoring Murtha, Dishonoring Marines

Congressman John Murtha (D-Pa.), who has eagerly done everything in his power to hurt our Marines, undermine their morale and give moral support to our enemies, has received the Department of the Navy's highest award issued to civilians.

If, like me, you think this is a disgrace, a slap in the face to our Sailors and Marines, then please sign the petition to repeal the award.

The letter to Secretary of the Navy says:

On March 5, 2009 Congressman John Murtha was awarded the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award by the Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter.

From the press release:

It is the highest form of public service recognition bestowed by the Department of the Navy for a non-employee. According to the Department, nominations for this award will be limited to those extraordinary cases where individuals have demonstrated exceptionally outstanding service of substantial and long term benefit to the Navy, Marine Corps, or as Department of the Navy as a whole.

The Citation reads:

Congressman Murtha's selfless devotion to the Nation's Sailors and Marines ensured they were provided the resources necessary to effectively conduct the Global War on Terrorism. His courageous leadership, vision, and loyalty to the men and women of the Department of the Navy greatly contributed to their quality of life and helped create the most modern and highly trained fighting force in history. As Chairman of Subcommittee on Defense of the House Appropriations Committee, Congressman Murtha's tireless advocacy helped maintain the Navy and Marine Corps team at the highest levels of combat readiness to meet the challenges of the 21st century. With grateful appreciation for his outstanding contributions to the Nation and the Navy and Marine Corps, Congressman Murtha is awarded the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award.

John Murtha deserves no such award. He has routinely and deliberately undermined the United States military, slandered servicemen serving in combat, and caused irreparable damage to our international reputation.

While serving as a Representative from Pennsylvania, Murtha called Marines from 3d Battalion, 1st Marines "cold blooded killers" who "murdered innocent civilians."

Before an investigation into the Haditha incident was even conducted, Murtha went on numerous television news programs and announced that the Marines "went into houses and killed women and children." He said, "There's no question in my mind about what happened here. There was no gunfire, they killed four people in a taxi...24 people were killed."

When asked specifically if he claimed that innocent civilians were intentionally executed by Marines, he said, "That's exactly what happened." Not content to slander those Marines directly involved, he went on to claim that if these Marines were not punished, "other Marines would say well I'll do the same thing." Murtha then continued to use this incident to lobby for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, citing it as evidence that our military was incapable of winning the war.

Eight Marines were originally charged. As of March 17th, 2009 all charges were dropped against six Marines, one was found not guilty on all counts in courts martial. The prosecution has delayed the court martial of the final defendant indefinitely. The original allegations of a massacre and the statements of Congressman Murtha have been thoroughly discredited. Despite the facts, John Murtha refuses to apologize to those he slandered.

We the undersigned are appalled that the Secretary of the Navy would bestow the Department's highest award for a non-employee to John Murtha after his vile and despicable attacks against U.S. servicemen. This petition is a vehicle to express our bitter disappointment at this betrayal of our combat veterans.

Congressman John Murtha should apologize for slandering the Marines of 3/1, and for undermining the efforts of those servicemen and women who fought in Iraq. If he does not, the Secretary of the Navy should rescind this award as a sign of his unwavering support for those who served in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

If -- like me -- you believe this undeserved award sullies the honor of the Navy and the Marine Corps, please, sign the petition.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 17, 2009

Day Lily (times 2)

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Moth by the front door

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cat tales: Eyes of a hunter

Pepper, long thought to have been in retirement, has taken to hiding in the bushes beneath the bird feeders, watching and waiting, ever so still, for an unsuspecting avian to wander within range, his cold, hunter's gaze gauging the distance to be covered in one swift pounce. (Click on image for full-size version)

Pepper complained loudly and often about my having blown his cover, the feline's location now known to the birds, who sounded an alarm as they took wing. (Click on image for full-size version)

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 16, 2009

And so the assault on the Second Amendment begins

It was bound to happen, notwithstanding Obama's protestations to the contrary, and the Second Amendment's death of a thousand cuts begins with a seemingly innocuous change in policy from the Department of Defense.

The Shootist posts:

It is an end-run around Congress. They don't need to try to ban guns--they don't need to fight a massive battle to attempt gun registration, or limit "assault" weapon sales.

Nope. All they have to do is limit the amount of ammunition available to the civilian market, and when bullets dry up, guns will be useless.

Think we jest?

[...]

From now on, remanufacturers of military brass will not be able to buy surplus brass from DOD--actually from Government Liquidators, llc.--the corporation that sells surplus materials for the U.S. government. At least, not in any form recognizable as once-fired brass ammunition.

Now all brass ammunition will have to be shredded, and sold as scrap.

Georgia Arms, who brought this to our attention, is the 5th largest ammunition manufacturer of centerfire pistol and rifle ammunition in the U.S.

"We're right up there behind Hornady," Larry Haynie told me.

He also told me with the cancellation of his contract to purchase this brass, and the ending of his ability to purchase any more expended military ammunition, he will have to severely curtail his operation--laying off approximately half his 60-person work force.

Haynie further pointed out this move is a stupendous waste of taxpayer money--reducing the worth of the brass some 80%--from casings, to shredded bulk brass.

He stated most of this will now go to foundries where it will be melted down, cast in shippable forms, and likely be sold to China, one of the largest purchasers of U.S. metals on the open market.

Haynie was manufacturing over 1 million rounds of .223 ammunition every month, which he sold on the civilian market to resellers, and to law enforcement agencies across the country.

