Thursday, November 19, 2009

From a $75 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Just read Iain Murray in the Corner and since my money will soon be worthless, you may as well have some of it.

Keep up the great work!

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11/19 08:00 AMShare

A Labor Strike in the Emerald Isle    [Michael Warren]

Galway, Ireland — Civil servants in the Republic of Ireland are planning a one-day strike across the country to protest the government’s plan to cut their salaries.

From the Irish Times:

Senior civil servants have voted to join the planned national public sector strike scheduled for next Tuesday, November 24th.

In what is seen as a hardening of attitudes, members of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants (AHCPS), which represents principal officers and assistant principal officers as well as other grades such as prison governors and court registrars, yesterday voted by 60 per cent to 40 per cent to take part.

The move represents an effective reversal of a decision taken by the union last March when members voted by a similar margin not to participate in industrial action planned at that stage.

The strike includes, as I found out in class yesterday, university faculty at all of Ireland’s public universities. Here at the National University of Ireland in Galway, practically all of our November 24 classes are cancelled. There are even rumors that the library will be closed, which practically renders that day useless for working on final papers. The faculty is well organized, but their union did not make this decision unanimously. One of my lecturers, a union member who hinted in class that she might be against the strike, said that a good one-third of the union voted against the strike.

In fact, the one-day “strike” is more a symbolic protest than a call to action, and I doubt it will do much good. Ireland’s economy is in a pretty bad state, and tax revenues are down by 17 percent. The strike is receiving hardly any newspaper coverage, which may reflect a general feeling that it will be ineffective. But regardless of the strike’s success, it will cause a huge work stoppage.

This situation has given me a newfound appreciation for the relative weakness of organized labor in the United States. Even with their preferred candidate in the White House, unions still aren’t as powerful in America as they are in Western Europe. When they have to resort to physically attacking their political opponents, it’s an indication that they don’t have us by the collar.

— Michael Warren, a former Collegiate Network intern at National Review, studies economics and history at Vanderbilt University and blogs at Vandy Right.

11/19 08:00 AMShare

From a $50 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I just gave $50 yesterday, but after reading Rich Lowry's appeal, I feel like I need to donate again!

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11/19 07:30 AMShare

From a $10 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I'm a pastor without a lot of money, so this is what I can give. But I so truly appreciate the wisdom you have amassed at NRO. You're a gift to us all and to America specifically. I laugh at the witty pointedness of Steyn, laugh hard in fact, and always glean from Goldberg, McCarthy, and such. You guys are gold. Keep up the good fight!

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11/19 07:00 AMShare

Hey Word   [John J. Miller]

When I first came to Washington in the early 1990s, I was eager to read a definitive book on Reagan and his presidency. I had grown up watching Reagan and broadly admired him, but I wanted to go into the weeds and get a handle on the tax bills, the MX missile controversy, Bitburg—all of it. So I asked for suggestions. The bottom line is that the book I wanted to read didn't exist.

Since then, many people have written excellent books on Reagan: Cannon, D'Souza, Kengor, O'Sullivan, etc. Yet the very best—the one that takes the most comprehensive look at both foreign and domestic policy and smartly contextualizes all of it—is Steve Hayward's two-volume work of political history, The Age of Reagan. The first volume covers Reagan's pre-presidential years; the second volume, which came out this summer, covers the 1980s. This is the book I would have liked to read 15 years ago.

Steve gave a presentation on his book and Reagan last night to the Washington Fellows of the National Review Institute. If you read only one thing on Reagan, Hayward's your guy.

11/19 06:04 AMShare

Andrew Sullivan: The Randall Terry of Anti-Palinism . . .   [Mike Potemra]

. . . or the Inspector Javert?

According to this CNN poll, only 28 percent of Americans believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. For a person as well known to the public as Palin, that is an appallingly low number. For someone who is already so firmly fixed in the national consciousness – more: who has already reached a stratospheric level of celebrity — where is the room for growth in popularity? Who are the people who could possibly move from the 70-odd percent who declare Palin unqualified, into the 30-odd percent who believe she is qualified?

The answer is: people who become convinced that her current low public image is largely the result of unfair depictions of her in the media. I have little patience for victimology, specifically the self-pity of politicians who whine that they are being unfairly maligned by a dastardly media (conservatives who complain about the MSM, liberals who complain about Fox). I suspect that most Americans, who have an even lower opinion of politicians in general than I do, agree with me on this. So if the former governor of Alaska goes out and makes this assertion of unfairness, that in itself will not convince many people. Indeed, it would more probably backfire, with the typical citizen responding, “Geez. Self-absorbed much?”

But: If prominent media figures show an obsession with Palin that is so deep that they put the rest of the world on hold just because she wrote a book — then people might start suspecting that, yes, maybe there really is some animus in media elites, and maybe we should give Palin another chance. That’s when the 70-some percent starts to melt away, and a Palin presidency becomes conceivable. The second step, from “conceivable” to “likely,” is an even shorter step than the first.

Andrew Sullivan is, on many issues, an interesting writer. But when it comes to this hobby-horse, it wouldn’t even be accurate to say that he has let Sarah Palin jiu-jitsu him; no, what’s happening here is that he is jiu-jitsuing himself — an act of which Sarah Palin is the most conspicuous beneficiary.

