Guns and Butter Blog

There is strong reason to be excited and upbeat about the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to SCOTUS. And it begins with his dissenting opinion in U.S. v. Rybar (3rd Cir. 1996)--alluded to in James’ previous post. Judge Alito’s opinion in Rybar demonstrates a decent respect for a federal government of enumerated powers under the U.S. Constitution. In short, Alito thinks federalism matters!

At issue in Rybar was a portion of the U.S. Code prohibiting the purely intrastate possession of a machine gun (not the sale or transfer of a machine gun). Opposing the prevailing views of the other two judges on the panel, Judge Alito held that the statutory provision at issue was beyond Congress’ power to regulate commerce pursuant to Aticle I, Sec. 8 and in light of the SCOTUS case of U.S. v. Lopez (1995). In other words, Alito concluded that the statutory ban of private possession of a machine gun violated the Commerce Clause and recent precedent. The conclusion Alito came to was that banning of private possession of such a weapon involves neither: 1) a regulation of an instrumentality of interstate commerce; 2) a regulation of a channel of interstate commerce; nor 3) an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. This makes absolutely perfect sense. (My own academic scruples with this three-part taxonomy re-established in Lopez notwithstanding.)

The opening line of Judge Alito's dissent is a treat:

Was United States v. Lopez...a constitutional freak? Or did it signify that the Commerce Clause still imposes some meaningful limits on congressional power?

To have a Justice recognizing that there some limits to congressional power that courts are competent to enforce is MAJOR PLUS. Such a recognition doesn’t deal with whether anyone thinks persons should be able to own machine guns. Instead, it goes to the more fundamental question of whether our Constitution created a limitless leviathan or a system with checks and balances, separation of powers and division of powers. Constitutional federalism keeps federal and state powers in check and thereby protects the rights of individuals in a multitude of respects.

Given the similarities of the statute at issue in Rybar and the statute at issue in Lopez, Judge Alito provided a cogent and straight-forward application of important SCOTUS precedent. He proceeded to say that "even today, the normative case for federalism remains strong." Alito then cited a mass rad article in the Michigan Law Review by Prof. Steven Calabresi called "A Government of Limited and Enumerated Powers: In Defense of United States v. Lopez." Calabresi’s article gives a wonderful overview of the important institutional benefits of federalism.

A short time after Rybar, SCOTUS reiterated its seriousness about the limits of Congressional commerce power in U.S. v. Morrison (2000). So he was arguably vindicated in a later case.

It is now debatable whether Raich v. Gonzalez (2005)--the medicinal marijuana case--constituted a shift away from judicially enforceable limits upon Congress’ commerce powers. But if Alito is confirmed (and if Chief Justice Roberts is so inclined) we will have a SCOTUS that appreciates constitutional federalism.

While Rybar could be described as a gun case, Judge Alito did not rest his decision on the 2nd Amendment. He didn’t need to go that far, and his views on that provision remain to be seen...

I am electrified, just electrified, I tell ya! Why?

Here is Guns and Butter quoting John McIntyre, quoting The New Republic:

What should be far more troubling to Senate Democrats, however, is Alito's 1996 dissent from a decision upholding the constitutionality of a federal law prohibiting the possession of machine guns. Applying the logic of the Constitution in Exile for all it's worth, Alito insisted that the private possession of machine guns was not an economic activity, and there was no empirical evidence that private gun possession increased violent crime in a way that substantially affected commerce--therefore, Congress has no right to regulate it.

Woohoo! Select-fire weapons for everyone!

Ah, how breezily the New York Times whitewashes al-Jazeera!

Al Jazeera, which styles itself as an independent voice in a turbulent region that is short on press freedom, is shaping its new channel, Al Jazeera International, with the same spirit: outspoken and unwilling, in its own words, "to sanitize war." Al Jazeera's aggressive journalistic style has led to its reporters' being banned from Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia [boldface mine].

What does the Paper of Record mean by "aggressive journalistic style"?

Only days after the convention in Cannes, the Arabic-language channel broadcast a videotape from Osama bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the latest in a series of videos from Al Qaeda leaders shown on Al Jazeera. A Spanish court recently convicted one of the channel's reporters of collaborating with the terrorist organization, a decision that the broadcaster is appealing [boldface mine].

Then there are the "useful idiots":

In a surge of hiring intended to make Al Jazeera International palatable to Western viewers and advertisers, the channel has secured the services of high-profile television personalities like David Frost, the veteran BBC interviewer, and Josh Rushing, who was a United States military spokesman in the current war in Iraq. From CNN, it has added the anchor Riz Khan, and from Sky News of Britain, the reporter David Foster.

Actually, I do not think some of these folks are idiots at all. I think they are self-serving in that they seek to cash in by affiliating themselves with al-Jazeera's notoriety. And that goes double for some American "multinationals":

In the past, Al Jazeera's advertisers have included United States multinational companies like General Motors and Procter & Gamble, however.

the Captain of the Excelsior is gay (via The Countertop Chronicles)???!!!

Not that there is anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say.

Seems the MSM money is on one of these two:

"Those are the only two names anyone is aware of," said a source who asked not to be identified...

By picking Alito or Luttig, Bush would electrify supporters who revolted over the Miers nomination.

I guess this is what's sometimes called the politics of low expectations (or underestimation). First, you make your base mad with a "wrong" choice, and then when you make the right one, the hitherto angry folks are so grateful that they are "electrified."

Last July, I called for Luttig, but I'd be pretty happy, or "electrified," with Alito too.

The Hindustan Times reports of terrorist attacks in Delhi where three explosions took place in crowded markets where people were shopping and celebrating the upcoming Diwali festival:

Three deafening blasts rocked crowded shopping centres in the Capital on Saturday, three days ahead of the Diwali festival, killing 50 people and injuring over 70 others, including some foreigners, police said.

The first blast was reported at around 5.40 pm from the crowded Paharganj area, popular with foreign backpackers, and among the most congested areas in central Delhi close to the New Delhi Railway Station.

The other explosion occurred soon after in Sarojini Nagar, another busy shopping area in south Delhi, popular among the middle class and even foreigners.

Soon after there were reports of similar blasts from a few other areas, including Govindpuri, also a teeming market, in south Delhi.

Police immediately ordered all shopping centres in the capital to shut and appealed to the people to go back home, throwing a damper on the celebratory mood ahead of the grand festival of lights.

Possible motive?

The almost simultaneous explosions occurred within hours after a city court deferred sentencing a Pakistani national and his six Indian accomplices who have been convicted of staging a terrorist attack at the Red Fort December 2000, in which three people were killed.

Additional Sessions Judge OP Saini had on Monday convicted Asfaq Ahmed of Pakistan and his Indian accomplices Nazir Qasim and Yusuf Farooqui of waging war against India, a charge that carries the death penalty. The sentencing has been deferred to Monday. Four others have been convicted of lesser charges. Four people have been acquitted in the case.

When acts of terrorism occur in India, my initial suspicions fall on one of two potential sources -- Pakistan-backed "Kashmiri" elements or separatists (Sikhs, for example). Likely the attacks were launched by Pakistani-supported terrorists, but if so, they are surprising in that there has been a thaw (including the post-quake cooperation) in the conflict between Pakistan and India.

Echoing James' setiments from the previous post, its now the weekend and so hopefully you're ready to stop thinking about the Liddy indictment--perhaps after reading Orin Kerr's early observations--and take in the rest of life's bigger picture.

As for me, I've recently been considering oatmeal raisin cookies. My conclusions are as follows. When made right, they are tasty. But somehow they're unsatisfying. I don't think it has to do with anything intrinsic to oatmeal raisin cookies themselves. They taste pretty good. Yet, every time I'm eating one or offered one, I keep thinking that I COULD be eating an oatmeal CHOCOLATE CHIP cookie instead. Given all the foods out there that you could strive to obtain and eat, why settle for oatmeal raisin cookies? It's like the middle management of cookies.

Now for something lighter: I bring you the definitive statement on quality control, brought to you by the always hilarious Engrish.com (got that? "Engrish," not "English).

With the indictments (via RealClearPolitics) against "Scooter" Libby, Washington, DC has been teeming with tension. So I thought everyone could use a little laugh (or a smirk).

What's going on at my other blog, The Asianist:

1. Google/Taiwan: Different Stories in Different Languages -- Google follows the Palestinian model.
2. South Korea Loosens Rice Imports -- The beginning of the end for rice autarky.
3. Hyde Strikes Again -- He's my kind of congressman.
4. Hello Kitty Jet -- Childish, but not feminist.
5. Hong Kong Gets "Reform" -- Hong Kong democrats are co-opted; China learns to control the Internet.

A late afternoon's drive to the sound of Hugh Hewitt's radio program prompted me to post what I hope are some final thoughts on the Harriet Miers nomination. I still hope the anti-Miers and the anti-anti-Miers crowd can put the episode behind them and just agree to go ahead with things. And it is encouraging to know that there is so much support for an originalist nominee to SCOTUS. But regardless of whether one supported her nomination, I feel obligated to state that I think Miers was mistreated.

Hewitt's NY Times column "Why the Right Was Wrong" sums up much of the content of his Thursday program--both concerning Miers handling by certain folks on the right and also the potential fallout for the next nominee. Hewitt notes that the "all nominees deserve an up-or-down vote" standard could be undermined by the Miers precedent. This could well come to pass. Then again, it might not and we could find ourselves with an originalist who has overwhelming accolades, such as Chief Justice John Roberts. My guess is good as the next person's. And so we carry on...

From Haaretz:

An Israel Air Force aircraft fired missiles at the Gaza Strip on Thursday night, killing seven Palestinians, including two Islamic Jihad militants and at least three civilians, among them a 15-year-old boy, Palestinian sources said. At least twelve Palestinians were wounded.

More:

The strike came after Sharon announced a "broad and nonstop offensive" against terrorism, in response to Wednesday's suicide bombing in Hadera that killed five people.

Sharon pledged that the offensive - which is primarily targeting Islamic Jihad, the group that claimed responsibility for the Hadera bombing - would continue until terrorism ends.

Now, it seems that Islamic Jihad is claiming that the Hadera attack, in turn, was in response to earlier Israeli killing of Louey Sa'adi, a PIJ leader in West Bank. But Don explains why that is unlikely:

If this claim is taken seriously, it will fit into the classic "cycle of violence" scenario of tit-for-tat killings: we killed Sa'adi on Monday, and PIJ avenged his death on Wednesday.

