Today, above all days, we remember a great pioneer in the history of American race relations. The first mixed-race candidate elected to national office.
I'm sure that you, together with all Americans, will be celebrating his birthday on January 25th.
Even though he wasn't born in the United States, he achieved great success in local politics and in the US Senate before winning a Presidential election.
Representing a political party famous for its commitment to racial justice, Charles Curtis -- Republican Majority Leader of the US Senate -- was elected Vice President of the United States in 1928. Sunday will be his 149th birthday. He was born in the Kansas Territory in 1860 and his mother taught him French and Kaw as he grew up.
Charles Curtis' mother was 3/4 Native American (Kaw, Osage, and Pottawatomie) and 1/4 French. He was a registered member of the Kaw tribe.
Here he is:
Charles Curtis 1860-1936
Restrictive Guantanamo Bay Homeschool Policy Abandoned
This past school year, U.S. military families at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were contacted regarding a new homeschool policy created by the commanding officer of the base. He indicated that this restrictive policy would take effect at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. The families immediately contacted HSLDA and asked for help.
Under the new requirements, the commanding officer would approve home instruction programs, determining whether each had comparable “curriculum content, quantity, and quality to that provided in academic subjects in the same grade level” at Department of Defense schools. Furthermore, homeschool families would have to establish that they were approved by a governmental agency in the United States. In addition, parents had to demonstrate that they were “capable, by education or experience, of conducting home instruction.”
The policy also stated: “The Commanding Officer may impose requirements for home instruction, including, but not limited to, minimum hours of instruction per day, minimum days of instruction per academic year, records of instruction, inspections, and proof of satisfactory completion of one grade level of home instruction.”
The commanding officer indicated that any family that did not comply would be forced to return to the States.
Senior Counsel Chris Klicka wrote to the base commanding officer explaining that there is no compulsory school attendance law for military dependants overseas. Therefore, there is no basis upon which the commanding officer could enact regulations for parents providing home instruction.
He further explained that the new policy violated the fundamental right of parents to choose how to educate their children as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Finally, he explained that military commanders overseas only have the limited authority to provide free public education, not regulate private education. If he believed that there was probable cause of actual neglect of the children’s education, he could investigate families only on that basis. He concluded by requesting that the policy be rescinded immediately.
The commanding officer responded by eliminating all of the requirements of pre-approval of the homeschool curriculum. He issued a complete revision of the earlier policy. The new policy simply asks the family to notify the commander of the name and age of children who will be homeschooled. No other requirements apply except a statement to “encourage families to maintain records to document educational activities and progress.”
This is an incredible turnaround. We are thankful to God that this onerous homeschool policy was completely abandoned.
But there is another dimension to the relief plaintiffs’ seek. In their presentation to the Court, they speak of the deep and symbolic significance to them of the institution of marriage. They ask to participate, not simply in the tangible benefits that civil marriage provides -- although certainly those benefits are of enormous importance -- but in the intangible benefits that flow from being civilly married. Chief Justice Marshall, writing for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, has conveyed some sense of what that means:
Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship,
intimacy, fidelity, and family. “It is an association that promotes a way of life, not
causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial
or social projects.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965). Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed
institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition. [Goodridge v. Dep’t. of Pub. Health, 798 N.E. 2d 941, 954-55 (Mass. 2003).]
Plaintiffs are no less eloquent. They have presented their sense of the meaning of marriage in affidavits submitted to the Court:
[Plaintiff's statements elided]
By those individual and personal statements, plaintiffs express a deep yearning for inclusion, for participation, for the right to marry in the deepest sense of that word. When we say that the Legislature cannot deny the tangible benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, but then suggest that “a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage,” is presumptively constitutional, ante at ___ (slip op. at 7), we demean plaintiffs’ claim. What we “name” things matters, language matters.
SLS 1L:
CAP was an extremely repulsive group, and the American people have the right to know why Alito was bragging about his membership in it.
