Wise Latina Watch

Sotomayor not only made the pro-racist decision in Ricci, but may have tried to make the decision disappear.

[B]y electing on Feb. 15, 2008, to dispose of the case by a cursory, unsigned summary order, Judges Sotomayor, Rosemary Pooler and Robert Sack avoided circulating the decision in a way likely to bring it to the attention of other 2nd Circuit judges, including the six who later voted to rehear the case.
And if the Ricci case — which ended up producing one of the Supreme Court’s most important race decisions in many years — had not come to the attention of those six judges, it would have been an unlikely candidate for Supreme Court review. The justices almost never review summary orders, which represent the unanimous judgment of three appellate judges that the case in question presents no important issues.

Maybe it’s “wise” as in “wise guys”.

Are You Ready for the Future?

Because I’m not sure I am.

War on Science?

I’ve often heard the Left’s meme about the Bush Administration’s “War on Science”, but never any evidence for it. It now appears that the Messiah’s new science czar, John Holdren, is not going to start any war on science. Rather, he’ll start a science war on us.

Among Holdren’s bright ideas as of 1977:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.

You might point out that this was a long time ago. Fine, but should anybody who held such violent ideas, and who was so spectacularly wrong about “overpopulation” be in charge of evaluating the science on, say, anthropogenic global warming?

Of course, he’d get along fine with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who recently said:

“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Why do I get the feeling that I might be one of those populations?

Child Abuse

The web site that supposedly hosts this video is “under construction” so here’s a LiveLeak link to that wonderful Hamas kiddie show where, in this episode, the children of a suicide bomber watch a re-enactment of her attack.

If you need any further evidence that Islamic Jihad is a sick, vile, putrid, hateful and vicious culture, then you’re just not paying attention.

Siding With the Thugs

The sanctimonious buffoon in the Oval Office is showing all the disrespect for the rule of law and respect for thuggish dictators that one might expect from, say, a garden-variety Chicago machine politician. Andy McCarthy has the goods:

In the Los Angeles Times today, my friend and former colleague Miguel Estrada, one of the nation’s best legal minds, provides the definitive explanation of why the ouster of aspiring dictator Manuel Zelaya was not a “coup,” as the Obama administration mind-bogglingly claims.  In fact, the removal of Zelaya from office was compelled by the Constitution of Honduras.  That is, it represents, through and through, the rule of law the Obama administration would rather pay lip-service to than heed.  As Miguel explains, the only dubious aspect of the episode is Zelaya’s transfer to Costa Rica when, as a matter of law, he should have been arrested and tried for treason (power grabs of the type Zelaya attempted, Miguel notes, are officially defined as treason under Article 4 of the Honduras Constitution).

Bottom line: Hugo Chavez wants Zelaya in, the law of Honduras says Zelaya must be out; Obama sided with Chavez.

And The One who said he’d raise the world’s opinion of us still has some things to learn from the French.

The Boy Who Never Grew Up

VDH has a colum up about Michael Jackson. It is typically thoughtful, but I have some nits to pick. This observation is on the money:

In truth, almost everything about the Jackson persona proved to be fantasy — an Oz-like projection on the screen powered by a strange fellow behind the curtain desperately struggling with gears and levers.

But this?

How then will posterity assess Michael Jackson? Thriller remains the best-selling record of all time, and a number of his others were nearly as successful. His stage magnetism rivaled that of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. And yet few of Jackson’s hits are memorable in the way that dozens of songs of the Beatles or Bob Dylan continue to reverberate timelessly through popular culture.

I think Dr. Hansen underestimates both the music and its influence. The title song of that album is deeply embedded in the culture. In fact, I have a funny story to tell. At the WALL-E wrap party I heard there’d be a surprise at about 10:00 if I hung out in this one area. Meanwhile, I had noticed quite a few unaccompanied young women who didn’t seem to be with anybody in particular and didn’t quite fit in with the crowd. Well, at the appointed hour they formed up into a triangle and Thriller pumped out of the sound system. They did the whole dance, and then led everybody, Pied-Piper style, to the dance floor. Turns out they were the 49ers cheerleaders hired just for that gag. (I work with the best people in the world.)

