Cranky About School Choice in Florida

The Baseball Crank notes a depressing opinion from the Supreme Court of Florida, which decided that school choice programs violate the state constitution. I'm glad to see I can still count on the Supreme Court of Florida to provide extra creativity in constitutional interpretation. I'll leave the deconstruction of the legal opinion to Crank. But Crank also nails the point home for school choice as a good policy...

The majority acts as if just saying that the public schools are uniform and high-quality will make it so. To the contrary, if all of the students in failing schools abandoned them, leaving only the functioning schools afloat, that would create a school system that was genuinely both high-quality and uniform (as the present system is not, and - in the real world - probably never will be).

In the real world, there are public schools that don't perform up to standards, there are people who want their kids to go to a public school, and there are people who do not want their kids to go to a public school. The state can't get out of its constitutional duty to try to fix those schools for those who prefer to remain, but it blinkers reality to ignore the fact that substandard schools have long been with us, and it is truly heartless to require the customers of substandard schools to wait without hope of escape while the decades-long unfulfilled promises of help on the way proceed.

It's a shame that Democrats who are in the vice-grip of the NEA's contributions don't understand that this is an issue that affects the poor the most. Rich people, and even the middle class, will move to better school districts or enroll their kids in private schools, leaving the poor kids in bad schools. We've tried increasing funding for decades, and the results don't follow. Yet charter schools, which provide a limited amount of choice, are a pretty solid success story. Despite all this, choice programs get blasted as some sort of right-wing plan to destory public education, when the system is doing a pretty good job of destroying itself. The NEA loves to mock No Child Left Behind, but their alternative seems to be to Leave All Children Behind, or at least the poor ones whose parents can't move them out of their underperforming public school.

The Media's Twists and Turns on the NSA Spying

Tom Maguire has been doing a terrific job deconstructing the media coverage of the NSA leak story. His rather humorous review of whether Christiane Amanpour of CNN was getting her calls monitored by the NSA (to this point, nothing more than a rumor brought on by a to-date unsubstantiated question from Andrea Mitchell to New York Times reporter James Risen) includes this solid observation...

What does it even mean to be an American if Ms. Amanpour cannot take a call in the privacy of her Baghdad office from an Al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan who is being monitored by the NSA? Good question.

There are real issues with civil liberties at stake with the NSA spying, but I'm not worried if the government is monitoring overseas calls into CNN from al Qaeda. In fact, I'd be more worried if they weren't doing so. To the point, I'm barely worried about NSA surveillance overseas, and that worry is more about whether we're doing enough of it. As Maguire notes in a later post, CNN denies that this is true as well. Of course, CNN might not want viewers to know that their reporters get phone calls from people our government believes work with al Qaeda, as Tom notes.

But Tom's best work is in tearing the left-wing dishrag a new one, for their absurd editorial earlier this week trying to defend their policy of "Leaks that Hurt Bush Are Good and Should Not Be Investigated, but Leaks That Help Bush Are Bad and Should Be Investigated." Okay, that's not the title of the editorial, but that's essentially the content...

The longest-running of the leak cases involves Valerie Wilson, a covert C.I.A. operative whose identity was leaked to the columnist Robert Novak. The question there was whether the White House was using this information in an attempt to silence Mrs. Wilson's husband, a critic of the Iraq invasion, and in doing so violated a federal law against unmasking a covert operative. There is a world of difference between that case and a current one in which the administration is trying to find the sources of a New York Times report that President Bush secretly authorized spying on American citizens without warrants. The spying report was a classic attempt to give the public information it deserves to have.

Maguire's reaction is dead on...

Can I opt out of this? Please? I don't want the Times deciding, in wartime, just what information I "deserve to have", thank you very much - they are not elected, they are not accountable, and frankly, I do not trust their politics. But rather than abandon my fellow citizens to the mercies or depredations of the Bush Administration, let me offer a constructive suggestion - since we have a representative democracy, complete with institutional checks and balances and two parties, how about if the purveyors of classifed info, when troubled by their consciences, take their troubles to a Congressional oversight committee rather than the NY Times?

As an added bonus, that would actually comply with the legal requirements of the Federal whistleblower act as it relates to the intelligence community.

Actually, let me disagree with Tom on one minor point -- even when we're not in a war, I don't want the dishrag deciding the information I need to have. The Times can't hide behind blanket assertions that they know what's best for us. When the Plame revelation took place, they howled that an investigation was necessary, because federal law may have been broken. Based on Pat Fitzgerald's work so far, no law seems to have been broken with regard to the actual leak, but the investigation had to take place.

Here, the whistlebower(s) on the NSA spying may have pristine intentions, but they may have broken federal law. That's worthy of an investigation, no matter how many times the Times flip-flops. Considering the number of positions the Times has taken on this issue makes me wonder if John Kerry took over their editorial page. As Maguire notes, this cartoon does indeed say it all.

Charles Schumer, Please Call Your Office -- But Not on Your Cellphone

Irony can be so damned ironic sometimes. Generation Why has a pretty good point about Chuckles Schumer (hat tip: Instapundit). The Senator's love of being quoted and showing up on TV is probably guaranteed to lead to little issues like this, but it's still pretty telling.

I Coulda Been A Contender

I don't know what's more depressing -- the fact that there is a World Series of Beer Pong taking place in Las Vegas, or the fact that I'm missing it, or the fact that I'm upset about missing it. For crying out loud, the event is in Las Vegas -- how did I miss this???

Truthfully, I'm a decade past my prime. But it's a damn shame that they waited until now, because I'm guessing a certain resident of Charlotte would have teamed with me to make a championship-level entry back in 1993 and 1994.

Is Streisand on Crack?

My good friends know that there are few things on the planet I enjoy more than seeing Barbra Streisand, a.k.a. the world's most overrated entertainer, get mocked. And when one of my favorite writers, Jonah Goldberg, takes some time out to mock her, it's like a belated Christmas gift... or whatever holiday I'm supposed to celebrate in our multicultural world. Here's an excerpt that had me cracking up...

Chanukah came early for the Goldberg household last month. On November 23, Barbra Streisand wrote a letter to the editor complaining that the Los Angeles Times picked me up as a columnist. As gleeful as I was, I declined to respond. But now, just last night, Ms. Streisand chose to post to her website the "director's cut" of her original letter to the editor, which apparently had been edited for space and, no doubt, for content by the LA Times. I could resist no longer.

As Streisand surely surmises, we in the warmonger and puppy-kicker community take it as a great badge of honor to be singled out for obloquy by the likes of her. Short of convincing Alec Baldwin to actually make good on his promise to flee the country, vexing the Dashboard Saint of Hollywood Liberalism is about as good as it gets. That my name is such wolf's bane (or Yentl's bane) to her that she must cancel her subscription to the Los Angeles Times is just gravy. Feel free to post pictures of me around your homes if you fear she may be coming through your town.

Streisand's real complaint is that the Times will no longer carry Robert Scheer's column. She's simply wrong on the facts that my column replaced his. I'm part of a bundle which results, I believe, in a net gain of liberal voices. But that Scheer is out and I'm in is a great injustice in her eyes.

...I am delighted to be in the Los Angeles Times and I'm deeply flattered by the opportunity. I would be saddened if Streisand were right in her claim that my presence will hurt the paper or if her insinuation that she somehow speaks for the larger community were true.

But Streisand is adamant. She writes, "The greater Southern California community is one that not only proudly embraces its diversity, but demands it. Your decision to fire Robert Scheer is a great disservice to the spirit of our community."

She continues: "It seems that your new leadership, especially Publisher Jeff Johnson, is entirely out of touch with your readers and their desire to be exposed to views that stretch them beyond their own paradigms. So although the number of contributors to your Op-Ed pages may have increased, in firing Scheer and hiring columnists such as Jonah Goldberg, the gamut of voices has undeniably been diluted."

...So, taking Streisand seriously, we must ask: Is she on crack?

Robert Scheer may be the greatest writer since homo sapiens first scribbled on cave walls, but no serious person can believe that his views test the elasticity of Streisand's "paradigms." He reinforces them, he ladles concrete on them. Scheer confirms all of her biases and reaffirms all of her ill-considered views. Put aside the fact that both Scheer and Streisand are committed leftists who share almost identical views on most major issues. Scheer served as an informal adviser to Ms. Streisand on at least one occasion — when she delivered a speech to Harvard. Streisand, who recently called for President Bush's impeachment, threw a book party for Scheer when his last anti-Bush book came out, and she regularly links to his articles on her always amusing website.

And even if you suspect I don't have the intellectual firepower to burn toast, it's hard to see how my views wouldn't put just a bit of spring in her paradigm. Indeed, it's doubtful that Scheer would even take the time to tell her that "gamuts" cannot be "diluted" or that if you are going to pronounce upon "principals of journalistic integrity" with Olympian pomposity, you might take an extra moment or two to spell "principles" correctly. Otherwise, when she writes that the Times is stepping away "from the principals of journalistic integrity, which would dictate that journalists be journalists, editors be editors and accountants be accountants" it sounds like she's saying we should back away slowly from the dean of the Columbia Journalism School and other journalistic "dictators." "Have that accountant beaten! He's acting like an editor!"

Beyond mocking Streisand, Goldberg also gave me an opportunity to write one of my favortie headlines ever on the blog. He may have even exposed a fundamental truth. I've often wondered if Babs is on crack; to be fair, I've also wondered if the people who pay exorbitant sums for tickets to her concert are also on crack. Or maybe that's the explanation -- the concerts are giant festivals where everyone gets together and smokes crack. No wonder they come out raving about Babs.

Cronyism Strikes Again

You know, there are times when the charges of cronyism leveled at the Bush Administration are overblown. Then, there are times when they are right. Check this one out...

President Bush yesterday made a raft of controversial recess appointments, including Julie L. Myers to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security, in a maneuver circumventing the need for approval by the Senate.

Myers, a niece of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard B. Myers and the wife of the chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, had been criticized by Republicans and Democrats who charged that she lacked experience in immigration matters.

Myers's nomination faced a bruising and potentially embarrassing fight on the Senate floor, where Democrats were prepared to argue that politics, not merit, drove her selection for an important job preventing terrorists and weapons from entering the country.

The rest of the jobs aren't all that important -- personally, I'm not too concerned if we go several years without an assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, or if the person at that job is unqualified. But Myers' job is important, and her experience is limited...

As head of ICE, Myers would be in charge of detaining and removing illegal aliens; investigating alien smuggling, illegal arms exports, and money laundering; fining the employers of illegal aliens (well, actually they don’t bother with that any more); plus many, many other responsibilities. She would be the officer chiefly responsible for protecting the nation against terrorist threats once they have succeeded in infiltrating our borders, which are guarded by a different bureaucracy. Her most relevant previous experience was managing only 170 employees and a $25 million budget while at the Commerce department.

Given the importance of the position and a history of mismanagement in the immigration service, Congress took the unusual step of inserting a statutory requirement that nominees have a minimum of five years of experience in both management and law enforcement. Even a cursory reading of her resume reveals that the well-connected 36-year-old attorney’s background fails to comply with this legal requirement; in fact, she meets the bare minimum only by counting her current stint in White House Personnel, where she manages, by her own account, “up to three deputies as well as support staff and interns.”

Myers might even do well in the job. But that's not the point -- like Michael Brown, she's not qualified for the position (although she's easily better qualified than Brown was). And it's not like she was being filibustered (to the best of my knowledge). The fear was that she'd be voted down, on the merits, by both Democrats and Republicans.

If Bill Clinton had done something similar, Republicans would be screaming bloody murder. They should be doing the same thing here.

Al Qaeda and Iraq

Newsweek just published slides from a 2002 Pentagon briefing regarding the government's breakdown of al Qaeda links to Iraq prior to the war. As Scott Johnson at Powerline points out, Steven Hayes of The Weekly Standard has done some terrific reporting on these links, including a great story from July.

Stupid Human Comments

You know, back in my teens, I was a big fan of David Letterman. Staying up really late to catch Late Night was a treat, because it was original, funny, and entertaining in a way that was completely different from anyone else on TV. Even when Dave headed over to CBS in 1993, he was still pretty funny, although he never seemed to recover from losing out on the battle to succeed Carson.

Now, I can respect the fact that Dave has an opinion. I also think it's worth noting that the man really does have a sense of public service, because he has done Christmas shows from Afghanistan and Iraq in the last four years. And I don't object to Dave voicing his opinion on the air -- it's his forum and his show, and we've come to expect that from television hosts over the years.

But there's a difference between expressing a well-informed opinion and regurgitating the usual pablum from the MSM. Here's an excerpt from Letterman's recent interview with Bill O'Reilly that made me do a doubletake...

Bill O’Reilly: “I think that the Iraq thing has been full of unintended consequences and it’s a vital thing for the country and it's brutal, it’s absolutely brutal. We should all take it very seriously. This simplistic stuff about hating Bush or he lied and all this stuff, does the country no good at all. We've got to win this thing. You have to win it. And even though it's a screw-up, giant, massive, all right, right now, for everybody's protection, it's best for the world to have a democracy in that country functioning and friendly to the West, is it not?”

David Letterman: “Yes, absolutely.”

O’Reilly: “Okay, so let's stop with the lying and the this and the that and the undermining and let's get him. That is putting us all in danger. So our philosophy is we call it as we see it. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't. Robust debate is good. But we believe that the United States, particularly the military, are doing a noble thing, a noble thing. The soldiers and Marines are noble. They're not terrorists. And when people call them that, like Cindy Sheehan called the insurgents 'freedom fighters,’ we don't like that. It is a vitally important time in American history. And we should all take it very seriously. Be very careful with what we say.”

Letterman: “Well, and you should be very careful with what you say also.” [audience applause]

O’Reilly: “Give me an example.”

Letterman: “How can you possibly take exception with the motivation and the position of someone like Cindy Sheehan?”

O’Reilly: “Because I think she’s run by far-left elements in this country. I feel bad for the woman.”

Letterman: “Have you lost family members in armed conflict?”

O’Reilly: “No, I have not.”

Letterman: “Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you?” [applause]

O’Reilly: “I’m not speaking for her. Let me ask you this question.”

Letterman, referring back to O’Reilly’s examples of a war on Christmas: “Let’s go back to your little red and green stories.”

O’Reilly: “This is important, this is important. Cindy Sheehan lost a son, a professional soldier in Iraq, correct? She has a right to grieve any way she wants, she has a right to say whatever she wants. When she says to the public that the insurgents and terrorists are 'freedom fighters,’ how do you think, David Letterman, that makes people who lost loved ones, by these people blowing the Hell out of them, how do you think they feel, waht about their feelings, sir?”

Letterman: “What about, why are we there in the first place? [applause] The President himself, less than a month ago said we are there because of a mistake made in intelligence. Well, whose intelligence? It was just somebody just get off a bus and handed it to him?”

Bill O’Reilly: “No.”

Letterman: “No, it was the intelligence gathered by his administration.”

O’Reilly: “By the CIA.”

Letterman: “Yeah, so why are we there in the first place? I agree to you, with you that we have to support the troops. They are there, they are the best and the brightest of this country. [audience applause] There’s no doubt about that. And I also agree that now we’re in it it’s going to take a long, long time. People who expect it’s going to be solved and wrapped up in a couple of years, unrealistic, it’s not going to happen. However, however, that does not eliminate the legitimate speculation and concern and questioning of ‘Why the Hell are we there to begin with?’”

O’Reilly: “If you want to question that, and then revamp an intelligence agency that’s obviously flawed, the CIA, okay. But remember, MI-6 in Britain said the same thing. Putin’s people in Russia said the same thing, and so did Mubarak’s intelligence agency in Egypt.”

Letterman: “Well then that makes it all right?”

O’Reilly: “No it doesn’t make it right.”

Letterman: “That intelligence agencies across the board makes it alright that we’re there?”

O’Reilly: “It doesn’t make it right.”

Letterman: “See, I’m very concerned about people like yourself who don’t have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan. Honest to Christ.” [audience applause]

O’Reilly: “No, I’m sorry.”

Letterman: “Honest to Christ.”

“O’Reilly: “No way. [waits for applause to die down] No way you’re going to get me, no way that a terrorist who blows up women and children.”

Letterman: “Do you have children?”

O’Reilly: “Yes I do. I have a son the same age as yours. No way a terrorist who blows up women and children is going to be called a ‘freedom fighter’ on my program.” [mild audience applause]

Letterman: “I’m not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. [audience laughter] But I don’t know that for a fact. [more audience applause]

Paul Shafer: “60 percent.”

Letterman: “60 percent. I'm just spit-balling here.”

O’Reilly: “Listen, I respect your opinion. You should respect mine.”

Letterman: “Well, ah, I, okay. But I think you’re-”

O’Reilly: “Our analysis is based on the best evidence we can get.”

Letterman: “Yeah, but I think there’s something, this fair and balanced. I'm not sure that it's, I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint.”

O’Reilly: “Well, you’re going to have to give me an example if you're going to make those claims.”

Letterman: “Well I don’t watch your show so that would be impossible.”

There's so much crap here that I'd need a shovel to sift through it, but let me give it a shot on some major points, Top Ten style...

10. Cindy Sheehan lost a son in Iraq. That's worthy of our respect. That doesn't mean that she's immune from criticism for making asinine statements about the war, about Isreal, and about terrorists. If she said we should nuke Iran, would everyone still say that her position is worthy of respect, if not unassaiable?

9. Try being polite to your guests, Dave, even if you disagree with them ideologically (or think that you do). I'm not asking you to fawn over them, ala Arsenio, but you've invited him onto your show, and you owe him more respect than that. I'd say the same thing if your guest was Howard Dean.

8. I think O'Reilly's more than a little arrogant, but he handled the interview very well. There's another portion where Dave is mocking O'Reilly's rants about the "War on Christamas" (where I agree that Bill's probably a bit too worried), and Bill handled it by pointing out specific absurd examples, and Dave's response was complete disbelief. He was clearly jesting, but it was also clear he wouldn't take the point seriously no matter what O'Reilly said.

7. Think about the comment where Letterman admits that he has drawn conclusions about O'Reilly's show without watching it. If someone criticized Dave on the same basis, he'd laugh in that person's face. Sure, it's as much a comedic point as any, but it's also revealing.

6. Back to Cindy Sheehan. This is slightly off the point, but why does Cindy Sheehan get so much press? Is it because she puts forth a viewpoint the media finds attractive in a package (mom who lost her son in Iraq) that the media thinks will garner sympathy? There are many more military families who have lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many support the war. I'm not holding my breath to see the mainstream media fawn over them.

5. There's a difference between funny and comedic, smarmy self-righteousness. Jon Stewart's interview on Crossfire was a good example of crossing the line. Dave isn't as bad, but he's close.

4. I love the line, "You should be very careful with what you say also." If Ari Fleischer says it after 9/11, it's censorship and an affront to our civil liberties. If conservatives repeat this statement, they're trying to chill public debate. If Letterman says it to Bill O'Reilly, he gets applause.

3. Last I checked, the intel for the war wasn't just gathered by this presidential administration -- it was also gathered by the CIA under the preceding presidential administration. Maybe that's the sort of point a fair and balanced host might make.

2. I kept hoping that maybe Rudy Guiliani would stop by and smack some sense into Dave.

1. You were right about one thing, Dave. You're not smart enough to debate O'Reilly point by point -- or at all. And that's not because O'Reilly is a towering intellectual figure. And while we're not looking for a ton of intelligence from our late night hosts, a little bit of common sense might be nice.

The Villanova Update

We know all of you have been waiting for the latest update on Villanova's Curtis Sumpter. Fine, it hasn't been on your list of priorities, but for Wildcat alumni, this is important...

There is no calendar hanging in his dorm room with a big red circle around a certain date.

In Curtis Sumpter's mind, though, Feb. 26 is his red-letter day.

Villanova plays at Connecticut on that Sunday afternoon.

Sumpter, currently rehabbing his second ACL injury, would like to be in that game. "I tell myself Feb. 26, that's when I'd like to be back by," the Villanova senior said. "I hope that's it."

On Monday, Sumpter will find out if that target has any chance of being hit. He will travel to Birmingham, Ala., to meet with Dr. James Andrews, the surgeon who performed his November ACL surgery.

...To outsiders, Sumpter's target date seems nothing shy of silly. As of Feb. 26, the Wildcats will have three regular-season games left. At best, Sumpter's senior season would consist of 13 games and that's only if Villanova were to play for both the Big East Tournament championship and the NCAA championship.

The more logical choice would be to sit out this year and take the medical redshirt available, return next season healthy and strong. By not doing so, Sumpter not only is denying himself a full season, he could be risking millions of dollars.

Before he got hurt in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, NBA scouts were salivating over Sumpter, in love with his ability to post up or step out and knock down threes, his ballhandling skills and his defense.

With an entire season to prove his knee woes are behind him, Sumpter would likely again be a legitimate candidate for a first-round draft pick and the guaranteed contract that comes with that.

A questionable Sumpter probably will have to earn his way on a team as a free agent and pray for some guaranteed money.

Sumpter knows all of that and he still wants to come back this year. Asked were he a betting man, would he take the odds on a return this season, he said quietly, "I would."

"I understand what people are saying, but my team is more important than that," Sumpter said. "These are the guys I've been with, the relationships I've built. The NBA, who knows what's going to happen there? I've already had two knee surgeries. If I feel like we have a chance to win a championship, then that's all I care about."

This season has been as painful emotionally as it has been physically. Four years ago, he, Allan Ray, Randy Foye and Jason Fraser came to Villanova with big dreams. Ray, Foye and Fraser are realizing them, taking the Wildcats to a 9-0 start and a No. 3 ranking.

Sumpter has watched it all from the sidelines, pedaling to nowhere on a stationary bike while his teammates practice or stuck on press row in street clothes during games.

This opens up all kinds of debate for Villanova fans -- whether it might screw with chemistry to bring Sumpter back, whether it's potentially better for both Sumpter and the program if he redshirts, whether Curtis can be effective with such a short rehab, whether he might do further damage to the knee and whether Wright should make him sit out, etc. The addition of Shane Clark to the rotation gives Wright another big body, and one who can supply some of the game that Sumpter brought to the table. It's a testament to the depth of talent on this team that were Sumpter healthy, we would have a serious battle for minutes on the front line.

In the meantime, I'm nervous as we prep for the first Big East game, at Louisville tomorrow. We already saw how tough the Big East will be this season for even the highly ranked squads, as UConn fell to Marquette last night. Nova gets the stacked schedule to maximize TV matchups, but hopefully it doesn't wear down our brilliant guards. Now, time to get some tickets...

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum former Presidential candidate:

Yeah, I kinda miss this feature every so often. At least, I miss the feature a lot more than the King of Ketchup, who just won't go away.

Here's the latest update on the former Democratic Presidential nominee, who may be delusional enough to believe that he's worthy of a second shot in 2008...

It's almost as if Sen. John Kerry never stopped running for president. He still jets across the country, raising millions of dollars and rallying Democrats. He still stalks the TV news show circuit, scolding President Bush at every turn.

His campaign Web site boasts of an online army of 3 million supporters.

The Massachusetts Democrat, defeated by Bush in 2004, insists it is far too early to talk about the 2008 race, but some analysts assume he has already positioning himself for another shot at the White House.

"Obviously, Kerry has all but said he wants another crack at the thing," said Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at South Carolina's Francis Marion University. "He's going to make a second try."

While most losing presidential nominees quickly fade into the political landscape, Kerry has worked hard at maintaining a high public profile.

"He's continuing the fight he began in 2004," said Kerry spokesman David Wade. "He wants to make it very clear he's a fighter who is going to continue to fight for his agenda."

Who does he think he is, William Jennings Bryan?

There's a GOP operative quoted for the proposition that he prays that Kerry might be the nominee again. While I was stunned that the Democrats were dumb enough to nominate Kerry once, even I don't think they're suicidal enough to do it again.

What Annoying Song is Stuck in My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

An old feature makes its return, thanks to a little brush with celebrity for your humble blogger.

The background -- three years ago, New Year's Eve. My lovely significant other (who has since become my lovely wife) and I traveled to Miami for a little New Year's celebration, and met with my old friend, henceforth known as the Prince of Peru, who invited us to a terrific New Year's Eve bash at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, including gorgeous ocean views off the balcony.

In the midst of this celebration, we met several interesting people. One of them was an (ahem) attractive young lady who mentioned that she was an actress and a Miami Heat dancer. My lovely bride-to-be later teased me that I seemed positively entranced as the former dancer-turned-actress talked about her future. Let's be clear here -- I was just being nice (and she was probably bored out of her mind).

Fast forward three years, to watching Dick Clark's New Year's Eve show. My wife and I had already discussed this, but on come the Pussycat Dolls, and we immediately confirm that the young lady we met three years ago is indeed a member of this rather eye-catching group (not that I noticed). Ironically enough, their hit song... well, you can read the lyrics yourself...

I know you like me (I know you like me)
I know you do (i know you do)
That's why whenever I come around
She's all over you
And I know you want it (and I know you want it)
It's easy to see (it's easy to see)
And in the back of your mind
I know you should be f***in' with me
(ooh baby)

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me
(don't cha, don't cha)
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me
(don't cha, don't cha)

Fight the feeling (fight the feeling)
Leave it alone (leave it alone)
Cause if it ain't love
It just ain't enough to leave a happy home
Let's keep it friendly (let's keep it friendly)
You have to play fair (you have to play fair)
See I don't care (see I don't care)
But I know she ain't gon' wanna share
(ooh)

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me
(don't cha, don't cha)
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me
(don't cha, don't cha)

You're welcome.

The Death Knell for Europe?

Mark Steyn has some scary news for Europe. We hope he's not right, but it may be a good idea to get those European vacations out of the way...

What’s the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture? When it comes to forecasting the future, the birth rate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it’s hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the western world is that they’re running out a lot faster than the oil is. “Replacement” fertility rate—i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller—is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you’ll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada’s fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That’s to say, Spain’s population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy’s population will have fallen by 22 percent, Bulgaria’s by 36 percent, Estonia’s by 52 percent. In America, demographic trends suggest that the blue states ought to apply for honorary membership of the EU: in the 2004 election, John Kerry won the sixteen with the lowest birth rates; George W. Bush took twenty-five of the twenty-six states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans—and mostly red-state Americans.

As fertility shrivels, societies get older—and Japan and much of Europe are set to get older than any functioning societies have ever been. And we know what comes after old age. These countries are going out of business—unless they can find the will to change their ways. Is that likely? I don’t think so. If you look at European election results—most recently in Germany—it’s hard not to conclude that, while voters are unhappy with their political establishments, they’re unhappy mainly because they resent being asked to reconsider their government benefits and, no matter how unaffordable they may be a generation down the road, they have no intention of seriously reconsidering them. The Scottish executive recently backed down from a proposal to raise the retirement age of Scottish public workers. It’s presently sixty, which is nice but unaffordable. But the reaction of the average Scots worker is that that’s somebody else’s problem. The average German worker now puts in 22 percent fewer hours per year than his American counterpart, and no politician who wishes to remain electorally viable will propose closing the gap in any meaningful way.

This isn’t a deep-rooted cultural difference between the Old World and the New. It dates back all the way to, oh, the 1970s. If one wanted to allocate blame, one could argue that it’s a product of the U.S. military presence, the American security guarantee that liberated European budgets: instead of having to spend money on guns, they could concentrate on butter, and buttering up the voters. If Washington’s problem with Europe is that these are not serious allies, well, whose fault is that? Who, in the years after the Second World War, created NATO as a post-modern military alliance? The “free world,” as the Americans called it, was a free ride for everyone else. And having been absolved from the primal responsibilities of nationhood, it’s hardly surprising that European nations have little wish to re-shoulder them. In essence, the lavish levels of public health care on the Continent are subsidized by the American taxpayer. And this long-term softening of large sections of the west makes them ill-suited to resisting a primal force like Islam.

There is no “population bomb.” There never was. Birth rates are declining all over the world—eventually every couple on the planet may decide to opt for the western yuppie model of one designer baby at the age of thirty-nine. But demographics is a game of last man standing. The groups that succumb to demographic apathy last will have a huge advantage. Even in 1968 Paul Ehrlich and his ilk should have understood that their so-called “population explosion” was really a massive population adjustment. Of the increase in global population between 1970 and 2000, the developed world accounted for under 9 percent of it, while the Muslim world accounted for 26 percent of the increase. Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30 percent of the world’s population to just over 20 percent, the Muslim nations increased from about 15 percent to 20 percent.

1970 doesn’t seem that long ago. If you’re the age many of the chaps running the western world today are wont to be, your pants are narrower than they were back then and your hair’s less groovy, but the landscape of your life—the look of your house, the lay-out of your car, the shape of your kitchen appliances, the brand names of the stuff in the fridge—isn’t significantly different. Aside from the Internet and the cellphone and the CD, everything in your world seems pretty much the same but slightly modified.

And yet the world is utterly altered. Just to recap those bald statistics: In 1970, the developed world had twice as big a share of the global population as the Muslim world: 30 percent to 15 percent. By 2000, they were the same: each had about 20 percent.

And by 2020?

So the world’s people are a lot more Islamic than they were back then and a lot less “western.” Europe is significantly more Islamic, having taken in during that period some 20 million Muslims (officially)—or the equivalents of the populations of four European Union countries (Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, and Estonia). Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the west: in the UK, more Muslims than Christians attend religious services each week.

Can these trends continue for another thirty years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: the grand buildings will still be standing but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.

That's certainly a scary thought. Hopefully, we take a lesson.

New Year's Not-So-Rockin'-Eve

It pains me to say this, but watching Dick Clark on New Year's Eve was pretty bad, and that's not just because Ryan Secrest was co-hosting. The Baseball Crank is dead-on when he says that Dick sounded awful, but Dick should keep working if he likes -- he's earned that.

I'm also willing to give Dick a mulligan on the production this year, considering his illness -- heck, I think 2005 may not count officially because Dick wasn't there to ring it in. But the show definitely needs improvement -- the best host of the night was Hillary Duff, and I'm frightened just writing that. As for next year, he can start by getting Mariah Carey off my TV screen, or at least into some clothing.

This is Sammy From Jersey

Man, the newspapers are dying for information on the Alito nomination. The dishrag gives us this important insight...

As Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. enters his final week of dress rehearsals for his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, participants say his performance has already made one thing clear: he will never be as polished and camera-ready as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was at his own hearings a few months ago.

"He is not going to be the well-manicured nominee," said one participant in the rehearsals, known as murder boards, at which Republican lawyers have played the roles of interrogating senators. "That is not to say it is going to be worse. It is just going to be different."

How Judge Alito will come off before the panel of senators and television cameras is an unknown in the politics of his confirmation. Senators of both parties have said it will not be easy to follow Chief Justice Roberts, about whom Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said "they retired the trophy" for an outstanding performance by a judicial nominee.

And some Democrats said they already had much more pointed questions waiting for Judge Alito, focusing mainly on strongly worded statements that he made as lawyer in the Reagan administration about his conservative approach to the Constitution, abortion rights and other issues. Leading Democratic senators have said his responses will be a deciding factor in whether they seek to block the nomination by filibustering.

But two of Judge Alito's supporters who participated in the murder boards, speaking about the confidential sessions on condition of anonymity for fear of White House reprisals, said they emerged convinced that his demeanor was a political asset because it gave him an Everyman appeal.

"He will have a couple hairs out of place," one participant said. "I am not sure his glasses fit his facial features. He might not wear the right color tie. He won't be tanned. He will look like he is from New Jersey, because he is. That is a very useful look, because it is a natural look. He's able to go toe-to-toe with senators, and at the same time he could be your son's Little League coach."

I wonder about the idea that Americans really care whether their Supreme Court justices resemble their next-door neighbor. Then again, the fact that he looks and acts like he's from Jersey shows he me that he will have absolutely no shame in defending himself. By the way, the Sopranos Mob Name Generator indicates that Alito's mob nickname would be "Hair Lip" -- although if he went by Sam instead of Samuel, he could be "Chimpy Nuts." Not sure which one I find more flattering.

Jokes aside, it's time for this party to get started. Alito need only demonstrate that he's smarter than the Senators who will be questioning him. In most cases, that won't be too difficult; there are first year lawyers who could go toe-to-toe with Joe Biden. The key is to do this without looking arrogant. Or like a Senator.

The Sky Is Falling Again

Andrew Sullivan seems more than a tad bit alarmed about the fact that President Bush has opted to continue the practice of utilizing "signing statements' when signing bills into law, characterizing it as one way "how the Bush administration has tried to add executive interpretation to Congressional law as a way to affect its implementation and potential review by the Courts." Maybe Andrew needs to read the article to which he linked...

In a Feb. 5, 1986, draft memo, Alito, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, outlined a strategy for changing that. It laid out a case for having the president routinely issue statements about the meaning of statutes when he signs them into law.

Such "interpretive signing statements" would be a significant departure from run-of-the-mill bill signing pronouncements, which are "often little more than a press release," Alito wrote. The idea was to flag constitutional concerns and get courts to pay as much attention to the president's take on a law as to "legislative intent."

"Since the president's approval is just as important as that of the House or Senate, it seems to follow that the president's understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress," Alito wrote. He later added that "by forcing some rethinking by courts, scholars, and litigants, it may help to curb some of the prevalent abuses of legislative history."

The Reagan administration popularized the use of such statements and subsequent administrations continued the practice. (The courts have yet to give them much weight, though.)

President Bush has been especially fond of them, issuing at least 108 in his first term, according to presidential scholar Phillip J. Cooper of Portland State University in Oregon. Many of Bush's statements rejected provisions in bills that the White House regarded as interfering with its powers in national security, intelligence policy and law enforcement, Cooper wrote recently in the academic journal Presidential Studies Quarterly.

The Bush administration "has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress," Cooper wrote in the September issue. "This tour d' force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all."

See the language in bold? Essentially, we have an instance here where President Bush is continuing a practice that means absolutely nothing in the interpretation of the statute.

Trust me on this -- as a lawyer, I hate relying on legislative history for any reason when I'm trying to prove a point. I've never tried to pitch the idea of relying on executive signing statements, probably because most courts would snort at the idea that the executive branch's view held any weight. Heck, most courts today barely pay heed to legislative intent.

I'd argue that the fact that President Bush seems fond of stating his intent on how the executive branch plans to interpret a statute is a good thing -- it's an open statement of how the Administration expects to apply the statute. Of course, since this is an Administration regularly ripped for secrecy, that probably doesn't fit the popular narrative, so I doubt anyone will say anything about it. I particularly love the last quote above, where the Presidential signing statement, because the White House doesn't aggressively promote it, is found to be another case of Bush hiding the ball.

I don't disagree that Bush is trying to interpret statutes in a way that he finds favorable to his point of view, and placing his own interpretation on the public record is one way of doing it. The fact that it seems particularly ineffective makes me wonder why Andrew seems to be in such a snit about it. He seems very perturbed about Bush's interpretation of the McCain Amendment in a way that may allow for torture. I'm a tad bit more worried about expansive interpretations of the term "degrading" in the McCain Amendment that may lead to our interragators being hamstrung and prisioners asking for foot massages (yes, that's an exaggeration).

I do agree with Andrew that it might be a good idea to ask Judge Alito about his views on the practice of signing statements and whether courts should accord any weight to them. Unfortunately, I'm guessing the minority party will spend most of the hearings frothing at the mouth about abortion and engaging in demoguagary instead. But hey, we can hope, right?

The New Year's Resolutions

Here is my unedited list of New Year's Resolutions, preserved for purposes of making sure that I stick to them or face unending mockery from the dozen or so people who read this.

1. Lose 25-30 pounds, which will be front-loaded into the first two months of the year. I plan to weigh in for Costa Rica in March at a svelte 188. Somewhere, my wife is laughing.

2. Read 12 books. This is a modest goal, but we've got too much work to make anything more realistic.

3. Blog regularly. Now, my readers will laugh, but I promise a minimum of 15 posts a week, save for weeks when I'm out of the country or occupied by drug use... ahem, work. To make it easier, blog posts mocking John Kerry count.

4. Continue my campaign against the evil that is Starbucks. Obviously, this is the most important one.

5. Drink more wine. This is partly an effort to be more healthy and partly an effort to take advantage of the wedding gifts.

6. Continue my limited efforts at turning certain assorted thoughts into an unprofitable screenplay. I want to have 100 pages written by the end of June. Now, loyal reader NC is laughing hysterically.

7. Gamble more often. Everyone needs a vice, and I might as well have one where I have at least a reasonable possibility of financial gain. This means more poker (thanks to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law for helping enable this particular addiction), more time exercising my mind regarding particular sporting events and a trip to Las Vegas (or at least AC).

8. Get Sam Alito confirmed. Hey, I might as well take credit for that one in advance.

9. Get started on a certain project that the Southern Partisan and I have discussed for amending the Constitution. Might as well have one that we're likely to get accomplished.

10. Buy a flat-panel TV and install it successfully (we're guessing the second part might be much more difficult).

11. Be more prompt in returning calls and e-mails from friends and family. This is one where I was quite delinquent during the past year, and the excuse of planning a wedding and working at a pace that tested my endurance only goes so far. The people who care about you deserve more of your time -- if there's one resolution anyone wants to steal from me, this should be the one.

12. Floss regularly.

That's enough for 2006. As for 2005, I'm going to claim a 100% success rate on the New Year's resolutions, particularly the one about never lying to anyone about anything.

Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday -- welcome back to the world.