However, there is no reason to believe that this attack was really planned as an act of revenge for Sa'adi's killing. Israeli security forces were on alert for an attack somewhere today the tenth anniversary of the killing of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shekaki in Malta -- at least a couple of days before Sa'adi was killed. Further, even had we not known that today's attack was carried out to commemorate a 1995 assassination, it is very hard to believe that a "successful" suicide attack could be organized only sixty hours after the supposed provocation -- particularly in a part of Israel that is protected by a long continuous stretch of the Separation Barrier.

I do not have Don's expertise in the matter, but I suspect that Islamic Jihad is simply not interested in any ceasefire, and the Sa'adi killing was a convenient post-facto excuse AFTER the group already planned the Hadera attack.

This again demonstrates the unfortunate fact that so long as any "militant" group has -- effectively -- a veto over any ceasefire or peace between Palestinians and Israelis, the peace process can never work. In other words, there must be one voice representing the Palestinians, with which Israel can negotiate. And that one voice cannot come about unless there is a civil war among Palestinians to determine which group really speaks for them as a whole.

The Miers confirmation mess was unfortunate, but the President now has a do-over. The anti-Miers crowd and the anti-anti-Miers crowd can close camps and look forward to the next nominee. The lesson from this episode appears to be that in light of public opinion and the disposition of the majority of the Senate, the only confirmable nominees will be constitutionalists, but not all constitutionalists are confirmable. If we didn't know this before, we certainly know it now. This isn’t a bad place to be...

By now, everyone probably heard that the troubled Miers nomination has been withdrawn. SCOTUSblog says this weakens President Bush (via RealClearPolitics):

As Miers' nomination got into deeper trouble, some observers who are close to the President had said that it would come close to wrecking this presidency if he were forced to back down on Miers. That perhaps was an exaggeration, but the President, already newly vulnerable because of the hurricane disasters, the Iraq war, and the criminal investigation focused on figures high in his government, is perceived to have less political authority than he had even at the beginning of this month. He may not be in the mood, or have the "political capital," to wage another costly battle over the Supreme Court seat.

I disagree. I think this is precisely the time to pick a fight with the Democrats and please his base by nominating someone who is a staunch constitutionalist. Let the Donkeys try to oppose someone like Judge Roberts and see what happens in the public opinion.

Napoleon once said that the moment of the greatest peril is the moment of victory. Let the Democrats feel victorious now and over-play their hand.

RealClearPolitics has a list of who might be up next, complete with mugshots.

From WorldNetDaily:

USA Today pulled a photograph of Condoleezza Rice from its website after a weblog revealed it was manipulated, giving the secretary of state a menacing, demon-eyesing stare.

Man, conspiracies are everywhere! Maybe the folks at the USA Today read Dick Morris's book (Cliff Kincaid is pretty tough on the Morris book, by the way). Judging from the covers, I don't think that Morris is equating Condi with Hillary:

Hillary's as an ambitious liberal who attached herself to a governor on the rise, Condi's as a woman of broad and deep talents who has earned her own way.

Funny as heck (via Cousin Lucy's Spoon), especially for people like me who own dogs with "personalities" (I just taught my two dogs to "talk" on command).

Like everyone else, I’m waiting to see what Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the grand jury he has convened will do next as the Plamegate saga continues to unfold. I’ve managed to glean a few things from the coverage.

Fitzgerald met with the Chief Judge of the District Court, after meeting with the grand jury on Wednesday. Fitzgerald could’ve asked the Chief to extend the grand jury's term (set to expire at week's end), or he could be making logistical arrangements with the Chief in anticipation of indictments. Further, Fitzgerald could keep any indictments under seal for a time. (See Byron York’s post at The Corner.) A grand juror was overheard mentioning Friday to another grand juror.

We don’t know who will be indicted (if anyone) and we don’t know what any indictments will be for. In an insightful NRO article, York noted that the Special Prosecutor was not appointed to look specifically into the leak of the CIA agent’s identity. To the contrary, Fitzgerald was appointed to look into this whole matter involving leaked classified information and to basically do something with it. York notes that we remain uncertain as to what law would form the basis of any indictment. One possibility is the Espionage Act of 1917. Law students who studied the 1st Amendment will remember this WWI-era law spawned some notable SCOTUS opinions and was the ACLU’s early claim to fame.

An irony is that there could be indictments concerning obstruction of justice or other matters collateral to the leaking of Plame’s identity. As York describes it in another NRO article, there could be indictments for a cover-up without a crime.

The broad powers given to the Special Prosecutor have raised some concerns. Today’s op-ed at Opinion Journal by Law Profs. Viet Dihn and Neal Katyal suggest that then-acting U.S. Attorney General James Comey made a serious whoopsie by giving Fitzgerald such blanket discretion and by not giving him a more limited assignment--as would be commensurate with the 1999 Special Prosecutor Regulations that are in place. Dihn & Kaytal join many others who suggest that the use of such investigations in the political arena is problematic and counterproductive. (Prof. Alan Dershowitz suggested as much on Neal Cavuto’s program yesterday.)

Needless to say, Dihn & Kaytal spoke well of Fitzgerald. Andrew McCarthy has called him "the best prosecutor I have ever seen. By a mile." High praise from the former federal prosecutor who bested Lynne Stewart by sending the Blind Sheikh behind bars. (Stewart is in the clink now, too.)

I'll be waiting like everyone on this. And I don’t know what the Las Vegas odds are.

The following op-ed appeared in RealClearPolitics (original link here).

October 27, 2005
2,000 American Military Deaths in Iraq: Context and History
By James J. Na

Predictably, the mainstream media is talking up the "milestone" of the 2,000th American military death in Iraq to portray the struggle as a useless, costly quagmire.

According to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, the total number of American military deaths in Iraq, including non-battle deaths, now stands at 2002 in approximately 32 months of combat from March 2003 to October 2005.

It is often said that these deaths are not simply statistics. They are real faces and lives, each with its own story and family. Yet we do rely on statistics sometimes, because they offer a sense of scale. For example, according to the National Health Center for Statistics, in the year 2003:
A total of over 2.4 million Americans died.Over 684,000 died from heart disease.Over 104,000 were killed in accidents (over 44,000 in car accidents and nearly 17,000 fell to death).Over 30,000 committed suicide.Over 17,000 were killed in homicides.

In comparison, the annual average death rate for American military personnel in Iraq is about 751.

Of course, there is a clear moral difference between "ordinary" deaths at home and military deaths in war. So let's draw a comparison to the statistics on American military fatalities in other modern wars. According to the United States Civil War Center, the fatalities rates, including those killed-in-action and non-battle deaths, were:

For World War I, over 6,100 per month.
For World War II, over 9,200 per month.
In Korea, over 900 killed-in-action each month (non-battle death information is not available).
For Vietnam, over 600 per month.
For Gulf War I, almost 300 in one month.

The first Gulf War was noted for its remarkably low casualty rate. Some even observed that the death rate for the deployed American military personnel was lower than that during peacetime, making it "safer to be at war than at home."

In comparison, an average of 63 died each month in the current war.

Even in the deadliest month of the conflict (November 2004), the American military death toll was 137, making it substantially smaller than the anomalously low Gulf War I rate. When the overall population growth is factored in -- for example, during World War I, the total US population was only a little over 100 million while today it exceeds over 260 million -- the death rate for the current war shrinks still in comparison to the others.

In fact, during World War II, more American soldiers died in one week on average than in all of 32 months of operations in Iraq. Despite the tragically higher fatalities rate of World War II, the media of its day kept respectful distance, and allowed the families of the fallen to grieve privately in dignity.

There was no complaint that American soldiers were dying "needlessly in a war of aggression" against a Nazi Germany that did not bomb Pearl Harbor. There was no talk of a "quagmire" as thousands of American died on the beaches of Normandy in one day and as thousands more died in the jungles of the Pacific, facing suicide attacks from a fanatical foe. No one was accused of hyped intelligence when the actual German atomic weapons program turned out to be substantially less advanced than estimated.

Instead, the families of the Greatest Generation, already having survived a crippling Depression, quietly endured the deaths and supported the military endeavors to defend American interests and to extend the boundaries of freedom.

Today's mainstream media, on the other hand, sensationalize -- almost herald -- the war deaths in a highly partisan political effort to paint the Iraq war as a failure, emphasizing its flaws with minimal -- if any -- references to its successes or even its context, such as toppling a murderous dictatorship, defeating a sponsor of terrorism and bringing self-determination to a region crippled with corrupt monarchies and repressive socialism.

Clearly, the comparisons to the past military deaths do not imply that the American casualty in the current war is insubstantial or less tragic. On the contrary, every one of the military sacrifices in Iraq was a noble, meaningful one, suffered by an all-volunteer force that needed no draft, no compulsion to fight for our nation.

Ernest Hemingway is said to have observed at the beginning of World War II: "I have seen much war in my life and I detest it profoundly. But there are worse things than war, and they all come with defeat."

Indeed, what is more important to recognize, and what these historical figures demonstrate, is that it is fully within our national historical legacy to carry on the struggle to protect our interests and to extend the boundaries of freedom, all in quiet dignity without losing our faith and determination to be victorious in the end.

I have an exciting news about this blog (well, exciting for me, in any case). Seth Cooper will be joining Guns and Butter Blog starting today.

Seth previously ran Sharks with Lasers. As an attorney (see, I am not against lawyers -- in fact, my best friend is also an attorney), I expect that Seth will have insightful remarks about such weighty matters as the ongoing Supreme Court nomination and other legal matters.

Look for his entries in the coming days.

Welcome, Coop, and thank you for joining me!

As my regular readers know, I lived in Seattle, King County until a few months ago. The following was forwarded to my new Virginia address today: That's Chinese you see on the envelope. Let's start with the obvious. I am an American who speak, read and write English. When I was naturalized a couple of years ago, I had to -- in English -- answer questions about American history, the Constitution, our system of government and other civics topics. If I passed (which I clearly did with 100% correct answers), I clearly ****ing understand English!

Frankly, it's insulting for me to receive any election material from the government in any language other than English.

What's more, I may be ethnically Asian, but I am ethnically Korean, not Chinese! What does King County do, send anyone with an "Oriental" name election material in Chinese? I guess they all sound the same, eh?

I'm apparently not the only one, by the way.

First, the good news. The gun banners in Brazil over-played their hand. Initially, 80 percent of the Brazilian public supported the complete ban on gun sales. But then the whole elitist campaign full of celebrities and government pressure backfired, and the Brazilian voters have spoken (64 percent against the ban).

Now the bad news. One of my sources tells me that Taurus played a very dubious role in the whole affair. Taurus has a substantial operation in the U.S. and has publicly supported the NRA and the Second Amendment rights here. But in Brazil, Taurus reputedly supported the ban behind the scene, mainly because it has a lock on the military-police market and does not care about the civilian market. My source claims that there was even a discussion between the NRA and Taurus over the latter's role in the Brazilian gun ban vote.

