From on High

Miers Withdraws...

2005-10-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

Angus told us so three full days ago. Whom will Bush pick? I'm guessing it's one of these four: Michael McConnell, J. Michael Luttig, Samuel Alito, or Janice Rogers Brown.

Results: Press Conference Predictions

2005-10-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I'd give myself a 7.5 I got some key buzzwords and captured a lot of the main points. Before the next press conference, I will further hone my psychic powers:

PREDICTED: "..The American people are gonna see that Harriet is a top rate legal mind....I have worked with Ms. Miers. I've come to know what a sharp and....careful legal mind she is...how she........Lemme just say that the reason I picked Ms. Miers is because she's the kind of person who interprests the law not makes the law. And that's what I look for when I'm looking for a judge or a justice....someone who's not going to, you know, legislate from the bench. And the American people are gonna see that, just like I saw it in the years I've worked with Ms. Miers."

ACTUAL: "Let me -- please, please. I've known Harriet for over a decade. I've worked with Harriet. She's a woman of principle and character. She's highly intelligent....Secondly, she knows the kind of judge I'm looking for -- after all, she was a part of the process that selected John Roberts....And there should be no doubt in anybody's mind what I believe a judge -- the philosophy of a judge. And Harriet Miers shares that philosophy.....She is -- she understands the law, she's got a keen mind, she will not legislate from the bench."

PREDICTED: "...the fact is anybody who knows me knows I'm not a fan of litmus tests...I don't judge nominees on the basis of one factor, one..qualification...That goes for opinions on cases like Roe and that goes for other qualifications as well."

ACTUAL: "I have no litmus test. It's also something I've consistently said: There is not litmus test. What matters to me is her judicial philosophy; what does she believe the role -- the proper role of the judiciary is, relative to the legislative and the executive branch. And she'll be asked all kinds of questions up there, but the most important thing for me is what kind of judge will she be? And so there's no litmus tests."

PREDICTED: When we look back, are there things that coulda gone better? You bet. A ca-ta-stro-phe of that mag-ni-tude is somethin you can never totally plan for. And so, what I told the Congress and my staff is that we're gonna see what we need to do to get it right if - God forbid - anything like that happens again.

ACTUAL: One area where I hope the country takes a look at is the responsibility between federal, state and local government when it comes to cat-a-stroph-ic events, highly-cat-a-stroph-ic events.....There's always going to be frustrations in the immediate aftermath of a storm.

PRE-sidential Press Conference

2005-10-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

So anybody can analyze a press conference after it's taken place. More fun, I think, is to guess what the man himself will say just before. To that end, here are my pre-sidential predictions on how Bush will phrase his answers to a few key questions when he goes on the air in just 15 mins. We'll compare my predictions to the actual afterwards....

On charges of cronyism....

"...As to the charges of so-called cronyism, (insert reporter name here),....that is, the idea that somehow Harriet Miers isn't....qualified because she happens to work in the White House....The fact is that's simply not true...The American people are gonna see that Harriet is a top rate legal mind....I have worked with Ms. Miers. I've come to know what a sharp and....careful legal mind she is...how she........Lemme just say that the reason I picked Ms. Miers is because she's the kind of person who interprests the law not makes the law. And that's what I look for when I'm looking for a judge or a justice....someone who's not going to, you know, legislate from the bench. And the American people are gonna see that, just like I saw it in the years I've worked with Ms. Miers.

On charges of gender affirmative action....

"(insert reporter name here), the fact is anybody who knows me knows I'm not a fan of litmus tests...I don't judge nominees on the basis of one factor, one..qualification...That goes for opinions on cases like Roe and that goes for other qualifications as well. I don't use a so-called "gender litmus test" or a "race litmus test". In other words, I don't use a test that says if you're a woman, or if you're black, you've got a better shot at being the next justice. I evaluate people based on their qualifications. I am also mindful, (insert reporter name here), that diversity is an important thing, a wonderful thing, that we have here in America. I am proud to nominate one of the most accomplished women and lawyers this country has....But you see, I interviewed and considered potential nominees from all kinds of backgrounds...all walks of life. And I picked the one I thought would do the job best. I'm confident the American people are gonna see why I made that decision real soon".

On Katrina....

"We just got hit with not one, but two of the most devastating hurricanes in our history. I toured the region three times and I saw the devastation...total devastation...lives destroyed and cities and towns ruined. And, you know, hindsight is 20-20. When we look back, are there things that coulda gone better? You bet. A ca-ta-stro-phe of that mag-ni-tude is somethin you can never totally plan for. And so, what I told the Congress and my staff is that we're gonna see what we need to do to get it right if - God forbid - anything like that happens again. We're gonna see where we did wrong and where we did right and make changes accordingly. And that will help us prepare not only for hurricanes...it'll help us prepare for other......events like terrorists attacks and other disasters. And lemme just say, that we've already seen the positive results of our looking back. We saw with hurricane Rita how an effective federal response can complement state authorities. And that's our role...to help the states when they need it."

Thank you, and God bless you.

And the Next Supreme Court Nominee is....

2005-10-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

As we get closer to finding out whom Bush will nominate, Alberto Gonzalez, Michael Luttig and Karen Williams have surged ahead in bidding on tradesports.com.

My personal guess is Maureen Mahoney, a partner at Latham and Watkins and former Rehnquist clerk.

On a related note, Mansfield Fox has posted answers to my Pick 3 sweepstakes.

Links!

2005-09-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

After far too long, I have added a section to the sidebar of my blog called "Blogs Ranked Highly", which includes links to my favorite blogs. Enjoy. More to come...

High (Court) Odds

2005-09-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Feeling lucky? Did all that thinking about my post below make you feel like you have a hunch about the Supreme Court choice of George W. Bush? Place a bet on the Supreme Court Futures Market before his pick is made public!

Pick 3

2005-09-28T19:27:00.000-07:00

I'd like to get a little game going. Think of three people whom George W. Bush should consider for Sandra Day O'Connor's spot on the Supreme Court but who haven't been mentioned much (or at all) in the press. It can be more a wish-list than a prediction, but anyone who picks a future nominee gets a special prize. Here are my picks:

1. Frances Frago Townsend - She's Bush's current Homeland Security advisor and a lifetime government lawyer/prosecutor who formerly held several high positions at the Department of Justice. As one of Bush's closest confidants, she has won the President's deep respect and trust over the last four years. As a Democratic appointee (holdover from the Clinton administration) she'd have broad bipartisan appeal.

2. Mary Jo White - This tough-minded former prosecutor is now a partner at Debevoise and Plimpton. She may not be "bookish" enough for the role of Justice, but she's a Columbia Law grad and few could doubt that she's smart. Though Clinton appointed her to the her post as U.S. Attorney, rumor has it she's been disenchanted with the Democratic party of late.

3. Sonia Sotomayor - Appointed by Bush I to the District Court, elevated by Clinton to the Circuit Court, she's also likely to face easy confirmation by Democratic Senators while simultaneously allowing Bush to check off the woman and Latina boxes. The only problem is she too may not be conservative enough either for Bush or for his conservative base. That may be why she's not mentioned on any short lists.

I'm not sure that I'd nominate any of these three, but I'd certainly take a close look at their resumes. As you might have noticed, all of my picks assume 1) that the person should be a woman and 2) that a compromise moderate pick is better than a conservative ideologue who will further divide the country with a bitter confirmation hearing. I'm pretty confident that with Roberts already on the court and one or two more justices likely to go before Bush's term is out, the court is in no danger of going radically liberal any time soon. Why not take the opportunity to show some civility?

Death in the Afternoon? Mansfield Fox?

I Told You So

2005-09-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Had the Republicans followed my advice five months ago, we would have avoided the mess that unfolded today.