I’ve never met Palin, but people who have tell me she is an intelligent and talented woman. She’ll have a interesting and happy future in whatever line of work she ends up in — but if she chooses presidential politics, she will succeed only if she can count on some help from her enemies. So far, she’s getting it.

 

11/19 01:53 AMShare

When Oligarchs Squabble   [Andrew Stuttaford]

The Daily Telegraph reports on the horse-trading for the job of the EU's "president" (technically he or she will preside over the EU's council):

European leaders are heading for a fierce battle on Thursday after Germany and France were accused of plotting to bounce their favoured federalist candidate into the post of EU president. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy were revealed to have made a pact to railroad Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium's Prime Minister, into the powerful Brussels job created by the Lisbon Treaty. The attempted "stitch-up" angered Britain, Spain, Italy and Poland along with other central and east European countries…The last Franco-German attempt to impose a candidate for a top EU job failed in 2004 when Guy Verhofstadt, the then Belgium prime minister, was vetoed by Britain for the post of European Commission President. Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, has called for the EU appointments process to "be as transparent and democratic as possible", using words that were seen as coded criticism of Europe's two biggest and most powerful countries. A senior diplomatic source described the mood among southern, central and East European EU countries as "angry" amid preparations for a summit that many officials and diplomats fear will be chaotic and unpredictable.

Let's hope.

11/19 12:07 AMShare

FPOD: Not Scared of KSM . . . and Not Worried about McCarthy!   [Andy McCarthy]

From today's hearing:

SEN. KYL: Let me just close with this point. You said — and this really bothers me, Mr. Attorney General, with all due respect — "For eight years, justice has been delayed for the victims of the 9/11 attacks." I want to put in the record, Mr. Chairman — ask unanimous consent to insert in the record an article called "Justice Delayed" by Andrew McCarthy.

 

SEN. LEAHY: Without objection.

 

SEN. KYL: And I'll just quote two paragraphs from this.

 

"This is chutzpah writ large," he writes. "The principal reason there were so few military trials is the tireless campaign conducted by leftist lawyers to derail military tribunals by challenge (sic/challenging) them in the courts. Many of those lawyers are now working for the Obama Justice Department. That includes Holder, whose firm, Covington & Burling, volunteered its services" —

 

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Hah!

 

SEN. KYL: — "to at least 18 of America's enemies in lawsuits they brought against the American people."

 

And it concludes, "Within two years, KSM and four fellow war criminals stood ready to plead guilty and proceed to execution. But then the Obama administration blew into Washington. Want to talk about delay? Obama shut down the commission, despite the jihadists' efforts to conclude it by pleading guilty. Obama's team permitted no movement of (sic/on) the case for 11 months, and now has torpedoed a perfectly valid commission case — despite keeping the commission system for other cases — so that we can instead endure an incredibly expensive and burdensome civil (sic/civilian) trial that will take years to complete."

 

The witness can surely respond to what I said.

 

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: I don't even know where to begin — other than to say that, you know, this notion of leftist lawyers somehow prolonging this: The vast majority of the time in which these matters were not brought to trial, to fruition, happened in the prior administration. The Supreme Court — not, I think, a group of leftist lawyers — had concerns about the way in which some of the commissions were — the way in which the commissions were constructed.

 

The Congress reenacted — and, I think, appropriately so — the way in which the commissions were constructed. This is not a Congress peopled only with leftist lawyers, as Mr. McCarthy would say. So, you know, that makes for nice rhetoric and it makes for, you know, good, I guess, fodder on the talk shows and all of that stuff, you know, but I'm here to talk about facts and evidence, real American values, and not the kinds of polemics that he seems prone to — seems prone to. So, you know, that's — I'm not worried about Mr. McCarthy.

11/19 12:03 AMShare

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Red Dawn Remake Intel   [Jonah Goldberg]

Over at  Filmdrunk.

11/18 11:33 PMShare

As Usual, Holder Undone by Holder   [Andy McCarthy]

As I noted in addressing Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony this morning, the heart of his defense of the administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 terrorists in civilian court is the howler that there is no real difference between a civilian trial and a military commission. 

Holder absurdly claimed that he believed it would be easier to get a conviction in civilian court — notwithstanding that the more lax evidentiary standards in military commissions make it easier for the government to get its proof admitted. And that's beside the fact that the jihadists wanted to plead guilty and proceed to execution in their military commission. (In Holder-world, conviction in an unpredictable civilian trial two years from now is somehow a surer thing than a military commission in which the defendants asked to plead guilty eleven months ago.)

Holder also claimed that there was no real difference between the protection of classified information in civilian and military courts. I explained in the aforementioned post why this isn't true. But I neglected to mention the most obvious reason why it isn't true: the Justice Department's own "protocols" for sorting out which enemy combatants get military commissions and which get civilan trials with all the rights and privileges of American citizens.

During today's testimony, Holder was especially incoherent in trying to explain the rationale — which has resulted in the worst war criminals getting a civilian trial while lesser war criminals are stuck in military tribunals. He kept falling back on DOJ's newly developed "protocols" for making this judgment. Scott Johnson has an excellent post at Powerline discussing these protocols. There are only three and they are very elastic.  But for now, I want to focus on the second one (my italics):

B. Efficiency. The factors to be considered here are protection of intelligence sources and methods; the venue in which the case would be tried; issues related to multiple-defendant trials; foreign policy concerns; legal or evidentiary problems that might attend prosecution in the other jurisdiction: and efficiency and resource concerns.