If true, it is another case of a company's skin deep commitment for the Second Amendment, supporting gun rights only where it benefits the company's marketing position and image while opposing such rights back in the home country where it does not.

1. The Ultimate Fighter (Spike TV)
2. UFC Unleashed (Spike TV)
3. Lost (ABC)
4. Invasion (ABC)
5. Arrested Development (Fox)
6. Special Report with Brit Hume (Fox News)
7. Pride Fighting Championship (Fox Sports Net)
8. Rome (HBO)
9. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
10. The Dog Whisperer (National Geographic Channel)
11. CSI (CBS)
12. Fight Sports: Championship Kickboxing
13. American Rifleman (The Outdoor Channel)
14. Shooting Gallery (The Outdoor Channel)
15. Pimp My Ride (MTV)

Yes, I do watch a lot of TV (mind you, these are just the shows I record -- I watch others as well). Originally, I watched little TV, but read a lot. At one point, I read about 100 books a year. But then I met my wife who was and remains a TV junkie. Now, I don't read nearly as much.

We're also currently running "The World at War" and "A History of Britain" marathons at the Guns and Butter household.

When we originally bought a DVR, our rationale was that it would reduce our TV watching time. The logic went something like "Since we can record and watch only the shows we really like, we wouldn't mindlessly watch lots of TV. We'd be selective."

Wrong! Now we can record and watch later a lot of mindless junk that catches our slightest whim. Of course, the cool thing is that my wife watches all the no-holds barred fighting stuff with me. And she genuinely enjoys it too. I bet not too many guys can say that about their wives.

It makes all the pain associated with being married all worthwhile!

This Is London (via The Countertop Chronicles):

Daniel Craig will have a problem playing the new James Bond - because he hates guns.

And, yet, this does not stop Craig from making (no doubt) mondo bucks posing with guns and otherwise looking cool with it.

Roger Moore, who played the superspy from 1973 to 1985, said after quitting the role that he hated "that awful pose" of Bond with his gun which has become an iconic movie image.

The actor later became an ambassador for children's charity Unicef and declared: "Today I am completely opposed to small arms and what they can do to children. I played every role tongue-in-cheek because I don't really believe in that sort of hero. I don't like guns."

Figures. Moore was a sissy of a Bond.

George Galloway just might be brought to justice, finally.

As I sometimes say, karma often works. It just takes a while. Of course, the real karmic justice would be Galloway being tried in the newly free Iraq by a sovereign Iraqi court. But until that happens, the US Congress would do.

Shelby Steele writes of "black responsibility." Now, some conservatives might applaud this notion. I don't.

Steele writes:

This occurred to me in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, when so many black people were plunged into misery that it seemed the hurricane itself had held a racial animus. I felt a consuming empathy but also another, more atavistic impulse. I did not like my people being seen this way [boldface mine].

I gather Steele means "black people" by "my people." Why does the fact that many of the victims of Katrina had a similar skin tone make them Steele's people?

I felt sad when I saw the victims too. *I* did not like to see my people suffer either. Who are "my" people? They are Americans, pure and simple: we who are many different people united by our common love of liberty and our unique language of American English.

We, as a society, have got to rid ourselves of this silly internally-tribalistic notion that somehow we are responsible toward others with similar skin tones or ethnic backgrounds. Instead, we should be responsible for our nation, our states, our cities, our neighborhoods, our families and, ultimately, ourselves.

Exhortations to assume responsibility, instead of falling back on victimhood, are great. But such calls should be directed by individuals to individuals, not some pseudo-kin group based on skin color and vague ethnic commonality. Exhortations of "black responsibility," even when given by someone who is black, ultimately strengthen the socially destructive, tribalistic notion of "color."

When one gets in a bind while overseas, one quickly learns that, above all, we are Americans first. We do not go to a local UN office for help. We are not classified based on "race." We end up at the local US embassy or consulate where we are so glad that, finally, we are protected by the full might and sovereignty of the government of the United States of America. That's when one learns how the vast majority of the world sees one -- not as a white person, not as a black person, but as an American.

My father was partly educated in the United States. When he first came to the U.S. decades ago, most Americans, despite the fact that tens of thousands of Americans died during the Korean War, did not seem to know where Korea was... or cared where it was.

My father was usually asked whether he was Chinese or Japanese (occasionally Vietnamese), something similar to the King of the Hill dialogue:

HANK: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?
KHAN: I live in California last twenty years, but first come from Laos.
HANK: Huh?
KHAN: Laos. We Laotian.
BILL: The ocean? What ocean?
KHAN: We are Laotian. From Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million.
HANK: [after a long pause and a blank stare] So, are you Chinese or Japanese?

From this experience my father came away with the conclusion that Korea will always be unknown and, consequently, the Korean language will be useless outside tiny Korea.

Boy, was he wrong! Last week, my wife and I were watching the hit TV series "Lost," to which we are admittedly addicted, and what do you know, almost the whole episode is in Korean! This was the third episode to feature the characters Sun and Jin prominently and contain substantial dialogue entirely in Korean with lots of Korean extras.

Had my father heard that, in his lifetime, a popular American TV series would feature major characters who are Korean, who speak almost entirely Korean dialogue, he'd laughed!

Thanks to my finally useful linguistic skill, however, my wife was able to hear the more detailed, nuanced translation (see, I am not reflexively opposed to nuance) of what went on the show, not the truncated subtitle than ran on the program (we did not, however, derive any special knowledge or insight into the mysteries of the show).

For example, during the show, the Sun character and her date have a revealing moment where the date tells her (according to the "official" show translation), he intends to move to America and marry his secret "American" girlfriend. The actual word spoken by the actor, however, was not "American," but "white person." A very subtle distinction, but a meaningful one, in my view.

This is consistent with what I often observed in Asia and, in fact, much of the rest of the world. They think that America is a country of whites with a few black entertainers, athletes and criminals mixed in. Much of the rest of the world does not seem to understand that, in fact, the U.S. is a pretty ethnically diverse country.

I attribute this to the popular media, which for a long time showed America, indeed, as a largely European-descended country with black, slave- descendants as token side characters. Aside from "Hawaii Five-O," "Kung Fu" and "M.A.S.H.," it was pretty unthinkable to put Asian-Americans in the mainstream popular media.

I think this view, however, is beginning to change, not least because of shows like "Lost." I am pretty vehemently opposed to "affirmative action" and certainly don't agree with those who demand proportional representation in anything, including acting. But voluntary, creative choices in adding interesting ethnic characters, not products of politically-correct tokenism, certainly make the overall product more interesting.

In any case, my father would've considered it unthinkable too, that a Korean film would win the Grand Prix at Canne (my father is a movie buff). He'd also be flabbegasted about the "Korean Wave" sweeping much of Asia (now there is a backlash). His "old" Korea was a society that slavishly copied Chinese and Japanese popular culture. Now Korean actors are supposedly replacing Hollywood stars in pitching whiskey to Japanese audiences.

And just today, I saw a burly non-Korean (non-Asian, too, for that matter) chef show how to make not only Bulgogi, but also Kimchee (Kimchi!) on TV. Now, that one would really freak my mom, who is convinced that only slightly insane non-Asians would eat Kimchee (excepting my wife, of course, who is blinded by love). I've have paid money to see my mother's face when she'd witness a bearish white guy teach an American audience how to make "pungent" Korean fermented cabbage dish.

It's a different world today, I tell you.

My own epiphany, however, came earlier, long before these commercial and culinary successes. It came from my wife (then girlfriend).

My parents always expected me to return to Korea after finishing graduate school. With my father's extensive contacts there and my Ivy League education, they were of the opinion that I'd be very successful in my "home" country. My parents envisioned a life for me, one filled with a driver, an aide to carry my briefcase and other luxuries beyond the reach of the modestly prosperous in the U.S.

Though pro-American, they were always skeptical about race-relations in the U.S. They'd always say "Why would you want to waste yourself in America? You'd always have an Oriental face there. You'd always be never more than a sidekick. You come back to Korea, and you can be number one, the main star, in anything you do." They'd always dismiss my response "But America is different today" with a wave "You are young and idealistic. The real world is different. We don't want you to find that out when you are older, when it's too late."

Needless to say, I didn't listen. My love for this country has grown more deeply. I feel more American today than ever. The epiphany, the final nail in the coffin of my parents' pessimism, occurred years ago when I asked my then girlfriend, now wife of many years, who is of the quintessential Middle America (it doesn't get any more Middle America than Des Moines, Iowa, folks), what she saw when she looked at my face.

She responded without even thinking, "I see you. I see James." It didn't even occur to her that she should see an Asian. She just saw me, someone she loved.

Now we're just another American couple, watching "Lost," eating Bulgogi and Kimchee, going to the local gun range (*I* got *her* into exercising her Second Amendment right) and voting Republican.

Isn't this a great country or what?

Vancouver, British Columbia is a lovely place to visit. It is a pretty city, and has lot of chic, ethnic restaurants. But, aside from the fact that it's still Canada, America's poor socialist cousin, there are other reasons to think twice about moving there:

Vancouver Sun architecture critic and architecture and urban design teacher Trevor Boddy says that thanks to misguided zoning and tax policies, downtown Vancouver has become so overrun with condos that there is no room for large employers. Downtown Vancouver has become a "dormitory suburb" with "Potemkin Villages" of the destitute, says Boddy, and is nothing for Seattle to emulate.

Vancouver seems to suffer from the same syndrome that Seattle does, AKA "Because we have it good now, we're the best city in the world forever." People seem to forget that much of Vancouver's real estate-fueled prosperity and rise in ethnic restaurants came in the aftermath of the Great Astronaut Family Relocation Boom, AKA the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong.

When the Chinese took over Hong Kong, it seemed the moneyed half of the latter relocated to Vancouver in mass; the husbands of these families stayed behind, becoming "astronauts, " so-titled because they flew the stratosphere so much between their businesses in Hong Kong and their families safely relocated in Vancouver. The rest is, as they say, history. Vancouver now has the best Chinese food (real Chinese food, not the usually sickly sweet American-Chinese fare) north of San Francisco.

In the process, Vancouver became one of the exalted permanently high-priced cities. The most famous of the permanently high-priced cities are NYC, Tokyo, London and so on. There are obvious political and financial reasons why such cities command stratospheric real estate prices. With cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Austin and Vancouver, something other than politics or business are at work. While initially fed by temporary events (tech boom, Hong Kong exit and so on), the reputations of these cities were fed by perhaps chic-hip-prestige, arts, tourism and a certain sense of "future" for lack of a better term. But these things are not as permanent as being political and/or financial centers, and thus require more careful management to perpetuate.