He will start tomorrow sending cancellations of orders for .223 to law enforcement agencies all over the country.

You can expect this to affect every bullet you purchase in the future--with no reloaded ammunition available, the already strained new manufacturers will be unable to meet demand. They are already turning out everything they can build for the military market. The civilian market is stressed to the point even reloading components have become hard to find.

Now, with this hit, ammunition prices will go through the roof in the next year.

Your quality piece, sitting in your gun rack, will become a very expensive wood and steel, or plastic and steel club.

What can you do?

Google "contact members of Congress" or simply type in www.congress.org.
When you reach that site, type in your zip code--it will give you all your representatives, senators, and their web pages.

Or you can find the addresses and e-mails of your own senators and congressmen by going to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

I've thought that going after ammunition was the logical avenue of attack for the gun banners in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Heller decision.

Sure, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment guarantees you have a right to weapons for self-defense, but nobody ever said you had a right to cheap, plentiful ammunition.

Just like Obama said, nobody's going to take your guns away. You'll be perfectly free to use them to club your enemies.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B

Mark Steyn, the massively talented columnist and pundit, is also a music historian of some note, and this week he turns to one of my favorite numbers from the war years, as performed by the most successful female singing group of all time. Steyn's hook is the centennial of the songwriter's birth.

He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
He had a boogie style that no one else could play
He was the top man at his craft
But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft
He's in the army now
A-blowin' reveille
He's the Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B...

In fact, he was an obscure dancing man from out Virginia way: the state dancing champion at the age of 15. And he was born Donald Macrae Wilhoite, Jr in Washington, DC one hundred years ago today, March 16th 1909. But he cut down his name and cut up the crowds as "Don Raye", a fairly obscure vaudevillian who evolved into a fairly obscure songwriter. But in the Second World War his words and music were part of the soundtrack of America. Don Raye was a song'n'dance man who turned to writing mainly to provide himself with some material. But he wound up providing it not just for himself but for Harry James, Billie Holiday, the Andrews Sisters, Nat "King" Cole, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones and many more. In the early 1940s, he was the man who, as Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball put it in Reading Lyrics, "helped America make joyous music during an unjoyous time."

[...]

Don Raye's run of hits wasn't long, but the big rhythm numbers prefigured rock'n'roll just enough to ensure a ton of cover versions from the Fifties onwards that kept his royalties healthy for the rest of his life. That was especially true for a goofy novelty that was a huge hit in the early Forties but so indelibly part of its era that it seemed almost certain to fade with it. Yet, in the midst of progressive rock and bubblegum and Philadelphia soul and the Partridge Family, it came roaring back, and never really went away again. It seems like a "war song", but, in fact, Don Raye and Hughie Prince wrote it in late 1940, about a year before Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War Two. Like any savvy songwriter, the boys were thinking ahead. But you notice, the lyric refers not to any hostilities or combat, but only to what was still a nominally peacetime draft:

He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
He had a boogie style that no one else could play
He was the top man at his craft
But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft...

It was introduced in the 1941 film Buck Privates, starring Abbott & Costello. They were new to Hollywood, and Universal wasn't convinced they had the makings of movie stars. The studio assigned Arthur Lubin to direct and he declined. "I just don't feel I'm right for this project," he said. "I know nothing about dancing." It turned out he'd mixed them up with an act then playing the Figueroa Theatre: the Abbott Dancers. Once that had been straightened out, Universal hired the supporting cast, including, in a small role, Don Raye.

The execs still weren't persuaded that Abbott & Costello could carry a movie, but then they didn't think the Andrews Sisters, whom they also had under contract, could carry a movie, either. To this day, Patty, Maxene and Laverne remain the biggest-selling female vocal group of all time, but in 1941 most of their big hits (and they had more than Elvis or the Beatles) were still ahead of them. So Universal figured, if you had a singing act that couldn't carry a picture and a comedy act that couldn't carry a picture, maybe if you stuck 'em in the same film, two losers might add up to one winner.

Don Raye and Hughie Prince were signed to write the songs, and, as the Andrews gals had liked "Beat Me, Daddy, Eight To The Bar", they started thinking about which variation on a boogie woogie theme might work this time: Drill Me, Sergeant, Eight To The Bar? Jive Me, General, With A Solid War? Camp Me, Colonel, On A Boogie Base? Torture Me, Tojo, With A Bamboo Beat? But in the end they came up with that rare beast - a variation that trumps the original.

Starting with the somewhat whimsical concept of a boogie woogie trumpeter, Raye and Prince constructed a jumping narrative to which any number of enlisted men could relate - the free spirit who finds it tough adjusting to a regimented way of life:

They made him blow a bugle for his Uncle Sam
It really brought him down because he could not jam
The captain seemed to understand
Because the next day the cap went out and drafted a band
And now the company jumps
When he plays reveille
He's the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B...

And the company really jumps: It's the second great army-bugler song after Irving Berlin's hit of the First World War, "Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning".

[...]

Universal Pictures liked the song, but weren't sure about the ladies. "The Andrews Sisters can't sing boogie woogie," one exec said. "It's too tough for them." But these were three tough gals, and Raye & Prince stuck to their guns. Yet, even when they'd warmed up to the concept of boogieing Andrews sisters, Universal still didn't want to put money into it. "We begged the executives to bring in Nick Castle from Twentieth Century Fox to choreograph that song," said Maxene Andrews. "Universal didn't want a choreographer." In fact, they didn't like the idea of the gals dancing at all.