So here are a couple of questions the Judiciary Committee might want to ask Holder in its follow-up: 

1.  If, as between civilian trials and military commissions, there is no real difference in the degree to which national defense secrets are protected, why does the Justice Department apply a protocol which asserts that the "protection of intelligence sources and methods" will be different in the two systems?

2.  If the evidentiary rules in the two systems are virtual mirror images, why does DOJ apply a protocol that says evidence that is admissible in one system may not be admissible in the other?  And, since Holder claims the government has an easier time proving its case in civilian court, can he identify a single category of evidence that is admissible in civilian court but not in a military tribunal? 

On number 2, here's a hint: One of the major attacks on the military commissions, advanced by lawyers like those in Holder's firm who volunteered their services to the enemy, was that military commissions permitted too much hearsay and, potentially, evidence obtained by "torture." They argued that the government should be required to prove its case under what they insisted were the more demanding standards that govern civilian trials.

11/18 10:43 PMShare

Japan and Its Population 'Crisis'   [Andrew Stuttaford]

In an attempt to make it easier to deal with Tokyo’s masses of shoppers, department store Takashimaya decided to enroll the services of a speech-recognising robot for a week...Saya was developed by Hiroshi Kobayashi of the Tokyo University of Science in 2004 and had up until recently been involved in a trial at a Tokyo primary school. The robot supply teacher was capable of catching students passing notes and copying homework as well as giving them a rather stern telling off. Saya then began "working" at Takashimaya in Ginza where she sits at the store's information desk. For a week in October shoppers were treated to a very different kind of store assistant. Saya is capable of responding to shoppers’ questions and complaints in more than 700 different ways, directing them to the relevant floors and making small talk in between. It may just be my Japanese accent but Saya seemed rather confused by my simple questions, often directing me to the toilet regardless of where I had asked to go.

The scary thing about Saya is her virtual past. Programmers have installed responses that allow her to tell passers by a little about her history. Saya can respond to questions about previous jobs...

11/18 09:36 PMShare

From a $200 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

While I am a faithful subscriber to NRODT, I have benefitted from your incredible work at NRO for far too long without any sacrifice from me. This is chump change compared to what I wish I could give, and I hope someday to give much more. That is how important I think your work is. Thanks!

Sincerely,
Future 1955 Club Member

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11/18 06:30 PMShare

From a $100 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Keep up the good work, and keep exposing the truth through factual debate.

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11/18 06:00 PMShare

From a $250 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

One of the best gifts I ever received from my parents was a subscription to the National Review. Since 1999, I've been an avid follower both in print and online. NRO is one of the *go to* sites I visit every morning. Keep up the great work — we NEED you more than ever!

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11/18 05:30 PMShare

Dude, Where's My Jobs Created or Saved?   [Stephen Spruiell]

Bad day for Recovery.gov. First, Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, had to inform Rep. Darrell Issa that "the board can’t vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding."

Now, Ed Pound, director of communications for Recovery.gov, has stepped in it too. When asked to explain the phenomenon of stimulus-related job creation in non-existent congressional districts, Pound told the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "who knows, man, who really knows."

Totally. In what sense are congressional districts "real," anyway, you know? It kind of blows your mind, if you think about it.

11/18 05:08 PMShare

From a $52 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

What better deal at a dollar a week?

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 05:00 PMShare

From a $15 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I only wish I was a NY Times subscriber so I could cancel it and send the money to you.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 04:30 PMShare

From a $50 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

It is not just the quality of the commentary & commentators, but the "diversity" of views. Not everyone agrees and they say so, lucidly, fluently, and forcefully. For that reason alone, NRO is worth time and effort — and certainly funding.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 04:00 PMShare

Best Summary of TARP I've Yet Seen   [Iain Murray]

Comes from Gregg Easterbrook on, erm, ESPN:

Wasting $2.3 Billion in Federal Money Hardly Seems Worth Mentioning Anymore: Commercial lender CIT Group has filed for bankruptcy after receiving $2.3 billion in taxpayer funds, an ominous indicator since the only justification for showering public money on poorly managed financial firms such as this was to prevent their bankruptcy. The bankruptcy filing means the public's $2.3 billion is gone. But into whose pockets? Tuesday Morning Quarterback fears it will soon turn out much of the bailout money supposedly "loaned" to financial firms has instead mysteriously disappeared. After all, the whole premise of the TARP programs was to give extremely large amounts of public money to companies with demonstrated track records of mismanaging money, then assume there was no chance whatsoever the companies' executives would be more concerned with their own paychecks than with the taxpayer.

Scandal update: This past spring, TMQ supposed the worst part of the federal bailout of AIG was that the company's debts were paid 100 percent — rather than negotiating cents-on-the-dollar discounts, which creditors almost always accept when a debtor faces bankruptcy. "Instead of negotiating a reduction of debt, AIG simply immediately handed over full value. After all, the money was coming from taxpayers' pockets, and when has anyone cared how much taxpayer money is wasted?" On Monday, a federal audit report made exactly the same point. The report basically says the federal government (in this case, in a bipartisan Republican-Democrat bungle) threw $27 billion in taxpayer funds out the window by not even attempting to negotiate AIG debt reductions. That's serious billions, about the same as the Medicare physicians' payment cut Congress is contemplating. But the money did not vanish into the air — rather, it went into the pockets of executives and shareholders at firms such as Goldman Sachs. The decisions to funnel $27 billion in gifts to Wall Street firms and big banks were made by officials who previously had worked for Wall Street firms and big banks, and hope to do so again.

