Much as I'm glad that M. Simon is posting here, I'm afraid he's spoiled me with his Iraq war blogging. My view of the war is that I support it, I have always supported it, and I will continue to support it right up until the left finally forces the United States to withdraw and abandon yet another ally.

Unfortunately, this war could still take years to win, and while the military is fully capable of staying in and doing whatever needs to be done to stabilize Iraq, because of the nature of the political system, this country does not have the years to spare.

M. Simon is willing to say over and over again what I am not willing to say over and over again. His "never again" post reminded me what I just told him in an email:

....people need to be a little more farsighted than to get so caught up in hating a particular president that they shoot themselves in the foot. Bush will be gone, but if we lose this war, the effects may be irreparable.

Of course, to a true BDS type, it will always be Bush's fault.

It's up to you The Iraq war is lost or won if the American people choose to lose or win it. With the way things are going at the moment, I perfectly understand why they might choose to give up on the war. But that is not because the war is inherently unwinnable by a country as great and rich and powerful as the United States.

So, I don't write posts about this. It kills me to have to write posts about this. There is nothing I would less rather do. As I have said many times, I am unqualified to be a war blogger as I have no military experience, no security clearances, and no access to any information other than what floats around on the Internet. It makes me very angry to have to write posts supporting the war, and I have to say, I do blame Bush, because I think that as Commander in Chief, he's the one who bears the primary responsibility not just to wage the war but to defend it. He's doing such a piss-poor PR job that many conservatives are abandoning him and the war. I support the war, but I've said it so many times that it infuriates me to feel obligated to say so again.

Sorry that none of this is witty or clever or entertaining, but I don't know what else to say.

I mean, what should I say? Don't lose the war?

I'd like to think that would be obvious.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Perhaps I should make it clear that what I am complaining about is not war fatigue so much as it is repetition fatigue. There are only so many ways to say "Don't lose the war." I think that what is frequently called "war fatigue" in this country is not really war fatigue, because the people who are fatigued are not actually fighting in the war; they're just weary of hearing about it. Perhaps some of them are like me in that they're sick of arguments.

Perhaps it's worth keeping in mind that being sick of an argument over a war should never be mistaken for being sick of the war itself, much less being no longer inclined to support it.

"Repetitious argument fatigue" is not war fatigue!

I do wish that supporting the war didn't include an obligation to repeat myself, but it's remarkable how many people there are who will read things into silence. In logic, of course, silence no more means supporting something than opposing it -- which means that there was no logical need for me to write this post.

But I wrote it because some people are not logical. And I know that some people might think that my not writing regular blog posts supporting the war means I don't support the war.

I just thought this would be a good time to remind them that if they think that, they are wrong.

My thanks to M. Simon for making the process easier for me.

MORE: William F. Buckley Jr. has weighed in, opining that this is different from Vietnam because of the lack of a clear enemy at a fixed location:

...in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. All those bombings, explosions, assassinations: we are driven to believe that they are, so to speak, spontaneous.

When the Romans were challenged by Christianity, Rome fell. The generation of Christians moved by their faith overwhelmed the regimented reserves of the Roman state. It was four years ago that Mr. Cheney first observed that there was a real fear that each fallen terrorist leads to the materialization of another terrorist. What can a "surge," of the kind we are now relying upon, do to cope with endemic disease? The parallel even comes to mind of the eventual collapse of Prohibition, because there wasn't any way the government could neutralize the appetite for alcohol, or the resourcefulness of the freeman in acquiring it.

General Petraeus is a wonderfully commanding figure. But if the enemy is in the nature of a disease, he cannot win against it. Students of politics ask then the derivative question: How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can't see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters? General Petraeus, in his Pentagon briefing on April 26, reported persuasively that there has been progress, but cautioned, "I want to be very clear that there is vastly more work to be done across the board and in many areas, and again I note that we are really just getting started with the new effort."

The general makes it a point to steer away from the political implications of the struggle, but this cannot be done in the wider arena. There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.

As to Christianity and the fall of Rome, I don't know who Buckley thinks are analogous to Christians. Certainly the Islamists are not, for Christianity did not win by waging jihadist-style war against Rome, but eventually took over by steadily gaining in numbers. Rome was still fairly strong at the time of Constantine the Great, although the empire shifted noticeably East, and the actual fall took place in the West a century or so later. If Buckley's point is that the old polytheist Rome was incompatible with monotheism, I can see it, but I'm not sure that's a good analogy to the present situation.

OTOH, perhaps he's arguing that John Lennon-style pacifism is taking over inside the United States. I hope that's not the case.

MORE: In an editorial titled "Al Qaeda is the problem," Lawrence Kudlow asks Harry Reid an ominous question:

A final question for Mr. Reid: If, as he says, we have "lost" the Iraq war, who exactly has won? Who is the winner, Mr. Reid? Who would you like the United States to surrender to?

It's not the Sunnis. It's not the Ba'athists. It's not the Shi'ites. And it's certainly not Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In conventional warfare terms, Harry Reid is suggesting we surrender to al Qaeda.

Does the majority leader of the U.S. Senate understand his own unthinkable conclusion?

The amount of mercury in the mouth of a person with fillings was on average 2.5 grams, enough to contaminate 5 ten acre lakes to the extent there would be dangerous levels in fish.

-- Gleaned from a leading mercury scare site

Especially in view of my mouth:

Will someone please tell Steve Milloy that your average American mouth is potentially far, far more hazardous than an ordinary CFL?

I see that Glenn Reynolds has pointed out the problem with Milloy's argument -- time and time again -- but I offer real, tangible proof, not just facts and figures.

Compare the mercury in my mouth to the actual CFL mercury content Glenn cited:

"The very small amount of mercury in a CFL -- about 5 milligrams, compared to an old-fashioned home thermometer, which had about 500 milligrams -- is safe while the bulb is in operation and poses little risk even if it breaks, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

I'd be interested in seeing more on this topic, but if CFLs were as deadly as Milloy suggests, I wouldn't expect big companies to sell them for fear that the trial lawyers would take them to the cleaners. I kind of think that Milloy is just having a bit of fun turning enviro-scare tactics back upon themselves, but I don't think there's much foundation to these worries.

Which is why I don't think Milloy went far enough. (And why I'll continue to use both my CFLs and my teeth!)

Seriously, I don't mean to get hysterical about this, but the fact is, my teeth have 500 times the amount of mercury as does a CFL!

Add to that the fact that I don't chew my CFLs. I screw them in and they just sit there emitting light inexpensively, and they never burn out.

Far from proving that CFLs are actually dangerous, Milloy's remarks give a good idea of how hysterical the mercury bureaucracy has become. (Not a new issue for me.)

Sheesh.

Could someone please tell me why we're not all dead?

(I'm tempted to say that they can have my CFLs, AND my teeth when they pull them from their respective sockets, but as I'm already up to my neck defending my guns and Coco's ovaries, I don't want to be defending myself against more threats than my corpse can handle.)

UPDATE: Readers who like CFLs, be sure to join Pajamas Media's One Billion Bulbs campaign.

