Infinite Monkeys
"...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks"Read them only with extreme caution."- Hugh Hewitt
Infinite MonkeysJohn McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. And now questions are arising as to whether he is constitutionally eligible to serve as president of the United States.
The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office.
I don't think this is a hard call. McCain's parents, after all, were in Panama on assignment from their own government. And the "canal zone" was, technically, U.S. territory -- like being born of a diplomat in the conservatory of an embassy. But McCain's got his best legal mind -- Ted Olsen -- on the case.
As McCain ally Sen. Lindsay Graham put it:
"He was posted there on orders from the United States government," Graham said of McCain's father. "If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can't be president if they take an overseas assignment."
Exactly. The Gore team tried to invalidate the votes of overseas military personnel in Florida in 2000. I don't think an attempt to invalidate a military candidate would go over very well.
Just another attempt by The New York Times to stir up trouble -- for a Republican.
A surprise to no Republican, the New York Times is going after McCain.
The story itself is a mess, but the story behind the story is more interesting.
A surprise to no Republican, the Clintons are getting dirty. It's going to get a lot worse before it's over--the Clintons have always put their own interests ahead of their party and country. It's sad it has taken the Democrats so long to learn this.
The above headline is what most people will take away from this story about an interview Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave to BBC radio today. But what Scalia is really saying is that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and that in the event of a "ticking bomb" situation, physical interrogation is not "torture," but legally and morally sound. Although, I must admit, that I am tickled with his use of language when discussing the constitutional context of cruel and unusual punishment:
"I suppose it's the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?" he asked."It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game" Scalia said. "How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"
And lest you think the ultra-conservative Scalia is frighteningly outside the mainstream on this issue, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are on board with the "ticking bomb" rough-housing exception -- even if they're conveniently squishy about it.
This is an important question that Congress does a lot of preening about while adding little to the debate. They haul AG Mike Mukasey to Capitol Hill and berate him over waterboarding, but have not explicitly banned it despite several opportunities. And into the vacuum rush people to absurdly declare everything from "stress positions" to slapping the belly of a terrorist detainee as torture.
Now, I'm among those who think it best if Congress simply stays out of this subject –- especially when the biggest concern of congressional leaders a few years ago was whether even waterboarding (which usually lasts less than a minute and does no permanent damage) was a tough enough.
Laying out, publicly, the details of every vital interrogation technique only helps our enemy train to resist it. There is zero credible evidence that Gitmo is some sort of torture chamber, or that rough interrogation techniques are even all that common. U.S. military personnel are trained to treat humanely even the most hardened terrorist detainees -- and those who violate policy suffer harsh punishment.
In a time of war, where timely intelligence gathering is everything, let's just have a little faith in the humanity of our armed forces and leave it at that.
[cross posted at RedBlueAmerica]
So neither of the likely major party nominees were born in the continental United States. I wonder if that's happened before?
Heck, John McCain wasn't even born in the United States. The anti-immigrant folks should have fun with that one.
(Of course, it wasn't made into much of an issue in the primaries, since Romney's father was born in Mexico.)
(via AP) "You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate," [PA Gov. Ed] Rendell told the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in remarks that appeared in Tuesday's paper.
Note to Ed: [Readers are invited to insert their own coital-insertion-related nerf-curse exclamatory imperative here.] You race-baiting asshat. You, sir, are a discredit to all races. Technically true or not, that's the talk of incitement. And I resent how it reflects on us predominantly white Monkeys. [Insert that exclamatory imperative again here.]
It may have been a shock -- and a welcome one -- to see a jazz artist like Herbie Hancock win record of the year at Sunday night's Grammys.
The least surprising development of the night was seeing Barack Obama get the "Spoken Word" Grammy for reading his "Audacity of Hope" autobiography into a microphone. For the Grammy voters, apparently, political books are shoo-ins -- as long as they are produced by Democrats or left-leaning political icons.
