Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral #62

Posted on March 1, 2007 in Roundup

The choice was never between war and no war, it was between going it alone or enlisting the aid of the [[United Nations]] and the Arab nations. The Levin Amendment has fallen into the shadows of history as presidential candidates sputter to answer the question about why they supported the war in 2002.

Lincoln Chafee writes: Senator Levin’s amendment called for United Nations approval before force could be authorized. It was unambiguous and compatible with international law. Acutely cognizant of the dangers of the time, and the reality that diplomatic options could at some point be exhausted, Senator Levin wrote an amendment that was nimble: it affirmed that Congress would stand at the ready to reconsider the use of force if, in the judgment of the president, a United Nations resolution was not “promptly adopted” or enforced. Ceding no rights or sovereignty to an international body, the amendment explicitly avowed America’s right to defend itself if threatened.

There’s a big question — always a big question — about the fairness and accuracy of the media’s reporting of the slivers of evidence being used to justify the Third War. FAIR recently took the New York Times to task for breaking its own rules against quoting anonymous sources on the article that alleged that Iran was supplying Iraqi insurgents with road bombs. FAIR slashes the NYT by noting that Gordon never explained why these officials demanded confidentiality; nor did he attempt to convince the reader of the sources’ reliability–a daunting job, considering how unreliable the current administration’s intelligence claims have proven in the past. It’s this poor record that makes it even more incumbent on Gordon to avoid unnamed sources when he can, and to forcefully challenge claims emanating from previously unreliable quarters. (See also here).

As we head down the road to war with Iran, perhaps it is time to slow if not halt our advance. There are alternatives to bombing Iraq that do not entail our turning our tails and running away. Let’s follow them to their uttermost end.

• Muddling Church and State: The Supreme Court listened to arguments in a case which challenges Bush’s “faith-based initiatives” on First Amendment grounds. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said courts and lawsuits are needed to enforce the separation of church and state. “People become terribly upset when they see some other religion getting the money from the state” to subsidize their faith, he said. “We have a pretty clear, simple rule,” Breyer said, that allows lawsuits “when the government spends money in violation of the establishment clause.” The 1st Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The issue of who has standing is technical but crucial. It can determine when and whether the government’s conduct can be challenged in court. If taxpayers cannot challenge a wayward policy, then there is no check, no balance on the system. Is this what the founders intended? I think not.
• Tortured Decision: Jose Padilla was ruled fit to stand trial.
• Choice Article: Girls who don’t
• Choice Website That Makes Me Feel Old: The Cat In The Hat’s 50th Birthday
• You Might Also Enjoy: Women who make us cringe at Feministe. Wrote Jill: women who make a career of going after other women and attacking women’s rights — like [[Caitlin Flanagan]], [[Phyllis Schlafly]] and [[Ann Coulter]] — are assailable for doing exactly that. But I’m not sure that women like [[Paris Hilton]], [[Britney Spears]] and [[Lindsay Lohan]] are fair game (I never thought I’d see the day where I’m even sort of defending Paris Hilton, but here we are). I’ve been defending Britney for years (see here, here, and here), mostly on the grounds that she is young and overwhelmed with fame. Like Jill, I do not treat them as living in a vacuum, but as possible victims of a culture of party-onward. We’re wasting our time picking on these when there are so many more significant sirens to address in National Women’s History Month.
• History Thief: A petty burglar who knew nothing about genuine relics cost Ben Waldron the weathered World War II journal that he kept while a prisoner of the Japanese. The small canvas-bound book filled with Waldron’s heart-wrenching cursive scribblings was stolen from his home in this Sacramento suburb last month — by a thief who, police say, did not know either its contents or its emotional hold on the 84-year-old decorated veteran. The theft — not just of the journal, but also of cash, jewelry and a POW medal — has outraged U.S. veterans as far away as Iraq. One California National Guardsman in Baghdad offered $1,000 for the diary’s return. Others took up collections. Of course, AHnold ran down for a publicity stunt. But the most heartbreaking part of the story is that the thief has been arrested; apparently, not realizing the value of what he had, he threw it away.
• Milestone: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
• You’re Dying to Know: It’s already the First of March (only fourteen days until the Ides) and I bet you’re wondering just how February got short-changed. Chalk it up to the Romans. (And it turns out it ain’t true that Julius and Augustus robbed poor old February to beef up their months.)
• Not what you’d expect: The world’s tallest basketball player is Chinese. And he plays for a minor league team, the Maryland Blackhawks.
• Repo Man or Pirate?: What a job! F. Max Hardberger spends his life repossessing freighters.
• Another Factoid Bites the Dust: From Scientific American: In 2002 Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a nongovernmental organization in Washington, D.C., updated his earlier estimate of the number of people that have ever existed. To calculate this, he studied the available population data to determine the human population growth rates during different historical periods, and used them to determine the number of people who have ever been born….To calculate how many people have ever lived, Haub followed a minimalist approach, beginning with two people in 50000 B.C.—his Adam and Eve. Then, using his historical growth rates and population benchmarks, he estimated that slightly over 106 billion people had ever been born. Of those, people alive today comprise only 6 percent, nowhere near 75 percent. We sometimes have a big head about our times. We have to be the best and in this case — overwhelmingly — the biggest.
• Wikid: If you’re bored with wandering through Conservapedia, why not tiptoe through the tulips of CreationWiki, an attempt to rewrite the fossil record and the nature of science written by nonexperts. (Hey, isn’t that redundant? I thought so.)

If you find any articles worthy of mention in these roundups, send the URL to gazissax at best dot com. And feel free to comment!