"One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding."

-- Wayne Pacelle (President, Humane Society of the United States)

I've written two posts about California's mandatory spay neuter bill (AB 1634), but I want to return to the law's philosophical and constitutional implications, not just because I think it's a bad law, but because this type of law goes to the very heart of the distinction between statism (collectivism) and individualism.

My worry is that aside from the people who are personally affected (such as dog owners and assorted special interest groups), only libertarians and small government conservatives have genuine philosophical objections to the law.

I think a good case can be made that mandatory spay neuter laws (and laws prohibiting animal breeding) are unconstitutional. But under which standard? Are we talking about a fundamental right? Or are we talking about the lower "rational basis standard?

Under the former (a much higher standard), the law would clearly be unconstitutional if it violates any of the fundamental rights as listed in the Bill of Rights, or such additional rights which (according to various the Supreme Court decisions) are said to flow from the enumerated rights.

I think AB 1634 violates several fundamental constitutional rights and should be subjected to strict scrutiny, and I'll try to examine them. I'll also try to explain why I think it fails even the lesser rational basis test as a public health measure. Please forgive the fact that this is written in a disorganized and spontaneous fashion (after all this is a blog post and not a law review article!)

Self incrimination:

By making it illegal to "own or possess" a "dog which has not been spayed or neutered," the law creates an unlawful status crime which, because it cannot be ascertained by mere appearance, invites and even requires an intrusive search. Thus, the existence of the law will grant heretofore unfettered police power to conduct searches, and make all dog and cat owners inherently suspect.

Not only would the law would force dog owners to incriminate themselves, it would not treat dog and cat owners equally.

California state law requires (as a public health measure) all dogs to be licensed, and to have licenses attached to their collars. Cats, on the other hand, are not required to be licensed. AB 1634 invites unequal treatment of dog and cat owners, because dog owners would be required to incriminate themselves annually (they'd be compelled to admit to having illegal unneutered dogs), while cat owners would not.

It is bad enough that the law requires self incrimination at all, but requiring only dog owners to self incriminate while exempting cat owners from self incrimination compounds self incrimination by violating the Equal Protection clause.

On what basis? Considering that far more cats are euthanized than dogs, it would seem that if a distinction is to be made, cats should be in a more suspect category than dogs and not the other way around.

Incidentally (and ironically), there is a rational basis for discriminating between dogs and cats under the licensing laws, and that is that cats are nowhere near as susceptible to rabies as dogs, and in the rare instances when they do contract the disease, they don't bite humans.

So, while this distinction might be fair to make in licensing because of rabies, the new law renders the licensing scheme discriminatory and self incriminating -- and (as I'll try to show) it does this without any rational (health-related) basis.

Due process, Equal protection, Unconstitutional taking of property:

Among the millions of animals owned by human beings in the state of California, only dogs and cats have been singled out for mandatory sterilization. Citizens are free to own, possess, and breed mice, rats, guinea pigs, gerbils, fish, pigs, goats, sheep, horses, cattle, chickens, pigeons, bees and other insects, and virtually any animal which is allowed to be kept in captivity. Dogs and cats have been singled out because the claim is made that there is an "overpopulation" problem. Yet this is defined not as dogs roaming the highways, but as "too many unwanted animals" (i.e., individual owners surrendering unwanted animals to animal control agencies). This is not overpopulation, as the reasons why individual owners might surrender pets to animal control agencies have nothing to do with how many animals there are in the state. Parents relinquish children to adoption agencies on a regular basis, but this is not done because of human overpopulation.

I don't think there has been any showing of overpopulation, much less a showing of any causal connection between overpopulation and privately owned animals. What I think is being called "overpopulation" is the fact that not all animals are wanted, and thus the animal control agencies are forced to euthanize the animals that no one wants. This is not overpopulation, but an aversion to animal euthanasia. Under what criteria does the fact that some surrendered animals are unadoptable and need to be euthanized get to be defined as "overpopulation"? An undeniable fact is that humans want puppies, not older dogs. And there is a documented puppy shortage -- which begs the question of what is overpopulation. Is the existence of older unwanted dogs really an issue of public health? Or is it just clever bureaucratic spin?

I am not saying that animal euthanasia is a good thing, but I do not see how the unpleasant nature of it -- or the reluctance to do it -- makes it a public health issue.

Yet the bill amends California's Health and Safety Code, and singles out individual dog owners by unconstitutionally restricting and harming their property, with a goal of preventing euthanasia on unwanted pets.

The question becomes this: Are unwanted pets a threat to the health and safety of Californians?

Can anyone explain how?

Most reasonable people would concede that it would be nice if no animals ever had to be euthanized. But in a state which allows breeding, slaughtering, and hunting of animals by the millions, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that the euthanasia of unwanted pets constitutes a public health issue.

What this is is a euthanasia prevention campaign dressed up as a public health issue. People involved in animal control are simply claiming that they should have the right to restrict the rights of all pet owners so that they don't have to euthanize as many unwanted animals. Call it what you will, but it's not a public health issue.

Privacy:

If having a dog with intact genitalia is the equivalent of, say, having an abortion, buying a condom, or engaging in consensual homosexual sex, then the law would be unconstitutional on its face. Absent a showing that a dog is allowed to roam, I think that the privacy factor is at least as serious as that involved in abortion or consensual sex.

Public Health and Rational Basis:

Even under the weaker rational basis test, there still has to be a legitimate state goal which justifies the restriction, and a mere recitation of public health concerns is not enough.

The Institute for Animal Rights sees it differently:

...the number of unwanted cats and dogs causes significant social problems: senseless killing, health risks, wasted taxes, and more. Clearly, these problems raise important issues of public health, safety, welfare - and even morals. In other words, the "end" is entirely appropriate constitutionally.

FWIW, I don't like euthanizing animals, OK? One of the worst traumas in recent memory was having to euthanize my dog Puff, and I put it off as long as I could, but finally I had to acknowledge that keeping him alive was bordering on being cruel to the animal I loved. The thing is, Puff did not know he was being put to death. He just died. Only I and the veterinarian knew what was being done to him. I think the same is true for all animal euthanasia. The people who perform it are the ones who suffer; not the animals.

And that, I think is the real [as opposed to covert and unacknowlegeable] basis for AB 1634, which really ought to be called the "Ease Mental Suffering of Animal Control Bureaucrats Act."

As to the health risks and costs, they are already dealt with by existing rabies and licensing statutes, and any costs are properly charged to people who are already required to buy the licenses.

I'm sorry, but regardless of what standard I apply, I see no constitutional basis for requiring me to cut out Coco's ovaries in order to help prevent stress in the animal control bureaucracy.

Here's the link to an organization that's dedicated to fighting this act, along with a logo I think is worth adding for those who want to fight this unprecedented encroachment on freedom:

Remember, to a dedicated animal rights activist, pet overpopulation means any pets at all.

It's not surprising that ovaries would come first.

UPDATE: This website has really done its homework on the statistics. Be sure to check it out, especially the charts.