Here is the list of the last six "spoken word" Grammy winners:
2008: Obama (he beat out Jimmy Carter, Maya Angelou, Bill Clinton and Alan Alda)2007: Jimmy Carter (he beat out Bill Maher and Al Franken, and shared the award with lefty icons Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee)
2006: Obama (for his first autobiography)
2005: Bill Clinton for his long-winded memoir "My Life."
2004: Al Franken for "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right"
2003: Maya Angelou, "A Song Flung Up to Heaven"
Oh, yeah. And in 1997, Hillary won for her reading of "It Takes a Village." No word on how far Mark Steyn's "America Alone" got in this year's nominating chase, or why "The Looming Tower" was shut out.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
By the time you read this, the latest great BlackBerry panic might already be over. Apparently, all BlackBerry devices, regardless of carrier, went ... well ... black for several hours on Monday -- leaving some 12 million thumb-tapping addicts nervously tapping their fingers on their kneecaps.
I don't own a BlackBerry. Indeed, I haven't even had a cell phone since the one I had at a previous job was turned in upon leaving said job. So I can't really relate to quotes such as this:
"Everyone's in crisis because they're all picking away at their BlackBerrys and nothing's happening," Turner said. "It's almost like cutting the phone cables or a total collapse in telegraph lines a century ago. It just isolates people in a way that's quite phenomenal."
Isolated? Um ... the phone still works, right? Remember when you used to actually talk to people?
Then there's this:
"I cannot believe this happened again," [a guy quoted in the story] said as he got off a plane. "I'm on the road 300 days a year. My entire life is in my BlackBerry -- my family life, my professional life, my emotional life, everything. ... They're not allowed to do this to me."
Actually, "they" are. Uninterrupted BlackBerry service isn't an entitlement in the United States -- yet.
Regardless, I think it might be time to reassess your priorities when you find yourself saying that your "entire life" -- even your "emotional life" -- depends on a BlackBerry. But I guess they don't call them "CrackBerries" for nothing.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
Via a heads up from my friends at the Exurban League, Ron Paul sees that he has no shot at the nomination (it's about time, dude), but vows to press on to the convention and beyond.
"With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero," Paul wrote. "But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get."Paul wrote that while he does not denigrate third parties he is committed to staying a Republican. His campaign supports low taxes and reduced government spending.
So there will be no third-party candidacy for Dr. Paul. Fine. I thought he has brought a lot of ideas to the race — some good, a lot bad.
The question remains: Will he get a speaking slot at the convention? I say: No way in hell.
The city council of Berkeley, Calif., this week passed a resolution telling the Marine Corps that its recruiting station is not welcome in their city. (Roger Kimball notes that the mayor of Toledo, Ohio, has also quaffed the bitter anti-war brew.)
Some choice quotes from the the outrageous (but let's always remember The Tolerant) Bezerkley City Council meeting:
"[The Marines] bombard our young people with propaganda. 'The few. The proud.' You know," said one councilman, his voice dripping with contempt. He later went on to say of the Marines: "They're trained killers. The president's own gangsters."Another councilman: "I've been working with Code Pink and I believe in their cause. [The Marines] don't belong here, they shouldn't have come here and they should leave."
Be sure to watch the video compilation that Move America Forward put together by clicking on the window below:
Such vicious animosity really takes one's breath away. Calling the Marines the president's own gangsters ... well, like I said. Words fail.
You can sign a petition protesting the unpatriotic yahoos — yes, I said it! — at Berkeley here.
[Cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
Don't say you haven't been warned, especially if you've read "America Alone." But I don't think even the gloomy futurist Mark Steyn could have predicted that as soon as 2008 the Archbishop of Canterbury would prostrate himself before shariah law.
The Archbishop of Canterbury caused consternation yesterday by calling for Islamic law to be recognised in Britain.He declared that sharia and Parliamentary law should be given equal legal status so the people could choose which governs their lives.
This raised the prospect of Islamic courts in Britain with full legal powers to approve polygamous marriages, grant easy divorce for men and prevent finance firms from charging interest.
I know that the uber-liberal Anglican Church considers multiculturalism and permissiveness akin to Godliness. But I see little grace in succumbing to an oppressive, sexist, homophobic regime enforced by swift and mindless violence. But then again, I'm a classic liberal. What does my unenlightened mind know?