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earth 20 years ago.
Duncan Frissell
I highly recommend Gay Talese's history of the sexual revolution, Thy Neighbor's Wife, which we read in my "Law and Sexuality" seminar, taught by Harlon Dalton. I often draw on it when teaching in Constitutional Law, because today's students don't really have any grasp of what life was like in an era without freely available porn and socially-approved consensual sex.I guess that means that UT law students have never read a book published prior to the 1970s (1990s?). Amazing!
So bennies can be cut or eliminated at any time.To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of "accrued property rights" would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands. See Wollenberg, Vested Rights in Social-Security Benefits, 37 Ore. L. Rev. 299, 359. It was doubtless out of an awareness of the need for such flexibility that Congress included in the original Act, and [363 U.S. 603, 611] has since retained, a clause expressly reserving to it "[t]he right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision" of the Act. 1104, 49 Stat. 648, 42 U.S.C. 1304. That provision makes express what is implicit in the institutional needs of the program. See Analysis of the Social Security System, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 920-921. It was pursuant to that provision that 202 (n) was enacted.
We must conclude that a person covered by the Act has not such a right in benefit payments as would make every defeasance of "accrued" interests violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Patricia Seed. Ceremonies of Possession: Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640. Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xviii + 199 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliographical references, and index. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-49748-5; $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-521-49757-4.
Chapter 3 ("The Requirement: A Protocol for Conquest") examines a legacy of conquest unique to Spain. The requerimiento was a written statement that all Spanish adventurers and colonists were obligated to read aloud (usually without benefit of translators) before subjugating indigenous peoples. Composed in 1512 by the legal scholar Juan Lopez Palacios Rubios, the requirement has long been known to students of Spanish-American history not only for being a basic source on Spanish notions of conquest as "just war," but also for its abundance of textual inconsistencies, which occasionally border on the absurd. To cite one example, the text of the requirement states: "[W]e will not compel you to turn Christians. But if you do not ... I will enter forcefully against you, and I will make war everywhere and however I can, and I will subject you to the yoke ... of authority of...." (p. 69). Thus, besides its status as a canonical historical source, the requirement is also one of history’s enduring conundrums. In this chapter, Seed seeks to provide a satisfactory solution.
Notable for its etymological plumbs into key legal, martial, and political concepts, and for its rigorously cited synthesis of extant scholarship on Christian and Islamic Spain, Seed’s "archaeological" inquiry into the the origins of the requirement concludes that the text was influenced by Islamic and Jewish intellectual traditions to a far greater extent than previously realized. The perplexing features of the document--which was
regarded in its day by some Spaniards as "ludicrously and tragically naive (Gibson, Spain in America, 1966), utilized later by Protestant commentators as evidence of the depravity of the Spanish soul, and today recognized by us as idiosyncratic, if not paradoxical--are, in fact, the product of a hybridization of cultural logics alien to the main trunk-line of Western intellectual thought.[4] Seed demonstrates how the concept of jihad, a term meaning "fighting according to the proper legal principles" (p. 72), approximates the requirement’s notion of "just war," and how one of those "proper legal principles," the da a or "double summons" preceding a battle, was an Islamic precursor for the later Spanish practice of reading a formal speech prior to subjugating native Americans. Furthermore, Seed effectively maps out several plausible pathways whereby these Islamic concepts--as well as important institutions
like tribute-collecting ( jizya ) (pp. 78-83), censustaking (p. 83, n. 57), and ethnically segregated townships ( ahl al-dhimma ) (pp. 84-88)--reemerged in the sixteenth century as important colonial practices and policies in Spanish America.
Although the Muslim "core" of the requirement was seriously challenged by Las Casas in his debates with Sepulveda in 1550, it was not until 1573 that significant changes of wording severed the document from its Moorish moorings.