Bottom line: "DOG OVERPOPULATION" IS A FRAUD.

MORE: Check out this graph:

AND MORE (05/02/07): Consider another side effect of AB 1634. If passed, California's existing dog licensing statutory scheme will be rendered self incriminatory and unconstitutional -- thus thwarting the state's otherwise legitimate rabies control efforts.

Anything that thwarts the control of rabies would only harm -- not help -- the public health.

This is another reason why the "public health" argument is deceptive.

MORE: Regarding the self-incrimination issue, the current language of proposed AB 1643 states, in pertinent part:

122336. For purposes of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply:
(a) "Intact permit" means a document issued annually by a local jurisdiction or its local animal control agency if authorized to issue these permits, that authorizes a person to own or possess within that locality an unaltered cat or dog and meets the requirements of subdivision (a) of Section 122336.2. A dog or cat license that meets the requirements of subdivision (a) of Section 122336.2 shall be considered a permit for purposes of this chapter. (Emphasis added.)

I'm also concerned about the language "a person shall not own or possess within the state," because there is no exemption for veterinarians or dog boarding facilities.

Wouldn't this also discourage citizens from seeking veterinary care for their animals?

Armed Liberal at Winds of Change is all hot and bothered about Rick Moran's (they spelled his name wrong) suggestion that it was time to surrender to the Democrats and pull out of Iraq on the Democrat's time table.

The Answer Man has an answer for Armed Liberal:

Might I suggest joining:

I Support Democracy In Iraq

or if you are interested in a more animated version:

I Support Democracy In Iraq - The Animation

I'd love to see the Democrats argue against democracy. If nothing else just for the entertainment value.

My reply:

Totally with you on this one.

True, but the one thing Bush has not done is cave in to the defeatists like a rotten pumpkin, the very thing which Moran now advises him to find the "courage" to do..

As long as he doesn't cave we have time to change the terms of the debate.

It is the old "maybe pigs will fly" strategem. If we help maybe pigs can fly.

==

It is time to stop focusing on the doctors and the hospital and take a look at the real patient. Iraqi Democracy.

This is not about the "Iraqi people" such as they are. It is about the Iraqi democrats. Who may even be a minority. Doesn't matter.

It will be impossible for real Americans, even of the leftist variety, to repudiate democracy with any degree of conviction.

What will they say: Iraq is not ready? So what do we do, wait until they are ready and invade again?

Arabs can't do democracy? That is racism.

Then hit them with a good old JFK right between the eyes:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

John F. Kennedy

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

I just learned somethin new today about pain. What I learned is that Arthritis pain is processed in the brain's 'fear center'.

Researchers at The University of Manchester have discovered that arthritis pain, unlike that induced as part of an experiment, is processed in the parts of the brain concerned with emotions and fear.

"We thought that arthritic and acute experimental pain would be processed within the same areas of the pain matrix," Dr Kulkarni continued. "But, although both activated both the medial and lateral pain systems, arthritic pain prompted increased activity in the cingulate cortex, thalamus and amygdale within the medial system - the areas concerned with processing fear, emotions and aversive conditioning.

"This suggests that arthritic pain has more emotional salience than experimental pain for these patients, which is consistent with the unpleasantness scores they themselves gave. The increased activity in the areas associated with aversive conditioning, reward and fear, which are less commonly activated during experimental pain, suggests they might be processing fear of further injury and disability associated with the arthritic pain."

Which points out something another study looks at. Fear memories are at the heart of PTSD as I discussed in PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System. One of the keys tying this all together is this study: Fear memories, the amygdala, and the CB1 receptor. It turns out that cannabinoids are a part of this signaling mechanism and that the strength of the signal is in part genetically determined.

All this corroborates what I have been saying for years. The idea that "drugs cause addiction" is superstition. People in chronic pain chronically take drugs for pain relief. It doesn't matter if the pain is from a broken bone or rape memories. The same drugs work to provide relief.

The drug war is a persecution of people in pain.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

I couldn't resist taking a photo of a pricey Town and Country with a sticker that read "W STANDS FOR WRONG."

I guess that's supposed to be a self-explanatory sort of in joke for like-thinking people, but I thought I'd improve on it a bit:

The problem is that if I put that on my car, I don't think most people would get it.

My hope would be that the really smug people would mistake it for their own sticker, and that maybe they'd smile and wave!

Then I could smile and wave back before the sticker shock set in.

My mother is Jewish. As I am.

She grew up in the 20s and 30s. She knew about Roosevelt's abandoning the Jews. She is a staunch believer in "never again".

And yet when I say that we can't abandon the Iraqi people to the head choppers all I get back is "I hate George Bush" and "America has no interest in Iraq".

Prompted by FlickMaven's discussion of Nazi evil.

While I don't quibble with the term, I think that many people miss the point when trying to apply the historical significance of the German "Final Solution" to our contemporary lives.

The point here is not that "monsters" perpetrated these acts. The point is that regular, everyday Germans did so, while going about their regular everyday business.

Me? I Support Democracy In Iraq.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

Ugh!

After only a year or so of use, my cell phone's bluetooth receiver (a Cardo Scala 500) is failing miserably. The battery runs down far too quickly, and it has an infuriating way of running down the battery of my cell phone during its own erratically short life.

I thought I had a bright idea this morning -- "GET A NEW BATTERY FOR THE BLUETOOTH!"

Well, Doh!

This seemed like a no-brainer. But I didn't see any information about the battery on the outside of the device, the case of which is held together by a single tiny phillips-head screw. Using a jeweler's screwdriver, I removed the screw, then pried off the upper shell of the case. Much to my horror, there was no visible battery! Worse yet, the circuit board is solidly joined to the lower shell assembly, meaning that I'd have to break plastic and solder joints to free it, which I'm sure would render the thing inoperable (even assuming I could find and replace the battery).

I scouted around further, and discovered to my horror that many of these bluetooth devices do not contain replaceable batteries -- meaning they are essentially throwaway devices which last for a year. This comment made me feel like a total idiot:

I can't believe people are actually buying DISPOSABLE bluetooth devices. After one year of use, any battery out there will not hold the charge anymore.
There is no way to replace the battery inside those bluetooth devices. So you have to buy a new one.

Well, at least the federal government won't arrest me for throwing it away. Although I suppose if I put it within ten feet of my sudafed, I could be busted for running a meth lab.

Sigh.

Once again, mere life becomes a slippery slope into crime. Is it me, or is reality becoming surreal?

Anyway, after some looking, I did find this at the company's FAQ:

The battery should only be removed by authorized personnel. You should never try to open the Headset and let only authorized Service Centers maintain or service your Headset or Adapter. Unauthorized opening of the product will void all warranties.

You mean, by taking out that screw and simply looking inside, I voided my warranty? How mean of them! I put it back together and it's absolutely no different; the problem is that it's only good for a couple of hours and the quality degrades very quickly. It's obvious that the battery is defective, so how is it that I voided the warranty by simply taking a peek inside?

No need to panic. I just read through the manual (here in pdf), and on page 16 it states that the warranty is (meaning was) only good for one year!

