Everything you ever wanted to know about the California recall rules in one article. Found via a conversation Spoons was having with himself on another site.

The terrorists may as well stop running. They'll only die tired.
-- Ranger Bill

OpinionJournal: Model Injustice What are Ashcroft's trustbusters doing on New York's catwalks?
A common defense of John Ashcroft is that he's just enforcing the law. Not a very nuanced defense when you consider that the Justice Department has limited resources and can't possibly enforce all of the laws on the books. How the Attorney General allocates these limited resources speaks volumes about his priorities.

For instance, on 9/11 FBI agents were spying on hookers in New Orleans. Prostitution is definitely a state issue, unless interstate commerce is involved. A bad allocation of resources in an area outside the federal government's purview. Since then he's misallocated resources against medical marijuana, assisted suicide for terminal patients, all issues favored by the states in question, yet Ashcroft pursued these initiatives when he should have focused on terrorism.

Now he's after runway models. We need a new Attorney General. One with his priorities in order.

Despite how peerless a model looks wafting down Prince Street, Ford's Web site offers a cookie-cutter checklist for a successful model: Between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11, and willowy. The agency is blunt: "Clothing for runway shows and magazine shoots tends to come in one size. If you can't fit into a designer's garments, you will face difficulty in finding work." That said, the raw material is abundant; it even seeks you out. But models are highly perishable; agencies have only a short time to recoup their investment in turning awkward fillies into thoroughbreds for a discriminating and impatient clientele.

According to the suit, 95% of models at top agencies are charged the 20% cut. The ones who aren't are those with faces known to the public. These are the golden girls who keep agencies solvent, who maintain the brand's prestige and allow investment in the next crop of peaches. Those who don't make the exalted grade would probably find fewer opportunities in the modeling business if the agencies couldn't sustain a commission structure that made their investment in representing them profitable.

A final philosophical question: Whose business is it really what modeling agencies charge for their services? They don't own an "essential facility" necessary for life and well-being. The investigators should think hard about what public purpose is served by chasing down people who've entered into voluntary contractual relationships in a business that is beyond the Justice Department (or anyone else) to make economic sense of.

"Those who create," Coco Chanel said, "are rare. Those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger." That is the bureaucrat's ode, illustrated again by the antitrust division's attempt to force another industry into a facile economic mold.

U.S. Develops Fast-Acting, One-Shot Ebola Vaccine (washingtonpost.com)
This excerpt is just the intro. Read the rest.

Government scientists have developed a vaccine against the Ebola virus that works rapidly after a single injection, an unexpected success that means the nation could soon have a defense against one of the most fearsome potential weapons in the terrorist arsenal.

Schwarzenegger to Run for Governor (washingtonpost.com)
I haven't been posting on the will-he-or-won't-he candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger since the recall got approved because there was nothing to add. I wanted him to run but he was being suspiciously evasive. I think he's planned it all along because he knows that Gray Davis is a nasty campaigner and he said as much on Leno tonight. He seems ready for the tabloid stories about womanizing and the like.

Now that it's really a two-man race -- Davis has to be recalled first -- Davis will tear into him. Arnold does have an excellent point in saying he's not beholden to anyone because he has enough money to fund his own campaign. That kind of detachment will be needed to fight back the special interests when budget time comes around. Basically he'll be able to ignore them when he cuts into their pet programs.

I think this is a good thing. Thankfully I don't live in California, but if I did he'd get my vote.

Film star Arnold Schwarzenegger announced this evening that he will be a candidate in California's recall election this fall, a decision that startled political leaders across the state and immediately transformed the already tumultuous campaign.

For the past two weeks, Schwarzenegger had allowed his top advisers to suggest that he was strongly leaning against running on the recall ballot as a potential successor to Gov. Gray Davis (D) if voters remove him from office. But the Hollywood icon kept his intentions private until an appearance late today on NBC's "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

"The man who has failed the people more than anyone is Gray Davis. He has failed them terribly," Schwarzenegger, a Republican, told Leno. "This is why I'm going to run for governor."

Later, he told reporters that he intends to restore California's "disastrous" finances and challenge the influence that he said special interests have on the state's government. He also said he will fund his campaign only with his own money. "I will go to Sacramento, and I will clean house," he said.