Couldn't have put it better myself. The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington is something that has to end if public confidence in the nation's financial affairs is to be restored.

11/18 03:52 PMShare

Dissent Is Criminal   [Hans A. von Spakovsky]

Bob Bauer, the husband of Anita “My Favorite Political Philosopher Is Mao” Dunn, has been appointed as the new White House counsel. I know Bob, and on an everyday level he is a polite gentleman with a great family history. But he is not someone you want to face on the other side of a court case or a political battle because he is a fierce partisan who does not believe in taking prisoners. No one should forget that it was Bauer, as the general counsel for the Obama presidential campaign, who wrote a letter to the Justice Department on October 17, 2008, asking that a special prosecutor investigate Republicans like John McCain for talking publicly about voter fraud. According to Bauer, such talk was not only evidence of a “partisan political agenda,” but supposedly intended to “suppress voting” by harassing voters and impeding “their exercise of their rights.”

 

The spurious claims made in the letter were pretty outrageous at the time, but what is even scarier is that we now have a White House counsel who has asserted that anyone who talks about voter fraud, including the type of massive voter-registration fraud committed by ACORN, should be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department for voter intimidation. Under normal circumstances, one could be pretty confident that the attorney general would dismiss such ridiculous claims. But given the serious concerns about the politicalization of the Justice Department under Eric Holder, perhaps we should all be worried that the prosecutorial power of the Justice Department will be used against members of the opposition political party on this issue. Since I write about voter fraud fairly often, I guess I should be on the lookout for that grand-jury indictment or a call from the FBI.

11/18 03:52 PMShare

Singed by Irony – or a Tribute?   [Mike Potemra]

William Tyndale was one of the great heroes of history, burned at the stake in 1535 for translating the Scriptures into the vernacular. I was just checking, through Google, what percentage of the King James Bible was taken from his earlier translation. (Answers vary, but the consensus is that it was more than 75 percent.) One of the first links that came up was to a company called Tyndale USA: “the most trusted provider of flame resistant apparel.”

11/18 03:45 PMShare

Past the Bitter End   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

Conservatives and Republicans should commit themselves not only to defeating Democratic health-care legislation, but to repealing it if it is enacted.

They ought to announce that they will work for repeal for two reasons. The first is straightforward: Making the announcement will increase the probability that the legislation, if enacted, will be repealed. Otherwise inertia might carry it forward even if the public is dissatisfied with its operation in its early years. Conservatives might win some elections and then find themselves divided, with some merely seeking reform of Obamacare. Momentum might dissipate. Most programs, once enacted, never go away, no matter how badly they work. Conservatives should make a strong commitment not to let that happen this time.

The second reason for pledging to repeal the health-care legislation if it’s enacted is that making the pledge will reduce the likelihood that it is enacted to begin with. It would tell vulnerable congressional Democrats who just want this politically damaging debate over that enacting it will not end the political pain—that this debate is not going to fade away by the next election, or maybe even the one after that. Some Democrats may be willing to lose congressional seats in order to enact a longstanding liberal policy goal. A pledge to repeal the health-care legislation would tell even these Democrats that they could end up losing seats for nothing—for nothing lasting, anyway.

Repealing Obamacare should be the Right’s fallback strategy, and making it known that it will be might make it slightly less necessary to fall back to.

11/18 03:33 PMShare

From a $250 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

My go-to website every day . . . even though I don't consider myself a conservative, I find the perspectives  at NRO invaluable . . keep up the good work.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 03:30 PMShare

When Reality Catches up to Rhetoric   [Victor Davis Hanson]

The growing problem for the Obama administration is that the public has finally caught on that the president's tough rhetoric and soaring oratory don't match reality.

"Considering all options" and "wanting more information" essentially mean dithering and voting present on Afghanistan, even after announcing the adoption of a new bold strategy.

"Saving jobs" means conjecturing about the effects of massive borrowing and enhancing your figures through the creation of fictitious congressional districts and bogus employment reporting.

"Punishing KSM" means giving the liberal community a world platform for legal gymnastics designed to repudiate the past administration and demonstrate that community's "tolerance" — without much worry about justice for KSM or the adverse effects of giving such a monster a public megaphone.

The health-care mess grows worse: The Chinese have caught on that Obama wants to borrow more billions for us, who are cash poor, to create entitlements that they, who are cash rich, would not create for their own people. The new government suggestion that women not begin receiving routine mammograms until age 50 comes at a bad time, given that critics of Obamacare have been arguing that it will lead to rationing of service.

Guantanamo is about to go the way of tribunals, renditions, intercepts, Predators, and wiretaps — damned in rhetoric, but kept intact in reality.

"Transparency" did not quite happen either: The Obama administration has offered more photo-ops and fewer press conferences (cf. Anita Dunn on that tact), and Washington has as many lobbyists as ever. Meanwhile, the administration has not fulfilled its promise to post pending legislation on the Internet; it has politicized the NEA; and it has declared war on Fox News, the Chamber of Commerce, and the town-hall protesters. The president has even employed the sexual slur "tea-bagger" against his opposition.