And on page 17, the one year limited warranty clearly states that batteries are not covered!

Certain limited life components... such as.... batteries... are exempt from any warranty.

Two important lessons here.

Caveat emptor.

And be careful having lithium batteries anywhere near sudafed!

This was the first submission in our contest for a better logo: I Support Democracy In Iraq - Contest which also contains a link to some submission guidelines written by one of the judges. First prize in the contest is from Coyote Organics.

Thanks to bo ure who created it.

Cross Posted at The Astute Bloggers

On Thursday (the day before yesterday), the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a scolding editorial written by self-styled "investigative journalist" Dave Lindorff who declared that not only are the honey bees "gone," but that so are all pollinators.

In a skeptical post, I noted that it was early in the season (there was snow last week), but that I'd seen other bees in my yard. Because there's been so much noise about the "vanished" honey bees, though, I just assumed that I wouldn't find any of them, so I didn't devote much time to looking.

Now I see that even I -- cynical skeptic that I am -- was being far too gullible!

Perhaps I should have realized that a guy who calls U.S. soldiers "baby killers" and cites fraudulent information to support a 9/11 black box conspiracy theory might not be the most reliable source about bees. But still, the editorial was in the Inquirer, and there have been plenty of stories about "no more bees," so I just sort of assumed....

So, while it probably shouldn't have, it took Glenn Reynolds' link to Mickey Kaus's report that his mother's garden was "absolutely buzzing" with bees to wake me up into events in my own backyard!

I kid you not!

Here's a closeup of a honey bee pollinating the hell out of a cherry blossom on the cherry tree right next to my driveway:

The tree is literally abuzz with honey bees just like that one, and their rear legs are laden with yellow pollen.

The more I thought it over, though, the more I realized that a true no-bees-believer might just say I could have gotten that picture anywhere, and that it could have been taken at any time. Even if people are inclined to trust me, what's wrong with "trust but verify"?

It occurred to me that the best way to date the bees would be to show a verifiable newspaper near them. I still had the Inquirer editorial by Dave Lindorff sitting around, and it's only two days old. So, with great difficulty (taking care not to get stung), I managed to hold the Lindorff editorial next to one of the honey bees on my cherry tree.

Seen from that vantage point, the Lindorff piece could be said to be stung by self-Fisking.

Perhaps that's the natural beauty of reality-based honey bees.

UPDATE (04/29/07): My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and for the compliment about the photos!

I just went out and checked this morning, and sure enough, yesterday (which was colder and overcast) was not a fluke. Right now there are more honey bees in the yard than I could hope to count.

Er, sorry, I changed the title of the post. I said "dogs" but I want to be accurate as possible, and right now they're only going after dogs capable of reproducing themselves -- which means the dogs' eggs and sperm. (See my last post about California's mandatory spay and neuter law, and also take a look at this web page.)

But still, whether you call it the right to keep and bear dogs, or keep and bear a dog with ovaries, what about it? There is no such "right" in the Constitution. Does that mean we don't have it? There's no right to do a lot of things we do, but I want to ask, from where derives the government's right to tell us what to do -- especially in the privacy of our own homes?

I realize that Coco enjoys no constitutional right to her ovaries, because she has no rights at all. She is my property, and it is up to me whether to let her keep her ovaries. When I see "the government" ready to intrude into my life by compelling me to remove my dog's ovaries, I am forced to ask some basic questions about the nature of government, and the nature of control.

Now, it would be one thing if I caused a problem, by allowing my dog to roam, or by breeding so many dogs that the smells and noises disturbed the tranquility of my neighbors. But if my dog is in my house and in my yard, under what conceivable theory do her ovaries become the government's business? The theory that is advanced is that there are "too many dogs." Well, who has too many dogs? I don't see them. There's a puppy shortage. And if irresponsible pet owners let their dogs run around so that they're a nuisance, or if they crank out so many puppies that they're annoying the neighbors, well, go after them. Round up the problem animals, issue citations to the problem owners. Whatever needs to be done about people who create problems, fine. What is not fine is to take action against people who are not creating problems by invading their lives, on the theory that they might create a problem.

How many dogs constitute too many dogs? What is "dog overpopulation"? While the evidence points away from the existence of any such problem, let's assume that there were too many dogs, that they're running around loose, and that they're creating problems. Why not round them up and humanely kill them?

As it happens in my neighborhood, I don't see stray dogs, but there are too many deer running around. I counted thirteen in a herd recently, and neighbors complain constantly about their yards being invaded. Deer are starving to death, and running into the road and causing accidents in record numbers. Yet, very little is being done about the problem. Bureaucrats hold meetings, and that's about it. The reason nothing is done is that the solution is to kill off the excess deer. This is seen as unacceptable.

It's easy to look at deer overpopulation, though, because deer are not owned by anyone, and no one can be blamed or legislated against. But suppose for the sake or argument that some farmer owned and bred deer, and had a fenced herd of deer which were never allowed to roam away from his privately land. Would anyone in their right mind blame him for "deer overpopulation"?

So under what theory would we blame responsible dog owners who don't let their dogs roam for the existence (if any) of roaming dogs?

Maybe readers can help me, but I've thought about this, and the only theory that makes any sense is that because I own a dog, I belong to an inherently suspect class. This "class" is a based on the conflation of people causing problems and people who aren't causing problems, and the tenuous connection is made that people who aren't causing problems might cause problems. I think it is identical to the central philosophy of gun control. Because some people who have guns are bad and do bad things with them, while other people with guns are good, according to the "suspect class" theory, the good gun owners should be treated as if they are presumptively bad.

According to this, um, "unified theory of irresponsibility," all gun owners are presumed to be irresponsible, as are all dog owners. But where does it end?

And what are the implications for the traditional American jurisprudential view that citizens are innocent until proven guilty? Preemptive legislation such as gun control and ovary control cause a mathematical shifting of the view of criminality so that instead of the actual social harm (roaming dogs or drive-by shootings) being the crime, the precursor ingredients (ovaries and guns) become the crime. While I would like to think that the deleterious effect on freedom should be obvious, apparently it isn't obvious enough, or else people don't care.

So I'll just stick with the effect on crime itself. Clearly, a small minority of gun owners and dog owners (and probably cell phone and computer users) are behaving in an irresponsible manner and committing crimes of one sort or another. Under this unified theory of shared irresponsibility, if the laws are changed to criminalize things which are not crimes now, how could that possibly decrease the rate of these crimes? Common sense suggests that it would increase it -- and dramatically. No one argues that the existing minority of current law-breakers would do anything but continue to break the law, only they'd be breaking new laws as well. But clearly, when large numbers of people in the the responsible class are suddenly turned into criminals by new laws, two things happen:

1. the crime rate goes up; and

2. many middle class law abiding people become instant criminals.

Now, I expect many conservatives and libertarians would answer by saying that this is just what liberals do, and it's part of the liberal, or statist, or control-freak philosophy, and I think there's a certain amount of truth to that.