Clerk-to-be

2005-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday, I will officially work as a clerk next year for a judge on the Circuit Court of Appeals. The last weeks have been governed by a process that is truly insane and I am glad to be done with it. This blog, set up by a friend of mine, might give you some indication of how crazy the whole application period is.

Al Qaeda's Al Literation

2005-09-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Various news outlets are reporting on ABC's Exclusive broadcast of an Al Qaeda tape threatening "Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne." Immediately, concern has emerged that these two cities may be next on the hit list. Both L.A. city officials and the Homeland Security Department have issued statements.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I'm wondering why no one has speculated that the naming of those two cities may be simply an attempt at alliteration (using cities starting in "L" and "M") and not an actual statement of future attack plans. Unlike previous tapes, after all, this one was delivered in English, and is full of rhetorical flourishes. Moreover, even the Bush campaign used a similar rhetorical device in 2004 when it declared that we must "fight the war on terror in Baghdad not Boston, and in Kabul, not Kansas City."

How WILL the terrorists choose their next target? At least one Qaeda tape - Bin Laden's pre-election rant last November - suggests that they may have in mind America's federalist structure. In that tape, Bin Ladens threatened "states" who endangered the security of Muslims, a term that was originally interpreted to mean nation-states. Upon further analysis, however, commentators with knowledge of Arabic noted that the statement was more accurately translated as referring to U.S. states. In other words, the threat may have been designed to influence electoral politics by vowing to attack only states who supported the Bush administration at the polls.

In the end, I am skeptical such considerations would influence Al Qaeda's target choices, given that their single most important objective is to kill as many Americans as possible. Nonetheless, parsing words might reveal something about the mindset of our enemies. And who better to parse words than a law school student?

Four Years On

2005-09-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, I woke up late one Tuesday morning to find a group of students crying together in the hallway of my college dorm. It was the kind of raw outpouring of emotion that, over the following months and years, would allow us both individually and as a nation to slowly regain our bearings and come to our feet.

This anniversary of 9/11 brings with it a stark reminder that we humans inhabit a universe that is – despite our efforts to tame it – both maddeningly random and torturously indifferent to our suffering. Whether through a hurricane’s ferocious wind or the murderous acts of 19 depraved hearts, the chaotic trail of human events punctuates lives without apology. Out of the resulting void, we are left only with one another to find meaning and to give comfort.

This year is a particularly sad anniversary in that we as Americans seem to have temporarily lost our ability to cry together. Enormous tragedies like the recent hurricane drive home the fact that both we and our leaders frequently live life with a paradoxical air of inevitability and yet invulnerability. Tragedy and loss are inevitable and often wholly foreseeable; yet somehow only after the fact do matters take on the urgency needed to make us feel truly vulnerable. This fact is as constant as it is anger-inducing.

There will be plenty of time to ask why, once again, Americans at various levels of government acted impervious to impending threat. There will be ample opportunity to cast blame and demand accountability.

Here’s to hoping, however, that some day soon our country will regain its ability to shed collective tears. We may disagree strongly and bitterly about the preventability of terrorist attacks, about the wisdom of the Iraq war, and about the proper response to the crisis in New Orleans. But it is worth noting that no levee, no matter how strong or large, will ever serve as a complete barrier to life’s fragility. Our greatest hope for a better and less devastating future comes not from the ability to find fault, but from the compassion and resiliency that we draw from each other.

God bless the dead and those who cry for them, and God bless America.

2005-09-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

We must not forget.

The Aforementioned Exhibit

2005-08-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

White Cabinet and White Table

Telling a Joke One (hundred or so) Too Many Times

2005-08-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to see the movie/documentary The Aristocrats with some friends. For those unfamiliar, the movie is about a famous joke by the same name. In the joke, a family goes to a talent agent and purports to have an act which they hope to perform with the backing of the talent agent. The act is then described in detail and consists of the most vulgar activities one could possibly imagine a family doing together. Each comedian fills in the details using his own style and substance, but the act inevitably involves copious human excrement, sex, and incest. The punchline comes when finally, the talent agent asks what the name of the act is and the family responds: The Aristocrats.

I should not have gone to this movie, seeing as though I view the joke as a crude (in both senses of the word) and an utterly ineffective attempt at humorous irony. Dragging various incantations of the joke over a two-hour movie, therefore, was unsurprisingly not the best cinematic experience I've had.

Then today, I went to MOMA and saw an exhibit that I consider to be a far better use of the type of irony that the joke seeks to elicit. The exhibit consisted of a table whose surface was absolutely filled with broken eggshells piled several inches high. Above the table was a large cabinet with transparent glass doors, also completely filled with hundreds of broken eggshells. The eggshells in the cabinet were piled in a way such that the bottom portion of the pile was slightly narrower than the top, giving the observer a disorienting sense that gravity is working in reverse. All in all, the hundreds of eggshells made for a quite a scene. HOWEVER, the title of the exhibit (and here's the punchline) is: White Table and White Cabinet.

Using the MOMA exhibit as inspiration, I decided that my own version of the Aristocrats joke, if I ever had to create one, would work off of the eggshell exhibit's premise. I'd have the family's act begin with a rather mundane event, say, the ringing of a doorbell. Then they'd engage in all the vile and repulsive behavior that is common to the joke in a manner so shocking that the audience would be begging for an end to the discomfort after just a few minutes. At the end, the talent agent would ask what the name of the act was called and the response would be: The Doorbell.

Of course my version is hardly high comedy, but I do think it's an improvement on an otherwise lame joke. On the other hand, maybe I just have no sense of humor.

Mennonite or Amish?

2005-07-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

So, as mentioned in my last post, I ran into followers of the Mennonite faith on the subway today. Ever wonder what the differences (and similarities) are between the Amish and the Mennonites? I sure did. And here is the answer.

I [heart] New York

2005-07-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

So i just took the subway up from the office (yes, I was there on a weekend), and in my subway car were a bunch of menonite women pushing baby carriages, a family of tourists from India, a group of friends/tourists from Japan, a couple from somewhere in the southern U.S. (based on their accent), a few others who seemed like Native New Yorkers, and myself. I learned everyone's background mostly from the jovial conversations that people were having during the trip. Why was everyone in such a good mood? I can't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it had a lot to do with the conductor, who was about the happiest-sounding MTA employee I've ever encoutered; he repeatedly made entertaining announcements like "Turn that frown upside down. Smiling Burns Calories" and "You are just beneath city hall, home to his honor the Mayor Michael Bloomberg". It also may have been due to the three guys who came into the car and sang African American spirituals (people gave tips generously).

Say whatever you want about NYC, but there are days when you can't help but admit it's pretty damn cool....

...Or let the cops do it.

2005-07-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

So the speculation offered in my last post that people's resistance to bag searches in the subway would evaporate after another attack has proven true. In fact, New Yorkers seem to be submitting to the new reality more readily than even I had imagined, making my solution of a citizen search unncessary to a degree. Of course, sustaining the current system will be costly, but least for now, we can stick to opening our eyes and ears and let the cops open bags.

This all raises an interesting legal point in my mind about the unexpected consequences of particular constitutional ideologies. Namely, it seems that those who argue in favor of a "living constitution" would have to admit that Fourth Amendment should theoretically become LESS protective of privacy as security threats increase and as the public becomes more willing to submit to invasive police practices. Just as a constitutional clause's pro-rights language can be effectively stretched and broadened to mirror popular sentiment, so too can it be narrowed and constricted for the same purpose. This is particularly true in the context of the Fourth Amendment where the word "reasonable" presents an exceedingly vague and malleable guidpost for judges. A difficult question is: what should an originalist or textualist response to this issue be? Is there any point at which a security measure considered "reasonable" by the public during a time of extreme threat or national emergency would nonetheless fall outside the constraints of what would have been considered reasonable by the constitution's framers? More fundamentally, does the constitution have the legitimate power to force rights on the people (thus restricting state power), even when such "rights" are opposed by an overwhelming majority of the populace? My hunch is that answers to these questions will not fall predictably along conservative/liberal lines, precisely because the "flexibility" afforded by liberal constitutional theory can serve, in this context, to eviscerate the "rights" so central to the left's jurisprudence. By contrast, the "objective" textualism may tend to encourage fixed and rigid boundaries for police power that end up constraining the state in its effort to achieve security.