That's a 50% increase every 4 years plus an additional adjustment for inflation. After 2022, the tolls would increase every 4 years in line with inflation.TRENTON — Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Tuesday proposed the biggest financial gambit in New Jersey’s history, arguing that almost quadrupling highway tolls over the next 15 years could help generate about $38 billion to help the state pay off half of its debt and pay for transportation improvements.
Drivers would face a maximum 50 percent increase in tolls on the state’s three toll roads — the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway — every four years, beginning in 2010, and subject to inflation...
My Muslim Brothers of The World:If war is declared against a country, it doesn't have to declare war itself because - guess what - you're already at war. There's no rule stating that one cannot conduct a war against an international conspiracy rather than a nation state. Indeed, WWIII was fought more against an international conspiracy than against any nation states. Once one is at war, strategy and tactics are the responsibility of the Executive Branch - not Congress. Who you attack in response and when is a strategic or tactical choice. If one happened to already be at war against a nation that was right in the heart of the Middle East, it might be convenient to finish that war to take a terrorist-supporting state off the board in the course of a larger war against Osama and others seeking to reestablish the Caliphate.
Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy --your enemy and their enemy-- the Americans and the Israelis. they are asking you to do whatever you can, with one own means and ability, to expel the enemy, humiliated and defeated, out of the sanctities of Islam.
Those of us in the libertarian anarchist community have had few representatives to cheer for in our current contretemps. There was John W. Perry the libertarian NYC Cop who died at the Trade Center on 9-11 but that was about it.I chatted with Sameer at the CFP conference in Toronto in 2000 about his plans to bum around Europe. I assume that Sameer's hair is a bit shorter these days. Why so it is:I was at the Backpack Hostel in Budapest, Hungary as I watched the towers fall. I sat there as a fellow backpacker bounced up and down on the sofa in glee.
It's been six years, and I've made a number of false starts since then. Nine days from now, I will report to OCS, and once I complete the ten weeks in Quantico, I will finally begin my task to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Surprisingly, a number of libertarian anarchists have supported the current war or at least some version of the current war (see J. Neil Schulman). Not in the sense that state war is a good idea but in the sense that state war is what currently exists. While they may prefer private war, they deal with the reality of state war as they deal with the reality of state roads.
Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies.Then there's this:
The response to the international climate panel's latest report, in February, showed that greenhouse doubters have a lot of fight left in them.What's the problem? Simple. Climate Change 2007 The IPCC 4th Assessment Report isn't out yet. See the future tense on the front page of the IPCC's website. "The IPCC 4th Assessment Report is coming out." And:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. It is currently finalizing its Fourth Assessment Report "Climate Change 2007", also referred to as AR4.So what came out in February? The political summary of one part (about 1/3) of the final report.
IPCC adopts major assessment of climate change science
Paris, 2 February 2007 – Late last night, Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adopted the Summary for Policymakers of the first volume of “Climate Change 2007”, also known as the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis”, assesses the current scientific knowledge of the natural and human drivers of climate change, observed changes in climate, the ability of science to attribute changes to different causes, and projections for future climate change.
Not released is the actual report on the science of climate change. That won't be adopted until November or December.
Open a secret US bank account.
Purchase firearms capable of firing generally available fixed ammunition by mail.
Open a secret foreign bank account, trust, or corporation.
Accumulate untaxed earnings in a secret foreign bank account, trust, or corporation.
Purchase new, fully automatic, firearms.
Buy high-volume flush toilets.
Discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, age, etc. in employment and other commercial transactions.
Commit sodomy.
Commit fornication.
Commit adultery.
Own gold.
Enforce gold clauses in contracts.
Privately possess obscene materials not featuring children.
I am doing this because I frequently listen to political commentary
and note that most hard core right wingers and libertarians believe
that many liberties have been lost while more centrist commentators
tend to see the gains. Neither side attempts a comprehensive
listing. We'll see how I do.
The initial lists will be short but I will add to them as time goes by.
Hello Mr. Right-Wing Radio Talk Show Host,
Short time listener, last time caller.
