Beaneball

Russ Feingold called recently captured arms dealer Viktor Bout "diabolical" and denounced the "unrestrained capitalism" in post-USSR Russia that allowed Bout to build his empire. Diabolical! He's not Dr. Evil, Russ! (Although I will say he probably is evil, with a lower-case "e"; Feingold mentions that he's been known to sell arms to both sides of conflicts -- I think if I were an arms dealer, I'd be more ideologically based, and just pick a side.) Most interestingly, Bout, according to Feingold, has been linked to Russian intelligence and American government contractors. That's kind of problematic.

(We interrupt this Congressional commentary to bring you this: I just received a call from "Angela at New York Sports Club". She asked me if I was enjoying my time at NYSC. I said yes. She said, "Great, thanks." That was the end of the call. Literally like 10 seconds. That's the weirdest phone survey I've ever been part of.)

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Politics at 16:41 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

So GovTrack.us is an amazing site -- you can set up "alerts" for various things happening in Congress: particular congresspeople speaking or voting or introducing bills; action on particular types of bills; committee actions; and so forth. You can use their website to track these alerts, or you can set up RSS feeds. Also, they use OpenID. Anyway, I now Track our Gov. Here's some interesting stuff from the last two days, which will go partly to show just how much random, time-wasting stuff our legislature gets up to.

John Shadegg, R-AZ, introduced "Jenny's Law", which would disallow "Tier III sex offenders" from being buried in the National Cemetery or getting burial honors and whatnot. "Tier III sex offender" comes from the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, at P.L. 109-248. III is the highest tier, and refers to sex offenders who commit offenses punishable by more than a year in prison and is "comparable to" aggravated sexual abuse or abusive sexual contact (both of which are defined federal crimes). I don't see any conceivable purpose for this bill. Then again, I'm not a believer in retributivism in criminal punishment, so I guess your view of the propiety of this kind of law depends on how you feel about the purpose of punishment.

John Salazar, D-CO, introduced this: "The Secretary of Defense may not transport hydrolysate from the Pueblo Chemical Depot, Colorado, or the Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky, to an off-site location for treatment, storage, or disposal." The bill is cosponsored by a Kentuckian and a fellow Coloradan. Wikipedia tells me this about hyrdolysate: "Hydrolyzed collagen, HCP, also known as purified gelatin and collagen hydrolysate, is collagen that has been enzymatically or chemically processed to make it more digestible and more easily absorbed by the body. HCP is often used by body builders because it is a relatively inexpensive protein source. It is also used to treat skin disorders, treat or prevent malnutrition and for those who cannot tolerate large amounts of bulk food, such as patients of weight loss surgery." It seems that the bill may refer to VX hydrolysate, which is a neutralized form of a chemical weapon. Apparently shipping this stuff can, if it's not properly neutralized, cause a health hazard. Thus perhaps it's sensible for the Coloradans and Kentuckians to be a little worried about truckloads of VX hydrolosate making its way down their highways to be incinerated.

Tim Murphy, R-PA, wants a Resolution honoring the recently deceased Steelers announcer Myron Cope. I'm sure Myron would have appreciated that while he was alive, Mr. Murphy. (That said, maybe Congressional recognition that Myron Cope invented the Terrible Towel is entirely appropriate.)

Steve Kagan, D-WI, offers a Resolution honoring Brett Favre. Don't do it! He'll cry! And then right-wing radio hosts will make vicious jokes! But, you know, of course, the House has to "understand[] that retirement means reoccupation, knowing that Brett Favre will now be busier than ever before as he helps to build a better future for all of us." If not for Brett Favre, who'll do it? (Oh, wait, you mean that's supposed to be Congress's job?)

The late E. Arthur Gray, former mayor Port Jervis, New York (no, it's not a port; yes, it is basically in Pennsylvania), may get a Post Office in his town named for him. The bill has passed the House.

Not to be outdone, Steve W. Allee is getting a Carrier Annex in Lebanon, Missouri named for him. If you just do a quick Google, Allee just looks like a guy who died in a car accident when he tried to drive across a flooded roadway. Turns out, though, that it was a flash flood and he was on duty at the time, delivering the mail. (Google does add something that Congress didn't, though: Allee wasn't wearing his seat belt.)

The House has passed a Resolution adopting an Office of Congressional Ethics. This passed essentially on party lines, 195 Dems and 33 Reps for, 23 and 159 against. Crossover Democrats include John Murtha, Heath Shuler, and Maxine Waters. Crossover Republicans include the aforementioned Tim Murphy and Chris Shays.

A unanimous resolution in the House congratulated Kansas for winning the Orange Bowl. Dude, you're like two months late, Congress.

This one's a little better. UCLA won the championship in women's water polo, which obviously deserves a House Resolution. (More importantly, the Resolution notes that this is UCLA's 100th NCAA championship, the most ever. Awesome. Go Bruins.)