Obama's "reset button" foreign policy in just ten months has made the Middle East worse and has delighted European leftists as much as it has terrified Europe's centrist leaders. In Latin America, the U.S. has gone from being an advocate of consensual government, human rights, and market capitalism to being an appeaser of Chávez, Zelaya, Ortega, the Castros, et al., inasmuch as these communist hardliners are now seen as problematic advocates for indigenous peoples and economic justice.

We are left with two conclusions. 1) A very inexperienced president has discovered that all the easy, Manichean campaign rhetoric of 2008 does not translate well into actual governance. 2) Obama is in a race to push a rather radical, polarizing agenda down the throat of a center-right country before the country wakes up and his approval ratings hit 40 percent.

We may see one of two things happen: Either the country will move more to the left in four years than it has in the last 50; or Obama will take down with him both the Democratic Congress and the very notion of responsible liberal governance, thereby achieving a Jimmy Carter–type legacy.

The next year will be one of the most interesting in memory.

11/18 03:12 PMShare

From a $25 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

It's a relief to click on NRO every day and see there are like-minded people who have their finger on the pulse. It affirms that we are not howling at the moon in a vacuum. Keep up the great work, and your persistence is appreciated.

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11/18 03:00 PMShare

Wireless in Seattle   [Jay Nordlinger]

The NR “suits” like us to announce when we’re going to be on the radio and whatnot. Okay, here’s something: The David Boze Show in Seattle, KTTH, 3:10 Pacific time. I know there are conservatives in Seattle. We NR-niks met them in a room one time, before an Alaska cruise. I think there are some closeted ones there too (as everywhere). No worry: You can listen to the radio in private. Maybe in your car, with the windows rolled up tight?

11/18 03:00 PMShare

Parsing Palin   [NRO Staff]

Rich Lowry on Going Rogue on Off the Page:

11/18 02:46 PMShare

From a $100 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

NRO and the Corner are invaluable resources. You guys help me keep up with the dizzying deconstruction of our country, so I make it a point to stop by every day.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 02:30 PMShare

DeGette: A Correction   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

The Hill misquoted Rep. Diana DeGette yesterday, and I relied on their misquotation in a post. She said that the Catholic bishops should be among the groups that have input into legislation; she did not oppose their having input. Glad to hear it.

11/18 02:24 PMShare

Joan Biskupic’s Biography of Justice Scalia   [Ed Whelan]

On Bench Memos, I have a series of posts (Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4) offering not-very-favorable commentary on USA Today reporter Joan Biskupic’s new biography of Justice Scalia, American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

11/18 02:10 PMShare

Everybody's a Critic   [John Derbyshire]

Really. Who let all these nit-pickers in?

Mr. Derbyshire — You said that: "If the temperature anywhere inside the earth was 'several million degrees,' we'd be a star." We wouldn't, though. Wrong composition, and not big enough …

[Me]  Feugh! At those temperatures Earth would look a darn sight more star-like than planet-like, at least for the few minutes it existed. And I bet our light elements, sparse as they are, would seek each other out and fuse like gangbusters.

(A different reader suggests that if the Earth's interior were at those temperatures, we could drill holes, feed fibre-optic cable down, and light our cities for free!)

And then this wisenheimer:

Mr. Derbyshire — Median length of a Chinese dynasty only 45 years? Surely you jest.

[Me]  Nah-uh. I copied the list of 32 imperial dynasties (starting from the First Emperor — where else should I start?) to a spreadsheet from Appendix A of Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary. I added one more: Median comes out neater with N odd, and the guy thought he'd established a dynasty, whatever Mathews says. Then I sorted by duration and read off number 17, which was the Wei Dynasty (A.D. 220–265). The mean duration of a dynasty, by the way, is 87.4 years.

11/18 02:03 PMShare

From a $100 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I read NRO several times a day.  It has become a necessary part of my information gathering. Thanks for your careful, thoughtful commentary.

I am also getting a subscription to your magazine, the first hard-copy magazine subscription I've had in years.

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11/18 02:00 PMShare

The AG's Distortion of the Opposition to His Decision   [Andy McCarthy]

Attorney General Holder has several times offered a spirited defense of federal prosecutors — including expressions of confidence that KSM and the other jihadists will be convicted. This is a strawman: There's no reason to defend people who are not being attacked, and conviction is not the issue.

As it happens, Preet Bharara, the new U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, worked for me for a while when he was a new prosecutor. He is superb. There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that he and the assistant U.S. attorneys he assigns to the KSM case will do an excellent job and uphold the high standards and traditions of the Southern District and the Justice Department. I'm also very confident that KSM and the others will be convicted. 

For what it's worth, I think the team I led in the Blind Sheikh case did an excellent job, and we also convicted everybody. But that is not the measure of success. It's not whether the government wins the litigation; it's whether the national security of the United States has been harmed more by having the trial than it would have been harmed by handling the detainees in a different manner.

What made the United States most vulnerable in the Nineties was our enemies' perception that they were at war and we were not. They gave us bombs, we gave them rights. That encouraged them to attack us more often and more audaciously — which is exactly what they did.