There are other Michael Jackson songs which will be around for a good long while. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Billie Jean, and Bad are all as instantly recognizable as any Sinatra tune. A few, like Human Nature, are also as sublime as anything from Dylan.

Here is where I think VDH has just missed the target:

The kindly and soft-spoken Jackson may have given millions to children’s charities and built a child’s dream theme park at his Santa Barbara Neverland ranch. He even talked in near-childlike fashion. And yet, on two occasions, the children’s advocate was accused of sexual molestation of boys. He settled out of court in one instance and was acquitted in a criminal trial on the second, but Jackson strangely said he saw nothing wrong in sharing his bed with minors.

I believed Jackson. I don’t think he saw a thing wrong with sleeping with boys because he still was, or desperately wanted to be, a boy himself. (NB: He was acquitted.) Was Jackson messed up? Wholesale. He was as normal, though, as anybody was likely to be having been robbed of his childhood, made insanely successful at a tender age, and having such an abusive creep for a dad. I mean, so creepy that he used the occasion of his son’s tragic death to pimp his own record label.

Peter Pan was born because J. M. Barrie’s brother was killed, a boy robbed of his life. Michael Jackson was dead inside because he was robbed of his life at an age before most of us were out of kindergarten. His sexualized “acting out” on stage with the crotch grabs, etc. don’t seem unexpected in that context. As VDH correctly notes, fantasy was all he had. While some of it is forgettable (and not everything Sinatra crooned was a winner, either) we’re lucky we got as much good music and dancing as we did from this sad figure.

The story of the real-life Peter Pan was even more tragic than the one in the book.

The Natives are Getting Restless

That’s how the Instapundit presents Jon Stewart’s excursion off the Messiah’s reservation.

Jon Stewart has never made me laugh. Not even once. But his politics are crystal clear. So when he starts taking jabs like this at The One, it means something.

Update:

Boy, they really are getting restless. This from the L.A. Times.

In fact, back in April at one $3.4-billion spending ceremony for the media, Vice President Joe Biden, who’s got a lot of private meetings to attend but was still assigned to drive the stimulus spending hard, said: “This is jobs — jobs!” Creating or saving a gazillion-point-five jobs used to be the main goal.

Not anymore.

More change. That was April. This is July.

Maybe if they can’t “create” jobs they’ll just “save” some.

It’s Mourning in California

Iowahawk pens the obit.

LOS ANGELES – Millions of fans from around the globe gathered along Sunset Boulevard to pay final respects to California today, as a slow moving funeral procession transported the eccentric superstar state’s remains to its final resting place in a Winchell’s Donuts dumpster in Van Nuys. The self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop Culture’ died last week at 160, in what coroners ruled an accidental case of financial autoerotic asphyxiation. The death sent shock waves across the world and sparked an outpouring of grief by rabid fans.

Will California Save Us From The Messiah?

I hope Kevin Hassett is right.

The California morass has Democrats in Washington trembling. The reason is simple. If Obama’s health-care plan passes, then we may well end up paying for it with federal slips of paper worth less than California’s. Obama has bet everything on passing health care this year. The publicity surrounding the California debt fiasco almost assures his resounding defeat.

I don’t know. Instapundit sees it as more of a bust-out.

You don’t have to be a gangster to bust out a joint, just crooked and greedy. What happens is, shady parties worm their way into a legitimate enterprise and then slowly strip it of all assets, reducing it to a hollow shell, driving it into bankruptcy . . . busting it out.

The ability of politicians to learn from their own mistakes, let alone those of others, is easily overestimated.

Update, and bumped:

Matt Welch is encouraged.

But there’s another interpretation of California’s rebellion, one with far sunnier implications for those of us who prefer our governments constrained. Faced with a political class that ignored bureaucratic inefficiency, that demanded higher taxes, that filled the newspapers with scare stories about people who will literally die as a result of budget cuts, the citizens of one of the bluest states in the nation collectively said we just don’t believe you anymore. If even California’s famous fruits and nuts can call the statists’ bluff, there may be hope for the rest of the country.