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Politics at 22:06 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Mitt Romney, on dropping out of the Republican race: "In this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror. This is not an easy decision. I hate to lose." And: "If this were only about me, I'd go on. But it's never been only about me. I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, in this time of war I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country." Really, Mitt Romney? "Aiding a surrender to terror"? That's completely cheap, utterly indefensible, and will, sadly, only endear him to a certain (significant) element of the Republican party.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Politics at 15:10 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Chronicle of Higher Ed isn't really known for wedding announcements, but when Hampshire's president gets married, I guess it's a special occasion.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 17:25 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

At least things are going right somewhere in the world: Jean-Marie Le Pen received only about 10% of the vote in the first round of the French presidential election, placing a distant fourth and leaving him on the outside of the runoff to take place in about two weeks. The turnout rate for the election, by the way, was near 85%. Democracy can involve participation.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Politics at 06:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

As to Ann Coulter, I'm not sure whether her use of the word "faggot" in reference to John Edwards was even the most offensive thing she said. CNN's story mentions that she also said the following:

I don't know why all gays aren't Republican. I think we have the pro-gay positions, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money and they're victims of crime. No, they are! They should be with us.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 16:18 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The rabid wolves over at DailyKos are all over John McCain for an alleged "flip flop" (please, please, please, enough with that already, yes?) on George Stephanopoulos's program today. As some of the commenters there have noted, I just don't buy that as a "flip flop" at all. First response says, "No, thinks aren't going to be hunky dory by April. It'd be crazy to think that." Second response says, "I think in a couple of months, we'll be able to see how things are going and how they're going to continue to go in the future and be able to make some predictions." But I'm not sure how the second can be justifiably said to "flip flop" from the first, because it's entirely consistent to say that both things are true. Look, I'm just as much anti-McCain as the next Good Liberal. He's turned out to be completely disingenuous (which is really something, to be noticeably more disingenuous than other politicians) in stating his positions, but is it really necessary to pounce all over the guy at the slightest hint that he's saying anything silly? Particularly when he's not saying anything silly at all!

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 15:16 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The headline on this article says: " Bush: No pullout from Iraq until 'mission is complete'". Clearly, Mr. Bush misunderstands the nature of the pullout method.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 12:20 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

I saw this quote today in a CNN story:

"It was 'Lord of the Flies' with adult supervision," said William Smith, spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan[.]

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 15:27 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Here's CNN's story about Norwegian and Danish embassies being burned in Syria in the ever-increasing furor over depictions of Mohammed. I don't know if I can capture the indignance in text, but here was Austen's reaction: "You can't just burn embassies because you don't like cartoons!"

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 21:21 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Here're the articles I read today.

• At CleveScene.com a story about an Ohio Supreme Court decision that allows insurance companies to get their money back if they pay out to cover injuries that, it turns out, are covered by some other insurance. In the case at hand, a girl was hurt in a car accident and the other driver's insurance company paid up. The family's insurance paid something as well, but when the total bills turned out to be covered by the other driver's insurance, the family's insurance company demanded its money back. The paper, of course, blasts this as being unfair "to the little guy." I'm not sure. Clearly, it hurts for the injured. That said, if the medical bills are covered, what's the justification for another company to pay when there are no more bills? What's sketchy about the whole situation is that the Ohio Supreme Court is an elected body, and this decision overrules earlier law by a one-vote margin, with the swing vote provided by the newest judge, Maureen O'Connor, who received $400,000 in campaign contributions from doctors and insurance companies.
• At CNN.com, a story about legislatures looking into potential political bias in universities and colleges. Most of the schools in this country are obviously unbalanced politically. The question, though, is whether that has an actual adverse affect on the education of conservatives. The answer might be hinted at by considering the fact that plenty of conservative politicians and public figures went to top schools and got top grades at those schools. A huge number of Congresspeople from both sides of the aisle went to Harvard Law, for example, which as an institution is probably less liberal than Harvard University as a whole, but is still unlikely to be compared to Bob Jones University any time soon. That's not conclusive, of course, and I'm certainly biased in an obvious way, but my inclination is to think that the whole thing is overblown, a corollary of the constant cries of "liberal media bias" that have decimated the ability of those media outlets perceived as liberal to have any kind of credibility to criticize a conservative regime.
• Also at CNN.com, I see that the new Virginia governor, Tim Kaine, will deliver the rebuttal to Pres. Bush's State of the Union address. It's an interesting choice, given Kaine's status as a newcomer and his relatively small national profile. I can't find a list of who's given the rebuttal in the past, but as an example, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, far more veteran than Kaine, delivered the speech last year.
• Here's a review at the Dallas Observer of Marah's album If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry. The album sounds interesting, if you can get past the tiresome whining about the state of music today, why people should appreciate albums instead of just listening to shuffle, and so on.
• At the same publication, Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley has released a solo album which sounds right up my newfound musical alley: "Lewis pulls off a convincing turn as an old-timin' country/soul singer rather than a generic singer-songwriter."
• At the Deseret Morning News, a Utah man acquitted of murder 15 years ago has confessed, which is certainly backward from what it usually is. If you're squeamish at all, I'd avoid the story, which involves a semi-graphic description of the murder of a small child.
• Something that'll make approximately one person I know happy: Everwood will be back next year.
• Denny Neagle could be helped out since the officer who arrested him for solicitation didn't read him his rights before Neagle made some statements that could have been damaging at trial. Those statements will be excluded as a result.
• The Wizards have bought out ex-Laker Chucky Atkins's contract, allowing him to try to find a place where he can play more minutes. Atkins started just two games this year and was averaging under 20 minutes per game.
• I'm only linking to this relatively routine meth conviction story because it happened in good ol' Monterey County, where I grew up for ten years before going to college. Finally, I have a response to the "It's beautiful there" I always get from people when I tell them where I grew up. "Yeah, but they got mad meth."
• The government's going up against Google, trying to get them to turn over information in some of their databases
• Laura Bush called Hillary Clinton's "plantation" remarks "ridiculous": "I think it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous comment -- that's what I think." Apparently, that's all she said, because that's the only quote from her in the story, which is pretty weak. I think my favorite response so far, though, is Scott McClellan coming off like Tony Soprano with his "way out of line" comment.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 10:16 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Brian Leiter has a post about protests against Professor John Yoo at Boalt, who wrote the infamous memo making the case that the U.S. could torture detainees. A student at Boalt whose Con Law class was interrupted by the protest wrote in. The most relevant quote from the email that Leiter posted is here:

I'm certain most of my classmates are very respectful of his right to teach here, while disagreeing with his politics. Similarly, those of us in the class were pissed off as hell that our time was taken from us.

There's a lot of concern about the disruption of studies, but my own studies are being disrupted when I can't sleep because I dream about what the world is like.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News at 16:20 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

It's been a huge day, really. President Bush nominated a crony with no judicial credentials to sit on the Supreme Court. Let the speculation begin that she's the target the Democrats are supposed to blast away at so that they're too tired and too politically spent to do anything about his real candidate, once Miers gets rejected (as some Republicans, angry that someone who went to a law school ranked lower in the US News list got nominated, cross the line). The UFT and the City agreed to a new contract, though it really sounds like, at first blush, the city got the best of things, extending the work day for what seems like a fairly paltry raise. John Roberts showed up in his robe and ... no gold stripes! CJ Rehnquist, of course, famously added gold stripes to his robe some time back, and there was great debate over whether Roberts would continue this potential new tradition. Though I never said so, I suspected he wouldn't. Everything about his character, as we can glean from his public behavior, points away from ostentatious displays, which certainly describes the stripes. Frankly, the simple black is far more stylish than the garish gold could hope to be. Finally, tomorrow begins Rosh Hashanah, which apparently makes today Erev Rosh Hashanah (I suppose I'm learning some Hebrew?). That means I get two days off from law school, which could allow me to get ahead on the reading in a couple of my classes, which is exciting. **** While I was walking toward the subway today after school, on 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, I spied a small cadre of little Hasidic boys, maybe seven or eight years old. They were all wearing a bright orange sweatshirt with some kind of logo, perhaps from their school or youth group. They were apparently being shepharded by a young man nearby. I couldn't tell how old he was, but I'd figure my age or younger. I had the Everclear bumping on my XClef when I realized that one of the little boys had caught my eye and was trying to ask me a question. I pulled out the left earbud and said, "Sorry?" "Are you Jewish?" the kid asked, displaying a rather strong and, to me, unidentifiable accent. "No, sorry." I'm not sure why I apologized. Am I sorry I'm not Jewish? Was I sorry he thought I was? I realized as I walked away, glancing back at the group as they made their way east, that he and his mates weren't asking everybody this question. They weren't even asking all the white people. I thought it was odd that he thought I might be Jewish, though I did have a friend at Hampshire who assumed I was when he met me. The big question, though: why'd he want to know? Was he going to give me something? Tell me something? As I mentioned, tomorrow begins Rosh Hashanah. Perhaps it's related? I must have a Jewish reader or two out there who can shed some light on this.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in News, Personal at 16:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Since the A's persist in being awful and inconsistent, maddeningly so, I'm going to indulge in some quick liberal politics. On CNN.com, I see this blurb, with regard to Hurricane Katrina: "Bush to lead probe to find 'what went wrong'." Oh, you mean like the one you led to find out what went wrong with the whole Valerie Plame thing? 'cause that one worked real well.

Posted by jason in News at 13:44 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

This is sort of sweet, if a little bizarre.

Posted by jason in Football, News at 21:17 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)