What I want to know is why are so many law abiding people willing to go along with it? Don't they realize that it won't stop with gun control and ovary control?

Anyone who thinks it will should read the Simpson approach to gun control, which Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday and which Eugene Volokh satirized by applying it to drug laws. Rather than quote the satirized Simpson plan verbatim, I thought that in the spirit of this post I'd change "drugs" into "dogs":

Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All dogs would be seized. The owners of dogs found in the searches would be prosecuted.

Fairly quickly there would begin to be dog-swept, dog-free areas where there should be no dogs. If there were, those harboring them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her Chihuahua, with the same penalties for possessing.

America's long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-dog dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, to funnel dogs into the United States. That already constitutes a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.

I'd like to think the above was a joke, but it's no joke in China. Not only have they applied the Simpson method to dog control, they have ovary control -- for humans!

Anyone who thinks this Simpson character is just a joke should think again. The man was actually a United States Ambassador. Isn't it bad enough that other countries commit such egregious violations of freedom (and treat all citizens as criminal suspects) without having a U.S. ambassador come back from countries like that and advocate doing the same thing here?

Responsible, law abiding people in this country need to realize that freedom cannot be taken for granted, that what may be law abiding behavior today may be illegal tomorrow, and that there is in fact a growing movement to treat law abiding responsible citizens as criminal suspects.

Of course, I have a personal stake in this. Aside from wanting to preserve what freedom I still have, I'd rather not be a criminal.

Why is it being made so easy to become a criminal when you'd rather not?

I used to think of criminals as people who actually went out and messed with other people, by, you know, committing crimes. Yet here I am, minding my own business and not so much as inconveniencing anyone, while an ever-growing number of people want to make me into a criminal. As it is, I'm forced to live as an exile from California, where my dog and my guns would be criminal activities.

So, should I just sit around in Pennsylvania and imagine it could never happen here? Or should I move South and hope it doesn't happen there?

Wherever I go, it seems that it's easier and easier to become a criminal by doing nothing.

AFTERTHOUGHT: It occurs to me that some readers might tend to get hung up on the merits of particular issues, and miss the larger philosophical one. Sure, people shouldn't allow their dogs to roam, and sure, responsible pet-owners might be well advised to sterilize their animals. Gun owners should practice gun safety and should never behave in an irresponsible manner with firearms. Responsible behavior is a good thing, and responsible behavior should be encouraged.

However, I think passing laws that turn responsible people into criminals will discourage -- not encourage -- responsibility.

UPDATE (05/01/07): I realize the post has worked its way so far down from the blog's masthead that few will see it, but what the hell, today is Mayday -- the day in which collectivism is feted, so I just thought Glenn Reynolds' Quote of the Day from Samizdata belonged here:

The problem is, they will outlaw almost everything while enforcing very little. Imprisonment by stealth. People will not know they are encircled until it is too late - like putting in all these very deep, robust fence-posts with no fence panels. All seems open. One day you will wake up and the panels are in, you are trapped and they can decide what law they wish to impose to nail whomsoever they desire.

MORE: I've written a somewhat more detailed constitutional analysis of AB 1634 here.

As curtailments on freedom go, I think AB 1634 sets a new standard.

Joe Lieberman has given an outstanding speech on the Iraq War funding bills now passing through the Senate. The video is about 3 3/4 minutes long and you can view it at Classical Values or at The Astute Bloggers. I highly reccommend it if you can spare the bandwidth. Joe asks why Oct. 1, 2007 was picked as the cut off date.

Well, naturally I have a few ideas about that. I'm sure Joe knows the significance of that date. It is a little more than a month from our 2008 election. The Democrats want badly to get elected and they think that what with their rabid anti-war base and a general population that gets the war on Islamic Fascism and the importance of Iraq as a theater of that war, they have to get the war off people's minds before the election. So they have to calculate how late they can force the withdrawal and yet not have a full scale civil war in Iraq on election day.

Now we know that the Islamics really like the Democrats. They say so. The withdrawal gets a lot of praise. So I would expect as a quid pro quo from the Islamics that they will hold off on attacks for the most part especially from the withdrawal date until after the election once a date certain for withdrawal has been set.

In other words I think the Democrats with all their recent toing and frowing in the Middle East have brokered a sell out of America and Iraq. They went direct to upper management. No fooling around with intermediaries or cut outs who might screw the deal or want too big a cut. Nope. Right to the top. When it comes to the Culture of Corruption I think the Republicans with their Jack Abramoff type scandals were pikers. They were only selling out one segment of the American people to another. These folks are selling out America to foreign powers. And not retail like Dubai Ports or similar examples. These folks are offering a package deal at wholesale rates. The scope is breathtaking. The chutzpah stupendous.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

I've always enjoyed purebred dogs, but a lot of people I know swear by mutts. And I can understand why, because some of the nicest dogs I have ever known have been mongrels.

Man's best friend does not have to look pretty in a show ring, or come with a pedigree.

Few people stop to consider where mutts come from. I don't think I need to be pointing this out to my readers, so I'll try to put this succinctly: mutts result from sexual intercourse between two dogs not of the same breed who still have functioning genitalia.

California Assembly Bill 1634 ("Mandatory Spay and Neuter for Dogs and Cats") reminds me why California is often called the state where nuts come from. For whatever crazy reason they don't seem to know where mutts come from.

In previous posts I have bemoaned the mandatory spay and neuter movement, which would force me to cut out ("fix") Coco's ovaries even though there is nothing wrong with them.

I suppose that in this instance Coco might a bit of an advantage over mongrels, because there's an exemption in the bill for purebred dogs which are shown or used for breeding purposes in professional kennels. But if you don't show your dog and you're not a licensed breeder, it's off with the nuts! And out with the ovaries! Or else!

This is not only madness, it's based on the erroneous premise that there is a "dog overpopulation" crisis. As I pointed out in a long post on the subject, this is simply not so; puppies are in such short supply that even animal shelters can't get enough. Puppies are being smuggled across the border from Mexico. Thus, to the extent that this law's rational basis is to amelioriate "dog overpopulation," it is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy as well as an unlawful restriction on private property.

I often wonder whether legislators think about the longterm consequences of laws like this. Actually, AB 1634 will create quite a monopoly for breeders of pure bred animals who have enough money to get a business license and the requisite licenses which will be required. Puppy prices will shoot way up, and ordinary people who want puppies will either be forced to buy purebed dogs at premium prices, or else resort to underground breeders. And the animal shelters! If they think times are tough now supplying puppies, imagine a world of no more dogs capable of reproduction except purebreds in professional kennels! The shelters might have to resort to illegal mutt breeding.

This website has a good collection of links opposed to the legislation, and an ad hoc grass roots lobbying effort has a great website here.

If I had more energy, I could go on ranting about this all day, but I honestly had no idea that the bill had generated so much momentum. They're steamrolling it through before people have a chance to think it over. It's easy for rich celebrities to support; they can afford thousands of dollars for designer dogs. But ordinary people? Forget it. The days of the family dog and the family mutt will soon be gone.