I've never listened to your show before. In fact, I've never
listened to a radio before. But I like your show. I used to hate it
(even though I had never heard it). You used to be lousy but you've
gotten a lot better recently.
I'm a Democrat. I've voted Democrat ever since I started voting in
'32 (except for '48 when I proudly cast my vote for Henry Wallace)
but I'm voting Republican this year.
Please cut me off.
I have only one concise, relevant point to make...
Germany to monitor Madonna show: German prosecutors are to monitor Madonna's concert to determine whether a mock crucifixion could be construed as insulting religious beliefs.
It might have been entitled, had there been a wry historian to record it, "The Day They Took the Times and the Post"; and it posed for many Americans--who did not then have, and would never again have, the opportunity to answer them--many questions:
How would you react, for instance, if you were walking down a street in New York or a street in Washington, and suddenly you saw some sort of disturbance going on at the doors of two distinguished newspapers? Not a big disturbance, you understand, just a minor sort of scuffling, a quick coming and going, a few frightened people, a flurry, a fuss?
Just the sudden arrival at the doors at the same moment in each city, of a couple of police vans . . . the sudden entry into both buildings of small groups of armed and uniformed men . . . a pause of perhaps ten minutes . . . and then the emergence of the uniformed men, hustling along between them a handful of other men, handcuffed or with guns at their backs, obviously angry, terrified, protesting, some dressed in business suits, some with coats off and sleeves rolled up, some, perhaps, crying with a bitter irony, "But this is the Times! (or the Post!) You can't do this to us!" . . . and then a swift clanging and locking of doors, a sudden roaring of engines, a sudden disappearance down the crowded street . . . and then, just visible from the sidewalks, a momentary cluster and swirl of frantic people inside . . . and then their abrupt, hurried, almost furtive dispersal, so that all is quiet again . . . and the streets returning immediately to their normal hustle and bustle, the uncaring rush and hurry of life, after an elapsed time of perhaps a quarter of an hour. . . .
Just exactly what would you do, in such a circumstance? Would you shout out frantically to your fellow passers-by, "Help! Help! They're taking the Times! (or the Post!) Help, citizens! Help, freedom lovers! Help, fellow believers in American democracy! They're taking--they're taking--they're taking-the press?"
Would you immediately leap forward, in company with all your fellow citizens, alerted and made knowledgeable by your cry, a great, angry, overwhelming mass, noble and not to be denied, to rescue in savage scuffle, yourselves unarmed against armed and ruthless men, the once arrogant but now wan and horrified souls being dragged off to--who knows what?
Would you, if rescue failed, throw yourselves heroically in front of the vans, the sheer weight of your massed bodies stopping their escaping surge with a sickening and bloody crunch?
Would you cry havoc and let slip the dogs of civil rebellion to save your free press?
Why, no, of course you wouldn't.
In the first place, two thirds of you wouldn't even glance up from your busy scurrying down the streets on your own private affairs.
And of the third of you who did notice, perhaps only a handful would be informed enough and sophisticated enough to have an inkling of what was going on.
And of that handful, half would think, very quickly, Well, it's none of my affair, I'd better get on by just as fast as I can and forget about it, I can't afford to get involved.
And half again would think, Oh dear, they can't do that, but how can I stop them, oh, dear, I might get hurt, I guess I'd better not try to do anything, oh, dear.
And of the three or four left, perhaps one or two of you might half start forward--and then as abruptly stop, appalled by the unbelievable occasion, paralyzed by the knowledge of your own unarmed vulnerability, aware that you were almost entirely alone, aware that you might very well be instantly shot down. . . .