Sgt. Hook steals my thunder with a wonderful Jefferson quote and has this to say about a possible future deployment to Afghanistan:

Most soldiers spend their entire careers training to perform their duties under combat conditions, but rarely do they ever see combat. Since September 11, 2001, however, that statistic is changing drastically. The majority of the soldiers are OK with that, in fact, I'd venture to say that many are eager to deploy in defense of our nation. Not because we are some kind of war mongers or want to be heroes, but because its a natural feeling for a soldier to want to fight back after some evil persons have attacked, and continue to threaten, our home and our way of life.

I imagine there are some trepidations among the troops as well. Not so much out of a fear for their lives, but for the wellbeing of the families they'll leave behind. Though the 25th ID has been flagged for the upcoming rotations (Operation Enduring Freedom 5 & 6), no specific units have yet been identified as going, causing still more angst and uncertainty I'm sure. Yet, I see in the eyes of my soldiers an uncanny amount of pride and determination. I'll say this though, if my unit is tagged to go, bad guys beware. Sgt Hook out.

Spoons and Curmudgeonly & Skeptical have it exactly right: the Senate Republicans need to quit being spineless turds and hold a real filibuster, like in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Instead, as one commenter put, no-one is even willing to make "Ted Kennedy miss happy hour at the Drunken Clam".

One other alternative is to simply use recess appointments. The Senate is out of town right now and President Bush could simply appoint them and be done with it until the next Congress.

Stephen Green does an excellent job of fisking an op-ed piece by John Kerry on North Korea.

Stephen is right: it's not an op-ed piece as much as a campaign commercial, and about as truthful. He ends with a statement of dissatisfaction with Dubya, a common occurrence these days:

George W Bush, so long as he continues to spend recklessly, support the USA PATRIOT act, oppose full rights for gays, keep John Ashcroft, and enable our destroyers in Riyadh, is begging me to support a Democrat in 2004. But if today's piece is a fair example of John Kerry's veracity and national security policies, then Kerry isn't the Democrat I'm looking for.

There's a page dedicated to Gunny Hartman's rants in the movie Full Metal Jacket. Via Sgt. Stryker. Best part of the movie.

The 'Big Media' Myth (washingtonpost.com)
The concept of "media" is changing faster than regulations could ever hope to keep up. We did away with the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" in the 1980's and the result has been an explosion in the talk radio market, mostly on the AM frequencies which aren't suitable for music.

We've seen the number of all-news channels go from one to three in the past ten years. This doesn't even include the blogosphere, which is playing an increasing role in how people receive news. If you don't like cable you can choose satellite. All of this occurred without any federal guidance and regulations, which generally tend to favor existing players to the exclusion of new entrants.

Given the explosion in new media in the last couple of decades, only an idiot could believe "free speech" is imperiled by concentration of ownership. If you disagree, you can start up a blog in a matter of minutes and voice your opinion, thus undermining your own assertion.

Our public debates often fly off into the wild blue yonder of fantasy. So it's been with the Federal Communications Commission's new media-ownership rules. We're told that unless the FCC's decision is reversed, it will worsen the menacing concentration of media power and that this will -- to exaggerate only slightly -- imperil free speech, the diversity of opinion and perhaps democracy itself. All this is more than overwrought; it misrepresents reality.

In the past 30 years media power has splintered dramatically; people have more choices than ever. Travel back to 1970. There were only three major TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC); now, there's a fourth (Fox). Then, there was virtually no cable TV; now 68 percent of households have it. Then, FM radio was a backwater; now there are 5,892 FM stations, up from 2,196 in 1970. Then, there was only one national newspaper (the Wall Street Journal); now there are two more (USA Today and the New York Times).

If you don't like radio, you can listen to a Walkman or pop a CD in your car player; in 1970, people had only bulky stereo systems. The alternative to TV is the VCR (85 percent of households) or, increasingly, the DVD player. Then there's the Internet: everything from foreign news sites to chess to pornography.

The idea that "big media" has dangerously increased its control over our choices is absurd. Yet large parts of the public, including journalists and politicians, believe religiously in this myth. They confuse size with power. It's true that some gigantic media companies are getting even bigger at the expense of other media companies. But it's not true that their power is increasing at the public's expense.

Mr. Cheney's Wisdom (washingtonpost.com)
We can amend our Constitution to say whatever we please, but not all amendments are good ideas. Even more, not all amendments further individual liberty and some even detract from it. An amendment banning gay marriages is one such amendment.

As this Post editorial points out, current federal law already allows states to ignore gay marriages in other states and a Constitutional amendment would set in stone what is already being handled by legislation. Individual states will reach their own conclusions with regard to gay marriage. This whole issue seems like red meat for social conservatives and, with an election coming up, it probably is just that.

Conservatives have often lamented that federalizing traditional state policymaking preempts democratic dialogue within and among states on matters of social controversy. All too often, however, the conservative suspicion of unbridled federal power fades when that power can be deployed to squelch state-level experiments that offend conservative sensibilities. But who exactly is harmed if Massachusetts, New Jersey or some other state decides to take the plunge? As Vice President Cheney eloquently put it during the 2000 vice presidential debate, "I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."

I do disagree with his assertion that federalism is whatever we put in the Constitution. If I'm misreading him, I'm sure he'll correct me. Federalism, if it is to have any meaning at all, has to be at the service of something. For me, that something is individual liberty.

The 14th amendment is a good example of us modifying the federalism the Founders gave us by expanding the scope of the federal government to include seeing that the states provided equal treatment under the law, even at the state level. That amendment, even though it expanded the purview of the federal government, enhanced individual liberty by providing a check against laws at the state level. An amendment that bans gay marriage will do the opposite.

OpinionJournal: Politicians Go Online: They can run, but can they blog?
I've finally figured it out: I'm not snarky enough. I'm sarcastic on occasion, but not nearly enough. I'll have to work on that and quit being so mild-mannered. From now on I'm going to use the word "peckerwoods" in every post as well. [Ed. -- Maybe not.]

I've been following Howard Dean's blog for a couple of weeks now and he seems to be doing a pretty good job. He's still not pinging weblogs.com, a sure sign of a neophyte since he's using MT, but other than that his posts get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of comments. Not bad at all.

Howard Dean, who's Internet-savvy enough to make Al Gore look like a Flat Earther, has made BlogforAmerica.com a centerpiece of his campaign. Dr. Dean himself posts only occasionally--his supporters write most of the entries--but he was more prolific when he showed up last month as a "guest blogger" filling in for a vacationing Stanford law professor. Gary Hart, erstwhile senator and presidential candidate, is also blogging (garyhartnews.com/hart/blog), and others are sure to follow.

But do politicians have what it takes to succeed in the cutthroat world of blogging? Not likely. The best political bloggers--Mickey Kaus (Kausfiles.com), Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit.com) and Andrew Sullivan (AndrewSullivan.com)--all have a contrarian outlook and irreverent humor. Best of the Web Today, my own bloglike daily column on OpinionJournal.com, is filled with snarky references to such favorite targets as Our Friends the Saudis, former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, and Sen. John Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.

Blogging, in short, thrives on sarcasm. Politics doesn't. So it's hardly surprising that Dr. Dean's blog is earnest to the point of sanctimony, all we-can-make-a-difference and let's-build-a-better-America. Last week it featured one Erica Derr of Greensboro, N.C., who was so appalled to get a tax rebate that she donated it to the Dean campaign. "I could have spent this money on material things," she wrote. "What would those things mean 15 or 20 years from now when my daughter is paying for the debt we accrued?"

Stop, mom, this is embarrassing!

UPDATE: Jack Rich over at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has some thoughts on this as well.

FOXNews.com: Indonesia Hotel Blast Kills 15, Wounds Nearly 150
I have never liked the switch from the term "suicide bomber" to the term "homicide bomber". The Bush Administration started using it shortly after 9/11 and Fox has been repeating it ever since. It's wrong. It minimizes the most horrifying -- to me -- aspect, which is the fact that a person would take his own life just to kill others. Besides, anyone who sets off a bomb with the intention of killing others is a homicide bomber, whether he dies as a result or not. It's a misleading term that actually diminishes the horror of the act.

A suspected homicide bombing at the Marriott Hotel (search) created lunchtime carnage in  Jakarta's (search) business district Tuesday, killing 15 people and wounding nearly 150, setting cars afire and scattering glass shards for blocks in a bloody reminder of the continuing threat of terrorism in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

The blast came two days before a verdict in the trial of a key suspect in the Bali (search) nightclub bombings last Oct. 12 that killed 202 people, many of them foreigners. A Dutch banker was among the dead Tuesday, and at least 10 foreigners, including two Americans, were reported injured.

The attack occurred on the first day of testimony in another bombing case by the alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiyah (search), which has been blamed for the Bali bombings. Authorities have linked the group to Al Qaeda and say it hopes to create an Islamic state across Southeast Asia.

Singapore's Straits Times newspaper reported Wednesday that Jemaah Islamiyah claimed responsibility for the bombing. The paper said the claim came from a member of the group, but it did not explain how it obtained the statement or provide other details. It couldn't be immediately determined if the claim was authentic.

This will sound familiar. I want to create a list of the greatest Americans that contributed, either through ideas or actions, to the freedom and prosperity of this country. I know we�ve done this before, but I would like to improve on the methodology by taking order into account and including a broad cross-section of the blogosphere. I�m planning to use the "Borda Count" method of ranking the ballots with a first choice getting 75 points, second choice 74 points, etc.

The reason the maximum is set at 75 -- let go of your chest, Redd Foxx; you don�t have to send in seventy-five, but you must send in at least five or the submission will be discarded -- is to allow a broader cross-section of the country�s history to be taken into account.

I want to make this as broad as possible and would appreciate a link to this message when I post it. I have dug through my blogroll to find as many bloggers � well over 100 when I quit counting -- as I can to send this to and will be posting this exact message as an invitation on my website for other bloggers to make submissions as well, provided they have a blog and meet the other requirements. These are:

• The submission should contain a minimum of five people or it will be discarded.
• The submission should contain no more than 75 people or it will be discarded truncated at 75.
• The order must be readily discernable or the submission will be discarded. Numbering would help.
• If it�s in alphabetical order the submission will be discarded.
• The person making the submission should run a poliblog, as opposed to a diary.

If you are interested you can submit a list, which will be kept private.

Entries will be due at noon, ET, on Sunday 08/10/2003. That's it.

I emailed Meryl, just to tweak her, noting that I had seen her pop up in the comments section of a couple of sites mentioning that two women did make the "Worst Americans" list, while none made the "Greatest Americans" list. I accused her, tongue in cheek, of stirring up trouble in a mild way. Not any more.

There could very well be some sexism when it comes to choosing these lists but it could also be a function of the arbitrary nature of the lists. We're limited to twenty choices. For instance, when I decided to come up with a "Top 50" list of my favorite movies it had 128 entries. Why? Because there are too many good movies to chop the list off at fifty.

Limiting the list to twenty also causes the person making the list to do all sorts of contortions. I included industrialists and one writer because I thought the list should reflect a cross-section of American history. I also looked at my first pass at the list and noted that no women were present. To rectify that I included Rose Wilder Lane and avoided the obvious choice of Susan B. Anthony, abolitionist and suffragette. Why would I do that? My own values and because Rose Wilder Lane is under-appreciated, in my opinion.

Without that tight cap and an ordering scheme I would have probably placed Susan B. Anthony high on the list as long as I would have been able to recognize Rose Wilder Lane at some point later on. Instead, I chose to include Rose Wilder Lane precisely because she is under-appreciated. End result: Susan B. Anthony got the boot.

If we really wanted to make these lists meaningful we would either remove the cap or extend it significantly and force the participants to assign order to the selections. That would help avoid the obvious idiocy of having Bill Clinton listed ahead of Charles Manson on a list of the twenty worst Americans. Another thing we might do is define the criteria a little more narrowly by limiting it to political figures or those who have had a lasting impact on life in this country with regard to freedom.

All lists are subjective by nature, but that doesn't mean that some lists aren't objectively better than others. With broad, largely undefined, criteria and a low cap, the lists we've created aren't as useful as they might be. They spark debate, but not intelligent debate.

For those who are interested, and since Jeff raised the issue, my brother's blog is down for the next month. I'm transitioning him to a new ISP and he's moving from Nashville to Florida for a new job. He won't have internet access again until September. He will be back, however, cheesecake and all. Please don't de-link him. Pretty please.

I've been a big fan of Apple's for a couple of years now. It began with being intrigued by their transition to a Unix-based OS and I purchased my first PowerBook G4. The software situation is getting better but you still need a dedicated FTP client for heavy lifting, whereas in Windows it's built in.

Now Apple has abandoned Motorola and its failed chips in favor of the G5 from IBM, which promises major increases in speed. They will close the speed gap in a year or two and will have good servers on the market running Unix with a friendly interface.

That's not to mention their multimedia devices such as the iPod. I have one and love it. Apple is clearly a company with ideas and great engineers and the online music store is fabulous. I will look there first for albums when shopping for music.

BusinessPundit has a great post on Apple.

Let Iraqis Decide What to Privatize (washingtonpost.com)
The author of this piece cites every democracy on earth to justify socialized industry, but ignores the most important one: the United States. It's not an accident that we are the largest economy on earth and that we drive the rest of the world: we embrace capitalism. Her assertion about Bremer's plan: that it's what's good for them. Neither assumption is true. This last assumption of Bremer's is in fact true. It is what's best for them.

True, other advanced democracies have chosen to socialize specific industries and not one of those countries can hold a candle to the U.S. with regard to productivity. Clearly economics is not her strong suit. There's a strong positive correlation between economic freedom, i.e. capitalism, and prosperity. There's no reason to believe the laws of economics end at U.S. shores and free markets for Iraqis will lead to increased prosperity down the road. If they choose to backtrack after we've turned everything over to them, then let them: it'll be their own doing and their own fault when it fails. In the mean time we should stick with what works: capitalism.

The plan of L. Paul Bremer, chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, to sell government-owned companies to private investors assumes two things: that privatization is what free people anywhere prefer, and that it's what's good for them. Neither assumption is true.

In fact, when it comes to government ownership, highly developed democracies have made very different choices. Its 10 million American customers may be surprised to learn that the German government owns 44 percent of T-Mobile, the cellular phone service provider. In France the government owns 54 percent of Air France, 21 percent of the company that owns RCA and 27 percent of the car manufacturer Renault, which in turn owns 37 percent of Nissan and 70 percent of Samsung. The British government owns 100 percent of the BBC. In Finland the government is the owner of all the liquor stores and 60 percent of an energy company that owns retail gas stations. In Sweden the government is the owner of all pharmacies and several iron mines. It is clear that no assumption can be made regarding what the people of Iraq would want to do with the companies they own. The answer will be known only when Iraq has a fully functioning democracy.

Bremer is also wrong to assert that subjecting government-owned companies to the forces of the free market is necessarily in the best interest of Iraq's people. Democratically elected governments the world over own companies precisely in order to shield them from the market and the profit motive. In some cases this is because other social goals have been deemed more important than profits. In others the purpose is to create a healthy economy that creates good jobs.

Noam Chomsky.

Campaign Financing Reshaped (washingtonpost.com)
In the 2000 campaign President Bush came out against McCain-Feingold, which he signed as President, by stating that full disclosure of donors is all that's needed by way of campaign regulations. He's been true to his word by providing an online database of all of his donors, searchable by state and other criteria. He was right then and he's continuing to play by those same rules. He's been quite consistent on this issue and he's been right all along.

It started as a way to insure that Steve Forbes didn't fight a ruthless primary campaign and hobble the ultimate winner of the primaries. It happened to Dole in 1996 when he ran out of money in April or so and was broke until the convention. President Bush wasn't going to let that happen. In the process he's changed the way campaigns are run.

The Democrats have a problem, because, all of the rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, the Republicans excel at raising hard money in relatively small amounts. They are much better at grassroots fundraising than Democrats. The final irony of this whole McCain-Feingold debacle may very well be that everything is struck down as unconstitutional, except the increased limit on individual donations. The soft-money ban could be struck down. The limits on ads by third parties should certainly be struck down. The Supreme Court is holding a special session in September to deal specifically with McCain-Feingold and if I were a Democrat, I'd be praying they strike down the ban on soft money. That money keeps Democrats competitive.

President Bush's fundraising prowess is reshaping the way presidential campaigns are financed, pressuring Democrats -- if not in this election, then the next -- to devise ways to follow his example of relying solely on private donations. The trend already is choking a major feature of post-Watergate campaign regulation: the promise of federal matching funds in return for a candidate's vow to limit spending.

Bush rejected the deal in the 2000 presidential primary, and went on to collect far more money than did his Democratic rival, Al Gore. Bush again is spurning public funding in the 2004 primary, and he is shattering his money-raising pace of four years ago.

Democrats say they cannot compete in such a climate. And it's not just 2004 they worry about. The nation's new campaign finance law, which greatly rewards a candidate who can gather piles of $2,000 checks, strongly favors Republicans. That advantage seems unlikely to vanish in 2008 and beyond, several analysts say.

"Bush has transformed the system," said political scientist Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution. "He has developed a capacity to gain a financial advantage that hasn't been apparent since the adoption of the 1974" campaign law at the height of the Watergate scandal.

The nine Democrats seeking the 2004 nomination are in a bind, party activists say. Even if they choose to abandon public financing and the spending limits that go with them, they can raise nowhere near the sums that Bush is hauling in, these sources say. Some of them contend that only a Democrat with considerable star power and nearly universal name recognition -- New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, perhaps -- will be able to compete under the rules Bush is writing.

The recently enacted McCain-Feingold law bans unlimited "soft money" contributions to national parties, depriving Democrats of a key source of cash from unions and Hollywood figures. The law limits donations to presidential candidates to $2,000, and Republicans have far more supporters able and willing to give that amount of money than do Democrats.

The 1974 law was intended to control campaign giving and spending. It allows presidential candidates, during the primary, to receive federal matching funds for the first $250 of each contribution from an individual. In return, the candidates agree to cap their spending. Generally, matching money accounts for 25 to 33 percent of the total a qualifying candidate can spend. This election, the spending cap is expected to be about $46 million before the late-summer nominating conventions, when each party's nominee qualifies for a new infusion of federal funds.

For several presidential elections, the spending cap was not a major issue. Bush changed that in 2000, when he rejected the matching funds and spending limits, and raised $101 million to spend during the primary. That compared with about $45 million that Gore, who accepted federal funds and spending caps, was able to spend.

Earth Liberation Front Bankrolled by PETA
I've never been a fan of PETA (see here, here, here and here) and their support for ELF, a group of domestic terrorists, won't improve my opinion of them.

The Earth Liberation Front is already considered the foremost domestic terrorist group (see here also) and a quick glance at their website will show why.

If PETA's support is verified and holds up in court, they should lose their tax-exempt status, at a minimum. If their support can be shown to contribute to acts of terror, they should be prosecuted.

As the frightening images of a massive August 2nd arson are seared into the minds of San Diego residents, many are left to wonder just who the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is and who pays its bills. As law enforcement begins to look for answers, members of the public should know that the shadowy ELF enjoys financial backing from at least one tax-exempt, above-ground group -- the activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

A recent federal income tax return filed by PETA shows a $1,500 cash payment to the "North American Earth Liberation Front." And Rodney Coronado, a convicted arsonist who previously received $70,400 from PETA, was in San Diego on the day of the University City arson.

Coronado spent 57 months in federal prison for firebombing a Michigan State University research lab. When ABC News's John Stossel confronted PETA President Ingrid Newkirk earlier this year about her organization's financial support of Coronado, she said that he is "a fine young man."

"Federal law enforcement has already shut down several American nonprofits because of their financial ties with overseas terrorists," said David Martosko, Director of Research at the Center for Consumer Freedom. "Terrorism is terrorism, whether it's international or domestic. PETA is funneling money to terrorists, and they shouldn't be treated any differently."

CNN.com - Hollings won't seek re-election in 2004 - Aug. 4, 2003
Thank you. The Professor has been hammering on Hollings (D-Disney) for a long time now -- and rightly so -- as a shill for the MPAA (see here, here, here and here) and RIAA. I favor protecting intellectual property, but Hollings has attempted to do away with fair use in any form and seeing him leave the Senate will mean a chance at balance in the world of copyrights.

Democratic Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina announced Monday he will not seek re-election in 2004 -- a decision that offers Republicans an opportunity to pick up another seat in the South.

Hollings, who was first elected to the Senate in 1966 but has been South Carolina's senior senator only since Sen. Strom Thurmond retired in January, made the announcement on the campus of the University of South Carolina in the Hollings National Advocacy Center named for him.

Hollings is 81 and his current term expires in early 2005.

Hollings' retirement would be another blow for Senate Democrats, who are struggling to regain the Senate in 2004. Open seats are usually far more competitive than those held by an incumbent.

Already, Democrats are defending an open seat in Georgia and are bracing for the potential retirements of Florida Sen. Bob Graham and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, both of whom are running for president.

Democrats in South Carolina say they hope to recruit Inez Tenenbaum, the state school superintendent, to run for Hollings' seat.

A Lone Hero and His ‘Buy America’ Campaign
In almost all cases I favor unrestrained trade for simple economic reasons: comparative advantage. Defense procurement, because it involves government spending and national security, is a political issue and deserves different treatment, I think.

The obvious issue of national security should always take precedence: we develop these technologies to maintain a military technological lead over the rest of the world and we shouldn't compromise that in any situation. Other things, such as machining the fuselage for an aircraft, could be treated more like traditional trade.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, though, to farm these jobs out to "allies" who don't support us reliably and I would use our defense procurement budget, which is larger than the GDP for some countries, as a reward for loyalty. Britain, for example, should be given special consideration because of their unfailing support of the United States. I think we can agree on what the French should receive, as well.

As for the specifics of what Congressman Hunter is trying to achieve with the Joint Strike Fighter, he seems to be mostly in the ballpark. The essence of his proposal seems to be an increase in American-made content from 50% to 65%. That seems reasonable enough, provided that it doesn't exclude the British. Not only have they been staunch allies, but they are replacing their entire fleet of fighters with JSFs. That represents money in American pockets and, for that alone, they should receive consideration for the manufacture of parts of the JSF.

For me, the larger issue is: should our defense procurement budget be a tool of our foreign policy? My answer is yes.

His name is Duncan Hunter. A former Army Ranger and a Republican congressman from California, he is also the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.  Recently, Hunter has shown that rarest of political traits - courage - in his solitary campaign to compel the Department of Defense to “buy American” and increase the domestic content of components and systems used on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

In doing so, he has gone toe-to-toe with leaders in his own party, the Secretary of Defense and his Senate counterpart, Sen. John Warner, R-VA, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The prime contractor for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is Lockheed Martin. Despite its status as the nation’s pre-eminent defense contractor, Lockheed Martin has sold out other American defense suppliers and their workers to win foreign military customers.

The JSF as designed was proposed as a replacement for several different U.S. aircraft platforms that included the Navy and Marine Corps A-6E Intruders manufactured by Grumman Aerospace; the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas F/A-18s in Navy and Marine Corps service and the Lockheed Martin/General Dynamics F-16s utilized by the U.S. Air Force, the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve.

Milton Friedman, a personal hero of mine, turned 91 on July 31st and I forgot to write about it. In the run-up to his 90th birthday it was all I could blog about, as you'll soon see. I can think of no better tribute than to point you to the numerous posts leading up to his 90th birthday. Look here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Happy Birthday, Professor Friedman, and thank you for your contribution to freedom and prosperity in this country and others.

Link found via ChicagoBoyz. There was a Michigan Law Review article, with a great deal of Star Wars imagery, written on Bjorn Lomborg's book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Excellent reading, in PDF format.

I've been thinking about this for some time and Evan Bayh is the best Democrat, in my opinion, to run against President Bush in 2004. Of course, he took himself out of the running in late 2002 and may not run for re-election as Senator from Indiana in 2004. As I recall he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family, but he's probably also thinking of 2008.

He's also, along with Joe Lieberman, one of the only Democrats I would even consider voting for. My guess is he will be short-listed as a VP candidate by whoever wins the Democratic nomination, but I doubt he will take it. He shouldn't. If he's not going to run in 2004 he might as well wait for 2008.

For him, being VP would be aiming too low.

The list this week from Right Wing News is The Twenty Worst Figures In American History. I chose not to participate, but you can see the selections here.

This excerpt is from The Chicago Tribune and found via Daily Pundit. I won't register with The Trib because they require you to receive email in exchange so you'll have to go to Bill's pad to get the link.

Thankfully, none of Rep. Jackson's amendments will even make it out of Congress, much less past 38 state legislatures. These amendments, however, draw a clear distinction between positive rights -- I'm compelled to do something for someone else -- and negative rights -- other people are compelled to not do something to me. For instance, a positive right would be a "right" to health care. A negative right would be the right to not be beaten up or otherwise violated by another person. One type of right is compatible with a free society and another is not.

First, the notion that you can have a right to medical care, or any other scarce resource, is ridiculous. What if it's not available? If medical care is a right, how come some guy in Canada who's waiting for a hip replacement can't walk into the first medical clinic he sees -- never mind if it's an oncologist -- and demand that hip replacement? Because there's no such thing as a "right" to a scarce resource.

A right, whether positive or negative, is a claim on another person. Every time I leave the house, enter a crowd or go to a movie, I make a claim on the others that they will not assault me because it's a violation of my rights. That's a negative right, there is no scarcity issue and it's a right that's completely in keeping with a free society. Not so with positive rights.

In addition to the scarcity problem, positive rights place a claim on others that essentially makes them "slaves" of others. This type of "right" is not compatible with a free society, even if it could exist due to the scarcity problem. The Founders understood this, which is why the rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights are negative in nature and are designed to protect us from government power. Where the Constitution does spell out government powers, they're designed to use the government to punish those who would violate our right to life, liberty and property.

Also note Jefferson's wording in the Declaration of Independence: we're entitled to pursue happiness, but there are no guarantees. That wording is no accident. Any attempt to guarantee happiness for one would infringe on the rights of another.

As for constitutional amendments, I favor two: an amendment giving the President line-item veto power on appropriation bills and another forcing all Congressional legislation to be on a single subject.

"One of the most prolific wannabe Constitution rewriters of late is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). On March 4, he proposed a staggering eight amendments. His changes were anything but minor edits. If adopted, they would essentially reweave the fabric of American government.

What changes is the brash young congressman proposing? The new Jacksonian Constitution would guarantee 'the right to public education of equal high quality,' 'the right to health care of equal high quality,' 'equal rights for women,' 'the right to decent, safe, sanitary and affordable housing,' 'the right to a clean, safe and sustainable environment,' 'the right . . . to full employment and balanced economic growth,' 'the explicit fundamental right of citizens to vote' and an amendment 'regarding taxing the people of the United States progressively.'

He has to be kidding, right?

Actually, he says the gambit is anything but a publicity stunt. 'I am very serious about it,' he said."

Dean is certainly catching fire -- he's on the cover of both Newsweek and Time -- but things are getting a little overwrought when they start comparing him to The Boss.

The BBC In The Dock: From The Tampa Tribune
Obviously I'm running out of new headlines.

Why in the world would Brits have a taxpayer-funded news station? Not being a Brit, I have a hard time trying to imagine it. Sure, we have PBS and NPR, but they are non-entities and receive very little money. Their presence is hardly felt.

The Beeb, however, has a huge market share and forces even those that disagree with it to fork over the licensing fee. After its coverage of Iraq, maybe they will now consider a much-needed privatization of the Beeb. After all, if its content were actually worth anything, certainly someone would be willing to pay for it either through ads or subscription.

The people of Britain and the way they do things have always had a peculiar fascination for Americans, which may be why London is the favorite European destination for U.S. tourists.

We tend to like and admire the Brits even when we don't completely understand them. (Perhaps we would understand them better if they all enunciated the English language with the ring and snap of Tony Blair.)

But consider the British Broadcasting Corp., which is financed by a tax on television viewers but independent of the government that mandates the tax, or license fee, which is $180 a year and levied upon 20 million Britons. This sweet arrangement gives the BBC an annual income of $3.6 billion, and it doesn't have to sell one screaming commercial to pay the bills.

Unfortunately for this venerable institution, once highly regarded for its down-the-middle news coverage, it has gradually become a propaganda outlet for peaceniks, neosocialists and various sorts of America haters. Its reports from Iraq, for instance, could hardly have displeased members of Saddam's hierarchy when they were in a position to tune in.

Conrad Black, publisher of London's Daily and Sunday Telegraph, described the BBC as "a virulent culture of bias. Though its best programming in nonpolitical areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform."

All of this has many in Britain extremely annoyed, including some who agree with the BBC's slant. We must imagine them asking themselves - at last - why they should have to pay $180 a year to listen to biased commentary when competing networks, perhaps biased in a different way, offer their blather for nothing.