Category: News

Nevada Supreme Court overrules Nevada Constitution.

(Pointer from InstaPundit.)

The End.

Meanwhile, back in the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman comments (registration required) on President Bush’s trip to Africa and wonders whether we’re helping or hindering Africa’s case with monetary aid. Good question. Unfortunately, he includes this interesting factoid:

This week, he became only the third U.S. president to visit Africa in the last 25 years.

By my dead reckoning, since 1978 we have had only 5 presidents (Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush) serve, and of those 5, only 3 have served their complete terms. At very worst, of our last five presidents, 60% have gone to Africa. I’m not certain 60% merits an only.

CNN reports on the latest Congressional Zero-Intolergence law, which will throw spammers in jail for up to two years for a non-violent offense. That’s right. Send an unsolicited e-mail to someone, go to JAIL! I’ll have to watch my step when it’s time to send out next year’s Atari Party invitations.

The story says:

The bill also won praise from law-enforcement officials, who said spammers who now shrug off civil penalties as a cost of doing business may think twice when faced with a jail sentence of up to two years.

“We believe criminal sanctions will make a big difference in Virginia,” Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore told the House subcommittee on crime.

1. How many spammers have been identified and penalized civilly? Not many, but hey, if you’re going to fire aimlessly and not hit anything, it’s best to have a full quiver of punishment arrows so you can just keep firing.
2. “law enforcement officials“? But Jerry Kilgore is an elected politician, undoubtedly only stopping by the Attorney General’s office on his way to bigger and better elected offices.

Undoubtedly, unsolicited e-mail is annoying, but it’s a stupid target for legislation and law enforcement with the current state of deficits and the continued existence of violent crime which, you know, actually hurts people.

An op-ed piece in the Washington Post, written by a former police officer, argues that as long as drugs are prohibited, neighborhoods will be torn up and will occasionally riot against police.

He’s right, of course, but we’re a long way from any repeals at this point, I fear.

Best of the Web Today links to a press release announcing a study by the Cato Institute. The report’s entitled Economic Freedom of the World: 2003 Annual Report, and the press release summarizes the report with the headline Report: Wealthiest Nations Have Freest Economies.

I think this title doesn’t capture the causal link between the two. Instead, perhaps it should say Freest Economies Create Wealthiest Nations.

But I am no economist, I am just a dude who takes the meaning and order of words seriously.

Drudge links to a story in USA Today headlined Report: Feds lacks bioterror experts. The lead goes something like this:

The government will have an increasingly hard time hiring and retaining biologists and others needed to prepare for bioterror threats, a report concludes.

The report, according to the story, shines its light on the usual suspects: government pay contrasted with private pay, the decline of science graduates, and retirements.

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to mention the interest the government lavishes upon persons that it hires in this capacity.

Maybe they need a new hiring campaign slogan, such as, “Work on Bioterrorism for us, and we’ll take care of you.”

CNN reports: Last ship in Mars-bound armada begins risky trip.

Couldn’t that warmonger keep his ambitions planetary? No! Instead, he and the martial NASA send an armada, literally a fleet of warships, to Mars to conquer another undefended desert!

For certainly, the CNN headline writer was conscious of the ramifications of the word he, she, or it chose, right?

The Federal Trade Commission, an appointed and not elected body, has determined that individual states do not have the right to pass laws regulating commerce within their borders when it comes to the Internet.

In a move my newly-Federalist friend El Guapo might approve, the FTC would lift bans on Internet wine purchases. Some states think it’s too easy for minors to get liquor off the Internet, so they want to prohibit Internet vendors from selling wine to consumers in those states via the Internet.

The FTC, however, has found another way to abuse the powers granted under the ill-conceived interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution. Instead of letting the individual states handle moral issues (alcohol consumption) and logistical issues (keeping wine out of minors), Uncle Sam must be listening to the last lobbying dollars from vino dot coms.

“By allowing interstate direct shipping, states would give consumers the opportunity to save money on their wine purchases, and would let consumers choose from a much greater variety of wines,” the FTC said in its report.

It’s all for the betterment of the consumer, and it’s at the expense of the states, who lose more power appropriately left ot them and, ooops, lose all that sales and excise tax money which they cannot charge on Internet sales.

It’s oh so wrong in oh so many ways, I will leave it at that before I start foaming Les Bourheois Jeunette Rouge at the mouth and stain the keyboard.

Professor Reynolds links to this story by Erica Jong wherein Ms. Jong dispenses some advice for married people and their sex lives. Unlike her books, this article seems to present the idea of preserving a marriage.

I guess I shouldn’t be so quick to generalize. I’ve only read How to Save Your Own Life (the sequel to Fear of Flying), and since I was not a neurotic, repressed adultress-waiting-to-happen, I didn’t feel empowered by it.

The New York Post proves once again about how Stephen King is a good guy. Apparently, he bought out a show of 28 Days Later and gave the tickets to other people who wanted to see it.

Lileks mentions the story in a Bleat.

I think Democrat House Representative Jerry Kleczka, of Milwaukee, was trying to lash out against those tax-cutting Republicans in Congress when he kleczkavetched to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

“There’s a conscious decision here to just destroy the revenue base of this country,” said Kleczka, a Milwaukee Democrat. “They’re starving the Treasury.”

Starving the Treasury? Not spending money that the government does not have? Is this a problem or good governance?

Editorial in today’s Washington Post shows exactly how bad things have gotten in Pakistan:

Over the past few years, extremist Islamic groups in Pakistan have mounted a unilateral terror campaign. But Americans and Christians have not been the only victims. Women, secular advocates and even Muslims — Ahmadis, dissenting Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims — have also come under attack. [Emphasis mine.]

Oh, my. So it’s not just Americans and Christians dying, which is okay; now it’s other minority groups, which is somehow worse than just Americans and Christians.

Now that protected groups are getting it, perhaps we should start protecting them. Am I reading this op-ed piece right?

A survivor of the Bali terrorist bombing recently expressed the sentiments we all share when the admitted terrorist shouted “Allah Ackbar!” in the courtroom.

Jake Ryan, a survivor of the bombing who had bone shrapnel of other victims removed from his body, arose and loudly explained:

“You’re a f . . king dog, mate, you are going to die, you f . . k.”

Tim Blair has started a fund to buy Mr. Ryan some beer to toast his eloquence. I have contributed. You should, too.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reprinting a Knight Ridder Newspapers syndication about how to enter the IT world by learning a little geek speak.

Words like PEBKAC? Nagware? OS? LAN? Intranet? Firewall?

Drop those in your job interview, you little punk, and we’ll know your certs were vaporware. Get back to AOL where it’s safe. Before you do, please confirm your credit card number below.

Fred Kaplan, of Slate, elucidates on the MDA’s recent missile test. He says it’s laughable that the interceptor could have missed and the test succeeded. His ignorance shows, but professional writers, and by professional writers I mean “all other professional writers except me,” don’t have to know much about the real world to pund.

I’ve gone on about this missile test before, and I am too bored to go over it again. I’ll let John J. Miller handle Kaplan.

Another suburb of Milwaukee is suffering from a shortage of Paxil. Residents in Cerdarburg have created a petition complaining that the colors of playground equipment are too colorful.

If it’s not the color of a duck blind, suburban Milwaukee communities don’t want it. Heaven forbid their property values not rise as quickly as the next drab suburb over.

In Florida, a group of kids were swimming in a river even though they could see alligators nearby all day. Of course, when they saw the alligators, they got out of the water. Except for the toughest of the bunch, who might have been trying to prove his bravery. It didn’t work out for him.

Do you think we’ll get a summer of Alligator Attack! hype from this?