And so they would take the Times and the Post, and any others across the country they might want to take, in exactly the same way . . . and in the offices so swiftly and smoothly made vacant, other men would suddenly appear, from outside, perhaps, but more likely from other editorial desks, or from obscure offices on other floors, rising from their places in the composing room, or converging swiftly from the library stacks, or entering from the business department--just as they actually have in so many other newsrooms in so many other doomed lands . . . and presently, without the world being aware of even a pause or a hitch, the presses would roll again . . . and next day, just as always in the world where the Times and the Post and their sister publications are such permanent, immutable and reassuring fixtures, the regular editions would appear, containing editorials, headlines and news stories fervently praising the President of the United States, hailing his Administration and all its works, endorsing his policies in every phase--praising, praising, praising, praising the Russians for their forbearance and cooperation--urging, urging, urging the people of the United States to accept with a docile and unprotesting compliance the yoke so shrewdly, cleverly and unanswerably prepared. . . .
20 CFR 404.1035
§404.1035 Work for a communist organization.
If you work as an employee of an organization which is registered, or which is required by a final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board to register under the Internal Security Act of 1950 as a communist action, communist-front, or communist-infiltrated organization, your work is excluded from employment. The exclusion is effective with the calendar year in which the organization is registered or the final order is in effect.
Â?The short staff or half pike, forest bill, partisan, or glaive, or such like weapons of perfect length, have the advantage against the battle axe, the halberd, the black bill, the two handed sword, the sword and target, and are too hard for two swords and daggers, or two rapier and poniards with gauntlets, and for the long staff and morris pike.."Buy a nice hickory one here. Learn how to use it here. Great exercise.
George Silver
Paradoxes of Defence, 1599
Dodging Immigration's Truths: "On the one side will be older baby boomers demanding all their federal retirement benefits. On the other will be an expanding population of younger and poorer Hispanics -- immigrants, their children and grandchildren -- increasingly resentful of their rising taxes that subsidize often-wealthier and unrelated baby boomers."Samuelson in USN&WR.
"Dick Cheney is not the only leading conservative with a gay child, though he is certainly the most prominent. The disconnection between their personal relationships and their political stance must be taking a toll on some of them."Andrew Sullivan on Dick and Mary:
"And yet, at the same time he heads a party that would strip his daughter and her girlfriend of all legal rights."Suppose that a libertarian anarchist has a child who takes a job with the IRS. Is there any requirement in libertarian theory that he remain close to or distant from this child? Is there any requirement in libertarian theory that he change his views on the morality of taxation because of the choice made by his child? If a child becomes a Democract, does that require his parents to start voting for Democrats?
W.H. Auden 1, "The Pristine Words Only Academy" 0:
Jacob Behymer-Smith is a ninth-grader at the Coral Academy of Science, a public charter school in Nevada. He's participating in the Poetry Out Loud contest, which is run by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and in which high school students compete at reciting a great poem that they've memorized. Behymer-Smith chose W.H. Auden's The More Loving One; so far, he's progressed from his school competition to a district-wide competition, in which he placed first. On April 22, he'll be competing in the Nevada statewide competition. You'd think that the Coral Academy's officials would be happy for him, and would be trying to support him.You'd be mistaken, because -- horror of horrors -- Auden's poem, it turns out, contains unspeakable vulgarities. To be precise, it contains the words "hell" ("Looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell") and "damn" ("Admirer as I think I am / Of stars that do not give a damn"). That, the Dean of Students at the Coral Academy opined, is "inappropriate language," as opposed to the "pristine language" (her words) that she thinks ought to be presented to the school's students.
And because of this, the school insisted on April 7, Jacob couldn't perform his poem.
A prediction of what would become of the District of Columbia:
Thomas Tredwell, New York Ratifying Convention
2 July 1788
Elliot 2:402 The plan of the federal city, sir, departs from every principle of freedom, as far as the distance of the two polar stars from each other; for, subjecting the inhabitants of that district to the exclusive legislation of Congress, in whose appointment they have no share or vote, is laying a foundation on which may be erected as complete a tyranny as can be found in the Eastern world. Nor do I see how this evil can possibly be prevented, without razing the foundation of this happy place, where men are to live, without labor, upon the fruit of the labors of others; this political hive, where all the drones in the society are to be collected to feed on the honey of the land. How dangerous this city may be, and what its operation on the general liberties of this country, time alone must discover; but I pray God, it may not prove to this western world what the city of Rome, enjoying a similar constitution, did to the eastern.