To the animal rights activists, this is just a step in the direction of no more pets.

It's a pretty big one, too.

I have to say I'm shocked that it's gotten this far. This is a hell of a piss-poor way to treat man's best friend. Animal "rights"? Are you kidding? Legislation like this actually makes me feel a bit ashamed to be a human.

My thanks to regular reader (and longtime Officially Privileged Commenter) Ironbear for alerting me to the progress of AB 1634. Interestingly, Ironbear also reports that "the AKC/UKC and various breeders associations seem to have done a lousy job of getting this issue and the opposition to the bill any publicity."

Hmmm....

Not to sound conspiratorial but I do hope they don't consider this a business opportunity. But the fact is, mandatory spaying and neutering will not end the demand for pet dogs. If only registered purebred breeders can breed dogs, that means a huge increase in the number of new litter registrations, individual registrations, and so on.

(I guess we should be glad they don't restrict human breeding in this way....)

Joe Lieberman cuts the Democrats down to size in this 3 3/4 minute video. Very much worth a look if you haven't seen it already.

Cross Posted at The Astute Bloggers

H/T Kurt at Flopping Aces

Many white Americans are suffering from what I'd call race fatigue. It's not like ordinary fatigue, because this fatigue takes the form of being sick of the fatigue itself. Not only are they are sick of the fact that race is an issue, but they are sick and tired of feeling guilty about racism, and sick and tired of the fact that they are sick and tired of the feeling.

The ugly fact is that the guilt and the feelings will never go away, no matter how much they might want them to go away. Part of this is because of actual guilt; slavery left a lingering legacy and Jim Crow laws were within recent memory; I remember them! And a major part of it is the perception of guilt -- created not so much by the perception of racism but by the perception of the appearance of racism. No matter what people do, there's no way to make the guilt virus go away.

Unless.....

Unless someone came along and offered a way to at least make the appearance of racism go away.

Might that someone be Barack Obama?

Admittedly , I was a bit shocked to see the following line staring me in my face at InstaPundit this morning:

It is reasonable to surmise that Barack Obama will be the next President.

Mr Obama has a once-in-a-lifetime charisma that Hillary Clinton could never approximate, and she also suffers from the handicap of not being black. For all of his other plusses, part of Mr Obama's appeal lies in the fact that many whites feel that voting for a black presidential candidate would be Doing the Right Thing. Leon Wieseltier has been explicit about this; he is not unique.

It will be intriguing to see what a certain contingent makes of it if we finally have a black president. All rhetoric about America as an apartheid nation, racist to its core, will run up against the fact--which will ironically feel inconvenient to this contingent--that the man who wakes up every morning in the White House and flies on Air Force One is black.

Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell have not really counted in this regard. Serving a Republican administration renders them to an extent "not really black" in the eyes of many, and neither devotes much effort to "identifying" with the black community. But Mr Obama would be a Democratic president, and with no war blood on his hands.

While the argument is made that Obama is "not black enough," it strikes me that that argument has been fading, although McWhorter thinks the debate is long overdue:

We will likely hear that a child of a white mother and African father who spent much of his childhood abroad is not a true black American, as has already been observed by Stanley Crouch and Debra Dickerson.

But interestingly, I doubt this issue would come up about Mr Obama if, like even many blacks with histories like his, he had the speech patterns and demeanor associated with "real" American blackness: think Spike Lee, Bernie Mac, Morgan Freeman.

The issue, then, would really be about the extent to which Mr Obama is culturally black American, regardless of his biography. Some would lob this out of a constitutional antipathy to admitting that racism in America is receding (neither Mr Crouch nor Ms Dickerson are among this group). However, when couched more sensibly, the discussion would be one I would welcome.

McWhorter touches on another uncomfortable issue, and that is past prejudice against "miscegenation" (which I sometimes suspect is being perversely kept alive by "identity politics"):

One person can, after all, be more culturally black than another one. We are trained to roll our eyes and say "What's that all about?" when this is brought up. But if blackness is about nothing but having a certain amount of pigment, then we seem to have gone back to some assumptions that bring to mind sepia-toned photographs and words like miscegenation.

In an America with increasing numbers of biracials, it's time to start this conversation, and a President Obama would be a useful kick off.

FWIW, I think Hillary is blowing it badly. Her comical and lame attempts to show how "black" she is are precisely that -- comically lame. The irony is that the more she pretends to be black, the blacker she makes Obama look. So, by trying to insinuate that he's not "really black" (with a condescending wink-wink to black voters), she's actually reminding everyone that he is black, and creating an anti-Hillary backlash among blacks and whites!

This might work if Obama weren't really black, but the problem is that because of his appearance he can win the argument without saying a word.

Voters can look at him and see that he is black. And if Obama isn't black, then who is?

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of voters considered the accusation that Obama is "not black enough" a form of racism too.

If a vote for Obama can be translated into a vote against racism -- a vote to end racism -- he'll be president.

(And while I don't agree with a lot of what he says, I'm fatigued enough to think that maybe he should be.)

UPDATE: Loren Heal links this post, but doesn't think white guilt will be enough to put Obama in the White House:

One would hope people would still want someone who had a proven record of executive leadership, experience in government and industry, and a nice dog.

If Obama's election is seen as official certification that White Americans Are No Longer Racist -- if he can package himself as the man to make the guilt go away along with the resentment -- I think this is a powerful combination.

UPDATE: Speaking of blowing it badly, Hillary Clinton is now defending her accents as multilingualism:

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she sees her sometimes Southern accent as a virtue.

"I think America is ready for a multilingual president," Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C.

Sorry, but speaking in accents doesn't count.

UPDATE (04/29/07): Thank you, Glenn Reynolds for the link, and welcome all!

I hadn't thought about whether racism offsets are as phony as carbon offsets, but shouldn't it be easier to offset racism than carbon? Skin color can be seen as superficial, but there's no getting away from the fact that underneath our skin, we're mostly carbon.

That last remark overstated the actual percentage of carbon in the human body, which, though present in substantial amounts, runs second to oxygen:

96.2% of body weight comes from "organic elements" present in many different forms. DNA, RNA proteins, lipids and sugars are all composed of primarily O, C, H and N. Also, Water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2)as well as other small molecules involve these elements.

Oxygen (65.0%)
Carbon (18.5%)
Hydogen (9.5%)
Nitrogen (3.2%)

UPDATE (04/30/07): Might an Obama candidacy be the thing that finally forces the Republicans to draft Condi Rice? Clayton Cramer has seen a "Condi '08" Bumper Sticker:

Yup, I saw one of these today on my way to church in Boise today. I like the idea, but Condi is clearly too intelligent to be elected. Still, a
Thompson/Condi ticket would be very attractive!

It is undeniable that a Condi Rice candidacy would have a similar appeal; the difference is that she's more qualified to be president.

Quick question for any geeks out there.

Here's a recent comment which was left which had absolutely nothing to do with the post or the other comments:

Wagnerian frees artichoke religions?rebuilding emperors,clone... Thank you!!