Total Control

This is a very nice spot about what may happen now that Al Franken has stolen the election.

But I have a few questions for the Republican Party:

1. Where the hell were you during the Bush years when you abandoned your core principles and grew government like there was no tomorrow?
2. What have you got to offer besides the incandescently obvious point that having the Democrats in charge will be a disaster?
3. What do you have to offer that’s different than the Democrats?

People need something to vote for, not just against.

Web Site Story

You must like the web, or you wouldn’t be here. And you must like West Side Story or you’d be blind, deaf and probably dumb.

So here’s a mashup sure to make you laugh.

It’s A Disaster!

“Change” Illuminated

Every Breath You Take

The watermelons behind the “global warming” hoax are after Marxism on a scale the old knucklehead himself never dreamed of.

To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.

Just remember: No matter how much or how little money you have, whenever you hear lefties talk about “the rich” they’re talking about you. And they think that the air you exhale is pollution.

Talk about hot air.

Waltzing Matilda

Tom Waits may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but if you aren’t moved even just a little by this, perhaps it’s time to check your pulse.

Michael Giacchino On Scoring “Up”

Yes, that’s Pete playing bass about three and a half minutes in. He’s not just a director and animator, he’s a musician. And he bakes.

“Historic Crack” in Iran’s Mullacracy

This seems like big news. How good it is I’m not sure.

The most important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

And this, if true, is good news.

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source said last week.

File that under “the enemy of my enemy”. Israel is not the only country which views Iran with suspicion and dislike.

How We Won the War in Iraq

General Petraeus is widely credited for his successful COIN (Counter-Insurgency) doctrine, and justly so. But someone had to implement that plan where the rubber meets the road. One of those men was  Lieutenant Colonel Jim Crider, already familiar to readers of Michael Yon. His kinetic credentials are impeccable.

He’s also a very smart man. Here (in PDF format) is an article he wrote on what it was like inside the surge. As Thomas Ricks says in the forward:

Crider’s essay is not only about this crucial level of action, it is about a critical time – the “surge” phase of the Iraq war in 2007-2008. Whether or not one believes that the surge ultimately achieved its strategic goal of a political breakthrough (I do not), there is no question that it succeeded at the tactical level. In this work, Crider shows how that happened. He begins by detailing how difficult the winter and spring of 2007 were, with some of the highest levels of violence seen against American troops in the war, at least so far. For many months, his troops, like others in Baghdad, were bombed and shot, with little or no sign of any improvement of security in the city. Some 70 Americans were killed in February, 71 in March, 96 in April, and 120 in May. General David Petraeus later told me that he looks back upon that spring as a “horrific nightmare.” Then, to the surprise of many, in the summer of 2007, the level of violence began to drop precipitously.

Muir Nails It Again

It’s not, of course, just the WaPo.

It Doesn’t Matter Who Votes

All that matters is who counts the votes.

Homeopathic A & E

Via SBM.

What’s an A&E? Apparently it’s what the brits call an Emergency Room. Or, thanks to socialized medicine, the “Ambulance Parking Lot“.

Have the Best Independence Day Ever

Clever Video OTD

It’s a virtual Friday, isn’t it? This will bring a smile to your face and give you a headache all at the same time.

Enjoy “Hibi no neiro” by the band Sour.

Time On His Hands

Check out the Clock Project. (Try clicking on a clock a couple of times. Then wait a minute or so. Repeat.)

Think Cap-And-Trade is Expensive?

You have no idea.

The United States emits about 9 billion tons of CO2 per year. Therefore, at a rate of $15/ton fee for emission indulgences, the bill would impose a tax of $135 billion per year on the nation. Divided by the U.S. population of 300 million, that works out to a cost of $450 per year levied on every American man, woman or child, or $1,800 for a family of four. While for wealthy individuals like Al Gore such an impost might represent a mere pittance, for working families struggling hard to make ends meet it would be a very significant burden.