"When Don and Hughie wrote 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' for us, we had to learn the routines at night! We were busy shooting during the daytime, and we were not allowed to learn dancing on Universal's time." Maybe the studio had the right idea. What eventually emerged looks less staged than a Nick Castle routine might - as if a group of grunts are just hanging out, and a song emerges. It starts with the eponymous bugler himself boogie-woogieing up a storm, and then suddenly, at the back of the bar, there they are - Patty, Maxene and Laverne, emerging from the throng of servicemen to jump up a storm:

And when he played
Boogie woogie bugle
He was busy as a bzzz-y bee…

[...]

In the early Seventies, Bette Midler re-drafted the famous trumpet man from out Chicago way and, courtesy of overdubbing, sang all three vocal parts. It was an unlikely Top Ten hit: True, America was at war again, but it wasn't that kind of war, and, even if you didn't subscribe to Country Joe and the Fish's view of Vietnam, most songwriters had opted to sit it out. Yet, for whatever reason, Miss Midler brought the song back, and it remains a linchpin of her act to this day. As for En Vogue's "Boogie Woogie Hip-Hop Boy" or Christina Aguilera's more recent appropriation, Don Raye never heard either, which is probably just as well. He died, aged 75, in 1985.

So on his hundredth birthday let us celebrate a forgotten man with a handful of unforgettable songs: couple of ballads, couple of rockers, and one indestructible novelty. "You Don't Know What Love Is," he told us, "until you've learned the meaning of the blues." But you don't know what hits are until you've learned the meaning of the boogie:

And now the company jumps
When he plays reveille
He's the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B!

Man, those gals could sing, with harmonies so tight they put today's over-produced, digitally-enhanced singers to shame. And, as it turns out, as much as I love the Andrews Sisters, I apparently owe the talented Don Raye for introducing me as a kid to the wonders of that horn-playin' Chicago kid.

Happy birthday, Mr. Raye.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

And so the assault on the Second Amendment begins

It was bound to happen, notwithstanding Obama's protestations to the contrary, and the Second Amendment's death of a thousand cuts begins with a seemingly innocuous change in policy from the Department of Defense.

The Shootist posts:

It is an end-run around Congress. They don't need to try to ban guns--they don't need to fight a massive battle to attempt gun registration, or limit "assault" weapon sales.

Nope. All they have to do is limit the amount of ammunition available to the civilian market, and when bullets dry up, guns will be useless.

Think we jest?

[...]

From now on, remanufacturers of military brass will not be able to buy surplus brass from DOD--actually from Government Liquidators, llc.--the corporation that sells surplus materials for the U.S. government. At least, not in any form recognizable as once-fired brass ammunition.

Now all brass ammunition will have to be shredded, and sold as scrap.

Georgia Arms, who brought this to our attention, is the 5th largest ammunition manufacturer of centerfire pistol and rifle ammunition in the U.S.

"We're right up there behind Hornady," Larry Haynie told me.

He also told me with the cancellation of his contract to purchase this brass, and the ending of his ability to purchase any more expended military ammunition, he will have to severely curtail his operation--laying off approximately half his 60-person work force.

Haynie further pointed out this move is a stupendous waste of taxpayer money--reducing the worth of the brass some 80%--from casings, to shredded bulk brass.

He stated most of this will now go to foundries where it will be melted down, cast in shippable forms, and likely be sold to China, one of the largest purchasers of U.S. metals on the open market.

Haynie was manufacturing over 1 million rounds of .223 ammunition every month, which he sold on the civilian market to resellers, and to law enforcement agencies across the country.

He will start tomorrow sending cancellations of orders for .223 to law enforcement agencies all over the country.

You can expect this to affect every bullet you purchase in the future--with no reloaded ammunition available, the already strained new manufacturers will be unable to meet demand. They are already turning out everything they can build for the military market. The civilian market is stressed to the point even reloading components have become hard to find.

Now, with this hit, ammunition prices will go through the roof in the next year.

Your quality piece, sitting in your gun rack, will become a very expensive wood and steel, or plastic and steel club.

What can you do?

Google "contact members of Congress" or simply type in www.congress.org. When you reach that site, type in your zip code--it will give you all your representatives, senators, and their web pages.

Or you can find the addresses and e-mails of your own senators and congressmen by going to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

I've long thought that going after ammunition was the logical avenue of attack for the gun banners in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Heller decision.

Sure, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment guarantees you have a right to weapons for self-defense, but nobody ever said you had a right to cheap, plentiful ammunition.

Just like Obama said, nobody's going to take your guns away. You'll be perfectly free to use them to club your enemies.

Please, contact your feckless Congressional crapweasels and complain about this endrun around the Constitution. The hour is late -- Is it really only three months into the Obama administration? -- but it's not too late.

Yet.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:30 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 15, 2009

Hummingbird tales: And then there were none

It's official: we're empty nesters. Within twenty-four hours of Wilbur soloing, his brother Orville was gone, too, leaving behind a ratty looking nest and a scattering of droppings. The mother hummingbird is still flitting around the backyard, though. I wish the little fellows well.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Could the Porkulus get any worse?

As if the gigantic Porkulus bill wasn't bad enough -- replete with wasteful earmarks buried in hundreds of pages filled with dense, impenetrable text -- it may also be unconstitutional, too.