We are encouraged not to worry about these troubling developments in Western Civilization, however, because "The Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values."
Yes. But the question is how hard will the Prime Minister and traditional British society will fight for the freedom and Western values paid for in blood. "Honor killings" among the Muslim population of Britain traces back to at least 2004, but seems to have not sufficiently stirred the necessary outrage in the United Kingdom.
So I'm afraid the story's note that "government ministers are striving to encourage [Muslim] integration and stop the nation from 'sleepwalking to segregation'" comes as little comfort. Britain appears to be in a cultural coma.
As for me? I'm with Michelle Malkin ...
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica (please visit, it's a cool site)]
Remember that staph infection that Rosie O'Donnell caught in 2000, the one she says "almost left me dead." According to her Feb. 4 missive on The Huffington Post, that's all Bush's fault. Seriously.
President Bush almost killed me. It's true, and I have the scars to prove it ...
It's a long story. So let me summarize. She was so disgusted by what she saw watching the 2000 Republican National Convention -- an event that "felt something like a home invasion" (she must of had an early version of HDTV. Lucky her.) -- she decided to regain her sense of hope in the promise of America by going fishing. Now, as an important aside, let's remember that this was a full year before 9/11 -- before Bush imposed martial law upon the United States, and invaded the peaceful, kite-flying peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq.
We continue ... The land-lubbing Rosie managed to mangle her middle finger doing the hard work of cutting the price tag off the fishing pole she bought -- presumably not at fascist Wal-Mart:
I went all out, though, and got everything -- skin, ligaments, tendons, nerves. Maximum impact, including a particularly nasty staph infection that almost left me dead.
Wow. I mean, WOW! I once did the same thing to my right thumb with a knife used to scrape pizza dough off a cold tray. I should have filed for workman's comp. But I blamed it on my own carelessness while closing the pizza shop. Silly me. I still don't have full feeling in that thumb 18 years later. Someone owes me.
But, enough about me. More about Rosie ...
That's my personal war story from the demoralizing Bush years, and probably a minor one ...
Yeah, sweetie. That'd be a minor one. If only there were background checks for tiny fishing knives, you'd have been spared the horror.
Anyway, on to the good news. Rosie says:
It's a new season, with an election on the horizon, but like many others I have felt burned up and burned out by politics.
We should be so lucky. After paragraph upon paragraph of delusional railing about the Bush administration -- and what can they not be guilty of if they are guilty of using mind-control rays to distract a liberal like Rosie and causing her to inflict a nearly fatal fishing knife wound -- Rosie closes hoping for a Obama-Clinton or a Clinton-Obama ticket.
Whatever gets you through the night, or prevents grievous personal injury, Rosie. Be strong. And please remember not to run with scissors until at least November.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
Can someone explain the bizarre logic of idiots like Rush saying that they would prefer Hillary as President to John McCain?
Did that logic work out for those who were lukewarm in support G.H.W. Bush for a second term? To the Democrats who didn't support Carter for a second term, and instead got the Reagan Revolution and a long-term transformation of the American political landscape?
The President has a strong effect on thousands of issues. Does Rush really believe that Hillary would not hurt our country? Or is he just selfishly nostalgic for the days when he got to be in opposition? Bill Clinton certainly made Rush's fortune...
Well, I'd hoped to write more, but it's Super Tuesday already! So, here are five quick reasons to vote for Ron Paul today:
Five more, with a side of snark:
Okay - it's time to vote. Take another look at Paul's Issues page and head to your polling place.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]Our humble RedBlueAmerica friends/moderators would never think of posting such a ludicrous question. But a TV station in Britain did, polling 3,000 Britons. The gobsmacking results: One-quarter of them think Winston Churchill never actually existed.
Only the lead to the story is amusing. The rest is horribly depressing.
Never, in the field of human ignorance, have so many known so little about famous Britons.A quarter of the population think that Winston Churchill never actually existed, a survey suggests.
While a poll recently named him the greatest Briton of all time, the wartime prime minister is seen by many as a mythical figure along with the likes of Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh.