If we are at war, and the Attorney General said this morning that we are, we have to treat it like a war. Pressed by Sen. Graham this morning, the AG could not name a single time when, during war, we captured an enemy combatant outside the U.S. and brought him into the United States for a civilian trial — vesting him with all the rights of an American citizen. That's because hasn't happened. That's not how you treat wartime enemies. 

Further, if we are going to have military commissions at all (and Holder says we will continue to have them), it makes no sense to transfer the worst war criminals to the civilian system. Doing so tells the enemy that they will get more rights if they mass-murder civilians.

The question is not whether the prosecutors are able, whether they'll do a spectacular job, and whether they'll get these guys. They are extraordinarily competent, they will perform at a very high level, and I'll be shocked if they don't win the case. The issue is: What damage will we sustain by doing things this way, and is there a way we could do them without sustaining that much damage?

11/18 01:32 PMShare

From a $20 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Well, there's my beer money for the weekend! I'm a recent college grad — hopefully in the future I'll have more to give! Thank you and keep up the great (and good) work you do.

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11/18 01:30 PMShare

Re: 'Fuss'   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

A reader in Oregon responds:

Ronald Reagan is a giant hero for civilization but if, under him, the Republican Party became the "party of ideas" it wasn't Reagan's ideas. Reagan didn't have ideas so much as he had principles, truths, and optimism. These things Palin has in spades. Damn right the GOP can be a party of ideas under Palin — under her it will once again be enthused and guided by overarching conservative views of what this country needs — then the ideas will flow like 1980-88 all over again.

Off to donate $25.

11/18 01:28 PMShare

Defining Nidal Hassan   [NRO Staff]

Jay Nordlinger argues that the "Is Hassan a terrorist?" debate doesn't matter on Off the Page today:

11/18 01:25 PMShare

Wehner on the Palin 'Fuss'   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Pete writes:

The degree to which Palin evokes fury, contempt, and anger among her critics is nothing short of amazing. It is visceral and almost clinical. And it cannot be based on what she has done (which as governor of Alaska is fairly limited and not terribly controversial), on the views she holds (which are mainstream conservative), or on her relative lack of experience when McCain picked her as his vice-presidential choice (Palin’s experience was comparable to Barack Obama’s, who after all was running for president). What explains the fierce reaction to her is, in part, I think, her affect, the way she talks (and winks), the background she has emerged from, the populism she seems to embody. Palinism, as I understand it, is less a coherent philosophy or set of ideas and more an attitude and spirit. In that sense, she is a cultural figure much more than a political one.

If you believe, as I do, that the GOP once again needs to become the “party of ideas” — as it did under Ronald Reagan — then Palin is not the solution to what ails it. At this stage, based on the interviews I have seen with her, she doesn’t seem able to articulate the case for conservatism in a manner that is compelling or even particularly persuasive. She is nothing like, to take three individuals I would hold up as public models, Margaret Thatcher, William Bennett, and Antonin Scalia — people brimming with ideas, knowledgeable and formidable, intellectually well-grounded, and impossible to dismiss. That, of course, doesn’t mean that Palin doesn’t have a role to play in the Republican party or contributions to make to it. And what Palin has revealed about some of her critics is, in the words of my colleague Yuval Levin, “the unfortunate and unattractive propensity of the American cultural elite to treat those who are not deemed part of the elect with condescension and contumely.”

11/18 01:11 PMShare

From a $100 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Okay, okay. I’m filled with guilt. I have been squatting, rent free, on NRO for years. I’ve even brought in my children. We would be homeless and adrift without the philosophical shelter of National Review. So, in the spirit of settling a long due debt, please accept this small donation as partial payment for past and future sanctuary.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 01:00 PMShare

Krauthammer's Take   [NRO Staff]

From last night's Fox News All-Stars.

 

On the administration’s phony numbers for jobs saved by the stimulus:

The effect, ultimately — and the danger for any administration — is to be an object of ridicule.

 

Look, this whole discussion has had an Alice-in-Wonderland quality from the very beginning. You can't measure saved jobs. Arguing over the precision or imprecision of the numbers, which are fictional at the beginning, is like arguing that there are twelve angels on the head of a pin and only ten …

 

And when you hear these reports, as we're hearing now with the fictional congressional districts, the risk for the administration is that it becomes an object of ridicule. And once that happens, it's hard to actually stop.

 

And the issue will become competence. There have been ideological objections against this administration — it's left-wing, it's radical, and all that. But now we're starting a new kind of meme, that it is an administration that really can't get things done.

 

And when you have the president announcing, as he did in his address to the Congress — Don't worry about the tracking of the stimulus. It will be done by the vice president and nobody messes with Joe Biden …Well, it looks as if the folks in the 99th district of the Mariana Islands … are messing with Joe Biden.

 

Once the meme starts, it becomes the subject of late-night comedy. … When they speak seriously about this – 640,329 jobs saved, comical precision — and then it turns out a lot of these are fictional jobs in fictional districts, what happens is the administration, already satirized on "Saturday Night Live" as do-nothing, is now going to be seen as an administration that cannot even do nothing competently.

