Links and Minifeatures 12 07 Wednesday

Carnival of the Vanities is up! Recommended: Isaac Schrodinger (Actually worse than what I thought the situation was!), Ruminating Dude (I've written lots of snippets on AMT, including one today, but nothing this in-depth),

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It will come back to bite you, part 77,000. Supreme Court Rules in Student Loan Case. This guy, like many others, probably thought he was being smart by not repaying his student loans. Wrong. He wasted his money on legal fees all the way up to the Supreme Court fighting collection efforts. Just because they don't have any way to enforce collection now doesn't mean they never will. Unpaid student loans never go away - they stay on your credit report, too. I have no sympathy for this clown.



In another case, observers see six of nine justices acting sympathetically with the government case in FAIR vs. Rumsfield, the case that will determine if the government is allowed to withhold money from colleges who do not allow recruiters. Pentagon's case gets sympathies. Excellent! I'm not exactly happy about the military's gay policy, but there are some pretty sharp managers running the military. I have to concede they just might know more about making the military work well than I do - and their job is to make the military work well, not to make certain classes of citizens feel good about themselves. When Harry Truman ordered the integration of the military back in 1947, he did it in consultation with the leadership, and the military became integrated - really integrated - twenty years before the rest of the country seriously tried. They were extremely progressive then, and it's the same culture. Before accusing them of being social neanderthals, maybe we should take some time to understand their thinking.



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YOWZA! They're predicting half a million jobs in construction lost! Hang on to your assets, this could get rough.



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If they had done this in the first place, they might have won, or at least made it a lot uglier: Zawahri urges attacks on oil targets.



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This is moderately good news: U.S. House backs alternative minimum tax patch. It would be extremely good news if it was permanent.



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This explains the ugly black plume of smoke I saw this morning: Gas tanker trailer overturns, catches fire. Could have been much worse, though. It was right across the road from a major storage facility. If that went, the east end of Mission Valley would have been gone.



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Pigilito says has a goor article about assimilation in the United States versus assimilation in Europe. But we still need to require them to learn english if we want them to become truly a part of our society.



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Wizbang has an excellent post on the end of the battleship era, with which I must reluctantly agree. It's true that it's a good thing when your ammunition costs less than the target, and it's a bad thing when the reverse is true. But the Iowa class is just too far outside our current industrial support capabilities. The day of the battleship has been gone since before World War II began.



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Indepundit moves to phase II.



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HT to Volokh Conspiracy for a pointer to a Affordable Housing Institute article on how there's been a lot of wind but not much action on Kelo, and how even that is petering out. Go back to what I wrote for more analysis on how to deal realistically with the issue.



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Think of it as evolution in action: Federal air marshals shot and killed a man Wednesday who said he had a bomb



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Sixty-four years ago today, the United States was ambushed by the Japanese. Pearl Harbor was only the first of several coordinated attacks. We had been negotiating with their ambassadors for months. These negotiations were not in earnest; the Japanese had no intention of reaching an agreement, or of abiding by any agreement that was reached. They were simply lulling us with a false sense of security that while negotiations were in progress, they surely would not attack. Sixty-four years ago every congressman but one managed to figure out the implications. Have we become that much stupider, that much more gullible, or is a large segment of our population fixated on "If you really, truly, believe," type fairytales.



For those who were there and did their best with what they could, I will remember. I will make certain my children remember. But even if every one who fought and everyone who remembers is gone, the fact of what you accomplished will remain. Those of you who were there, and those of you who responded in our hour of need, kept the light of liberty alive for another generation. Millions, even hundreds of millions, lived free lives, better lives, because of what your deeds. No careless, forgetful human can ever erase that.



It seems wholly inadequate, but Thank You.