Section 1607(b) of the bill, signed into law by Pres. Obama, provides:

"If funds provided to any State in any division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such State."

Some governors have said they'll turn down funds authorized by the Porkulus, because they force recipient states to loosen the strings on welfare eligibility, adding thousands of people to the dole.

Section 1607(b) gives state legislatures an end run around their governors, a way to suckle at the Gummint teat, even if state law says the governor has the final say on accepting or rejecting federal aid.

According to a column in today's Chicago Tribune by Ronald Rotunda, a constitutional scholar at Chapman Law School, Congress simply has no authority to rewrite the laws or constitutions of the states.

If state law does not give the state legislature the right to bypass the governor, how can Congress just change that law? Where does Congress get the power to change a state constitution?

It might appear quaint to note that the U.S. Constitution does not create a central government of unlimited powers. Congress only has those powers that the Constitution gives it either expressly or by implication. That's a lot of power, to be sure, but it's not unlimited.

The two main sources of power that might justify subsection (b) are Congress' power over interstate commerce and its power to tax and spend. The commerce power does not support this law ... The second main source of federal power is the spending power, allowing Congress to bribe the states to take certain actions. For example, years ago Congress told states that it would reduce federal highway funds to any state that did not increase its legal drinking age to 21. The court upheld that law, with Justices William Brennan and Sandra Day O'Connor dissenting.

The spending clause does not work here. Congress is not telling a state, "You must change your state constitution before we will give you a dime." Instead, Congress is simply telling the state, "We have changed your state constitution so that we give more power to the state legislature, without any pesky interference from the governor."

It is unlikely that subsection (b) will survive constitutional challenge. Does that mean that the entire law is unconstitutional or only subsection (b)? That depends on whether Congress considered the entire bill to be a uniform whole, so that if one part must fall, all must fall. Or, did it want the courts to sever the unconstitutional part of the law and leave the remainder intact?

[...]

Some people incorrectly think that "state's rights" is an anachronism. The purpose of state's rights is not to protect the "states" from the federal government; it is to protect us from the federal government. As Justice Hugo Black reminded us over 40 years ago, "The proceedings of the original Constitutional Convention show beyond all doubt that" the framers denied Congress "the power to veto or negat[e] state laws," but that is exactly what subsection (b) does. To give Congress such power "distorts our constitutional structure of government." But that is what subsection (b) does.

It'll be the irony of ironies if the Supreme Court does what the Senate Republicans failed to do: Kill that damn bill.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Someone take the GOP out behind the barn and just shoot it

Fox New Sunday's Chris Wallace is interviewing Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Congressman Barney Frank (Communist D-Mass.), and Obama Economic advisor Austen Goolsby, and Frank is on the attack, going after big business, the free market and the GOP like a foaming-at-the-mouth, lisping pit bull.

I'll give Frank this: he -- like his party -- is always on the attack, going for the throat, trying to brutalize the enemy.

Corker, who appears to barely have a pulse, sleepily smiles at the camera and stammers out answers like the stuttering defense lawyer in My Cousin Vinny, with about as much effectiveness, too.

Frank says he favors "single-payer healthcare for everyone, like Medicare," which is socialized medicine, currently killing Britons and Canadians and sending our neighbors to the North to the U.S. for the treatment they're entitled to at home -- but can't get in a timely fashion.

Corker's response?

"Well, ah, um, I've said, um, that, uh --"

I shout, "This is the best the GOP can do?", before clutching my chest and toppling off the couch, dead.

Perhaps a slight exaggeration.

Unbelievable.

I know there are politicians who can make cogent arguments in favor of small government, limited spending, pork and earmarks, as well as point out the flaws of socialized medicine, men like Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). But Flake is a pariah within his own party because of his attacks on pork and legislators of all parties lined up at the trough.

Conservatives have no voice in the GOP, and Barney Frank -- who has vulnerabilities out the wazoo -- is free to run the table on Sunday morning news shows.

Pathetic.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 14, 2009

Reply to Muslims who heckled Brit soldiers

Pat Condell has something to say to the Muslims who heckled British soldiers parading through an English town after returning from combat in the Middle East.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:50 PM

What to do when it all begins to fall apart

This is an interesting essay -- and a very thorough account -- of how to cope when a modern Western society begins breaking down.

The author, who lives in Argentina, has some practical tips for surviving in tough times.

Check it out.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Two wheels beats four

Blogger Kevin Baker posted this video, saying that whenever he gets the urge to buy a bike he takes a nap until the mania passes.

I'll second that.

Even though I spent a year on crutches and endured reconstructive knee surgery thirty years ago, every so often I get the urge to get back on a bike and hit the road.