This is not only true in the Fourth Amendment realm. Note, after all, that it was Scalia who wrote the most civil libertarian opinion in the Hamdi case, not because he became a sudden liberal activist, but because he viewed himself as bound by the constitution's text and not at the whim of more vague and ephemeral notions of emergency powers and inherent executive authority.

A Non-Government Proposal: Citizen Searches?

2005-07-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

I had an idea today. I was recently discussing with a friend the recent Islamofacist massacre in London and whether Americans would ever be willing to submit to airport-type searches of items they carry on to the subway. We both tended to think that the chances of such a security measure gaining support were low for two reasons: 1) the obvious privacy concerns involved and 2) the nightmarish practical/manpower challenges to implementing such a policy on a nation-wide or city-wide scale.

I'm pretty sure that type 1 concerns would evaporate after just one or two attacks on a U.S. subway system. The fact of the matter is that people - myself included - value their lives a lot more than they value their ability to conceal what they are carrying in their bag or briefcase.

As for the second consideration, that is where I think a little creativity could go a long way to devise a cost-effective security scheme. My own (admittedly out of the box) suggestion would be the following:

The public would begin to abide by new social norm known as the "citizen search", with the idea being that subway riders themselves would be responsible for taking a quick look through the contents bags or containers brought by fellow riders onto the subway. So, for instance, say Mary and Joe are standing on the train platform. Joe has a bag. Mary doesn't. Just as the train is about to pull up, social convention would dictate that Joe turn to Mary and open his bag for her to take a quick look for anything suspicious. Mary, happy to help ensure the safety of everyone on the other train would do so. Other passengers with and without bags would engage in similar rituals, each doing his or her small part in contributing to the safety of everyone on board.

Of course, none of this would be "mandatory" from a legal point of view and therefore, bag-holders who forgot or chose not open their bags would leave fellow riders with two options: 1) to request that they do so or 2) to simply take note of the bag-holders failure to abide by social custom.

The benefit of such a system is that in addition to effecting more scrutiny of passengers without hiring a single additional law enforcement officer, it would give train riders valuable information about their fellow passengers. If a person refused to open his bag and have it searched, the other riders would be presented with that knowledge and could judge for themselves whether the refusal is indicative of suspicious intent (in which case they could wait for the next train). It would also serve as a deterrent to would-be bombers who would know that no longer could they carry items onto a train without ANY risk of having it opened for inspection.

Admittedly, the idea of citizens keeping tabs on other citizens is bound to strike many Americans as rather anti-democratic and an exercise in paranoia. I certainly don't doubt it would take a lot of getting used to. But then again, if we are willing to entertain the idea of having our bags searched by Big Brother (ie, law enforcement officials), why should the idea of fellow riders taking a quick look be such an anathema?

Of course, some would rightly doubt the effectiveness of such a system given the fact that most citizens are not trained in bomb detection or anti-terrorism searches. Yet public advisories and education campaigns could go a long way towards teaching people what to look for. Moreover, the mere knowledge that someone will probably take even a brief a look at any bags on board will likely still provide a detterent even when that someone is not a profesionally trained police official.

As London showed, the government can't protect us all the time, because it has limited power and limited resources. For that reason, we are often told to "be vigilant". Why not do something that gives more than symbolic meaning that phrase and takes the burden off the government while keeping us all safer? I for one would be happy to do my civic duty by opening up my bag or taking a peek in someone else's. After all, we're all in this together.

And I resurface...

2005-06-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

But not to post on anything original. That will have to wait until my busy schedule calms down. I post rather to introduce you to a new blog started by one of my friends. Start reading before it becomes a sensation!

Sh/peal?

2005-05-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

A debate has emerged among readers as to the proper spelling of speal/shpeal. My search of dictionary.com does not recognize either spelling. Anyone care to provide proof of one or the other proposed spelling?

FYI: Shpeals

2005-05-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

As a friend who has better knowledge of yiddish-originating words than I do points out, those speeches that mothers and others deliver from time to time are "shpeals", not "speals" as I originally said in my previous post.

The more you know [music with starry rainbow logo].

New Diablog

2005-05-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

So Death in the Afternoon, has passed me a meme (I call them diablogs) about books. Here are my answers.

1. Number of books I've owned.

Probably around 150 or so. Strangely enough, I have never been much of a voracious reader of books beyond those assigned in my classes. I'm not sure why this is, and in fact, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it. At every point in my education, my mother gave me impassioned shpeals about how other kids would pass me by in verbal, reading, and writing skills if I didn't start reading more on my own. Either she was overreacting, or this whole Princeton/Yale Law thing was a big fluke [I'm not discounting the latter possibility].
In any case, I still wonder why I have an unexpectedly low number of pleasure-reading-books under my belt. I think one reason is my incredibly short attention span in certain areas. I generally have little patience for or interest in following fictional storylines unless the stories do something really significant for me, ie utterly depress, move, or excite me. Most of the books I actively seek out are non-fiction. This facet of my personality comes out with respect to movies and television as well. I honestly watch almost nothing on TV other than news and documentaries, and am highly picky when it comes to finding movies I enjoy.
I do voraciously read things other than books like newspapers, magazines, and opinion columns. I think a big part of my attraction to these media is that they are grounded in REAL events. They are also short. Sure, fiction is grounded in reality to some extent, but I simply find it hard to actively crave a good novel. It's weird, I know.

2. Last book I bought:

The Life of Pi - Read a few chapters and found it surprisingly good [given my whole diatrabe against fiction]. Haven't gotten back to reading it. Gee, maybe I should get checked for ADD?

3. Last book I read:

The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage, Frederick P. Hitz - Just finished it today. It is written by one of my undergrad professors and compares spycraft as it is portrayed in novels to the real thing as practiced by the likes of the CIA.

4. Five books that mean alot to me:

The Mind's Eye - This collection of essays on "philosophy of mind" delves into fundamental issues of consciousness, identity, and metaphysics. It epitomizes the type of reading I like most. It'll also make you think a lot about just exactly what it is that makes you think.

The Great Gatsby - I had a wonderful sophomore English teacher in high school whom I respect more than almost anyone else, and who made this book come alive for me. I think I would have liked it anyway (although to a lesser degree) were it not for this teacher. As a crafter of elegant prose, I don't think it gets much better than FSF.

Moby Dick - I read EVERY single page of it with same teacher mentioned above; This book I'm sure I would NOT have liked much at all were it not for his brilliant teaching of it and his lectures on how it helped him through some extremely trying moments in his life.

One L, Scott Turow - I read this book the summer before going to law school and it scared the S#$% out of me. I now frequently glance back at it and smile because it bears absolutely no resemblance ot my current life. For reminding me of how lucky I am, it makes my list.

The Federalist Papers - That's the lawyer and sappy patriot in me talking.

So there you have it. Those are my answers.

These vagabond shoes...

2005-05-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

In just a few hours, I'll be moved in to the Big Apple for the summer. Watch out NY, NY.

Cool Mind Reading Trick

2005-05-23T22:44:00.000-07:00

Click here for a pretty neat magic trick. If you can't figure out how it's done after trying it and are dying to know, post a comment and perhaps I will tell. Or perhaps it really IS magic.