I'm wondering whether the goal might be not to spam bloggers but simply to annoy them. In whose interest would that be? Vendors of competing blog software are the only people who readily come to mind.

But isn't that a bit farfetched?

There must be a simple explanation, but I'm not seeing it.

MORE: I just had a thought in a comments below:

It can't be advertising without an ad. Unless, the urls were stripped out automatically somewhere.

Is there such a thing as crippled or partially disabled spam getting through?

AND MORE: Commenter Jim C thinks it may be "cleaned up" spam:

On a more serious note there are filters that many blogging services are running to remove Java and other sctipts to prevent cross site scripting attacks. Perhaps this is an automated CSS virus that has had its payload cleaned by a filter.

If that's right, the spammers surely know about it, and doubtless they'll redouble their efforts.

Wouldn't it be nice to catch one and deprive him of his rights?

UPDATE: I really appreciate the explanations of how these things happen, but commenter Stewart alerted me to something I had't thought about:

Others have given the likely technical answer. I'd just like to point out that this:

"Wagnerian frees artichoke religions?rebuilding emperors,clone... Thank you!!"
does sound like the synopsis of one wild sci-fi story!

Not long ago, huge young men (euphemistically called "children" by a society in denial) attacked a Philadelphia public school teacher, and beat him so severely that he was sent to the hospital with a broken neck. The case continues to capture the public's imagination (as it captured mine in a couple of posts), and today the story (with pictures of the teacher in a neck brace and the "children" in prison pjs) was again on the Inquirer's front page.

Thanks to modern medical technology, the teacher is expected to make a full recovery. And even though the "children" have apologized in open court, the teacher says he doesn't understand:

Burd struggled to retain his composure as he showed photographs of his family to Boykin and Footman so they could see that he had a life outside Germantown High School. And tears welled up as he described how upset he was when he thought that his two young grandchildren might have grown up without knowing him.

He recounted his injuries and said he still didn't understand why he had been attacked.

"I don't understand this," Burd said to both students.

"I don't know you," Burd told Footman, who wore a beige shirt and pants. "I didn't do anything to you."

And while William Spalding, Boykin's defense attorney, said his client was less culpable because he had no idea that Footman was going to punch the teacher, Burd said if Boykin had not pushed him, he wouldn't have been injured at all.

When Dougherty asked Boykin why he pursued and pushed Burd, the teen said: "I acted like a child with a temper tantrum. . . . I pushed him because I was mad because he took my iPod."

Later, as Dougherty, administrative judge of Family Court, prepared to impose sentence, he said: "Have we now regressed to where it's now become sport to hurt our teachers? Have we regressed where our school system and the educational structure in Philadelphia has disintegrated to the level that incarceration is next to graduation?"

I hate to be so redundant, but I want to stay with the prison analogy for a moment. I have described the inner-city public schools as daytime joints, because they are so remarkably similar to prisons. In prison, an assault on a guard is taken very seriously, and that's because above all, order must be maintained. However, the guards are allowed to defend themselves, and society for the most part turns a blind eye when a prisoner who assaults a guard gets what's coming to him. If a group of teachers did the same thing to a violent "child" that guards often do to an assaultive prisoner, we'd never hear the end of it. Seriously, had Mr. Burd gottten together with a couple of other teachers and worked these kids over, it would be a national scandal, they'd be looking at serious time, and the school district would be sued for every penny its insurance company has.

Which means that no matter how many times it's repeated, the teacher as prison guard analogy falls short. In practice, prison guards have more rights than teachers. Teachers might be akin to guards in the custodial sense, but they lack the power to control their wards, and in addition they are required to assiduously cultivate and maintain a pretense that what they are doing constitutes "education."

The untold tragedy here is that for every battered teacher who receives front page coverage, there are countless hundreds (probably thousands) of assaulted, battered, bullied and terrorized students. But what bothers me more than that is that an increasingly callused and bureaucratized society has about as much concern with their "rights" as with the rights of an assaulted and terrorized prisoner.

I know it will sound completely lame, but I'll say it anyway.

This is not fair!

Even if society has become so callused as to allow the schools to degenerate into day prisons, what is being forgotten is that just as there is an important distinction between guards and teachers, so there is an important distinction between inmates and students. Society's failure to really care about inmate-on-inmate assaults is based on a cruel, if common-sensical rationalization along the lines of "hey, if they hadn't done the crimes, they wouldn't be there!"

But what crime have students committed which requires they be legally required to be placed in hellholes of incarceration where they must face huge undisciplined thugs on a daily basis? Remember, teachers, like guards, can quit at any time. Unless a student's parents have money or influence within the system, he's stuck. His daily life is a struggle to survive in the cruel and violent world we call the public school.

And where is due process? No one can be imprisoned absent a lengthy process which requires society to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed a crime, following which a judge has to actually sentence him to prison, but even beyond that he has the right to appeal the sentence. Students are simply sentenced by society to attend the daytime holding facilities without any hearing at all. No due process. No appeal. If they have committed a crime, it is one of status. They are (it seems) the wrong age.

Imagine for a moment if society did the same thing to adults. Suppose I received a notice in the mail telling me that I had to report each day to a place of "education" where I knew I would learn nothing but where violent men abounded who would threaten me, and where I was not allowed to carry a weapon in self defense. But I just had to go there daily -- so that society could pretend I was being "educated."

I don't know whether I'd call it Communism, Fascism, or Totalitarianism, but I'd probably scream that I had committed no crime, and I'd go to court and allege that the outrage violated my 5th and 14th Amendment rights to due process, as well as the 13th Amendment prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude.

The reason I have these rights is not because I am a United States citizen, but because I am over eighteen. (This, of course, fits right in with what Dr. Robert Epstein observed in the Glenn and Helen podcast interview -- that young people are severely lacking in basic rights.)

But beyond the right not to be compelled to be sent to a place against my will, common sense suggests that adults and children have the same rights not to be attacked. I have the right to walk down the street without being attacked, and if someone attacks me, I can defend myself, and I can also call the police and have the attacker arrested. It strikes me that children have these same rights, but they are not being enforced.

In practice, it seems that in order to successfully sue the school, the student has to be in a special category (for example, Jewish or gay), and he has to have been singled out for abuse for that reason. But that makes no sense to me. I mean, what's the lesson here? That it's OK for children to attack children as long as they aren't in special categories?

Why isn't there more litigation? After all, people routinely sue each other for auto accidents, yet a child who is bullied suffers far more emotional damage than an adult with "whiplash" injury. An adult who harms an adult can be held liable if his conduct was criminal or tortious. But a child who harms a child cannot be sued, and the long-settled common law doctrine is that "there is no vicarious liability on a parent for the torts of a child." Couple this with the sovereign immunity that schools enjoy, and little wonder the schools have become so callused.

Perhaps if there were more lawsuits, the schools would run out of funding and the tradition of mandatory daytime incarceration in violent places would finally come to an end.