Videos like this remind me why that's a bad idea. It doesn't matter how good a rider you are -- some idiot ignoring the red light staring him in the face is still going to kill you.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:45 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 11, 2009

Hummingbird tales: Call them Orville and Wilbur

By yesterday afternoon the chicks were about three weeks old, looking like only slightly-smaller versions of their mother. They'd gotten so large they could barely fit in the nest. (Click on image for full-size version)

The chick in the background -- let's call him Wilbur -- was restless, more alert and mobile than his sibling, Orville, constantly shifting around in the nest. (Click on image for full-size version)

Suddenly, Wilbur spread his wings and gave them a try, flapping them rapidly for a few seconds, rising up out of the nest and hovering for a moment, catching both me and Orville by surprise. It was 5:56 p.m. when Wilbur first took wing. (Click on image for full-size version)

Orville, not quite yet ready to stretch his wings, turned around to get a better look at his more adventuresome relative, who quickly took another test flight. (Click on image for full-size version)

Wilbur hovered just outside the nest, rising and falling, shifting from side to side. (Click on image for full-size version)

After about 10 seconds, Wilbur came in on final approach for landing, suspended just above Orville, his rapidly beating wings fanning the air. (Click on image for full-size version)

Back in the nest, Wilbur seemed to pause, perhaps catching his breath, or waiting to file a flight plan. (Click on image for full-size version)

He rested next to Orville for a few minutes, stretching his wings ... (Click on image for full-size version)

Briefly laid one wing across Orville's shoulders (hummingbirds have shoulders, so lay off, will ya?) ... (Click on image for full-size version)

And then Wilbur was gone, at 5:58 p.m., two minutes after he soloed. I heard his thrumming wingbeats fade away into silence, and then it was just me and Orville. He looked around, but his sibling had flown the coop; a return didn't seem to be in the cards. (Click on image for full-size version)

The mother arrived about five minutes later, clearly bothered by the absence of one chick. She spent a long time sitting about the nest, seemingly taking it all in, perhaps looking for lurking predators (aside from the guy with the camera). (Click on image for full-size version)

Finally satisfied that nothing was waiting to eat her, she fed her remaining chick. (Click on image for full-size version)

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Traveling through time

If you've ever spent time in old cities, the kinds of places where historic battles were fought, where great men gathered and plotted a new course for independence from the Old World, you'll know what I mean when I say that there are moments when you can almost tear through the very membrane of time itself, that thin-yet-seemingly impenetrable barrier that separates then from now, what is from what will be. In those quite moments, you can almost perceive the events that occurred -- are occurring -- on a different time line.

I've sat in a pew in Philadelphia's Christ Church on a hot summer day, watching the leaves on the trees move in the sultry breeze outside through wavy panes of glass, set in their frames more than 250 years ago. Those same panes once vibrated to the sounds of the Founding Father's voices, raised in prayer, and as I sat motionless in Washington's pew, I closed my eyes in the cool shadows of the church and thought, just for a moment, that I heard a faint echo accross the centuries.

I've never seen a better example of the way past and present coexist than this site, where a talented Russian photographer precisely positions his camera to produce seamless images combining Leningrad during the Nazi seige, and it's prosperous, peaceful 21st Century version.

Fascinating.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 08, 2009

CPT William "Bill" Moran, CSMR, 1953-2009

CPT William "Bill" Moran was laid to rest Friday, March 6, 2009, in Cypress, California, accompanied on his last journey by an honor guard of his comrades from the California State Military Reserve.

I had the privilege and honor to serve with Bill at a number of missions at Camp Roberts, where we and the other CSMR JAG Corps officers worked with California National Guard troops to get their legal affairs in order before shipping out to Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

During the days we spent together at Camp Bob, I got to know a little about Bill, including the fact that we were both Brooklyn kids, although he had none of the stereotypical brashness that was the birthright of those who hailed from our hometown. Bill never mentioned that he'd graduated from Yale Law; that would have been tooting his own horn, something I never saw him do. What I did know was that he was the in-house counsel for AAA, and that he adored his wife Lynda, his kids and his grandkids.

He brought his vast legal expertise, gained over a 27-year career, to do everything in his power to help the brave men and women who were going into harm's way, volunteering to be away from his family every year, whenever the call went out that the National Guard needed the CSMR -- needed him -- to be mission ready.

Bill was perhaps the most squared away officer I've ever seen, a credit to the uniform and the CSMR. He was truly a gentleman and a scholar. He'll be deeply missed.

Requiescat in pace.

The chaplain spoke for a few moments, then comforted Bill's wife, Lynda, sitting with her and doing his best to ease her pain.

The bugler plays Taps, the haunting notes echoing off the marble of the mausoleum. For some reason I suddenly find it hard to see, my eyes burning; I'm not the only one of Bill's comrades so afflicted. Click on the image to watch and listen.

The rifle fire was startlingly loud, amplified by the marble walls surrounding us, the M1 Garands throwing their brass cartridges high in the air.

COL Marc Breslow, Commanding Officer of the Southern Regional Support Command, presents the flag to Bill's wife, Lynda.

Bill's comrades in arms render a final salute and say goodbye. (Click on image for full-size version)

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:28 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Shredding the Constitution

Had a discussion tonight with friends that ranged far and wide, at one point delving into the stinking intellectual morass that is appellate law, as practiced (and made up on the fly) by members of the Supreme Court (both California and U.S.).

I am a firm believer in "originalism," or Constitutional analysis based upon how Americans understood what they were getting at the time the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Amendments thereto were adopted.

Anything else, any other method of judging, is merely outcome determinative, making it up out of whole cloth, to give the individual justices the result they prefer, the Constitution be damned. You see, if the Constitution is a living, breathing document, as liberal scholars and judges fancy it, then it has no fixed meaning, and therefore we are not bound by any permanent understanding of what it meant then, what it means now -- and what it will mean in the future.

In the post-modernist academic world of deconstructionist linguistics, nothing has a fixed meaning; we each enjoy equally valid interpretations of the world, equally idiosyncratic usages of language, our realities unique, like snowflakes.

In legal, constitutional terms, a living, breathing Constitution means whatever a judge says it means.

Period.