Diplomatic Donald

2005-05-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

Donald Trump has to get the award for provocateur of the week for his comments about the Freedom Tower to be built in New York:

"You take a look at a the roofs of those buildings, they're all at different angles, different shapes. It is the worst pile of crap architecture I have ever seen in my life."

Contest!

2005-05-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

My recent post about Hillary/Newt has turned into a full-out contest, thanks to Death in the Afternoon. Send in those entries!

Clingrich '08

2005-05-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

Clinton and Gingrich are reportedly getting chummy. Here are a few of my suggestions for a Newt-Hillary '08 slogan.

"It takes a Gingrich."
"Restore hollers and discrepancy to the White House."
"Cancel out the vote."
"Newter Hillary."

Keep an Eye Out

2005-05-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

Anyone remember the movie Minority Report (one of my favorites)? May not be far from reality soon.

Gansta Judgin'

2005-05-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

Check out the footnote on the second page of this appellate court decision.

Chatter Up?

2005-05-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

Before I say this, let me emphasize that my sources for this information are INDIRECT, ie at least two degrees from an actual person in the intelligence community. However, it seems that rumblings are beginning to emerge that officials in the United States government are once again deeply concerned about the possibility of a terrorist attack in the near-term. Specifically, they point to recently uncovered information about planned attacks involving WMD using a variety of creative and unconventional delivery methods. According to these rumors, some of the information has suggested terrorists will seek to use, among other things, small or remote-controlled aircraft. That might help explain the massive reaction to today's Cessna incident. Potential targets include the obvious (New York and DC) and the not-so-obvoius (about two dozen other cities). The sources I rely upon (e.g., the one I linked to) are "private intelligence sources", ie people who monitor Al Qaeda communication but are not employed by the government. Some of them claim to know people within the intel community.

I will say that these sources have predicted past "Orange alerts" and other terror announcements days before they actually happened. Again, however, rumors are rumors. I probably would not have even posted were it not for the fact that the timing is particularly interesting, given today's incident and the recent capture of Al Qaeda's #3 guy, Al-Libbi last week. As the old homeland security paradox goes, "Carry on as normal. But be vigilant."

Sources say...

2005-05-11T00:29:00.000-07:00

According to previously credible sources, Professor Michael Doran, who taught a class I took in college on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is Bush's likely pick to head up the National Security Council's Israel-Palestine desk. If that's true, I think he will do a fantastic job. As a teacher, he was unfailingly fair and even-handed in presenting issues, extremely sharp in his insights, and always attentive to practical realities. If anyone can handle the intricacies of the Mideast peace process for the NSC, he's the man to do it.

Security or Stability?

2005-05-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

Tom Freidman make an excellent point about Europe and China's stance via North Korea and Iran:

"At the end of the day, the Chinese would rather live with a nuclear North Korea than risk a collapsed nonnuclear North Korea, and the Europeans would rather live with a nuclear Iran - that Europe can make all kinds of money off of - rather than risk losing Iran's business to prevent it from going nuclear. The Chinese and the Europeans each assume that in the end, the U.S. will deter both the North Koreans and the Iranians anyway, so why worry...

Are the Europeans and Chinese behaving cynically? Of course, these are the very countries constantly complaining about U.S. "hegemony," and calling for a "multipolar world." Yet the only thing they are really interested in being a pole for is to oppose the U.S. - not to actually do something hard themselves to stabilize the global system.

The prevailing assumption in Washington is that if something really big is going wrong - like North Korea and Iran going nuclear - it must be because America messed up. Yes, the Bush nonproliferation policy has been pretty dysfunctional, but the real problem is that those parties with the leverage to make a diplomatic difference refuse to use it."

I can just hear Bush agreeing, "That's right, Tom. I keep tellin' em. Y'all are headin us for another Yalta."

2005-05-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

For those in need of inspiration this exam period.

Grade Inflation

2005-05-09T23:41:00.000-07:00

Princeton, the place where I spent my formative college years, recently instituted a unversity-wide policy whereby professors can award no more than 35% of A- grades or above. As much as I hate to admit it, I think this is a good and long-overdue measure to curb grade inflation. One professor, John Fleming disagreed in a recent newspaper article, saying:

"Everybody tells us that we take nothing but geniuses into the freshman class. It seems odd to me that these geniuses would get here and suddenly only a third of them would be A students."

The logic of this argument seems clearly flawed to me. It's like saying that because everyone at the Olympics is a superb athlete, all of the competitors should get gold medals. The point of having a grading system is not to rank students according to some national standard. It's to compare their work to that of their fellow students. I know first-hand that while most Princeton students are very smart, there is a fairly wide range of ability level and a very wide range of effort level within the student body. I know that getting a B or (gasp) C can be traumatic for an "organization kid"; but unless grades actually reflect differences, it's just not worth having an evaluative system at all.

Speaking of which, Yale Law School's famed system of honors/pass/low pass/fail is pretty much akin to the system at places like Princeton pre-grade infation. It effectively has become a system of "A's" and "non A's", since Low Passes and Fails are all but extinct. Because that system has been the main source of my relatively stress-free life over the past two years, I'm going to be completely hypocritical and say I hope Yale doesn't follow Princeton's lead (and my advice).

Public Service Announcement

2005-05-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

The other day I got a telemarketing call on my cell phone for the first time. Not long before that, I had received an email forward saying that cell phone providers were about to give their lists of numbers to commercial entitities. Although the research I did on the web suggested that the email was false, I'm going to go with experience and register my cell number with the Do Not Call Registry. You should do the same.

Yalta

2005-05-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Angus makes a good point in response to my post about Bush's comments yesterday; namely, that FDR's only alternative to selling out Eastern Europe to the Soviets was a long and bloody war with Russia. It does certainly seem naive to expect (as Bush seems to) that FDR should have taken a hard line against the ally who suffered by far the most deaths of anyone in the war. And it does seem possible that a more hostile stance by the U.S. would have led to another horrific blood-letting. But I have doubts as to whether Russia would have really been willing to fight a protracted war for its territory in Eastern Europe. Whatever the case, I think it's fair to say that the world would have been hugely better off if the timing had been just slightly different. If only Yalta had occurred six months later, after the U.S. had the nuclear option up its sleeve, we would have been able to exercise far greater leverage over the Soviets, greatly diminshing their spoils and subsequent power.

Is Bush's statement pandering? I can see how one would say so. On the other hand, I think it was more likely an attempt to fit the administration's Iraq policy within a larger conceptual framework, and a radical one at that. Later in his speech, Bush clearly alludes to Iraq, saying the U.S. will no longer appease tyranny "for the sake of stability." His basic point seems to be "Look, in the past, we've been forced by pragmatic considerations and realpolitik to gloss over oppressive regimes and to sacrifice democracy for the sake of international order. I hereby give notice that we will no longer do so. We will not make peace with tyrants to preserve the status quo." In other words, he seems to be applying the U.S.'s "no negotiation rule" with terrorists to a nation-state level. It's a bold policy that flies in face of centuries of conventional wisdom about statecraft. Of course there is still reason to believe Bush is not really serious about it (See, e.g., Saudi Arabia, Pakistan). Regardless, it will be interesting to see how much "stability" guides U.S. policy as we maneuver through the scary minefields of our policies towards Iran and North Korea.

Abu Faraj Al Libbi

2005-05-08T02:15:00.000-07:00

Last week's arrest of Abu Faraj Al Libbi (which coincided with my dream mentioned in an earlier post) was, in my estimation, the biggest news story since the pope's death. The U.S. reaction, and particularly the response of the CIA and Homeland Security Department, bear very close watching over the next several weeks. While the potential exists that information gleaned from Libbi will lead to the capture or killing of OBL, I think the more likely and immediate result is a major breakthrough in the United States' knowledge about the state of Al Qaeda. The combined facts that Libbi was so close to the top of the network and that his captors managed to pick up his notebook make it all but certain that he will be a valuable intelligence asset for the U.S. Here are two possible government reactions and how I think we might interpret them.