Alas, I think Seattle, like Vancouver, is following the San Francisco model, where the warped policies are turning the city into an enclave of rich, active retirees and the young, beautiful people crowd in a sea of poor, badly-educated underclass (including proliferating vagrants). Meanwhile, expensive real estate, lack of wide-scale industry and poor public schools force the middle-class out into the suburbs or to other states (most notably in the Sun Belt).

In the end, what you have in such cities is a highly class-divided society with politically egalitarian rhetoric, where most people are poor, but the very rich -- who can afford high taxes -- can rest assured on their "social consciousness."

What's up at my other blog, The Asianist:

1. Iran Punishes South Korea? Korean imports to Iran gets rejected.
2. Empress Aiko? The Japanese just might be emerging from testesterone poisoning.
3. Rumsfeld Talks Tough & Future Sino-American Military Cooperation
4. China vs. India: Economy Why China is ahead, but India might catch up.
5. Clone Wars South Korea, Stem-Cell Research and Nerd-chic.

Is there a concerted plot to bring down statues of significant American figures?

First there was the new "Battle of Inchon" over General MacArthur's statue (I beat Peter Brookes of Heritage Foundation to the punch). Now there goes Arcata, CA over President McKinley's statue:

A spiritual guidance and wellness counselor living nearby wants the town of Arcata, Ca. to get rid of its statue of President William McKinley, the noted imperialist, on whose watch the U.S. initiated the Spanish-American War; and also gained control of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Wake Islands. As regular readers of Rosenblog know, Arcata is a town much concerned with shaping global policy, even as it struggles to get its population of Trustafarian vagrants under control and restore quality of life in the city's core.

The McKinley critic, named Michael Schleyer, has spearheaded a petition drive which collected about 1,300 signatures supporting the statue's removal. City staff estimate half of the signers actually live in Arcata.

What makes Arcata such a special place is that the city council and mayor are taking the request seriously. A public hearing was held last night and council deliberation has begun.

The folks who want to knock down the MacArthur statue have an excuse -- they're rabidly anti-American South Korean communist sympathizers. What's the excuse for the folks in Arcata? Let me guess, they're rabidly anti-American Californian communist sympathizers?

Eloquently funny piece about the famous ice cream maker. Make sure to read it all! Some choice blurbs:

So I slapped down three bucks and waited in the gift shop where a pint of ice cream costs $3.99--which to me borders on price-gouging. (One of the supreme ironies of this socially conscious firm is that it is one of the best capitalists you'll ever come across.)

The tour itself is a 30-minute propaganda campaign explaining why the company's founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for their unwavering commitment to the environment and economic justice.

Meanwhile, their factory is a monument to the efficiencies of capitalism and technological progress: Several dozen giant computer-operated machines churn out hundreds of thousands of cartons a day. I half expect the massive energy-gulping freezers to be solar-paneled or powered by green-friendly windmills, but no, they use lots and lots of conventional electricity. It turns out that if you want really good ice cream, you just have to tolerate a little more global warming. That's a trade-off that I personally am willing to make.

More:

It is fortuitous that I am here the very week Ben & Jerry's announced that, for the first time in 10 years, it will get back to "leading with its values" by spending $5 million on a social awareness TV ad campaign. More than one analyst has wondered aloud whether this is just a slick Madison Avenue advertising gimmick to hike profits. After all, corporate responsibility has become the chic new marketing theme for Fortune 500 companies like British Petroleum, Starbucks and even GE. But Mr. Freese assures us that "this isn't a short-term strategy to drive up sales. These are issues that are important for our society to address."

And just what are those issues? Here our earnest tour guide raises his chin a bit and proudly declares that the first ads are dedicated to saving the family farm. When I burst out laughing, 22 sets of angry eyes glared at me. For the past 100 years, as the productivity of the American farmer has surged to unprecedented heights, the number of Americans working in agriculture to feed the world has fallen from 35 workers per 100 to two.

This is called progress. What is Ben & Jerry's proposed solution, anyway? To turn back the clock and abolish the tractor? Many Americans seem to be under the illusion that the small family farmer has lived a carefree idyllic lifestyle. In truth, this livelihood has traditionally involved backbreaking toil, work-days that last from sun-up to sundown, and monotony--which is why sons and daughters have been fleeing the farm for five generations. The only people who actually want to save small farms are people who've never worked on a farm.

Poetic justice one might say (via Ravenwood's Universe):

The author of a new state law that allows felony charges against owners of dangerous dogs was hospitalized over the weekend - after his own dog attacked him.

Bob Schwartz, who also is Gov. Bill Richardson's crime adviser, was hospitalized at University of New Mexico Hospital on Sunday night with bites on both his arms, said Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for the governor.

More:

Schwartz was instrumental in getting a law passed this year that would allow felony charges against owners of dogs deemed dangerous or potentially dangerous and that seriously injure or kill another animal or person.

Hello! News flash! All dogs are "potentially dangerous." Even a "cute little" Pomeranian killed a child recently... Which is why it is every dog owner's INDIVIDUAL responsibility to train and control his dog. I say this as a rabid (heh!) dog lover.

When I hear "potentially dangerous" dog in public, however, my antenna goes up, because it usually means "Pit Bulls," usually in conjunction with the ridiculous hysteria about breeds such as American Pit Bull Terriers and American Staffordshire Terriers.

By all means, punish the irresponsible individual dog owners who allow their dogs to hurt others (or worse, encourage aggression), but leave the rest of us alone! Wholesale bans on particular breeds achieve nothing but shift faults of few irresponsible individuals to the majority of responsible owners.

Don has an excellent analysis of the use of children as suicide bombers against Israel:

Both these stories strike me as rather odd. In the first place, why would anyone recruit a 14-year-old to carry out a suicide attack? In five years of the "al-Aqsa Intifada", there have been very few attempts to carry out suicide attacks using kids this young, and no successes. In fact, the typical "successful" suicide bomber has been in a rather narrow age band: out of 136 such attackers in my database (119 with known ages), 87 were between 18 and 23 years old; the youngest two were 16 years old, and seven were 17 years old.

Kids have been used routinely as "mules" to carry bombs past checkpoints, so we can't assume that the terrorists have a lot of scruples about keeping children away from explosives; but there's a great deal of difference between offering a boy a few shekels to carry a package a few hundred meters, and training him to perpetrate a suicide attack. Since (A) a 14-year-old suicide bomber, especially a reluctant one, is not very likely to succeed in his mission; (B) using a kid this young as a suicide bomber, especially after coercively recruiting him, is very bad for an organization's internal and external image; and (C) an intercepted suicide bomber is likely to yield some useful information to Israel's security forces, this would seem to have been an all-around bad move on Fatah's part.

By the way, I met Don in Israel. He carried a Browning High Power (and knocks his wife's Glock). I too have a Browning High Power -- previously held by an Israeli security agency, which has re-equipped with Glocks since.

Don is a "settler," one of the people who usually have the media stereotype of being gun-toting, crazed nuts who consider Palestinians subhumans. I found Don to be a humorous, good natured fellow. He is also empathetic and intellectually honest (read his piece on why Israel ought to compensate Arab victims of "Jewish" terrorism).

But he does carry a gun (or maybe two, I don't know). So the "gun-toting" part of the stereotype is right. But that's kind of a badge of honor in Guns and Butter.

Can you say rule of law?

Russiablog has more:

According to the Indem Analytical Fund, Russian government officials took $316 billion dollars in bribes during the last year, which is a normal year for Russia. The average bribe in Russia today is $135,000. The entire Russian Federal budget for the year 2004 was $95 billion, since state revenues are dependent on oil prices, this year’s national budget is estimated to be slightly over $100 billion.

I love it (via One Free Korea)!

On one level, you can’t be in favor of the Iraqi vote and opposed to the war. On another level, you can, but it’s a happy chocolate land where the fountains spout fudge and the bunnies are edible and Saddam relinquishes power, ashamed, because Kofi Annan drafted a stern letter promising Serious Consequences, and some Iraqi Gandhi not only showed he was morally superior to the Tikriti gang, but had a titanium-hulled body that made him impervious to torture shredders. And then the Baathists devolved and the Rotarians took over.

And working toward democracy in Iraq isn't simply a "do-gooder" mission. It's for our own security (see my earlier Seattle Times op-ed about that).

This rumor were true.

But that really would be too brilliant for the party with a knack for snatching defeat from jaws of victory.

John Stossel writes about why gun-control is not only ineffective, but dangerous. He goes through the usual, pragmatic reasons: criminals don't care about the law, and can obtain illegally-traded guns no matter what the law; they also fear the armed citizen more than cops; guns are more often used for self-defense than for committing crime.

Then he does something what many columnists neglect to do -- he clarifies what the Miller decision was all about:

And there's another myth, with a special risk of its own. The myth has it that the Supreme Court, in a case called United States v. Miller, interpreted the Second Amendment -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- as conferring a special privilege on the National Guard, and not as affirming an individual right. In fact, what the court held is only that the right to bear arms doesn't mean Congress can't prohibit certain kinds of guns that aren't necessary for the common defense. Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.

But he tops even that and goes one step further, which impresses the heck out of me:

What's the special risk? As Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."

"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

Damn right! The Second Amendment is NOT about hunting! It's insurance against tyranny! Lest that sounds "wacko" to some folks, let me remind that the oath of allegiance federal officials and military officers take requires them to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign AND domestic."

That's what the Second Amendment is all about at the core, and those politicians who blabber only about "I appreciate hunting rights" when pressed about the Second Amendment is simply dodging the real issue, most likely because they don't believe in the real purpose of this essential part of the Bill of Rights.

I might also add that "to keep and bear" in today's terms means "to own and to carry." Is our constitutional right to own and carry guns infringed? Absolutely. As it stands today, various federal laws and state laws of 49 states (Vermont being the exception) infringe on that inalienable right, and make it a privilege, to be conferred by the states, to carry handguns concealed, for example.

This must change. The gun-banners have been remarkable successful over the decades, because they effectively used incremental steps ("oh, this is just a mild, reasonable restriction") to take our right away little by little. In order to restore our right, we too must adopt incrementalism. I suspect that if we were to suggest "machine guns for everyone tomorrow!" we'd lose support among the "pragmatic" center (you know, the people who bend hither and thither based on "need" rather than principle).

So we should work tirelessly to remove one infringement at a time, one "reasonable" step each way, until there is no more infringement of any kind on the Second Amendment.

It's going to be a long, long fight.

India spurns aid for the sake of national pride while Pakistan takes the opposite tack in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake.