Finito.

The End.

I wish I could say that any of this was original, but U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Benjamin Curtis beat me to the punch by about 152 years.

When Chief Justice Roger Taney issued the Dred Scott decision that year for the Court, he used the now-valued liberal technique of trashing the plain meaning of the Constitution to invent new rights.

Of course, Taney used these new-found rights to return Mr. Scott, a former slave, back into bondage, overturning the Missouri Compromise -- which sought to ban slavery in new states -- as unconstitutional.

Justice Curtis, in his dissent to the majority opinion, wrote:

“[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.”

It's fine when the judges who are making it up do so in favor of policies you favor, but this is a power conceded at great peril, for while you may be happy with how your black-robed overlords rule today, tomorrow's crop of bewigged tyrants might not believe as you do.

Freed from the shackles of the Constitution's text, Taney and his associates returned Dred Scott to slavery.

It's not difficult to come up with a scenario in the near future wherein the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling that gores an ox near and dear to the hearts of many who currently revel in this fundamental lawlessness.

It'll be interesting to see who then cries loudest for a more principled take on analyzing and applying the Constitution.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

A study in contrasts

While Pres. Bush disappointed conservatives, he seemed to have left office still popular with the military.

Check out the way he is received by the Marines -- and then the more ... restrained reception for his successor.

Typical of the Leftard view of our military is this comment by John 3427, from the Youtube page:

This video shows how stupid US soldiers are!

One guy starts a war for no valid reason whatsoever and over 4,000 soldiers die all the soldiers are so happy and applaud.

Another guy wants to stop that war and stop soldiers from dying and all the soldiers are sad.

What a bunch of retards. It's like Turkeys applauding for Christmas!

No, it's more like warriors applauding their Commander in Chief, a man who has personally written to each and every family that lost a loved one in the war in Iraq, a man who they know values and honors their service and sacrifice.

Those Marines aren't afraid to show their appreciation for Bush; on the other hand, the golf claps for Pres. Obama are downright hilarious, nearly the "silent insolence" that used to be a court-martial offense in the Old Corps.

Semper fi, Mac!

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

You want the truth? Yoo thinks you can't handle the truth

John Yoo, excoriated by the Left for his Justice Department memos on how to deal with the terror threat in the aftermath of 9-11 (especially his discussion regarding the use of aggressive questioning techniques on terrorists) responded to his critics in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.

His "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" moment came near the end.

Imposing Fourth Amendment standards on military action would have made the Civil War unwinnable -- combat occurred wholly on U.S. territory and enemy soldiers were American citizens.

The military does not have the time to obtain warrants before soldiers fire upon enemy targets and personnel; the battlefield does not provide the luxury to collect evidence needed to meet probable cause standards in civilian courts.

Even if the Fourth Amendment applied, we believed that courts would judge military action under a standard of "reasonableness" -- as they might review a police officer who fires in self-defense -- rather than demand a warrant to use military force to stop a terror attack.

Exactly right. It's warfare, not lawfare, with different rules for very different goals: Victory for us, defeat for the enemy; as few Americans dead as is humanly possible, as many of theirs at room temperature as is needed for them to concede defeat.

It ought not be that hard to comprehend.

God save the United States from those who cannot distinguish between the two.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

His father asked for nothing

Blogger Sippican, whose father passed away last Sunday, pays tribute to his dad -- who flew 40 missions over the Pacific as a ball-turret gunner on a B-24 -- with a touching post that'll bring a tear to the eye of anyone who recognizes the frail heroes who walk amongst us.

Take a moment and read of his father, who asked for nothing -- but gave so much.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 05, 2009

Michael Mann's Public Enemies

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:52 PM

March 04, 2009

Obama taxes, Atlas shrugs

Glenn Reynolds provides a round up of news about Obama's apparent inability to charm the markets, but the most interesting part of the post is how people are reacting to the increased taxes that the president and the Democratic-controlled Congress are about to impose.

Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder, Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of paying the taxes proposed in Obama’s plan.

“I’ve put thought into how to get under $250,000,” said Poczatek. “It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off.”

“Generally it means being less productive,” she said.

“The motivation for a lot of people like me – dentists, entrepreneurs, lawyers – is that the more you work the more money you make,” said Poczatek. “But if I’m going to be working just to give it back to the government — it’s de-motivating and demoralizing.”

It's called "going John Galt," after the protagonist of Ayn Rand's novel, "Atlas Shrugged," who refuses to provide the fruit of his intellectual abilities and labor to a rapacious government and its parasitic dependents.

Over at National Review's Corner, Stephen Spruiell posts reader responses to his earlier thoughts on tax policy and its impact on taxpayers, "Bracketology."

I am a CPA who spent the the better part of the last 7 years working in public accounting. It is not only the increase in the rate that scares those who are making the $250K plus, but the FICA taxes Obama wants to throw on it too. So really it would be a jump not to 39%, but more like 53% when you factor that in. Most of my savvier colleagues in public practice, as soon as it became apparent that Obama was going to get elected, immediately started advising clients to accelerate as much income into 2008 as possible and push as much expenses into 2009. Pay any large dvidends or distributions out of your company in 2008 before either the dividend tax rate goes up or those distributions from your S-corporation are subject to FICA. On top of that, some of the earners will probably ease up, figuring it isn't worth giving up 60% of your income (when your factor state taxes) to the government. Some who own small businesses will just not hire or invest in new equipment.