But that is not even the worst part of it. As a result of the markup of carbon costs, a lot of those working families will be out of work and unable to pay their existing bills, let alone new ones. Consider: Burning one ton of coal produces about three tons of CO2. So a tax of $15 per ton of CO2 emitted is equivalent to a tax of $45/ton on coal. The price of Eastern anthracite coal runs in the neighborhood of $45/ton, so under the proposed system, such coal would be taxed at a rate of about 100 percent. The price of Western bituminous coal is currently about $12/ton. This coal would therefore be taxed at a rate of almost 400 percent. Coal provides half of America’s electricity, so such extraordinary imposts could easily double the electric bills paid by consumers and businesses across half the nation. In addition, many businesses, such as the metals and chemical industries, use a great deal of coal directly. By doubling or potentially even quadrupling the cost of their most basic feedstock, the cap-and-trade system’s indulgence fees could make many such businesses uncompetitive and ultimately throw millions of working men and women onto the unemployment lines.

And that doesn’t even count what it will do to the world food supply. Read the whole thing.

Update:

It’s not just coal and food. There’s what it’ll do to the price of oil.

Another Update, and bumped:

Oh, and private homeowners will have to perform federally-mandated upgrades to their homes when they sell them. (Where in the constitution is congress authorized to do this, again?) Anyway, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Mission Creeps

That could be the new nickname for the jackbooted dimwits at the TSA (Too Stupid for Arby’s).

No one questions arrests made after TSA runs into evidence of drugs or other crimes during weapons searches. A bulge in baggy pants can be investigated, for example, because it might be an explosive. If it turns out to be cocaine, TSA is expected to report it to police or Drug Enforcement Agency officials.

But once TSA has determined that someone doesn’t have weapons or explosives, agents sometimes keep searching—leading some legal experts to wonder whether questioning people about how much cash they’re carrying, the number of credit cards they have and even prescription drugs in their bags stretches the intent of airport security law.

The kabuki theater at the airport is beyond stupid anyway. We should be looking for terrorists, not weapons. Of course, the TSA doesn’t have the market cornered on ineptitude. The hand-inspection of my backpack as I boarded a flight from Mexico City recently almost made me laugh out loud. The woman made a big show of unzipping the laptop compartment and sweeping it with her official, gloved hands. She completely ignored the other, larger compartments with the camera, cables, and my bottle of hand sanitizer.

At the Phoenix airport we were treated to a condescending routine by a young, male TSA goon who clearly relished his position of authority. But I guess it’s hard to get a job there if you don’t first pass the Stupid, Abusive and Rude aptitude test.

If you think the TSA makes you a whit safer than you were on 9/10, I have bad news for you about the Easter Bunny.

Update:

Meanwhile, they’re finally getting their wrists slapped over their absurd plans for General Aviation. It would be better, of course, to just disband the TSA. But this is something. Leave it to a unionized, government entity to come up with onerous procedures to prevent a non-existent threat.

Newspaper Finds Novel Revenue Stream

Apparently the WaPo has decided that as long as it’s in the tank, it may as well sell tickets.

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders.”

Update:

Read this without laughing.

“It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” Brauchli said. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post.”

Feeling a Draft, Emperor?

When even that old moonbat Helen Thomas notices, The Messiah may have trouble with the press. Pretty embarassing performance by Gibbs. I’m sure most of the press remains in the tank, but this (to mix metaphors) looks like a chink in the wall.

Update:

Helen is clearly in her dotage. I mean, she just now noticed? Where was she during the campaign? The difference between Nixon and The One is that, in Nixon’s time, the press didn’t volunteer to be controlled.

I Hope Israel Has this Law on the Books

Because then they could arrest and detain Cynthia McKinney for Felony Stupid.

2009 Bullwer-Lytton Awards

I’m rather fond of this Special Mention:

Fleur looked down her nose at Guilliame, something she was accomplished at, being six foot three in her stocking feet, and having one of those long French noses, not pert like Bridget Bardot’s, but more like the one that Charles De Gaulle had when he was still alive and President of France and he wore that cap that was shaped like a little hatbox with a bill in the front to offset his nose, but it didn’t work.

Read the winner and runners up here.