"Muhammad (c. 570-632) The Prophet of Islam. He is depicted holding the Qur'an. The Qur'an provides the primary source of Islamic Law. Prophet Muhammad's teachings explain and implement Qur'anic principles. The figure above is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet."I guess so.
"United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist recently rejected complaints by a coalition of Muslim groups offended by a frieze, depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and turned down their plea that the marble sculpture in the Supreme Court's chamber be removed or altered. He disagreed the sculpture was a sacrilegious "form of idol worship" and drew attention to the rich symbolism of the Qur'anic motifs and Islamic beliefs. It is true that in Islam the depiction of the Prophet is considered a form of apostasy, because it may encourage believers to worship someone other than Allah. The friezes though, carved of Spanish marble and in place since the Court building opened in 1935, show allegorical figures and a process of eighteen great lawgivers. Muhammad is included among other historical figures including Confucius, Moses, Napoleon and Charlemagne. The bearded Muhammad is shown clutching a scimitar in his right hand and the Qur'an in his left hand. The coalition had also complained that the curved oriental sword in the Prophet's right hand "reflects long-held stereotypes of Muslims as intolerant conquerors." Furthermore, the protesters said, Supreme Court literature about the frieze incorrectly identifies Muhammad as the "founder of Islam," when he is in fact recognized as "the last in line of prophets that includes Abraham, Moses and Jesus." Rehnquist replied that the depiction of Muhammad "was intended only to recognize him, among many other lawgivers, as an important figure in the history of law; it [was] not intended as a form of idol worship," and that "[a]ltering the depiction of Mohammed would impair the artistic integrity of the whole." Rehnquist also dismissed the objection to the curved sword in the marble Muhammad's hand as reinforcing the stereotypical image of Muslims as intolerant conquerors: "I would point out that swords are used throughout the Court's architecture as a symbol of justice and that nearly a dozen swords appear in the courtroom friezes alone." Rehnquist said the description and literature, however, would be changed to identify Muhammad as a "Prophet of Islam," and not "Founder of Islam." The rewording, based upon "input of numerous Muslim groups," would also say that the figure "is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor Adolph Weinman to honor Mohammed, and it bears no resemblance to Mohammed." Aziz Haniffa, Religion: Court Rejects Plea to Deface Figure, INDIA ABROAD (New York), Mar. 21, 1997, at 38."
The Volokh Conspiracy - Spielberg and Munich:: Yes. In the poster’s world, the filmmaker does have an obligation to praise the current administration.Let's look at the theatrical films on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the last 40 years:
The Volokh Conspiracy - Spielberg and Munich:: can anyone come up with a single example of when Bush has said that the 'enemies are not human beings?Evil is a characteristic of volition. Animals or hurricanes can't be described as evil. Humans and other volitional beings, devils, gods, figures of myth, aliens can be described as evil. Thus the use of the term evil as applied to our enemies in WWIV who seek world hegemony, is a statement of their volition, their humanity. Those who would rob them of their capability of being evil are the ones who would rob them of their volition and their humanity.
The Volokh Conspiracy - Column Idea for David Brooks:: "A translation of Beowulf has got to be a lot better than the original. I remember slaving away with that epic in some English class along the way. One of the reasons why I never had any interest in that as a field of endeavor. "an then recalled that I didn't have Beowulf on my Handspring. I googled beowulf e-book, found it on the Memoware site, clicked download, told it to install directly. Since my Handspring was in its cradle, I hit the button and the short file was in moments later.