Chait obviously doesn't know a lot of CPAs or a lot of small businessmen.

Another reader comments:

I have a few thoughts concerning your Corner post titled Bracketology. My wife and I are both Pediatricians. We own our own practice together. We have one PA and 7 other employees. We each gross about $200 K a year. We have 3 young children at home, 2 of which are not in school. We also employ an in home Nanny. My wife has been torn for years about not being at home for these children, which are our biggest investment in the future. We operate parallel S corperations as PC's, with a 50/50 ownership of the LLC that is our business. We file taxes jointly. After crunching some numbers concerning the President's tax hike proposals, I have come to the following conclusions. If the President's plan is inacted, we will do the following:

1. My wife will become a stay at home mother.

2. At least 3 of my 7 employees will be released.

3. The practice will downsize to a smaller office space, i.e. less rent.

4. The number of patients cared for on a daily basis will drop by 40%.

5. My wife will come out of the forced ER call schedule for good.

6. I will gross $249,999.00 a year, exactly.

7. The net income of our personal home will decrease by less than $10 K a year from where it would have been if we changed nothing.

This reader focuses on the difference between how a kleptocrat socialist views the capitalist decision-making process (ick!) and how an actual capitalist decides how to react to a hostile business environment.

Mr. Chait’s problem is that he doesn’t think like a businessman. The goal isn’t to maximize profits. The goal is to maximize return on investment and minimize risk. Tax increases diminish returns, so the businessman assesses the diminished return in light of risk. What must be invested and at what risk to earn the diminished return? If it’s relatively easier and less costly to earn that $250,000th buck, then it might be a good investment. If not, I’ll look for ways to reduce the risk, and cost, or I’ll invest the capital someplace else. For example, I might run the numbers on paying a high dollar tax accountant to find me a “loophole,” or I might look offshore.

The idea that there are idiots earning in excess of $250,000 is, well, idiotic, and the idea that a sane businessman will blithely pursue diminishing ROIs is even stupider.

Markets respond to economic policies, good or bad, and markets are simply an aggregate representation of the behaviors of individual microeconomic production units, i.e., people, and people change their behaviors based upon a cost-benefit analysis.

It seems like the markets -- and those individual microeconomic production units -- are getting ready to scale back investment, spending, and, worst of all for the taxman, earnings.

Spruiell has more examples of the counterproductive impact of Obama's tax hikes; just keep reading below the fold.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 03, 2009

Looking for a good gun store?

Unfortunately, good gun stores are few and far between, at least in Southern California. I did an on-line search for "Best Gun Stores" and found this posted on a gun forum:

Best: The California Rifleman. Paul is great on customer service. Better than any other gun store I have ever been to. It is a small shop with a relatively small selection, but the friendly atmosphere more than makes up for it. They also have great prices. The other owner is not nearly as friendly, but OK.

I can vouch for the accuracy of that post. The California Rifleman was located in Ventura, and it was the best small gun store I've ever found, with an owner who went out of his way to answer any and all questions without complaint; gladly took special orders; and charged better-than-fair prices.

I was quite disappointed when a family squabble resulted in Paul closing up shop, leaving Ventura without anyone interested in customer service.

The same forum yielded this comment on what was perhaps my least favorite gun store:

Worst by far: is H&S sales. The owner Harry is an A@@h@@e. I walked into his store once with a $1000 bucks in my pocket ready to pick up my Kimber Tactical Pro. After looking and not seeing one in his case I asked him how much one would cost, He looked at me and said " I will not waste my time figuring it out unless you have money for it." I said well then I would hate to waste my money on your time, I guess I will spend it else where. Previously I had asked him to look at something in his case and he said unless I was buying somthing he was not going to waste his time showing me anything. Well over 10 guns later he can kiss my money good buy.

A few posts later, this fellow wanted to set right a grievous injustice to the proprietor.

I've purchased a few guns from Harry at H&S. You unfairly characterize him as rude and arrogant wtih no customer service skills.

To be fair, you should have also said he is a racist.

While I can't vouch for Harry's racist nature, I always got the impression that he hated all customers equally, regardless of race, creed or color.

I ordered my wife's Remington Wingmaster 20-gauge Youth Model from Harry; it was as unpleasant a buying experience as I've ever had, and when I left the store with it tucked under my arm, I vowed never to buy another from him.

Within a couple of years Harry's store was gone, leaving Ventura with only one more independently-owned lousy gun store and the local Big 5 sporting goods. Before you know it, Big 5 was the only player left, and their selection was awful.

But there's a happy ending to this tale: Paul's back in action. I visited his new store, located in Ventura's East End.

Business was booming, thanks to Obama's stated desire to revive the Assault Weapons Ban, and Paul was his friendly self, fielding questions and special orders with a smile and a laugh.

He tells me he'll be moving back to the better part of town within the next couple of weeks, but until then you can visit him here:

Uncle Paul's Exchange, 1107 Scandia Ave., Unit A, Ventura, or give him a call at (805) 659-5000.

Best little gun store in SoCal, I guarantee it.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Michael Ramirez: Mission Accomplished!

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

GOP: Not the Stupid Party?

Like Gerard Van Der Leun, weeks like this, which began with RNC Chairman Michael Steele and GOP House Minority Whip Eric Cantor appearing on Sunday morning news shows to denounce Rush Limbaugh and like-minded conservatives for daring to criticize Obama, leave me thinking I'm proud to not be a Republican.