1. Renewed worry among goverment officials about attacks in the U.S. - This is, I think, fairly likely. Look in particular for an Orange Alert similar to that which was issued over the summer. If that happens, I think we should take it as a serious indication that Al Qaeda is alive and well, and capable of striking the U.S. at home. The move would be a particularly ominous sign, given the fact that the government will likely be extremely wary of needlessly warning us of yet another non-materializing threat. If an alert comes out of this event, it is likely to be both more credible and more specific than previous ones. And so should our response.

2. No change in government's public posture - This would likely serve as a strong indication that Al Qaeda is seriously weakened and operating largely without the command and control of its top leaders. If the arrest of the #3 guy does not lead to any information about new attacks, after all, it seems hard to believe that Al Qaeda could be operating at anywhere near its former capacity. Of course, a lack of change in the government's posture could simply indicate Libbi's ability to resist interrogation and conceal information. But given the powers of the CIA to trace down the associates and hiding places of people they've captured, I'm willing to bet we'll get more than a little bit of useful information out of him.

Bottom line: what the government learns and does over the coming weeks is going to be very telling about where we stand in the war against Al Qaeda. Let's hope for option #2.

2005-05-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

Chinese-English translator sorely needed.

Bleeding Heart Conservatism?

2005-05-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly amazed by the way in which 9/11 has had such a disorienting effect upon the foreign policies of "liberalism" and "conservatism." We have our most conservative President since Reagan constantly being referred to by supporters and detractors alike as both Wilsonian and Trumanesque. His best friend across the Atlantic is Tony Blair, a domestic "Clintonian", who is criticized by opponents for being "Bush's poodle." The other day I saw a car with a smattering of "progressive" bumper stickers, including one that said "F$%# Iraq. Fix America." And finally today, President Bush, while in Eastern Europe, apologized for U.S. complicity in past atrocities. (Such "revisionist" talk is usually left to the other side of the political spectrum.) He said:

"V-E Day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.

Of course, a cynic would say that Bush was making this apology to undercut FDR, a democrat. In my view he is simply proving his foreign policy to be a cohseive and highly principled doctrine. There's room to disagree about whether it will work out in the long run - it could prove either incredbly triumphant or tragically naive. But whatever you say about Bush, he's no novice as a foreign policy-maker and articulator of American principles. And he's certainly not your typical conservative.

First Weekly Deep Thought from the NYT Editoral Board

2005-05-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

Ahh yes...the natural risks a fingerling faces.

2005-05-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

Note to FBI: This is my best guess from the dream. In all likelihood, he's in the tribal region north of Hanover.

Psychic Dream?

2005-05-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream. A very vivid dream. I never have dreams. It was that I personally captured Bin Laden in.....New Hampshire. Probably more accurately, it was in the rural, mountainous border region between New Hampshire and Vermont. The dream had many odd components, including the fact that I personally transported Bin Laden in my Ford Explorer to the local police station.

Then this morning I woke up to see that the U.S. has in fact captured Al Qaeda's #3 man, Abu Faraj al-Libbi. This can only mean one thing: the capture of Bin Laden is near. I think I should call the FBI and let them know - he is in the Granite State!

The Letter

2005-05-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

For the curious, here is a copy of the hoax letter, which I forgot to link to in my initial post.

Correction: Hoaxed!

2005-05-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

So apparently, the press release blasting Laura Bush was a hoax and is NOT the work of the Coalition for Traditional Values. Read more here. My apologies to the Coalition for being duped, along with MSNBC and the Drudge Report. I'm surprised Dan Rather didn't do a story on it before it was found out to be bogus. The Coalition agrees with me that Laura was "hilarious." All is right again.

Lighten up, People!

2005-05-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the Coalition for Traditional Values thinks there's an 11th Commandment: Thou shall not have a sense of humor. What else can explain this press release, in which they blast Laura Bush's hilarious performance at the White House correspondent's dinner the other night? How dare she not "submit to her husband at everything" when Bush's "manliness is already under attack." Scary.

Linked

2005-05-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

My recent post on pretentious naming has been picked up by an organization called WordLab, and is now featured prominently on their website.

NEWS ALERT From on High

2005-04-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

Shortly after midnight this evening my roommates and I were relaxing in the living room of our quiet abode on High Street when we heard an argument outside on the street followed by a series loud gunshots. Even though we're on the second floor, we instinctively ducked down near the ground. After the shots stopped, we looked outside to see what was going on. The people involved had apparently gotten away, but within a few minutes, four police cars had arrived and the cops were scouring the sidewalk for shell casings. Being the thrill-seekers that we are, we walked right over to the crime scene, where we saw a Jeep Cherokee that had several bullet holes in it. We then came back to our apartment and watched things from our window. Within about 15 minutes, the police had detained some individuals for questioning and the number of police cars in the area increased to six or seven. The commotion went on for a good hour or so. Things finally seem to have quieted down now. It's been quite a spectacle. I have a feeling my roommate, a big fan of the show Cops, got his fill for the night, as did I. High Street is a dangerous place. (And now you know where the name of my blog came from)

I've been tagged!

2005-04-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

So I've been tagged in a game of Ceasar's Bath (ie, the game I "invented" the other day only to find out it was already out there). The question posed to me by Mansfield Fox is to name five things that people in my circle of friends are crazy about but that I don't understand the fuss over. Here they are:

1. Sports News/Commentary- I think sports themselves are worthwile and a lot of fun. While I'm not a diehard fan for any team, I can certainly appreciate the desire to cheer for a bunch of guys who happen to be from/are paid by your city as they move a ball or puck against a bunch of guys who happen to be from /are paid by another city. My patience wears thin, however, when I see the ridiculous amounts of TV and radio air-time that is spent analyzing and talking about guys who do this. Particularly loathesome are press conferences given by coaches and players who talk about how they did /didn't "give 110%" and how they did/did not match up to the other side's offensive/defensive capabilites. Since the Gladiators, people have had had some carnal need to see other people engage in controlled violence in a stadium setting. It's fun, I'll admit, and I'm all for it. Just post the scores and spare me the analysis.

2. Watching Poker on TV- I'm actually doing it right now. My roommates do it for at least a few hours a day. Yet still, I can't get into it. Like Mansfield Fox, Death, and almost all of my friends, I love to play, but seeing other people play just doesn't do it for me. Reminds me of watching someone do a coin toss...over, and over, and over.

3. Pizza Hut and Subway - Pizz hut is simply not pizza. It's greasy, manufactured-tasting and makes me feel full and slightly nauseous after half a slice. Subway, in theory, doesn't taste bad, but it's something about it being a chain that turns me off. Perhaps it strikes me as unstanitary, but I'm not sure. If I want a sub sandwich, I'd much rather go to a real deli.

4. U2: I am constantly suprised at how uncommon my aversion to this band is. For a while, I thought U2 was like Dave Matthews and that while a significant portion of people liked it, there was also a sizable group of people who couldn't stand it. Then, I started asking my friends and I could find not a single non-U2 fan. Just last week, I finally found one. So at least I'm not totally alone when I say I find their airy, slightly angsty and depresing but still upbeat songs ANNOYING.

5. Tequila - I'll second Angus on this one. Had a bad experience with it in college, and can't stand the smell/taste of it ever since.

Dirty Joizey

2005-04-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Run inland! Cape May, a New Jersey beach town has just lifted its BAN on speedo bathing suits. Only in Jersey.

Darn

2005-04-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

So much for an attempt at orginality. According to a comment by Angus on my previous post, there's a game that works exactly like my proposed diablog called Ceasar's Bath. Oh well.