Geez. Pride is great, but it's no subsitute for lives, real lives, of actual people.

This is yet another example that outside a few civilized zones in the world, human lives are pretty cheap. Thank God I live within one of those zones (the best of the lot, in fact).

And he sounds just like Cindy Sheehan too!

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe yesterday railed against President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling them "international terrorists" bent on world domination like Adolf Hitler.

Here's the record on Mugabe's benevolent work in Zimbabwe:

Regime critics in Zimbabwe and abroad say Mr. Mugabe's land policies have turned what was the breadbasket of southern Africa into a country facing mass shortages at home.

Aid groups estimate 5 million of Zimbabwe's roughly 12 million people may need food aid this year.

Some FAO [U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization] delegates applauded several times during Mr. Mugabe's fiery speech yesterday.

But U.S. Ambassador Tony Hall, who protested Mr. Mugabe's presence at the celebrations, said it was "very unfortunate" that the Zimbabwean leader had politicized an event that was supposed to draw attention to world hunger.

"I think he chews up his own people and spits them out," said Mr. Hall, who visited Zimbabwe in August. "He has taken a perfectly good country and ruined it."

His response and why, despite an EU travel ban, Mugabe was there:

Mr. Mugabe attacked Mr. Hall as an "agent of imperialism" and then thanked FAO Secretary-General Jacques Diouf for inviting him despite the U.S. protest [boldface mine].

Hurrah for another U.N. kumbaya meeting: invite a corrupt, murderous dictator who created a man-made famine to address hunger issues (Libya and human rights again, is it?), denounce the U.S., cheer along, blame Jews for the ills of the Arab world, cheer some more and continue to go about wasting wealth taken from developed countries in the name of "international aid."

Just another day at the U.N., I guess.

What's going on at The Asianist, my other blog on East Asia:

1. Koizumi & Yasukuni: Why do conservative Japanese politicians, otherwise sound in foreign and economic policies, continue to muck up Japan's role in Asia with visits to honor WWII war criminals?
2. Kissinger in Kazakhstan: What's he doing there?
3. Snow in China: Yuan re-valuation is the wrong stick with which to beat China.
4. Hostesses and Dogs in Japan: The unfortunate side effect of rising pet ownership in Japan.
5. Schism in China's Leadership? Who's really in charge, Hu or Jiang?

As Tamara K. writes, many gun manufacturers are located in liberal states (via The Countertop Chronicles):

Why, in Shiva's name, do gunmakers persist in locating themselves in states with anti-gun and (dare I say it?) anti-free-enterprise laws?

A small sampling:

Illinois: Springfield Armory, ArmaLite, Rock River Arms, Les Baer.

Massachussetts [sic]: Smith & Wesson.

Connecticut: Ruger, Mossberg, Colt (the state of CT, along with the labor union, are actually part owners of this once-great firm.)

New York: Kimber, Kahr, Remington.Maryland: Beretta USA.

Let's see: If I were to compile a list of states with lousy anti-freedom laws and draconian gun regs, and states where gun manufacturers ply their trade, I'd have darn near 100% overlap. I mean, really, is there one state on that list to which any gun owner with a mere moiety of her marbles intact would want to move?

Well, it's not just gun makers. I always have wondered why some of the big names among conservatives (or "neo-cons" if you like) who work in the metro-DC area choose to live in "blue" suburbs in Maryland and Delaware, rather than those in "redder" Virginia. What gives? Is it limousine conservatism?

What some Iraqis are doing in the aftermath of yet another milestone in the path for democracy in the Middle East (go to the link and click on the video).

As some commenters on Omar's blog put it, it's all Bush's fault.

Now it's official, says the Associated Press (via Seattle Times), about the allegedly declining civility in the United States.

I don't know whether the report accurately reflects the state of our society (after all, the survey is about how people feel about rudeness in the country), but from my personal experience, it seems to be the case. Particularly egregious, in my view, is the way young people and children behave. There does not seem to be much emphasis in teaching them how to behave like young gentlemen and ladies anymore.

Obviously, their parents are at fault:

Peggy Newfield, founder and president of an etiquette-instruction company called Personal Best, said the generation that came of age in the times-a-changin' 1960s and 1970s are now parents who don't stress the importance of manners, such
as opening a door for a female.

More:

An overwhelming 93 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll faulted parents for failing to teach their children well.

"Parents are very much to blame," said Newfield, whose Atlanta company started teaching etiquette to young people and now focuses on corporate employees. "And the media."

More:

Yvette Sienkiewicz, 41, a claims adjuster from Wilmington, Del., recalled in frustration how a bigger boy cut in front of her 8-year-old son as he waited in line to play a game at the local Chuck E. Cheese.

"It wasn't my thing to say something to the little boy," said Sienkiewicz, who remembered that the adult accompanying the child never acknowledged what he had done.

This isn't just the trend in the U.S., by the way. I see this happening in other parts of the world. Korean and Japanese parents, too, for example, let their kids run wild with nary an apology to those around them who are negatively affected by their behavior.

Once my parents were out eating at a restaurant in Korea some years ago. A young couple with a child was eating next table over. The kid started to jump on the table and hopped on to my parents' table! My father, the old Confucian that he was, rebuked the child, only to face the wrath of the young couple. They both screamed at my father that 1) the boy was not his child, so he had no right and 2) he was breaking the boy's "spirit" and lowering his "self-esteem" with the censure. See, the feel-good self-esteem disease has spread far beyond the West.

Of course, this being a Seattle newspaper, it had to tout the myth of the polite Seattle:

Seattleites may be politer than the norm; the city was ranked the nation's third-most-polite in January by Marjabelle Young Stewart, author of more than a
dozen etiquette books.

I kinda wrote about that earlier in the same newspaper:

Many Seattleites, citing politeness of personal interactions and the relatively low (for a major urban area) violent crime rate of Seattle, claim that Seattle is a high-civic-minded city. One former neighbor and area native proudly declared to me that Seattleites have a strong sense of community while Eastsiders in comparison are individualistic and selfish, a sentiment I often hear from other neighbors as well.

However, neither polite-but-passive-aggressive interactions nor disinclination to commit crimes that are still vigorously prosecuted speaks much about true civic sense. The real test of whether a community holds such a value dearly, indeed, is how its residents obey regulations that are rarely if ever enforced. In other words, the true test of civic mindedness is whether members of the community follow rules, the violation of which incurs little if any cost to perpetrators.

In this regard, Seattle does not deserve as high a grade as many Seattleites think it does. It isn't simply about uncollected dog poop. It is also about stopping cars for pedestrians, especially at crosswalks, parking without blocking other people's driveways and a myriad of other small things on the edge of law and politeness.

In fact, in Seattle so often do I see cars parked on sidewalks, blocking pedestrian traffic, as well as cars racing by as I patiently wait for them to stop at crosswalks in residential areas, that I am temporarily convinced I am in some less-developed part of Asia where such behavior is routine.

So far, admittedly anecdotally, I find NoVA folks to be less impolite than Seattle folks. I see far more men (and women!) opening doors for others, especially women. Maybe it's because NoVA is still a part of the South where "manners" are emphasized or maybe it's because it is more conservative than Seattle where chivalry is dead due to the pernicious effects of ultra-feminism.

When I hold doors open for women (my father taught me well) here, I am often faced with a bright smile and a hearty "Thank you, sir!" far more often than was the case in Seattle.

Some keys words from an MSNBC report about the Iraqi constitution vote: high turnout, minimal violence, many in Sunni areas voting "yes."

As in the historic January vote, yet again the Iraqis silence the petulant critics of our effort in Iraq. Wanting freedom and rule of law is not just a Western value, it is a universal desire.

We -- Americans and most Iraqis who wish to live in freedom and stability -- are winning ugly, but two steps forward, one step back, we ARE winning. I just wish our electorate would show the same faith in the process as the Iraqi voters are showing.

A quick follow-up to my earlier entry about food in NoVA:

I tried another restaurant on Cowen's must-eat list, Myanmar Restaurant (7810-C Lee Highway, Falls Church). Cowen called it a "knockout," so I had very high hopes. Alas! The overall experience was awful.

We went last night about 8:30 PM. We were seated right away, but had to wait about 30 minutes for menus and water. From sitting down it took 45 minutes for our appetizers to arrive, and a full hour before we had our noodle dishes. The appetizers were drenched in what seemed to be soy sauce and were cold (they were supposed to be warm). The beef in one of the dishes tasted rotten (fully cooked, but rotten).

The food was disappointing, the service exceptionally slow. This restaurant is a classic example of being inexpensive, but having very low quality-to-price ratio due to the fact that the quality/taste of the food was even lower than price. We will not return.

This is, after all, Guns AND Butter.

Those who know me well know that food is very important to me. As I often say, Koreans are like Italians. They live to eat, not eat to live. I wrote earlier of the restaurants I miss in Seattle.

Well, Northern Virginia is awash in ethnic restaurants. The area is rapidly becoming the third best in the diversity of restaurants after NYC and L.A. (I am not a big fan of ethnic diversity for the sake of some "kumbaya" notion of diversity for its own sake, but I do love the fact that ethnic diversity brings in a lot of different kinds of restaurants).

So how do I go about trying restaurants? As Newton said, "shoulders of giants." Why re-invent the wheel? Local fellow gun lover Countertop led me to Tyler Cowen's review of NoVA ethnic restaurants.

Now, this man, Cowen, speaks my culinary language. So, with much optimism, I started my trek to some of the restaurants listed in his review.

1. Seoul Soondae (4231-L Markham St., Annandale). For those of you who don't know, Soondae is Korean blood sausage (pork intestine stuffed with meat, rice, noodles and blood). The portions at this restaurant were large. The food, including Soondae, was very good, pretty authentic. The price was quite reasonable, almost cheap. I will definitely return.

Unlike many Seattle-area Korean restaurants, by the way, there was no -- that is zero -- non-Korean at the restaurant when I visited, except my wife.

2. Yil-Mee/Il-Mee (7031-4A Duke St., Annandale, just west of George Mason branch of Fairfax County library; second branch 14015 Lee Jackson Highway, Chantilly). I tried the Chantilly restaurant. This is a Korean buffet. You can pick your raw beef, spicy pork, squid, shrimp and fish along with a myriad of Korean "Banchan" (side dishes), bring them back and a waitress will start the grill and sets you going (if not too busy, she will also cook the food).

I had a real reservation about going to a buffet. My experience has been that Korean buffets often have inferior cuts of meat and old side dishes. This place, as Cowen pointed out, had good cuts of meat and fresh side dishes. The price is pretty reasonable for a buffet ($17.95 per person for dinner). I've been there twice already, and it is definitely a keeper when your're hungry.