On China’s concern with the state of the U.S. economy:

Look, the reason you have this odd alliance between Republicans and Chinese on [cautioning against] health-care reform is that the Chinese hold all this debt. They know that eventually the United States will take care of it in one way. It's not going to be default. We are not Argentina. It is not going to be a repudiation of debt the way that Cuba did. It is going to be in inflation. We will inflate our way out. …

 

Now, the existing amount of [Chinese-held] debt, over $1 trillion or so, is large, but it's not out of control. It is about a tenth of our GNP. What the Chinese are worried about is that [with its] ambitious social agenda this administration is going to add hugely onto our debt, starting with a new entitlement in health-care reform which could add trillions to national debt.

 

In the absence of health reform, [we] are going to have $9 trillion added in debt over a decade. … That's why the Chinese are worried, and that's why Republicans are worried, and that's why Americans are worried about this incredible spending that the Obama administration has on its agenda.

11/18 12:36 PMShare

Health Care Is Not a Right   [Iain Murray]

I had a health scare a couple of weeks ago and as I was lying in the ER, enjoying excellent privately-run health care, I had a chance to think philosophically about the nature of health care. Thanks to my young colleague Roger Abbott, we were able to coalesce those thoughts into an op/ed over at the Examiner.

I'm doing much better now; thanks for asking!

11/18 12:36 PMShare

How Much Did That New Car Cost?   [Iain Murray]

The National Taxpayers Union has a new study out assessing the cost of the auto bailouts. The numbers should shock you. Not only has the subsidy to GM (and its banking division, GMAC) and Chrysler amounted to $800 per taxpaying household — money that could easily make the difference between a real Christmas and an "imagination Christmas" this year — but the subsidies per car sold are remarkable. They amount to over $12,000 per GM car and over $7,500 per Chrysler car sold. We have indeed created American Leyland.

11/18 12:34 PMShare

From a $50 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

NRO is one stop shopping for me: Informative discourse, links to must-read articles of the day, plus the added entertainment of all things sci-fi related. If there is another website this thorough, they need a new marketing team.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 12:30 PMShare

Re: Durbin on Moussaoui   [Andy McCarthy]

A reader notes some facts I should have mentioned:  Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota at a time when the military commission system did not yet exist. Unlike KSM & Co., he wasn't captured in wartime outside the United States and detained outside the United States at a time when a military commission system had been implemented.

11/18 12:28 PMShare

From a $50 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a UK perspective, NRO is an online oasis in a socialist desert. Keep up the great work!

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 12:00 PMShare

Durbin on Moussaoui   [Andy McCarthy]

AG Holder's testimony has resumed, and Senator Durbin claims that no one complained about the Moussaoui trial being in a civilian court. In fact, many of us complained — I pointed out several times that Moussaoui was the "poster child" for commissions.

More importantly, though, Senator Durbin and the attorney general fail to point out that the Moussaoui trial was a three-ring circus, that the district judge actually tried to dismiss the indictment, and that we don't know what would have happened had Moussaoui not surprised everyone by pleading guilty. When the Court of Appeals reinstated the Moussaoui indictment, it also said it was sensitive to the trial judge's concerns and would look very carefully to ensure that the government made available to Moussaoui all the information he needed to present his defense. What would have happened if Moussaoui had continued to press his demand for access to classified information and testimony from al-Qaeda captives like KSM? We don't know.

If Moussaoui is their shining example of how well the civilian courts handle international terrorism cases during wartime, they're in trouble. 

11/18 11:55 AMShare

Your Tax Dollars at Work   [Veronique de Rugy]

According to the Office of Managment and Budget, in FY 2009 improper payments rose to $98 billion from $72 billion in FY 2008. Of this $98 billion, $54.2 billion was in improper Medicare and Medicaid Spending (improper payments include fraud and payments that aren't fully accounted for).

Over at the NPR blog, Julie Rovner writes:

The Medicare Advantage error rate also jumped — without any change in measurement methodology — from 10.6 percent to 15.4 percent.

Said Orszag, without a hint of irony, given the pitched battles in Congress over Democrats' efforts to cut tens of billions of dollars from the Medicare Advantage program, "this is one of the reasons why, as part of health reform, we believe that there are crucial changes necessary to the Medicare Advantage program.

Here is a chart of improper payments.

11/18 11:51 AMShare

Holder's Testimony    [Andy McCarthy]

They are in recess after opening statements and initial rounds of questions. Here are some of the Attorney General's whoppers so far:

1.  The "tragic shooting" at Ft. Hood.  What happened at Ft. Hood was a jihadist massacre — a terrorist act, not a tragedy.

2.  The civilian justice system has been handling terrorism cases successfully for years.  No mention of Mamdouh Salim, the al-Qaeda founder who was never brought to trial for 1998 U.S. embassy bombings because he maimed a Bureau of Prisons guard in an escape attempt during which he attempted to kidnap is taxpayer-funded defense lawyers.

 

3.  We can protect classified material because of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).  It is not just classified information that is helpful to terrorist organizations. The list of people who might be identified as unindicted coconspirators that I had to turn over in 1995 was not classified, but it told al-Qaeda who was on the government's investigative radar screen. Moreover, CIPA does not shield all classified information from the terrorists — just the classified information the judge decides is neither discoverable under the rules nor relevant to the trial. If it is discoverable and/or relevant, the defense gets it. And in civilian court, the terrorists can demand to represent themselves (as I explained in this column), so the government can't shield the classified information from them as it can in the military system (where it can require them to have military lawyers with security clearances in order to get access to the discovery).