Mirror of Justice: Phoning it In: "is there any evidence that this administration treated the process of deciding to go to war with the moral seriousness required by Catholic teachings? Or did they instead, as the Downing Street Memo said, fix the evidence to reach the policy conclusions they already desired?"I think there is some evidence. One of the main reasons for resuming the Iraqi war was never mentioned by the Administration (strategic benefit).
They won't have to travel far from the Rive Gauche. Just hop the RER to the Northeast.French Intellectuals to be Deployed in Afghanistan To Convince Taleban of Non-Existence of God
The ground war in Afghanistan hotted up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of Taleban zealots by proving the non-existence of God.
Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris's Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of pavement cafes at strategic points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the philosophers' ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to everyone else.
Dec. 3, 1627It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.
Richelieu
« C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du présent a fait ce qu'il a fait.
« 3 décembre 1627.
« Richelieu. »
-- Clint in The Unforgiven.
October 2, 2005Where is Laura Z. Hobson now we need her. Here is the NYT promoting a travel real estate deal restricted to Muslims -- located in a city that has banned non-Muslims since it was founded. I wonder what the Public Editor will have to say?
New Tower in Mecca Is Offering Shared Ownership for Muslims
By FAYE RAPOPORT
Le Meridien Towers in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is scheduled to open early in 2007 as the first shared-ownership property marketed exclusively to Muslim travelers. RCI, a leading vacation exchange company based in Parsippany, N.J., will support the property with services that include giving club members access to RCI's worldwide network of affiliated properties.
Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
--James Russell Lowell Poet & Abolitionist (1845)
I wonder why none of those communities complained?Given the firms for whom many of those in the World Trade Center worked (as well as the large number of fire fighters and other rescue workers) the other demographic facts should not be that surprising. The victims were overwhelmingly male (about 75 percent), young (many under 40, most under 50), and white (about 75 percent). Only about eight percent were black, nine percent Hispanic, and about six percent Asian. About 75 percent were born in the United States; the rest came from many countries. Together New York and New Jersey accounted for about 87 percent.
We now know that the Upper East Side had the most losses (44), while Hoboken, NJ had the highest proportion of loss of any area, losing 39 residents, or about one per thousand. The number is probably even higher if parental addresses are taken into account. It is not surprising that many of the victims lived in very affluent parts of the metropolitan area, including the Upper East Side and Basking Ridge New Jersey.
"This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury, or at any Federal Reserve Bank."I don't think you can redeem these FRNs any more. But back when you could wander into your neighborhood Federal Reserve Bank and demand "lawful money of the United States", they would dig out some US Notes and hand them over:
"Will pay to the bearer on demand FIVE DOLLARS"
The airlines have been asked to provide narrow-bodied planes, like Boeing 737 and Airbus A-320 models. The T.S.A. will screen passengers, as it normally does at airports, and it will create passenger lists for the airlines.But they won't have to present government-issued photo ID to fly.
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Koran, by Mohammed
Title: The Koran
Author: Mohammed
Release Date: September, 2002 [EBook #3434]
WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea...
Don't you ever face difficult decisions that could go either way, irrespectively of your conservative principles?Not really. The purpose of having an ideology (or, say, a theology) instead of making everything up as one goes along is efficiency. Just as modern production techniques produce more goods for less labor than primitive pre-specialization and pre-trade economies, the adoption of an ideology saves the individual time and effort and allows one to have answers readily at hand even for questions one has never before encountered. The answers may not be perfect, but they'll be fast and "good enough" (if one's ideology or theology is good enough). There do continue to be problems "at the margins" but one is able to vastly reduce the amount of work one has to do.
Nine U.S. states have no general tax on wages and salaries: Alaska,
Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington,
and Wyoming.
War is a very difficult undertaking. Sometimes wars last a long time and casualties mount. I am going to ask you a question about the Iraq War, but I warn you that you will not be allowed to change your answer later and will be held to your view about the war in Iraq until it comes to an end.I wonder what the response would have been at that time?
With that in mind: All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think that the war in Iraq was worth fighting, or not?