Another benefit of going to a Korean buffet is that you can pick your own side dishes. Normal Korean restaurants will provide free side dishes on demand, but it's hard to pick and choose in an overly particular fashion. No such worry at a buffet. You just pick whatever side dishes you want and heap it on!

3. Le Matin de Paris (4217 Annandale Center Drive; another location at 7326-A Little River Turnpike, Annandale). I tried the second location. Most Westerners are under the impression that Koreans (or Asians in general) don't do desserts or bakery foods well. My wife had that stereotype as well. She was pleasantly surprised. The cookies here were very yummy, yet low in sugar (it's the flour). My wife made me go back and pick up more cookies (that are supposedly baked with flour imported specially from S. Korea). The Bingsoo (shaved ice with fruits or sweet beans) was good, but not exceptional. As a specialty store, the price is on the high side.

4. Cho's Garden (Chowon Garden; 9940 Lee Highway, Fairfax, half mile west on 50 from Fairfax Circle). I actually visited this place before I moved permanently to NoVA and before I saw Cowen's review. I was driving on 50 and just found it, so I tried it. The Korean BBQ here is excellent. The spicy port is particularly good. The place is nicely decorated without making the price high.

5. I also tried Woo Lae Oak (Centreville) and Yechon (Herndon). These appear on Cowen's lists too, but listed as located in Annandale (Koreatown). I guess they are second branches. Food was above average at both places, but quality-to-price ratio was unexceptional compared to, say, Seoul Soondae. Both are on the glitzy side, decoration-wise.

6. Pad Thai (11199-E Lee Highway, Fairfax or Chantilly?). Lest the above items make it seem that I am going about only looking for Korean restaurants, rest assured that I've tried tons of Thai restaurants in Loudoun County. Simply put, they all suck. Really badly. Atrociously. Pad Thai with tomato sauce ("American" Pad Thai) rather than tamarind paste. Everywhere! None could serve a decent Tom Kah soup.

Pad Thai, the restaurant, was a welcome change. Pad Thai noodles were brown-tannish with tamarind paste. Very good. Penag curry was excellent, full of vegetables unlike meat-only ones found at inferior places I tried. Until I find a better Thai place, this is my top choice close to home. It also has lots of seafood on the menu (especially squid!), which I am itching to try.

Having said that, the stuff I tried did not quite measure up to Chillies Paste in Seattle. But that's a pretty high bar.

7. Sichuan Village (14005 Lee Jackson Highway (Rt.50), just east of Rt.28, Chantilly). The verdict from my wife after eating here? "Whoa! Our palate was ruined by bland Chinese food in Seattle!" Sichuan Village is spicy like Sichuan food is supposed to be. This place serves both "authentic Sichuan" food and "American Chinese" food. I avoided the latter. It has frog legs, rabbit, lamb and other fun items. Avoid the buffet. Supposedly the chef here was trained at the Sichuan Culinary Academy. I don't know if that's true or not, but I was so happy that I was able to have real Sichuan food after so many years of bland Cantonese food in Seattle (real bad Cantonese food at that). Yes, we're going back.

8. Malaysia Kopitiam (1827 M St., between 18th and 19th Avenue NW). Wahoo! I finally had ABC Ice Kachang again! Tyler Cowen is absolutely right that one cannot go wrong with Malay food. The glitzy place in Reston didn't do it for me, but this one definitely did (no Sambal Squid, though). Food is good, prices are low. What more can you ask?

And, no, it did not quite measure up to Malay Satay Hut in Seattle, but that, too, is a rather lofty standard as MSH legitimately claims to be one of the best Malay restaurants in the US. I am just happy that I found a place that serves ABC Ice Kachang, finally. Guns and Butter is very grumpy when he does not get it during hot summers. It was hot here during the summer and I got no ABC Ice Kachang. Now it's cooler and I know where to go for ABCIK kick.

I just realized, by the way, I didn't even find out whether Malaysia Kopitiam serves Black Pepper Crab.

9. Minerva (10364 Lee Highway, Fairfax; a smaller branch in Herndon, 2443-GI Centreville Rd.; the website lists two more locations, Chantilly, VA and Atlanta, GA) . Cowen gives effusive praise of Minerva. Maybe the two locations he listed are good. I tried the Chantilly location, and was very disappointed. The service was non-existent. The weekend brunch buffet selection was small and below average. While spicy to some extent, the food was mostly uninspiring and, frankly, boring. The restaurant was physically very messy. We won't be going back, at least to the Chantilly location.

10. I tried loads of neighborhood Chinese takeout joints around where I live in Loudoun County. Almost all were uniformly bad. I have a pretty low sense of expectation for American Chinese, but these were really bad. An exception is China Taste (Oldtown Ashburn, 20630 Ashburn Rd.). No, this does not appear on Cowen's list, but one is looking for really nicely done American Chinese-style beef with garlic sauce, this place hits the spot.

Its ad proudly proclaims "Cooking from NYC." And, by golly, it tastes a lot like NYC neighborhood American Chinese takeout joints I frequented. Here, the beef with garlic sauce has juicy, big, tender strips of beef (not tiny little strips), spicy garlic sauce and lots of "premium" vegetables like bell pepper and baby corn as well as straw mushrooms.

A worthy match for How Lee in Pittsburgh and Taste of China in Iowa City, IA (don't laugh, Taste of China serves better Chinese food than all the ones I tried in Seattle with a sizable Chinese-American population; to be fair, I wouldn't really eat Chinese anywhere else in Iowa).

That's it for now, but not for long. I still have to try other Indian restaurants. I haven't had good Viet food since Tamarind Tree in Seattle. I understand I should visit Eden Center in Alexandria for that. I also have a massive craving for Moroccan and Turkish cuisines (it's been a while since I last had a good Turkish or Cypriot food). Stay tuned.

A review of recent entries in my other blog, The Asianist:

1. Japan Gives But Does China Reciprocate? Japan helps China, but what does China do?
2. North Korean "Bumper Crops" North Korea says that it doesn't need any help due to good harvest.
3. Google Says Taiwan is Part of China... in a round about way.
4. South Korea Convinces Japan to Return Stolen Monument... to North Korea.
5. Chinese Thugs Beat up a Democracy Activist -- right in front of a journalist.

Actually, it's more like Kilgore's gun owner trouble. For those of you who live outside Virginia, my new home state, Jerry Kilgore is the Republican candidate for governor in the upcoming November election this year. His opponent is Tim Kaine, a Democrat who received an F rating from the NRA. Kilgore, on the other hand, received an A from the NRA (more on the election here at RCP).

So what's the problem? The Countertop Chronicles has a raging debate on why some members of the gun-toting Vast Right-wing Conspiracy may abstain from voting this November (I take part in the debate in the comment section).

I will still vote for Kilgore. A still beats F. And, as much as I love guns, I am not a single-issue voter, and there are other issues.

Heaven help us. Not content with attempting to muck our taxes and the legal system, the UN wants to run the Internet too! Wohlstetter writes:

Next month the UN will host a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia, where the EU (figures) has hatched a plot. A more proper translation of the acronym WSIS: World Silences Information Suppliers. With the rise of the Internet the UN now, according to telecom mavens Adam Thierer of the Progress & Freedom Foundation and Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wishes to try to take away Internet governance from the US. The result, the authors rightly predict, would be to paralyze information exchange as those communicating over the Internet face liability from the laws of over 190 countries.

It's bad enough they're coming for my money, but I really, really have to draw the line when they come for my guns and my Internet! A man's gotta have his priorities straight.

Two Korean-American law professors clash over "comparativism," "using foreign ruling to help interpret the Constitution." On the one side is Harold Koh:

Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School, is one of the leading academic proponents of comparativism. Koh is a veteran litigator who led a partly successful and attention-getting battle in the mid-1990s to force the federal courts to grant a broad array of rights to Haitian émigrés, at Guantánamo Bay and on their way to American shores. He also served as President Bill Clinton's assistant secretary of state for human rights from 1998 to 2001. Diplomatic work runs in Koh's family: during the 1950s his father was South Korea's minister to the United States. (The family chose to stay in this country after a 1961 coup.)

Harold Koh loved his work as a Clinton-era diplomat but came to hate some of the American practices he was asked to defend—especially capital punishment. He felt that the death penalty alienated U.S. allies in Europe and Latin America and gave countries in the Middle East and Asia an excuse to ignore American entreaties to improve their human-rights records. Since his term in the State Department ended, Koh has attacked the death penalty as antithetical to American foreign-policy interests, most recently in an amicus curiae brief in Roper. If the United States isn't keeping pace with the rest of the civilized world, Koh argues, then for its own good it needs to change.

On the other side is John Yoo:

One of the leading opponents of comparativism is John Yoo—a former student of Koh's who is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Like Koh, Yoo is of Korean descent; he immigrated to the United States as a child. He took three of Koh's classes at Yale Law School from 1989 to 1992, when Koh was a young professor; he also worked for Koh as a teaching assistant and co-authored a paper about international economic power with him. "I wouldn't be where I am without Harold, without his guidance and support," Yoo told me. Yet Yoo never shared Koh's embrace of international law. His early major academic articles attacked Koh's theories, and he has continued to write skeptically about the delegation of authority to international institutions. In 2001 Yoo went to work for George W. Bush, becoming, along with Koh, one of only three Korean-Americans ever to win a high-level appointment in a U.S. administration. As a deputy assistant attorney general in John Ashcroft's Justice Department, Yoo wrote the memorandum that stripped foreign detainees at Guantánamo Bay and in Afghanistan of the protections of the Geneva Convention, and he co-authored the notorious "torture memo" that justified the administration's authorization of extreme interrogation tactics.

And now, the two clash:

Yoo says he was simply giving the government, as his client, "a good sense of the lines that the law draws." But Koh found Yoo's actions unforgivable. "If a client asks a lawyer how to break the law and escape liability," he said before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, "the lawyer's ethical duty is to say no." Backed by more than 200 law professors and lawyers who expressed similar sentiments in a public statement, Koh called the torture memo "perhaps the most clearly erroneous legal opinion I have ever read."

Yoo says he and Koh have not spoken for some time. In print, however, they continue to clash over the questions raised by Roper and Lawrence. Because foreign judges "are not responsible to the American political system," Yoo argues in an essay that will be published in the Hawaii Law Review, relying on their decisions is at odds with the Constitution. Viewed through this lens, invoking what Kennedy referred to in Roper as "the overwhelming weight of international opinion" is an end run around American democracy. Richard Posner, a federal-appeals-court judge and a law professor at the University of Chicago, agrees. "Such nose-counting is like subjecting legislation enacted by Congress to review by the United Nations General Assembly," he wrote last year in the magazine Legal Affairs.

My earlier column should make it pretty clear on whose side I stand.

Cindy "The Absolute Moral Authority" Sheehan will speak at a synagogue during Yom Kippur services. Judith Klinghoffer writes:

He [Michael Lerner] goes on to argue that "We are not organizing a political rally during Yom Kippur services, but a discussion of our responsibility as Americans." But, of course, an anti-war rally is precisely what this person is organizing. He is politicizing the holiest day of the Jewish calendar in the most self aggrandizing and divisive manner. I am Sorry, I am so furious I cannot think straight. It is difficult for me to believe he would sink this low.

More:

I am sure of one thing, his is not the authentic spirit of Yom Kippur. By the way, in my synagogue, unlike in his, there are no charges or tickets but only donations.

Charles Murray, the author of highly controversial "Bell Curve," stirs up debate about race (or more accurately, innate differences among different groups of people) again in a new article.

The article is long and somewhat technical, but is worth a read as it packs numerous interesting concepts together. With some of the concepts, I agree. With others, I do not. The crux of his argument seems to be:

These observations represent my reading of a body of evidence that is incomplete, and they will surely have to be modified as we learn more. But taking the story of the black-white IQ difference as a whole, I submit that we know two facts beyond much doubt. First, the conventional environmental explanation of the black-white difference is inadequate. Poverty, bad schools and racism, which seem such obvious culprits, do not explain it. Insofar as the environment is the cause, it is not the sort of environment we know how to change, and we have tried every practical remedy that anyone has been able to think of. Second, regardless of one's reading of the competing arguments, we are left with an IQ difference that has, at best, narrowed by only a few points over the last century. I can find nothing in the history of this difference, or in what we have learned about its causes over the last ten years, to suggest that any faster change is in our future [boldface mine].

But the money lines, for me, are:

Elites throughout the West are living a lie, basing the futures of their societies on the assumption that all groups of people are equal in all respects. Lie is a strong word, but justified. It is a lie because so many elite politicians who profess to believe it in public do not believe it in private. It is a lie because so many elite scholars choose to ignore what is already known and choose not to inquire into what they suspect. We enable ourselves to continue to live the lie by establishing a taboo against discussion of group differences.

And:

Steven Pinker put that ideal in today's language in "The Blank Slate," writing that "equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group" [boldface mine].

What to do with Lenin's embalmed body seems to be a big topic in Russia, with the proposition to bury it gaining support (while communists, of course, vehemently object to the proposal).

The burial, should it take place, would put an exclamation mark on the death of communism.

Agence France-Presse via Jordan Times:

Burhan Ghalioun, a professor of political sciences at the Sorbonne University in Paris, said Arab governments only have themselves to blame for the situation in Iraq after sitting on their hands after Saddam's fall.

"Every single Arab country thinks only of its own personal interests and how to protect its regime, rather than strive to establish a regional entity capable of protecting everyone," he said.

"Iran has always had influence over Iraq [even before the war], the same way it has had influence over Syria and Lebanon, and that is due to the absence of any effective role by the Arab League in the region," Ghalioun added.

Some two-and-a-half years after Saddam was toppled, an official Arab League delegation has just visited Baghdad to prepare the ground for what, remarkably, would be the first visit to the country by the organisation's head Amr Musa.

Many Iraqis feel the 22-member league has not provided enough support for the country's post-war reconstruction and has been slow to condemn the largely Sunni-backed insurgency that regularly targets Shiites and Kurds.

The article is full of usual dire warnings that Iraq will explode into a civil war and that the concerns from the surrounding Sunni majority states are merely "security concerns," rather than "political" ones, but the tone makes it clear that these states are worried about 1) absence of outside Sunni influence in Iraqi government and 2) domestic political repercussions for the surrounding states of a real Iraqi constitution.

Iraqis had a real election in January. Now they are going to have a real constitution, whatever its flaws. This must put a terrible pressure on the other authoritarian Arab regimes around Iraq.

To be fair, however, the concern over Iranian influence on Iraq is legitimate, and is something we Americans ought to share with these Sunni majority states. Unfortunately, for the moment, our government seems to be paying lip service to preventing Iranian domination of Shiite Iraq, as Iranian-backed militias and parties seems to be enjoying some support from the US government -- perhaps because they are useful in combating the largely Sunni terrorists.

Haaretz reports:

Syria's interior minister, who ran Lebanon as security chief until 2003, committed suicide Wednesday, days before the expected release of a United Nations report into the assassination of a former Lebanese leader, Syria's official news agency reported.

More:

But Kenaan was intelligence chief in Lebanon from 1982 until 2003, presiding over Syria's control of its neighboring country. He then headed Syria's powerful Political Security Directorate until becoming Interior Minister in October 2004.

Obviously, the first question that should come up is whether the investigation had anything to do with the "suicide," but the second question that pops into my mind is whether it was indeed suicide at all.

Gullyborg thinks that President Bush will or should (I cannot tell) nominate Gramm for Greenspan's position when the latter retires January:

Let's review:

Ph.D in economics

Former professor of economics at Texas A&M.

Former Representative from Texas.

Former Senator from Texas.

Did you make that "Texas" connection?

Gramm was the Senate force behind Ronald Reagan's tax cuts. He was a sponsor of the Gramm-Rudman Act.

He was the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee.

Since retiring from politics, he has been an executive officer with UBS international banking.

Not a bad choice, I think. But choosing yet another Texan might bring about yet another round of "cronyism!" chorus.

My feeling about the latest prize announcement is perfectly captured by this cartoon.

Increasingly, the award seems to be about rewarding those who oppose the Bush administration more than anything else.

Original Seattle Times link here (may req. reg.):

Brace for the U.N. tax man

By James J. Na
Special to The Times

When I extolled the virtues of our federal system of government in a previous column ("Sovereignty, from sea to sea," Times op-ed, Sept. 21), I left out an unfortunate and pernicious side effect of having a government of multiple jurisdictions — taxes.

Multiple layers of government, while encouraging balance of power and competing regulatory ideas, also mean multiple layers of taxation. In Seattle, this means the federal government, state government, King County and the city of Seattle all take their pick at one's paycheck, business, house, car and, of course, purchases of goods, including gasoline.

The complexity and opaqueness of all these taxes and their attendant regulations are so arcane that they keep legions of accountants and tax lawyers employed to make sense of them all, acting as a huge drag on economic activities of the nation.

Yet, if Seattleites thought that the statewide gasoline tax was the last word on taxation debate for now, there is another thing coming their way: global taxation.

Unbeknownst to many Americans, the United Nations — yes, that organization of endemic cronyism and corruption, oil-for-food scandal and sex abuse by "blue helmets" — has been attempting for years to levy global taxes, particularly on wealthy nations.

Despite the best efforts of John Bolton, the Bush-appointed U.S. ambassador to the U.N., to defeat such schemes, yet another incarnation of global taxation made its appearance in the U.N. World Summit outcome document last month.

The document refers to "the establishment of timetables by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product for official development assistance by 2015." It then goes on to tout "the value of innovative sources of financing, provided those sources do not unduly burden developing countries."

Translation: Selected rich countries, including the United States, should be obligated to transfer their wealth to poor nations by what is, in effect, a global income tax (after the U.N. siphons off its "administrative costs," of course). The document also makes a specific mention of one such "innovative source" of funding in the form of "a contribution on airline tickets," i.e., a global taxation on air travel, reputedly pushed by France.

According to the Center for Individual Freedom, other "innovative" global-taxation schemes under discussion in and out of the U.N., in addition to the air-travel tax, include an e-mail tax, a "carbon" tax on gasoline, coal, oil and natural gas, a currency-transaction tax and an aviation-fuel tax. There are apparently other global-taxation ideas, including taxes on arms trade, ocean dumping, commercial fishing, satellites, electronic spectrum and international advertising.

These taxes would be in addition to, not in lieu of, the myriad of taxes that Americans are already subjected to by varying layers of jurisdictions within the United States.

Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media Report, has been tracking these global-taxation efforts tirelessly. Kincaid, quoting U.N. adviser Jeffrey Sachs, writes that the U.N. proposed "Millennium Development Goals" associated with the summit document would "obligate the U.S. to spend an additional $845 billion in foreign aid" above what it already contributes. To give a sense of scale, that figure is close to half of the French gross national product in 2004.

Recognizing the danger, the U.S. Senate has sprung into action. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., along with 17 co-sponsors, is in the process of proposing legislation that "would require the withholding of United States contributions to the United Nations until the president certifies that the United Nations is not engaged in global-taxation schemes."

The vast dollar figure is outlandish enough for most Americans, but beyond the money, the underlying ideology behind global taxation is far more sinister. The left, while raising the phony specter of a fascist theocracy in the United States, has been ridiculing the right's fear of "one world government." But the ability to tax is one of the surest manifestations of sovereignty and, as such, the acceptance of global taxation under the disguise of international development aid is an alarming precedent for international intrusion into what has been traditionally the domain of sovereign national governments.

No reasonable critic of global taxation is suggesting that Americans would be subjected to one world government overnight. But if we accept such precedents, inch-by-inch, step-by-step, we will creep toward "global governance," another euphemism for one world government, and will gradually relinquish our unique American way of life.

A lot of so-called conservatives in Seattle supported the monorail idea. I was vehemently opposed. Yes, people called me names. They said I was being obdurate, that even conservatives had to acknowledge that "something" had to be done to alleviate traffic. Well, I grew up on the East Coast. I experienced the Big Dig. I knew where this would be headed.

So it seems that the monorail is now dead. But do I get my money back? The hundreds of dollars I had to pay for the mythical project that never arrived? A big fat NO. If a private business did this (promise product, collect money, not deliver it and then keep the money AND continue to charge for the non-delivery), it'd be fraud and be prosecuted.

But that's government for ya. Project, no project, doesn't matter. Takes my money first and then asks questions later. Well, at least I won't be paying any more fees or taxes for a dead project now that I am in NoVA. I voted with my feet.

Earlier I posted Frum's sharp words about Miers. Now, Discovery's own John C. Wohlstetter posits the possibility that Miers might be "Hillary with a Texas Accent"! Quoting a Dallas newspaper, he writes:

(1) One longtime female friend said "Not only did Harriet never tell a joke, she never laughed. She might smile so she didn't look stern. But she would never say anything snide." (Emphasis added.) Trust anyone who never laughs?

(2) One Dallas City Council opposing candidate who lost to Miers in 1989 (she served one two-year term) said: "I know she will be an advocate for women and minorities. I wouldn't label her as a conservative or a liberal." She would be a centrist. That she was a Republican didn't stand in the way of fair play and her being fair minded." (Sooner or later, "centrists" oft "Go Hollywood" inside the Beltway.)

Additionally, there is the recusal issue, about which Wohlstetter writes in the American Spectator. Because of Miers' White House work:

If Miers also recuses this would deprive the Administration of two votes in a vital case where every vote is needed to prevail. This case is of utmost import, involving how suspects may be interrogated and whether they may be detained without criminal process. Only two votes -- Scalia and Thomas -- seem likely to affirm; four are very unlikely (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer); one (Kennedy) is iffy. With Roberts sidelined the O'Connor successor's vote in this case is essential to reach a 4-4 affirmation on appeal.

... in attempting to control the Internet, by blocking Blogger (the same service that powers this very blog).

I am very sad that enlightenend Saudis won't be able to read "Guns and Butter Blog." Where will they get their dose of gun-loving, epicurean misanthrope view of the world?

Seriously, a society that doesn't let people hear gun-loving, epicurean misanthrope view of the world is a very sad, sad place.

In response to an article in the Economist suggesting that America is an empire, I wrote back and my response appeared on the same journal on August 30th, 2003:

SIR – America most certainly is not an empire. Though it inherited the geopolitical mantle of ensuring world stability from previous imperial powers, it lacks two essential traits of past empires. First, empires used conquest to plunder the resources of the periphery to enrich the centre. No empire has ever engaged in the likes of the Marshall Plan to benefit the vanquished as America has. The United States will spend billions to stabilise Afghanistan and Iraq rather than benefiting materially from them. Second, America does not send out colonialists to people the upper stratum of the populations of the societies it defeats militarily nor do we shuffle various population groups to ensure control.

We may seem like a duck and we may even quack like a duck. But we most certainly do not walk like a duck, thumping over others with heavy feet (or jackboots). Despite our enormous power, we walk rather softly—and benevolently.

Spengler makes a similar point in the review of Robert Kaplan's recent book "Imperial Grunts":

Therein lies the great difference between America's global police exercise and a true empire. Cultural insularity forms only part of the explanation for America's maladroitness. The other explanation is money. The main object of empire is to loot the colonies and get rich quick. Between 1760, when Robert Clive drove the French from India, and 1780, nearly 300 returning East India Company servants bought their way into England's landed gentry. The high aristocracy swelled with the ranks of West Indian planters and East Indian nabobs (governors) during the 19th century. [1]

A likely lad from a middle-class family with a bit of education and some social connections would choose imperial service as the fastest route to wealth or prestige. Where there is a great deal of wealth, there is also prestige. Men like Burton or Lawrence made their reputation as soldiers and writers rather than as traders, but the imperial flow of wealth underwrote the career choices of the British elite.

The flow of wealth from the empire was the pillar on which Britain's economy stood, funding Britain's growing net creditor position with the rest of the world.

In contrast, America does not extract wealth from others:

Americans have no empire, and therefore nothing whence to extract wealth. To the extent America might be said to have an imperial back garden it is South America, whose economic relations with America are of trivial importance. America buys oil from the Middle East, enriching the locals, but its oil companies do not make a thousandth of the scale of profits that imperial traders made in South Asia a century ago.

China forms America's most important foreign economic relationship, accounting for a quarter of its payments deficit, but I do not know anyone who characterizes that relationship as imperial. The Chinese are their own masters, and the trade relationship benefits both sides.

Though Spengler does not extrapolate further, there is a reason why America never created an empire for wealth whereas the British did.

Colonial-era Britain was a socially stifling place where a class system retarded meritocratic success. Thus ambitious middle-class youths, despite the education and resources, could not advance their station at home. Thus, they went abroad where class system mattered less (a Brit overseas was a colonial master whatever his station at home), accumulated wealth and status through conquest, heroism and trade and came home landed gentlemen.

In contrast, we in American have the most free, open and dynamic, yet stable and safe economy in the world. We have enormous opportunity for those who are ambitious, smart and educated. Our bright youths need not go aboard in search of glory, fame and fortune and can get all of it right here. We need no empire. We are not one.

I don't know whether Bill Bennett is a racist or not. I don't know Bennett.

But there is nothing wrong with what he said. What he said was utterly logical AND principled.

What Bennett essentially argued was that result or effectiveness alone does not justify a policy. A policy must be both efficacious AND morally right (or at least avoid being morally wrong).

It is a FACT that, statistically, African-Americans as a group commit a higher percentage of crime than, say, Anglo-Americans or Asian-Americans. Mathematically and logically, this means if we were to kill all African-Americans, the overall crime rate may go down. But ones does not even have to argue the fact that such a policy would be morally evil. Utterly so.

This is merely a "ridiculous" example, not a plot to pick on African-Americans or to claim somehow that being African causes one to commit crime. One could also substitute that category with other artificial groupings such as men, young people, low-income groups or whatever (most violent crimes are committed by young men; eliminate them = lower crime rate).

Bennett's point that an effective, but morally reprehensible policy cannot and should not be implemented or even considered in the first place is eminently sensible. So why the outcry?

I suspect two things:

1. Liberals who would like to demonize Bennett ("racist!" is now for the Left what "communist!" was for the Right earlier).

2. African-Americans who are sensitive about the fact that ON AVERAGE, yes, Africans-Americans -- if one were to categorize statistics based on "race" -- account for a large share of the crime rate in the US, and wish to silence any mention of such fact in public. Perhaps it's embarrassing.

The first group is not even worth countering. The second group deserves a considered response. I personally think that "race" is biologically a very nebulous concept. The study of genetics has shown that skin tone is indeed skin deep; people in a particular "race" can differ genetically with each other far more than those outside such a group.

Although it is naturally human psychology to want to categorize everything, including people, into discrete, separate categories, human beings seem to exist in a continuum. Witness how people change ever so gradually from, say, Beijing to, say, Berlin. One cannot definitively say where Asians stop and where Europeans begin. There is NO definitive point of separation.

This is so, because people have always migrated, fought each other, absorbed each other and generally mingled about, forming tribal groups as they went about. Dividing such a wide variety of people into a handful of scientifically imperfect categories of "white, black, brown, yellow" is simplistic, an unfortunate vestige of the pseudo-scientific age of the past.

Today in America, in fact, race is a socio-political construct, something many people use in lieu of tribal or clan identity: a quick, "convenient" way to categorize people in a way that is useful for whatever socio-political agenda they may have.

Surely there is racism today, as there are prejudices about all kinds of other artificially applied categories. But it seems to me that those who constantly elevate "racism" above other illogical prejudices do so to serve their socio-political construct, which in the end perpetuates the very same race-based pseudo-science they supposedly decry.

And these folks seem to be at the forefront of attacking Bennett's sensible and moral, if "politically incorrect," remark.

About the movie "Serenity"?

What's the hype? I never saw the Fox series "Firefly." I never saw an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (regrettably saw the original film).

I saw the trailers for the film, and it seems like a jumble of has-been third-rate sci-fi cliches. Will someone please clue me in about all the hype surrounding it?

My blogroll was in a bad need for an update. I finally sacrificed a few hours and got this done.

You can scroll down and see the improved, updated blogroll on the right side of the blog (divided into sections "National," "Guns," "Asia," "Seattle" and "Elsewhere").

Here is the picture of a fake insignia for the Israeli Bomb Disposal Squad (courtesy of Jerusalem Diaries). This is yet another difference between those who build, and live in, a civilization and those who seek to destroy it. The former have a sense of humor. Humor, for me, is the lubricant of life.

Israelis, in general, seem to be well possessed of this vital quality that eases the ever-present tensions of life. When I was attending a counter-terrorism conference in Israel with Ambassador Bruce Chapman last year, we decided to split up to attend different workshops. Borrowing Bill Murray's line in "Ghost Busters," I jovially remarked "Yeah, that's right. Let's split up. We can do more damage that way." That drew a hearty laughter and a retort, "You don't say that in Israel," from one of the people helping to run the conference (he then went on to say that his humor runs more Monty Python's "Life of Brian").

Speaking of a bomb scare in Jerusalem, I may have been in this car. Judy Balint drove Ambassador Chapman and me around a bit in her car when we visited Jerusalem last September.

Yikes. David Frum's got his knives out (via RealClearPolitcs):

I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated ... I could pile on the praise all morning. But there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or--and more importantly--that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left. This is a chance that may never occur again: a decisive vacancy on the court, a conservative president, a 55-seat Republican majority, a large bench of brilliant and superbly credentialed conservative jurists ... and what has been done with the opportunity? [boldface mine]

More:

The pressures on a Supreme Court justice to shift leftward are intense. There is the negative pressure of the vicious, hostile press that legal conservatives must endure. And there are the sweet little inducements--the flattery, the invitations to conferences in Austria and Italy, the lectureships at Yale and Harvard--that come to judges who soften and crumble. Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is hard for me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse--or resist the blandishments--that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today [boldface mine].

Tell us how you really feel, Mr. Frum!

The latest bombing attacks in Bali will surely derail what had been a slow recovery in the Balinese tourist industry.

I visited Bali in October of 2000. That was before 9/11 and before the October 2002 attack on Bali itself. I really took a liking to Bali then.

While Islam is observed in much of the rest of Indonesia, most Balinese are Hindus. There are in fact ancient Hindu temples on Bali that are breathtakingly beautiful. There are always some sort of Hindu festival, celebration or funeral taking place on Bali, and generally foreigners can take part. The island has had a long tradition of religious tolerance and easygoing lifestyle, something that attracted Western tourists (mainly hippies in the early days) in the first place.

While Bali caters to the tourist industry greatly (after all, tourism gave Balinese perhaps the highest living standard among Indonesians), it is not a synthetic tourist creation. Because the tourists largely flock to the dry beach areas, the interior highlands still have terraced farming, artisans and traditional ways of life. In fact, one Balinese from the hills told me that only Westerners value the "useless, dry beach land that can't be farmed."

I don't know about farming land, but the beaches are exceptionally beautiful, especially that on Jimbaran Bay. There is a fishing village there that provides the ingredients for the beach's famed grilled fish stands. I can still envision the serene sight of fishing boats, the setting sun on the background, the scent and taste of grilled, spiced fish (and, to be frank, the ubiquitous stray dogs that are generally wary of people, but still hang around).

Bali had been an island of calm in the sea of Indonesian instability. Now that peace and tranquility have been shattered twice over.

The first attack in 2002 was centered in Kuta, a noisy tourist trap full of backpackers, discos and peddlers. Now even the quiet Jimbaran Bay no longer offers refuge from terrorist attacks.

Yet another paradise lost, thanks to radical Islamic terrorism.