 

In answering Senator Hatch's questions, Holder emphasized that the coconspirator list in my case was not a classified document (as I explain above). That, however, doesn't help the attorney general's argument. To the contrary, it demonstrates that there is a great deal of non-classified information that comes out in a civilian trial, and that gets made available in civilian discovery, that is not classified. This information is still incredibly helpful to the people trying to kill us.

 

Moreover, the Left always complains that too much information in government is classified. Implicitly, Holder is now suggesting that we classify far more information than we otherwise would to bring it under the protection of CIPA. In addition, CIPA requires that all classified information issues be litigated (including any appeals) prior to trial. If we classify everything, that's going to require a mammoth pretrial trial and appeal before the actual trial happens. And, even if you did that, CIPA cannot control what goes on in the courtroom once witnesses start answering questions and blurting out information — and once defense lawyers start asking questions about classified information in order to provoke the prosecutors into objecting (defense lawyers often don't care about the answers to these questions; they ask for the purpose of inducing the prosecutor to object and make the government look like it is hiding important information from the jury).

 

4.  Classified information procedures in the Military Commissions Act, which would apply at military commissions, are "based on" the CIPA that applies in civilian trials.  They may be "based on" the CIPA rules, but they are not the same as the CIPA rules. The MCA provisions (Sec. 949(j)(c)) expressly provide for (1) deletions of classified material from discovery documents made available to the accused; (2) the withholding of methods and sources of intelligence collection from the accused; and (3) the deletion of classified information from exculpatory evidence. It is true that, whether you're in civilian or military court, the executive branch gets the opportunity to propose a substitution (e.g., an unclassified summary of the information) rather than surrender the classified information. But in civilian court under CIPA, the presumption is that if classified information is relevant under the rules of evidence, the accused gets access to it. In military court under the MCA, the presumption is that classified information gets withheld, especially if it involves methods and sources of intelligence.

 

5.  A civilian trial is no more a platform for KSM than a military commission would have been. That's ridiculous. KSM was ready to plead guilty and be executed eleven months ago. Whatever soapbox he was going to have, he'd largely already had, and while we'd have had to let him speak before sentence was imposed, that would have been the end of it. Now, he's going to get a full-blown trial — after combing through the discovery for a couple of years and after putting the Bush administration under the spotlight.

 

Holder derided Senator Kyl for pointing this out, saying Kyl had no way of knowing what KSM's position is today. That's a specious point. We do know what his position was eleven months ago when the Obama administration could have accepted his plea and pushed for his execution. Moreover, why would that still be KSM's position today, when he now knows Holder is ready to give him the stage in New York that he's been seeking since the day he was captured?

 

6. In a civilian trial, America will see KSM for the coward that he is — Holder: "I am not scared of KSM." Submitting a war criminal to a military commission is not an exercise in fear; it is an exercise in justice. We already know all about what kind of animal KSM is, thanks to the exrtraordinary information that has come out in the military proceedings and the CIA interrogations. You could fill a book a book with it, which the 9/11 Commission did. We don't need to bear the risks of a civilian trial either to learn more about KSM or so Mr. Holder can show how brave he is.

 

7. Holder expects to detain the terrorists in federal prisons under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) to ensure that they do not pose a risk to Americans.  In addition to not mentioning Salim (see no. 2, above), the attorney general skipped over the inconvenient fact that his Justice Department just caved in on the SAMs in the case of terrorist Richard Reid.

8. For eight years justice has been delayed — no longer, "It is past time to finally act." Holder, of course, does not mention the role of his firm and others in delaying and derailing the military commissions during their representation of America's enemies. Senator Kyl just confronted him with my contentions on that score (from this column). The attorney-general responded that I am a polemecist who says inflammatory things for talk shows, whereas he is concerned with facts. (I guess he means pertinent facts, like how he is not "scared of KSM.") I'm delighted to let people judge that one for themselves.

11/18 11:34 AMShare

More Evidence   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

that Hasan wasn't driven mad by an overflow of compassion for his patients.

11/18 11:33 AMShare

From a $100 NRO Contributor   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I'm addicted to NRO and especially The Corner, Campaign Spot and now Critical Condition.  Friday afternoons are always painful when the pace of new posts slows (as you all head off to your weekend engagements) and I don't have new and interesting tidbits to read every 10 minutes.

NR and NRO were a favorite during the Bush years (a far more amenable time for conservatives despite the spending spree) and have been utterly indispensable this past year as we entered the "Age of Obama".

Contribute to NRO here.

11/18 11:30 AMShare

When France Is Starting to Look Good . . .    [Veronique de Rugy]

Donald Marron has a very telling chart about what the U.S. primary structural deficit (which, if I understand correctly, is the long-term underlying deficit once you control for the variations due to the recession and focus purely on spending at all levels of government, so something like that) looks like compared to other countries. That deficit is high — the fifth highest, in fact.

As always, Marron's post is worth reading entirely. His conclusion is straightfoward:

If you take these results at face value, they suggest that the United States will have to cut spending and increase revenues by a combined 8.8% of GDP between 2010 and 2020, a fiscal adjustment of around 0.9% per year. Imagine having to enact a permanent spending reduction or tax increase of $120 billion per year next year, and then do it again in each of the next nine years. Rather daunting.

11/18 11:13 AMShare