Yup. A significant number of Great Britain's population think that Nightingale and Raleigh — as well as Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and even Charles Dickens — are fictional characters, too.
Worse news? Many Britons think that King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Sherlock Holmes, the Three Musketeers and Robin Hood are actual historical figures. And ...
Almost 50 per cent were certain that Eleanor Rigby existed not just in the imagination of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Oh, dear.
On June 18, 1940, Churchill said in the House of Commons:
Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. ... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'
At this rate of historical ignorance, the Britain that Churchill inspired his people to save won't last another 50 years — not while that "finest hour" is forgotten while men who fought under Churchill still live.
Britain bravely fought off Hitler, but now seem poised to surrender their culture and history willingly. That is simply tragic.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
From Hit & Run, quoting Fox News:
Bush, who was the first president to propose a $2 trillion budget, back in 2002, will leave office as the first president to hit $3 trillion with a spending plan.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
After watching last week's debate, a friend and I were amused about how Romney and McCain were both quick to claim really stupid things as qualifications for the Presidency. Romney cited his "oversight" of Boston's "Big Dig" as executive experience. Really? No, really. One of the biggest, latest, most overbudget bureaucratic boondoggles EVER and Romney wants a merit badge for it. McCain followed that up by saying that he was qualified to lead on immigration issues because he comes from a border state. Never mind that the Arizona border is pretty much completely porous, somehow he'll be able to solve the problem when he's elected.
I wondered aloud how McCain could have become the primary delegate leader, to which my friend responded, "Because grown adults still seem to want a daddy figure?"
This got me thinking. All of the candidates have traits of stereotypical grownups:
Daddy Mitt: Cold, disaffected, pretending to be in control. Completely incapable of having a meaningful conversation with his children.
Mommy John: Emotional, moody, protective, smothering. You can't reason with him when he makes his mind up about something.
Uncle Ron: Look, your parents mean well, but Uncle Ron tells it like it is: Think for yourself, and don't let the bastards get you down.
Pastor Mike: The bible says submit to your parents - unless they contradict the bible. And the bible says you should come to church all the time and give me your money.
According to FEC data for the last quarter of 2007, Ron Paul has more financial support from military donors (both amount of donations and number of donors) than all three remaining Republican candidates combined. And he almost has as much as all five candidates (Republican and Democrat) combined.
Read testimonials from his military supporters here. Click on the names to read (or, in some cases, watch a YouTube video by) the individuals endorsing him.
This is pretty interesting - John McCain likes to portray himself as the military's "go-to" guy, but when it comes time to write a check to support a candidate, they seem to flock to the OTHER Republican who served in the military: Ron Paul.
Read Dr. Paul's position statements on National Defense, Veterans, the Iraq War, and War & Foreign Policy to learn more about why soldiers and veterans support him.
I don't remember the last time I saw a long comment thread on the Internet that didn't quickly devolve into a flame war (except, of course at Infinite Monkeys, and one other great site).
But there is a wonderful, fascinating debate about the Federal Reserve at, of all places, Slashdot. The original book review is pretty boring, but then the comments are great, with almost no "your stoopid!" nonsense.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
Today is Ron and Carol Paul's 51st wedding anniversary. (Note to Mac, Rudy, Newt, Rush: Yes, it IS possible to stay married to the same person that long.) The grassroots folks decided this would be another good day for a campaign contribution "Money Bomb" and did a bit of e-mail based promotion, though not a lot. Here's how things are going so far:
(note: if the graph above doesn't appear, click here.
Last Monday, the MLK-day Money Bomb raised just shy of $2 Million:
And, of course, the two record-setting Money Bombs were on November 5th and December 16th:
To watch the progress throughout the day, you can refresh this post or go over to the host of these graphs, RonPaulGraphs.com, where a volunteer (again, a grassroots volunteer without formal ties to the campaign) maintains numerous graphs and views of the number and amounts of donors and donations. This is all possible because Ron Paul is running the most financially transparent campaign this year.
UPDATE: It's finally official - Ron Paul was overwhelmingly the biggest Republican fundraiser last quarter.