However, where Gerard and I part ways is his belief that the GOP isn't the Stupid Party; rather, he thinks it's the party of ideological eunuchs and craven power junkies.

I have to admit it is getting to the point where I'm starting to believe the Republican Party is not at all stupid, but is just playing along with the Washington Game while making the minimum of grunting noises to keep what little funding left to them coming in.

How else to explain the party's continuing program of self-willed failure?

It is as if official Republicans believe that by continuing to self-Bobbitize their withering genitals they will transform themselves into people worthy, oh so worthy, to be put on the White House guest list for a few more years before their limp brains and organs are hauled out into the mass rubbish pit of history and covered over by the droppings of Democratic dogs. And without even the mercy of a reach-around.

The only thing more craven and cowardly than a self-satisfied and unregulated political elite is a self-satisfied and unregulated political elite without power but with a yearning for the conga line at White House parties. Steele seems to me to be a man who is about one inhalation shy of the full Colin Powell suckup. That wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that Steele also reveals himself as stupid in the bargain.

I think they're both stupid and venal, politicians and party hacks who believe in nothing more than gaining power and the approval of the Washington establishment, their constituents and base be damned. Men (and women) who want power, but not badly enough to fight for it tooth and nail, like the Democrats.

Read the rest of his "They're pathetic, not stupid" thesis here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 02, 2009

Fellow actor outs Penn as moron

Actress Maria Conchita Alonso deviated from the Hollywood Party Line and actually said what she thinks about Sean Penn's political grandstanding.

Here's a hint: She's not impressed.

Q: What do you think about Sean Penn winning at the Oscars?

A:He's an amazing actor -- I can't take that away from him. He's an amazing actor. It's just that he has no clue at all what's going on in Venezuela. He praises Hugo Chavez, who is a dictator and a killer. So, I try to put aside him being an amazing actor, and the political thing, which he has no clue! He should just shut up about what he doesn't know.

Alonso was asked about Penn taking home the statuette at this year's Oscars; she replied that she was on location filming and reacted in a way that made
me like her that much more.

I was watching in my room, when his turn came [to give his Oscar acceptance speech], I muted it and I started working on my lines.

I know the feeling, and never regret hitting the mute button whenever Penn goes off script.

Sean Penn: Great actor, political ignoramus, toady to tyrants, insufferable celebrity.

Sounds like his former co-star (they were in Colors together back in the '90s) has his number.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hummingbird tales: What's for brunch?

With only about a week left until the hummingbird chicks leave the nest, they've gotten so big that their mother doesn't (can't?) sit on the nest anymore. Instead, she forages for food and returns throughout the day to feed her young brood.

I positioned myself farther away Sunday morning, with a longer zoom lens (55-200mm) on the Nikon D40; the mother is less tolerant of me being near the nest than the chicks. Using a monopod, I hid beneath the trumpet vines, my elbow braced against the fence.

After about ten minutes trying to remain motionless, I heard the distinctive clicking chirps of the mother bird behind me. Her thrumming wing beats grew louder as she approached, and I saw her reflection in my glasses as she drew near, darting from side to side. I stayed completely still as she inspected me, conducting a threat assessment on the fly, as the breeze from her wings cooled my now sweat-covered brow.

She zoomed away, unsure if it was safe, taking up a position in the Ginko Biloba behind me in the backyard.

A few minutes later she was back, and we went through the same drill again, as she hovered next to me, waiting for me to make some sort of threatening move. I wondered if anyone had ever been attacked by an enraged hummingbird as I did my best to blend in to the scenery.

Finally satisfied that I wasn't much of a predator, she flew over to the nest, hovered for a moment to assess the situation, and landed next to two open-mouthed youngsters.

She paused, peering suspiciously at me with beady, black eyes, then moved with surprising speed and began to feed the chicks.

With near-surgical precision, the mother slid her long beak all the way down into the first chick's gullet, arching her neck as she began regurgitating her meal for the youngster.

It looked like nothing so much as a carnival sideshow sword-swallower's act -- with a meal thrown in for good measure.

Having delivered a steaming hot meal to one chick, it was time to move on and make sure the other bird got a fair share of the pre-digested insects, pollen and nectar, with a repeat of the sword-swallowing act.

With a lightning-fast urp-urp-urp, meal service was concluded, and mom was off again to refill her stew pot.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 01, 2009

Gun show report

The line to get into the gun show at the Ventura Fairgrounds was longer than I've ever seen, stretching past the Derby Club (the off-track betting establishment to the left of the gates). I spotted cops, DAs and defense attorneys standing in line, along with bikers, veterans, families and retirees. The crowd appeared to represent every demographic group, with one common characteristic: an intense dislike for the Obama-backed gun ban touted by Attorney General Holder.

The NRA was doing a brisk business, signing up new members and getting current members to renew, working the line.

Inside the three buildings hosting the show, the vendor doing the most business was an ammo dealer, with people packed three and four deep all 'round the enormous booth, cases of rifle, pistol and shotgun ammo stacked on pallets and tables, staff rushing to keep up with the onslaught of shouted orders and proffered credit cards.

The number of vendors offering new weapons for sale was down -- way down -- and I suspect they didn't bother to come to the show because they'd already sold all their inventory. There's no other reasonable explanation, given the off-the-charts demand and the scads of cash in the hands of customers eager to spend.

When it comes to stimulating the economy, it's clear that Obama has shifted arms sales into overdrive.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack