Today's Links and Minifeatures 2005 08 01 Monday

RINO Sightings is up! Favorites: I Want My CCTV and Santorum on gay marriage, his take and mine

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John Roberts Supreme Court stuff



Captain's Quarters has an excellent post vaguely about Roberts disliking affirmative action. Except for the fact this guy is both a lawyer and a catholic, I haven't found any place where I disagree with him yet. This is scary. Affirmative action needs a stake driven through the heart of the whole concept yesterday, for many different reasons.



Ann Althouse has more on his clerking days. Evidently his writings stood out then for clarity also.



The Sacramento Bee has a good article on how there has been a reduction in abortions of late (which is a very good thing), and how the seemingly correlated decline in abortion related activism has made a difference on how much anti-Roberts activism there has been. It is good that people seem to be planning ahead more, from contraception to emergency anti-pregnancy measures.



Lest I not have made myself clear in the past, I do favor overturning Roe vs. Wade, as it was a bad decision. On the other hand, I also want abortion to be legal, although difficult to obtain, and I can't really think of a case where it should be publicly subsidized. This baby or fetus is at least a potential human being, and the presumption behind having an abortion at all is that it will be born a human baby if nothing happens. I happen to have a serious problem with people who want to kill others because they don't want to put up with a few months of inconvenience. On the other hand, I must concede that in the final analysis, nobody else is in a position to make that decision so much as the woman involved. I may dislike the decision she makes, but she has the right to make it.



Paul Mirengoff of Powerline has a column in The Weekly Standard recommending against non-judges on the Supreme Court.



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Captain's Quarters has a great article, based upon one out of the Washington Post detailing Condolezza Rice's accomplishments in six months, and how she had outdone her predecessor. I'd love to see Condi change her mind and run for president - and her Secretary of State can be George W. Bush!





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Volokh Conspiracy notes that the Washington DC market is cooling off in the footsteps of others such as San Diego.



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Illegal Immigration:



Wizbang spots authority in the tenth amendment for the states to defend the borders if the feds won't. I'd like to see Arnold try it, but I doubt he'd get far.



The Immigration Blog has a great article about $50,000 bounties on American law enforcement officers, as well as another one on WHAT HISPANIC IMMIGRATION MEANS FOR AMERICA.



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According to The Inquirer, the discoverers of the tenth planet wouldn't have announced it for a while longer, if their website hadn't been hacked with the hacker threatenting to release the information. Whereas I kind of see the hacker's point of view, it's not like there are a lot of people awaiting the discovery of a tenth planet so they can die happy. It's not like it's a cheap, easy-to-build FTL drive or anything. It just doesn't make a lot of difference to the average person on the street, and I suspect most astronomers were aware an application to IAU for a tenth planet name was in the works. But in today's academic environment you want to be certain you've got it before you announce it. That's kind of what peer reviewed journals are for.



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Thank you, Senator Robert C. Byrd. May I have another? Japan imposes retaliatory duties. The EU and Canada have already done so.



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Yet another reason not to smoke. Women who smoke while pregnant have about three times the chance of having an unruly child as those who don't.



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My humor style: the Prankster



(43% dark, 34% spontaneous, 22% vulgar)

your humor style:

CLEAN | COMPLEX | LIGHT

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:



You scored higher than 99% on dark



You scored higher than 99% on spontaneous



You scored higher than 99% on vulgar



The 3 Variable Funny Test.



While I was there: The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test

Der Resistance

Achtung! You are 30% brainwashworthy, 13% antitolerant, and 57% blindly patriotic

Welcome to the Resistance (Der Widerstand)! You believe in freedom, justice, equality, and your country, and you can't be converted to the the dark side.



Breakdown: Your Blind Patriotism levels are borderline unhealthy, but you show such a love of people from everywhere and a natural resistance to brainwashing, you would probably focus your energy to fight Fuehrer with furor, so to speak.



Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would have taken up ARMS against the oppressors. Or even your friends' oppressors. Congratulations!



Less than 5% of all test takers earn a spot in Der Resistance!



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Iraq and the War on Terror:



The United States stands on principle and loses a base in central Asia. HT to Austin Bay, who also points us to BBC links. It was the correct thing for the Bush administration to do.



From LGF comes a pointer to this story: Bombing suspect tried to have moderate imam sacked, and also a story about a Hamas Youth Camp



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Worth Reading: President Bush's address to the Boy Scouts at the Jamboree.





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Michelle Malkin has the best round up of the Air America bilk-the-Boys and Girls Club that I've seen. It is past time for their spinning to stop and their damage control to start. Unless, of course, a possibility that crossed my mind while reading Captain's Quarters is correct, and Air America is getting close to the end of the line anyway, like a Ponzi scheme just before the feds show up and arrest the receptionist who didn't know anything. I'd be curious to see their unaltered books. Their "talent" is evidently getting paid too much, because they are apparently going broke.



links John Roberts Supreme Court politics immigration science tariffs iraq terrorism Air America