Let's have a diablog

2005-04-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

So my friend and blogger Angus just posed a question to me; namely, does law school make people socially inept or does it simply attract people who are already social misfits? As I see it, this is what you might call a chicken or the egghead argument. I guess I'm not really quite sure whether most of the people I know come here full-fledged social butterflies only to regress into miserable cocooned bookworms, or if the apple of knowledge simply attracts worms to begin with (how's that for a string of metaphors).

What was really interesting to me, however, was not what my friend asked me but how he asked it. He did so by posing the question on his blog and then following it with one of my pseudonyms and a question mark both hyperlinked to my blog. It got me thinking about what might be a new and interesting form of communication in the blogosphere that I'm going to call "a dia-blog". A diablog would consist of one person posing a question to a fellow blogger on a particular issue and then summoning a response by linking to his or her blog. The second blogger would then answer the question via a post and request the answer of yet another blogger. The whole thing would work kind of like a chain letter, allowing web surfers who visit a "link in the chain" of the diablog to click their way from one opinion to the next. They could also traceback to previous posts in the chain. Ideally, this could go on for quite a long time, incorporating the views of bloggers from a broad array of perspectives.

So, in the spirit of my idea, I would like to start the world wide web's first diablog. Because I've devoted my post to this topic, I'm going to (lamely) pass on actually answering the question and punt it to my friend Death in the Afternoon (I know, Angus already linked to her). Death will then (hopefully) post some kind of response and summon the thoughts of another blogger. Who knows where this chain of ideas will lead us. So to repeat, the question for discussion is:

Does law school make us socially inept, or are we just born that way??

**And please, somebody tell me if this diablog concept is as old as canned beer (or if it's just stupid). I'm not exactly on the cutting edge of bloggery.

The Blog at High

2005-04-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

There's something I've been meaning to complain about for a while now. I'm not even sure what to call it, but, to quote a legal mind greater than my own, "I know it when I see it." The thing I'm talking about is the phenomenon of naming ordinary and unsophisticated things - usually buildings, institutions, and places - in a way that makes them sound extaordinary and unecessarily pretentious.

The most common manifestation of this the "at" syndrome. You've probably seen it in your very own state or community. It involves taking a name and adding to it the word "at", followed by a geographic location. So, for example, one would take the name"The Short Hills Mall" and turn it into "The Mall at Short Hills". This convention also quite commonly shows up in the names of housing developments and gated communities (I'd be willing to guess there is a swanky development known as something like "Lakeview at Boca Raton"). Why people feel that separating a place's name from its geographic location with an awkward sounding preposition connotes class or sophistication, I don't quite get. After all, don't pretentious types usually look down on those who say things like "where's the mall at" or "isn't that place at New Haven?"

Another strain of this faux fancy naming tendency is the "the" syndrome. This phenomenon shows up more frequently in the context of schools. So, for instance, chances are if you went to a public high school, it was called something along the lines of "Madison High School". If you went to a private school, however, the chances of the name being preceded by a superfluous "the" drastically increase. In that case, you probably went to "The Lawrenceville School" or "The Peck School", etc. etc. Personally speaking, I thought until I arrived at law school that I was going to Yale Law School. I was rudely awakened however, when I was reminded again and again by our illustrious dean that I was a proud student of THE Yale Law School.

The fact that people need to engage in this kind of superfluous "at"age and "the"ing has always irked me. It's a similar pet peeve to my disdain of over-using Old English/fake Old English spellings like "Towne Centre" and "Shoppes". I realize more and more, however, that these linguistic conventions are largely unavoidable, especially in the peer-set that I'm likely to find myself in once I graduate. So, I suppose it's about time I cave in and get used to the fancified names that so many seem intent on propagating. From now on, if people ask, I go to the Law School at Yale.

Say Mercy!

2005-04-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

Lower oil prices or I'll squeeze your hand even harder! And SMILE damnit, you're on camera!

Interpreter

2005-04-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

So I saw the Interpreter last night which I expected I would really like. Not so. Everything about the movie felt manufactured, and the dialogue between Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn was often painfully bad. It was as if the director thought their awkward dynamic would be improved by peppering every conversation with long pauses. Perhaps most annoying was that the film tried to push a preachy, pro-UN message of dialogue and forgiveness over vengeance that ended up being as contrived as it was unbelievable. There were admittedly some entertaining and suspenseful moments, but next time I want a movie about the U.N. with Sean Penn in it, I'll watch Team America: World Police.

2005-04-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

I think this one speaks for itself.

Ditch Delay without Delay

2005-04-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

Showing his all-too familiar lack of discretion, Tom Delay made the following statement in a recent interview:

"We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

I really don't take issue with the first part of that statement (This is the U.S.'s Supreme Court after all, not the U.N.'s), but the second is laughable. Gasp! Justice Kennedy (along with every lawyer and law student in the country) uses that new-fangled thing they call the internet to do his research!! What's next? Sending facscimiles and emails from his chambers?! God save the honorable Court.

What really is "incredibly outrageous" is that Delay didn't have the conscience to step down for the good of his party long ago.

O, tempora! O, mores!

2005-04-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

In recognition of all the millions of cardinals around the world who aren't going home pope tonight.

More Pope Press

2005-04-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

Reuters makes some interesting word choices to announce the new pope. [See intro below]

"Arch-conservative"? Read: much more conservative than Phillip Pullella and Crispian Balmer.

"...stunned moderates"/"surprise choice"? Sounds dramatic, but is it just me, or is this the guy that every single major media outlet has been reporting as a favorite for the last week?? And of course by moderates, the writers mean social moderates, as opposed to economics ones. Ahh, objective journalism.

Arch-Conservative German Elected Pope

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 4:45 p.m. ET

By Philip Pullella and Crispian Balmer

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Arch-conservative German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope on Tuesday in a surprise choice that delighted traditionalist Roman Catholics but stunned moderates hoping for a more liberal papacy.

Popecasting

2005-04-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

Two amusing pieces of commentary I just heard from the broadcast media as the world awaits the name of the new pope....

NBC NEWS: "Brian, there is a very heavy sacerdotal presence in the crowd here right now."

FOX NEWS: "When the cardinals went into that chapel this morning, they really had their game faces on."

Answer to the Trivia Challenge

2005-04-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

Goes to show you that evil can spring anywhere. The previous picture was taken during a Bin Laden family vacation to Sweden.

And I'll have a.....

2005-04-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

This prank call is pretty ingenius. Listen for a good laugh. Click on where it says "click here to start your download."

Trivia Challenge

2005-04-15T13:31:00.001-07:00

GUESS WHO this guy is? Answer will be posted tomorrow. Winner will be rewarded with a post of praise.

A Moment of Anti-Zen.

2005-04-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Stare for a few seconds and clutter your mind.

High Honor

2005-04-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

If Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are lucky, they may one day each have their names on a building, airport, or postage stamp. In the meantime, they've been duly recognized with honorific titles in the world of...mold eating beetle species. Enter, Agathidium Bushi, Agathidium Cheneyi, and Agathidium Rumsfeldi.

2005-04-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

What the heck is significance of the backdrop at this press conference??? The seeds of freedom blossoming through the north pole? An ad for this year's must-have Christmas ornament? Suggestions welcome.

Chasing down the terrorists

2005-04-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Tom Friedman raises his terror alert level to orange....

The Feds grab some bad guys and slap them with an indictment. ...

And on a lighter note, The Onion (hilariously) reports on the latest weapon in the war on terror.

Back to Tom Friedman, I'd like to point out that this is one of his only columns in recent memory that has not revolved around creating some pun or play on words involving a current issue. I know he's a "pun"dit, but he generally takes it a bit too far. And is it just me, or has he straddled both sides of the Iraq war issue more than John Kerry? That said, I generally respect his non-partisanship and moderation.

Penny for YOUR thoughts - Comment!!