This is certainly an odd thing for me to advocate, because I hate litigation, and I don't like the lawsuit-happy mentality which litigation promotes. However, I think the educational bureaucracy has grown so callused that they deserve litigation -- especially in the violent, out of control schools. The worse the school, the more litigation. What's unfair about that? So I'm glad to see that people are working to get rid of sovereign immunity immunity for school districts.

Spare the law and spoil the educrat.

Who knows? Litigation might even incline the educrats to support the voucher system.

That is a truly novel approach to politics. Except when it comes to Obama's friend Antoin "Tony'' Rezko. Tony is a high powered developer of slum property with friends in City Hall.

Well you know how it is in Chicago politics. Sometimes silence is better than an insurance policy. A life insurance policy. Which only pays off after you are dead.

For five long weeks, Sun-Times' investigative reporter Tim Novak called, e-mailed, requested, practically pleaded with Obama's press people to provide information about the senator's relationship to Rezko when it came to the development of low-income housing in Chicago. In an abundance of fairness and an excess of solicitousness, Novak sent a list of questions.

For five weeks, no answer.

Jointly, on behalf of both the Sun-Times and NBC5 News, Novak and I sent Obama's campaign requests to interview the senator for both print and television.

Though Obama says he, himself, did a mere five hours of work, the 12-person law firm where Obama was a junior partner did significant legal work for Rezko's company which, by 2002, was being sued by the city, state and a bunch of banks for defaulting on loans and doing a downright awful job of providing decent housing. Taxpayers and lenders have lost up to $100 million while Rezko's firm made about $7 million.

There is no suggestion that Obama or his firm did anything illegal. But here's a guy who, according to a recent Tribune profile of his wife, Michelle, was so scrupulous about the details of life that he actually went with her on a job interview just to make sure her potential employer was up to snuff. Too bad he didn't give Rezko the same treatment.

Rezko, a native of Syria, came to Chicago in the late 1970s to study engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He joined an engineering company, designing nuclear power plants. He left to design roads for the state Transportation Department, making $21,590 in his one year there.

In 1984, Rezko went to work for Crucial Concessions Inc., owned by Herbert Muhammad, whose father, Elijah Muhammad, founded the Nation of Islam. Herbert Muhammad also was the longtime manager of boxing great Muhammad Ali. Crucial had a contract with the Chicago Park District to sell food on the beaches and in many South Side parks. Rezko was running Crucial when he met Daniel Mahru.

"That's an interesting story,'' Mahru said. "He sold food along the beaches, and I sold him ice.''

Mahru, chief executive officer of Automatic Ice Inc., which leases ice makers to bars, hotels and restaurants, grew up on the North Shore. He had been an attorney with a big Chicago law firm.

He and Rezko incorporated Rezmar in January 1989, when Chicagoans were focused on Daley's campaign to oust Mayor Eugene Sawyer. Daley won, and Rezmar came seeking funding from City Hall.

"Rezmar Corp. expects this project to be the first of many during the next few years,'' Mahru wrote in Rezmar's first application to the city Housing Department.

And it was.

As Rezmar's loan application was pending, Daley reformed the Housing Department. Daley said he found that housing officials were giving loans to their cronies. So the mayor's staff would now decide who got the money.

And how about the Nation of Islam connection? I've heard Obama is tight with the Nation of Islam and tight with Rezko. Looks like Obama and Rezko travel in similar circles.

Rezko was the schmoozer. He showered politicians with money for their campaign funds and got others to do the same. He gave to Democrats -- foremost among them former Cook County Board President John Stroger, Gov. Blagojevich, Daley and Sen. Barack Obama. Rezko gave to Republicans, too -- among them former Gov. Jim Edgar, the late Rosemont Mayor Don Stephens and President George W. Bush.

He also gave to others who held sway over Rezmar's housing deals -- like Chicago aldermen.

Meanwhile, Rezmar's low-income apartments were deteriorating, and it stopped repaying some loans.

So why did the city keep lending Rezko's company more tax dollars? "During the time he did work with us -- and that was many years ago -- there was nothing to indicate there was a problem," Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said.

In fact, there was. City attorneys repeatedly went to court to force Rezmar to make repairs to its buildings and, in some cases, to get the heat turned on.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

New evidence continues to surface in the Haditha case that shows the Marines didn't do it.

Convincing evidence that corroborates NewsMax.com's accounts of the Haditha insurgent ambush has compelled the prosecution to take extraordinary steps to bolster their crumbling case.

The stunning announcement that all charges are being dropped against Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, formerly accused of murder in the Haditha incident where 24 Iraqis were killed during an insurgent ambush against the Marines, is indication that the prosecutors have a very weak case against all the defendants, lawyers for the some of the accused say.

The announcement of the deal with Dela Cruz is further evidence that the cases against the Kilo Company Marines and several of their superior officers are in deep trouble. It comes on the heels of postponements of Article 32 hearings slated for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander and two of the enlisted men charged with murdering civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.

In a nutshell, the case exploded when an intelligence officer dropped a bombshell on prosecutors during a pre-hearing interview when he revealed the existence of exculpatory evidence that appears to have been obtained by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and withheld from the prosecutors.

This officer, described by senior Marine Corps superiors as one of the best and most dedicated intelligence officers in the entire Marine Corps, was in possession of evidence which provided a minute-by-minute narrative of the entire day's action -- material which he had amassed while monitoring the day's action in his capacity as the battalion's intelligence officer. That material, he says, was also in the hands of the NCIS.

Much of that evidence remains classified, but it includes videos of the entire day's action, including airstrikes against insurgent safe houses. Also included was all of the radio traffic describing the ongoing action between the men on the ground and battalion headquarters, and proof that the Marines were aware that the insurgents conducting the ambush of the Kilo Company troops were videotaping the action -- the same video that after editing ended up in the hands of a gullible anti-war correspondent for Time magazine.

When asked by the prosecution team to give his copies of the evidence to the prosecution, he told NewsMax.com that he was reluctant to do so, fearing it would again be suppressed or misused, but later relented when ordered by his commanding general to do so.

Confronted by the massive mounds of evidence that Marine Corps sources tell NewsMax proves conclusively that the cases against the Haditha Marines are baseless, the prosecutors were forced to postpone the Article 31 against Lt. Col. Chessani and two of the enlisted men in an attempt to regroup.

By granting immunity to the officer on the scene of the house-clearing effort, the prosecution, lawyers say, has further weakened its case.

It is looking more and more like the Haditha Massacre will be put in the same category as the Duke Rape Hoax. Prosecutorial overstretch.

Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center attorney who questioned the officer, told NewsMax in a statement, "The intelligence officer is a crucial witness in this case. During his testimony, he effectively described the enemy situation prior to, during, and after the November 19 terrorist attack, providing the necessary context for the decisions that were made as a result. His testimony shows the complexity of the attack this day, the callousness of the terrorists toward the local civilians, whom they use to their advantage, and the error of viewing this incident in a vacuum.

"The officer also showed how the insurgents used allegations of wrongdoing by Marines as propaganda to support their cause. In fact, another witness, who was the assistant intelligence officer during the attack and is now the current intelligence officer for the battalion, testified that since the Haditha incident received