2005-04-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

So I'm sick of spewing. Well not really, but I'm sick of just spewing. So here's my idea - This post will include not a single opinon from me and YOU, my loyal band of readers are called to comment. Say whatever you want. Identify yourself. Make up your identity. Express an opinion. Tell the story of how you came to pass through this obscure corner of cyberspace. I'll just sit here and listen. And of course, if no one says anything, I won't be offended. I'll just assume all those thousands of you are just shy types.

Iraq Takes Shape

2005-04-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Tony Blankley makes a very good point about the Iraqi Assembly's election of a President, Vice President, and Prime Minister, and their preliminary accord on tricky matters such as distribution of oil revenues among the sects:

"These would be very impressive negotiations for a mature democracy. Sens. Harry Reid and Bill Frist would be throwing their arms out slapping themselves on the back on television if they could achieve a small fraction of such agreements in the Senate this year. While the Senate -- the greatest deliberative body in the world, as they call themselves -- is moving toward the "nuclear option" in order to confirm some judicial nominations, the Desert Democratsof Mesopotamia are negotiating like 19th century wing-collared, top-hatted and tailed English statesmen. And our politicians don't labor under the burden of 4,000 years of blood feuds, no historical experience with anything other than dictatorship and the daily bomb and mortar attacks of terrorists, criminals, insurgents and prior regime last-ditchers."

Click here for the full column.

Commission Fatigue?

2005-04-06T12:50:00.000-07:00

Posner gets it right about intel reform.

PATRIOT Games

2005-04-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

Most of the hotly-debated USA PATRIOT Act is common-sense legislation whose provisions were effectively in place long before 9/11. As this article points out, however, certain sections of the act are more controversial and potentially invasive of civil liberties. As I see it, there are three things that are needed to allow law enforcement to do their job in a way that protects us from abuse - oversight, oversight, and oversight. Why should the Senate have to wait four years for the DOJ to throw crumbs of information about how often the FBI has used various provisions? How are we to be sure that the Act is helping fight the terrorists when Congressional Committees are not given concrete information about how exactly it is helping?

If Congress is going to renew the Act in its entirety, it should simultaneously do the following:

1. Pass a LIBERTY Act mandating annual DOJ reports to the House and Senate (I'll leave it to Congress to fill in the acronym). The mandated reports would detail the exact number of times each provision of the Act has been invoked and for what purpose. Portions of these reports could justifiably remain classified to protect ongoing investigations and prevent disclosure to the bad guys of specific law enforcement methods.

2. Congress should immdeidately consider enacting the 9/11 Commission's recommendation of a privacy/civil liberties Board for the entire federal government. The Board would serve a function somewhat akin to those carried out by the inspectors general at various federal agencies, or the Chief Privacy Officer at Homeland Security. Unlike in the intelligence context, there is little danger that such a Board would risk creating another level of useless bureaucracy, since no governmental body is currently tasked with this important function.

3. Build in another sunset provision that requires Congress to re-evaluate the necessity and efficacy of the statute four or five years down the road.

The PATRIOT Act may be (and probably is) a wholly good and necessary law. But still the question remains - Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Left Without Diversity

2005-03-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

This article should not come as much of a surprise, and yet it's still pretty staggering. No wonder moderates like myself feel as if we're to the right of Jesse Helms when compared to those who teach us.

Right to Life? Or No "Right" Answer?

2005-03-23T02:37:00.000-08:00

"I believe that in a case like this the legislative branch, the executive branch, ought to err on the side of life, which we have." - President Bush today.

Perhaps unintentionally, President Bush today quite accurately captured the complexity of the Schiavo case and expressed the kind of ambivalence that people on both side of the issue are likely to feel. His comment seemed to simultaneously acknowledge both the moral unease many of us feel about snuffing out a life and the understandable legal/political discomfort created by Congress's use of the legal system for such particular, controversial, and instrumental ends. Bush is right, I think to say that, in the absence of knowledge regarding a patient's wishes, preserving life is the more sensible and ethical default. But he is also right to say that Congress has "erred". Republicans and Democrats have virtually switched sides in the debate over federalism and states' rights, abandoning any attempt at remaning principled or consistent with their usual views on judicial activism. Moreover, since none of us can be sure what Terri Schiavo would have wanted, both sides must acknowledge that they may end up imposing a decision that she herself would have strenuously resisted if she were able.

I am deeply conflicted about the whole thing and am concinved that both Terri's parents and her husband are acting out of their deepest love for her. If anything, the case demonstrates the need for living wills as a default, so that doctors, family members, and politicians are not left to make these excruciating judgments. When a person hangs between life and death and has not indicated the level of treatment they wish to receive, there truly is no "right" answer.

Warning - May Ruffle Your Feathers!

2005-03-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

This sucks (literally) if you're a chicken [view video here]. Certainly one of the most ingenious inventions I have seen in a long time.

A Perfect Storm?

2005-03-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

An excellent article, showing that in the wake of what may have been the "Exxon Valdez" of personal data protection, the dangers of informational privacy infringement cannot be ignored any longer.

Sing it

2005-02-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

I don't know why this is so funny, but it is.

Another Card for the Wallet

2005-02-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

Do you have your Iraqi Culture SmartCard? Worth taking a look at even if you're not heading to Baghdad any time soon. Make take a few minutes to download. (From the University of Military Intelligence)

America, the Naive?

2005-02-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

I found this commentary from a BBC correspondent to be quite astute if somewhat unfair. The main point of the piece reminded me of the hilarious movie Team America: World Police.

In addition to being hugely funny, that movie exposed what I think is a defining feature of American culture: the need to create a sort of nostalgia for the present. As the movie seems to imply, we do this by constantly affirming and re-inventing a movie-hero image of ourselves. A narrative of liberty, justice freedom, and equality serves as a rousing and idyllic soundtrack to an American reality that is both darker and more complex than any idealized self-conceptions would suggest. Americans are therefore prone to believe that every moment is “historic”, that each victory is a triumph of good over evil, and that all setbacks are merely rocky patches on the inexorable path to a happy ending.

While it’s certainly easy to look upon this quality of the American protagonist with skepticism and even disdain, I would argue that there is value to this aspect of our culture. If Europe even had a soundtrack to its recent history, it would be hard to extract a common melody or a unifying theme; the nations of that continent have not effectively mobilized in pursuit of a common or over-arching moral purpose since World War II. The BBC author may be correct that Americans “want to believe in miracles” and that their “heads are in the clouds”. But isn’t that eminently better than to believe in nothing, and to have your head firmly planted in the sands of pragmatism?

Reading this blog in the year 2253?

2005-02-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

If this guy's prediction is right, then the number of future posts on this blog may be infinite. If that's not an argument for sticking with mortality, I don't know what is.

Truman Democrats

2005-02-10T13:15:00.000-08:00

Supporting my assertion in an earlier post that Bush will be remembered as "Trumanesque", here is an interesting analysis by Tom Donnelly in today's Weekly Standard.

Intelligent Reform?

2005-02-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Interesting column by Dick Posner in today's NYT regarding the new position of National Intelligence Director. I tend to agree with him after my summer stint at the Department of Homeland Security.

The Ivory Tower Huddle

2005-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

One of the most thought-provoking lectures I have heard at law school was one I attended yesterday by Harvard Law School Professor William Stuntz. Stuntz, an evangelical Christian, spoke both about the current political climate and his own experience as a religious believer in the midst of the largely secular academic environment. The main thrust of his speech was a to advance a seemingly unlikely prediction: that evangelical Christians will soon align with the political left as issues like abortion and gay marriage recede in importance and are replaced by topics of economic and political justice.

While I didn’t find Stuntz’s forecast particularly believable, I did find two aspects of his talk extremely interesting. First, I was intrigued by the following statement:

“Evangelicals and academics tend to view one another as something between bizarre and evil. Although, I can tell you: my church friends think my academic friends are bizarre. My academic friends think my church friends are evil.”

I myself am very moderate politically (I’d call myself a Tom Kean/Rudy Guiliani New Jersey Republcian) and far from an evangelical (went to Church for the first time in over a year on Christmas eve). Yet, I have frequently noticed and spoken out about the staggering lack of ideological diversity that exists here at Yale Law School. The School obsessively and reflexively resorts to the mantras like “diversity”, “tolerance”, and “anti-discrimination.” Yet its actions often embody precisely the opposite of these words. Although great strides have been made to attract a faculty that “looks different” in terms of gender and race, the overwhelming majority of them still think the same. I know more than a few students who carefully keep their more conservative viewpoints “in the cloest” because they are petrified that they will be ridiculed or looked down upon by their professors and fellow classmates. I know of not a single Professor who openly and consistently advocates conservative views (I can think of dozens who advocate liberal ones).

Which brings me to the second interesting point of yesterday's lecture: Stuntz described a phenomenon known in religious communities as the “holy huddle”. The phrase is basically a pejorative term that evangelicals use to refer to other evangelicals who associate only with other believers, never challenging or questioning their own viewpoints. Stuntz suggested that preventing such huddling will be crucial to lessening the divide between red and blue states.

Based on my experience here over the last two years, it seems that evangelicals are not the only ones who need to quit huddling. Professors at Yale Law School and in ivory towers across America have been engaged in their own version of the “holy huddle” for years. Within their “ivory tower huddle”, it is considered the highest form of heresy to question any of the three assumptions that make up what I will call the “holy trinity of the ivory tower”:

If there is a problem, the government should fix it.
If the government doesn’t create a solution, then the courts should impose one.
Anyone who denies 1 and/or 2 is either a) unintelligent or b) heartless.

I would hypothesize that the reason George W. Bush’s defeat was such a devastating defeat for many of the "progressive", educated types I interact with daily is because it effectively dismantled the first two prongs of their holy trinity. For these knee-jerk liberals who view the courts and government as the only legitimate outlet for social change, nothing is worse than the prospect of handing off control of your only political outlets to the enemy (ie the ignoramuses who occupy America’s Red States). For the rest of us thoughtful moderates, liberals, and conservatives however, neither an election nor a change in political leadership could ever signal such a truly tragic defeat. That's because we realize that the true source of America’s greatness and the best instrument for social change is not this country’s institutions or politics, but rather its people.

Res Ipsa Loquitor ("It Speaks for Itself")

2005-02-08T01:29:00.000-08:00

In pursuance of objective number 2 of my mission statement, I will occassionally post absurd and otherwise funny things uttered by the illustrious students and learned pedagogues here at the Yale Law School. Names will be omitted to protect the innocent. Here are two recent examples:

First, in a class discussing a statute known as FACA (pronounced Fah-ka) and its relevance to a recent Supreme Court case, the Professor asked:
"What in the FACA led the district court to hold that the provisions of the statute applied?"

Second, a particularly bold student recently raised his hand after listening to a professor's explanation of a matter of legal doctrine and said: "Your logic is completely indeterminate and largely irrelevant."

What the FACA indeed.

2005-02-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

Shades of Grey
So Tile A and Tile B in this picture are the same shade of grey. Don't believe me? Download the picture and use the zoom function to check.

Change in Career

2005-02-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

I've always had a natural talent for whistling. I can whistle pretty much any song with both accurate pitch and good sound quality. Since I was young, this has been a source of great amusement for my mother and a huge annoyance to my sister. I always assumed that there was no such thing as a "future in whistling." Well I was wrong: http://happywhistler.com. I think I'm going to drop out of law school...

2005-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

Bush kisses Lieberman after a bold speech. How could anyone not like America's Uncle Joe? The country would benefit if more politicians from both parties took his statesman-like approach to foreign policy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63067-2004Jul19.html

2005-02-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Pelosi - face of the Democratic party
**WARNING**: This year's Democratic Response contains graphic depictions of plastic surgery accidents. Parental discretion is strongly advised. The views expressed during the response are solely those of the politically desperate and do not reflect the opinions of most Americans.

A Good Day

2005-02-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

If George W. Bush has a barometer measuring good and bad days in the Oval Office, I’m pretty sure there are two things that should invariably push its needle strongly into the “good zone”:

1. The New York Times comes off of its editorial high horse (read: high chair) and calls something Bush advocated “remarkably successful”.

2. An Arab leader openly and seriously considers erecting a statue of Bush in the heart of a major Middle Eastern city.

If your presumed haters are giving you praise, you must be doing something right.

Well, both of these things occurred this week, shortly after 8 million Iraqis went to the polls to vote in democratic elections. The NYT was, of course, sure to lead its editorial with the doom and gloom caveat that many Sunnis were broadly “disenfranchised”. (The effectiveness of that word seemed significantly diluted by the fact that they used it four years ago to apply to grannies punching butterfly ballots in Palm Beach). Nonetheless, they mustered their highest form of praise and conceded that the elections sent a “message that all but the most nihilistic of the armed insurgents will have to accept”. (Leave it to the Times to seek nuance by dividing head-lopping insurgents into levels of nihilism).

Hell surely froze over again as Ali Fadel, Baghdad’s mayor called Bush a “symbol of freedom” and mused that he might install a statue of the President in one of the city’s major thoroughfares. This is the President whose father’s evil and grimacing likeness serves as a doormat in Baghdad’s Al Rashid Hotel.

I had been thinking before Sunday that George W. Bush would go down in history as a combination Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson. Iraq was looking increasingly like a Johson-style quagmire fueled by a lofty but naïve set of Wilsonian principles. Bush, like Johnson, seemed callous to the mounting casualties, and his pronouncements of “promoting freedom” and “ending tyranny” sounded increasingly hollow given conditions on the ground. Having supported the war from the start, I was preparing for the possibility that the effort to make Iraq safe for democracy might go the way of the League of Nations.

Eight million purple fingers later, however, things are looking a lot better. Rather than compare him to Wilson and Johnson, historians may in fact compare Bush to two more flattering examples of Presidential leadership on the world stage: Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. It was Truman’s no-nonsense approach that laid a sturdy foundation for our long slog in the Cold War and aggressively positioned America as freedom’s defender. It was Reagan’s steely resolve that finally finished the commies off and precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall. As that century showed, articulating democracy’s aims and actually achieving them are two different things, often decades apart. If all goes reasonably well in Iraq, however, Bush may end up having done both in just eight short years.

2005-02-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Your Fearless Leader

"Watson, can you hear me?"

2005-02-01T21:48:00.000-08:00

My roommates strongly urged me not to do something as incredibly toolish and self-important as start a blog. They fought valiantly to convince me that spewing my inane thoughts into the black shadows of the Internet would negate any redeeming qualities I may have once possesed and infirm my already challenged social status. They lost. I hereby plant my flag firmly in the soil of blogdom. Boldly, I forge ahead, intent upon uniting humanity and raising the moral discourse of our nation by achieving the following six humble objectives:

1. Win the War on Terrorism.

2. Derive a mathemetical proof that Yale Law School is an absurd fiction propagated by a vast alien conspiracy.

3. Cure cancer, AIDS, chronic toe fungus, and flat-footedness. (The latter two are of special interest to me)

4. Restore New Jersey to its proper place as America's favorite state.

5. End global warming by uncovering the location of the snow-globe wielding monkey who controls the world's weather.

6. Bring evildoers to justice, wherever they may lurk.

I look forward to advancing these common goals together with you, my fellow Americans. Our deadline is June 1st 2006. We must work together, because whether the next century will be one of hatred or harmony, poverty or prosperity, toil or triumph will depend on us. We must succeed. Otherwise the terrorists will have won.