A Stitch in Haste

Secretary of State Rice's plan for a "lasting cease-fire" includes the following:

The Lebanese government would work to disarm Hezbollah, and the United States and other countries would funnel money and send military officials to help train the Lebanese army, so that it can work to prevent future attacks on Israel.

Yeah, right, good luck with that:

This government is in office for the last one year, and one of the main issue was the armament of Hezbollah, and that was discussed. It cannot be achieved militarily. They are part of the Lebanese society, and they have their, their legitimacy through their fighting, the, the occupation of Israeli for about 20 years of south Lebanon. So these things don't have a quick fix. We’re taking our time, right, but we don't want to go back to national strife and to national civil war. ... It’s not in our political agenda to disband of them militarily.

--Lebanese Special Envoy to the United Nations Nouhad Mahmoud, 30 July 2006

Remind me again how the Lebanese "government" is an innocent third-party is this conflict?

This "government" could have honored its obligations under U.N. Resolution 1559 and disarm and disband Hezbollah — a bloodthirsty Islamofascist terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel. Or it could have openly acknowledged to the world that it could not do so and have invited other nations to do it for them. They declined — to put it mildly:

Hezbollah enjoys utmost prestige in Lebanon, because it freed our country. All over the Arab world you hear: Hezbollah maintains Arab honor, and even though it is very small, it stands up to Israel.

So said Lebanese President Nabih Berri.

Hence the question remains: Since Hezbollah is still attacking Israel, and since the "government" of Lebanon is demonstrably impotent — and therefore wholly illegitimate — when it comes to Hezbollah, what exactly is Israel supposed to do? Simply let itself be attacked ad nauseum and ad infinitum?

That's hardly a plan for a "lasting peace."

"We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children."
--Golda Meir, to Anwar Sadat, 1973

It's quite simple really: The 36 child fatalities, as well as the 20 adults, in the Lebanese city of Qana were killed by Israeli weapons.

But they were murdered by Hezbollah.

"The building was not the target. There were missiles being launched 100 to 300 meters from the building. We don't target civilians and had we known there were civilians there we would not have fired on that site," [a spokesperson for the Israeli military] said. "We do everything we can to prevent civilians from being killed, while Hezbollah operates from these areas because they want civilians to be killed."

So long as these terrorist barbarians skulk and hide among civilians, civilians will die. Israel has very little say in the matter, and certainly less say than the Lebanese "government" that is unable to run its own country.

If you believe in "not blaming the victim," then you must also believe in not blaming those who have no choice in such matters. That means Israel. The blame for this tragedy lies wholly, exclusively and unequivocally with Hezbollah and the Lebanese "government," and with them alone.

More thoughts from Below the Beltway, PoliBlog.

I previously warned:

Meanwhile, this reasoning opens the door for other ex-convict registries. Don't violent criminals in general have a "moderate" risk of repeat offenses? Drunk drivers? Drug dealers? Check kiters? Tax cheats? The unemployed twenty-something who misses a student loan payment? If the standard is a mere "moderate" risk of repeat offenses, then any and every kind of ex-convict registry is permissible. And inevitable.

Exhibit A:

Crooks convicted of committing crimes with guns will have to report to the NYPD every six months, under groundbreaking legislation signed into law yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg.

"This is the first legislation of its kind in the nation," Bloomberg declared at City Hall.

My guess is that it won't be the last.

More:

Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens), chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said the registration law will send an unmistakable message to repeat offenders: "We are watching you. We will keep watching you. If you screw up, you're going right back to jail."

Well, no, actually the registry says the exact opposite: We can't be bothered to watch you, so instead we're going to force you to watch us.

And besides, don't we have probation and parole officers who are supposed to do the watching? And double-besides, is "screwing up" now the moral equivalent of the violent crimes that landed these ex-convicts in prison in the first place? When I walk down the street, I worry about murderers and robbers and gay-bashers -- not "screw-ups."

The real intent of this registry, besides the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy feeling, is to drive released convicts out of the city altogether. Which might be a good thing for law-abiding New Yorkers, but I wonder how people in Hoboken, Jersey City or Yonkers will feel about it.

In any case, registries used to be about the threat of recidivism. Are armed criminals likely to be recidivists? Who knows -- the City didn't bother to ask.

And the criminal justice system used to be about, um, justice, not persecution.

Once upon a time.

As Officer Barbrady might say: "This is nothing out of the unusual -- people deliberately break their own necks all the time."

Chinese investigators have concluded that an activist who said he was paralyzed after assailants broke his neck inflicted the injury on himself, his son said Thursday.
...
Fu Xiancai was injured three weeks after German public television broadcast an interview in which he said he had been threatened and beaten for complaining about inadequate compensation for relocated residents.

He says that on June 8, he was called into the Zigui County Public Security Bureau in Hubei province and criticized for his television appearance. He was attacked after leaving the police station, he said.

On Wednesday, the head of the security bureau's forensics department and another county official told Fu Bing [Fu Xiancai's son] that experts concluded the injuries were self-inflicted, Fu Bing said.

Every try to punch yourself in the face? Try attempting to break your own neck.

These Communist brutes aren't even trying to concoct a decent cover-up. And of course they don't have to. They have total control over their own media, not to mention collaborators from media and web services in the West, and fellow governments, such as ours, that view China not as a cancer upon humanity but as a "trading partner" (not to mention that new get-out-of-human-rights-free card, "trusted ally in the War on Terror").

Incidentally:

Fu Xiancai underwent an operation last month that may enable him to use a wheelchair, but doctors have said he will not walk again.

Hopefully all those neat-o new skyscrapers China is building are wheelchair-accessible.

---

Another Officer Barbrady favorite: "Move along people, nothing to see here..."

New Chinese guidelines identify specific acts of torture for which police can be prosecuted in an apparent attempt to rein in such abuses.

The guidelines, viewed Thursday on government Web sites, describe practices ranging from beating to starvation. Though illegal, torture is believed to be used widely by police and government officials who rely heavily on coerced confessions to prove criminal cases.
...
The new provisions, dated Wednesday, are less than emphatic, merely stating conditions under which cases can be opened -- usually only if the abuse results in injury or death. No punishments were specified.

Silly Communist police -- don't they know the rule that it's only illegal if you leave a mark?

Well, they know it now.

...Then thanks for the flu money:

The city has received an $8.2 million grant from the federal government to prepare for a flu pandemic.

"We've already began using these resources to supply hospitals with ventilators and masks and to run educational campaigns," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday before signing a resolution with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

The federal government is also committing to provide guidance and technical assistance to local officials, including reviewing the city's plans for antiviral drugs.

So if you get the sniffles, be sure to visit New York and stop by one of our lovely hospitals. After all, you've already paid for it.

And remember: "from the federal government" is shyster shorthand for "from somebody else."

The Baltimore Sun has an idea:

From coast to coast, it is estimated that 80 percent of the nation's 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies have vacancies they cannot fill. The Los Angeles Police Department has more than 700 vacancies, and in March, New York City announced plans to hire 800 more officers.
...
Some departments are considering relaxing requirements for college credits and modifying prohibitions on applicants with a history of arrest or drug use in an effort to expand the pool of potential hires.
...
The solution is ... the Law Enforcement Education Program, or LEEP. ... In the 1970s, it helped pay to educate more than 300,000 law enforcement officers who attended more than 1,000 colleges and universities nationwide.

Translation: Have people in Kansas or Utah pay, through their federal tax dollars, for police in New York or Los Angeles (or, I'm guessing, Baltimore).

I have an alternative: how about each city simply offer a market-clearing salary? I have no doubt that if the NYPD offered, say, $200,000 per year to a rookie cop rather than $32,700, then there would be no shortage of qualified applicants.

When governments, at whatever level, can find enough money to fund just about everything except the core function of government -- maintaining public safety -- you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The phrase "Congress should pay for..." is nothing more than shyster shorthand for "Somebody else should pay for..."

Which, in turn, is shorthand for greed -- or theft.

Someone call the police.

(Via CrimProf Blog.)

...is, perhaps ironically, its Chief Privacy Officer:

After a nine-month search, the Department of Homeland Security has appointed mid-level homeland security lawyer Hugo Teufel III, who has no formal experience in privacy compliance, to be the Chief Privacy Officer for Homeland Security.

While the Department interviewed prominent and experienced privacy officials both from the corporate world and within the government, Chertoff instead chose a loyalist lawyer with no real experience in the field of privacy policy.

Lovely.

As Wired notes, there is certainly a need for more attention to privacy matters within DHS agencies, most notably the Transportation Security Agency. But more to the point, how is it that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — whose department is on double not-so-secret probation after Hurricane Katrina — be allowed to appoint yet another flunky to any position, let alone an important and high-profile one? Granted, Chertoff did not appoint Michael Brown to head FEMA (President Bush did). Nevertheless, the department as a whole has a taint that should not be ignored.

They just don't get it.

And is there any part of the government that needs to "just get it" more than Homeland Security?

---

Meanwhile:

Lawmakers say that since the Homeland Security Department's formation in 2003, an explosion of no-bid deals and a critical shortage of trained government contract managers have created a system prone to abuse. Based on a comprehensive survey of hundreds of government audits, 32 Homeland Security Department contracts worth a total of $34 billion have "experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement," according to the report, which is slated for release today and was obtained in advance by The Washington Post.

The two greatest obstacles to wise decision making are urgency and politics. Put the two together and "overcharges, wasteful spending, and mismanagement" are all but assured.

Demand creates its own supply:

British pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has reported a "breakthrough" in trials of a vaccine to combat a lethal strain of bird flu in humans.
...
GSK said that governments could order the vaccine for the H5N1 virus for delivery and stockpiling in early 2007 if it was approved by US, European and other regulators, even though more development work had to be done.

Remind me again how the pharmaceutical companies are nothing but "greedy capitalist bastards" who sell us drugs we don't need, and at inflated prices?

[P]robably it's going to be equivalent to a flu vaccine in terms of cost — maybe four pounds a dose or so," [GSK's CEO] said.

Bravo to Glaxo's scientists, executives and investors — all of whom contributed in their way to this globally significant breakthrough. Hopefully the FDA and the rest of the world's pharmacrats won't impede the development and deployment of this vaccine.

One very confused law professor seems to think so:

By exercising the [stem stem research funding] veto ... the President has abused his Executive Power and violated his Article II oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
...
[W]hen a President vetoes a law because he disagrees with the constitutional rights the law acknowledges [i.e., Roe v. Wade], he violates his oath of office and assumes near dictatorial power over both the legislative and judicial branches. By vetoing the stem cell bill, President Bush was not preserving, protecting, and defending our Constitution: he was giving it the finger.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

As anyone who went to law school high school civics class knows, the President's veto power is plenary — just like the pardon power. The President need not have a "constitutional" reason to veto a law; in fact he doesn't need an explicit reason at all. All he needs is a pen (or a pocket). So long as the specific procedures dictated by the Presentment Clause are followed, the President can veto any bill sent to him for any reason — or for no reason at all.

"Veto power abuse" gobbledygook from a law professor with a radical pro-choice agenda is the last thing we need right now obfuscating the real questions of executive power and its limits, such as whether the Bill of Rights is "optional" during times of war, whether the Youngstown paradigm of the separation of powers is still good law, and of course how to address the real Presentment Clause crisis of the Bush Administration: abuse of the wholly extraconstitutional, and perhaps unconstitutional, "presidential signing statement."

Be pro-choice all you want. But don't try to usurp our (far more urgent) "Stop Bush" agenda to take a cheap shot at the President for the sake of your "Stop Bush" agenda. We don't need the static.

When judges, such as those in New York and Washington, insist that they must defer to elected officials, is this the kind of elected official they have in mind?

[Jackson, Mississippi] Mayor Frank Melton promised a hands-on approach to this city's chronic crime problem, and he made good from the moment he took office, donning a bulletproof vest and black fatigues and leading nightly police patrols that illuminated the streets with flashing blue lights.

But the pistol-packing mayor soon ran up against the harsh reality that crime actually increased 26 percent during the first half of 2006. Melton responded with another get-tough gesture: imposing a monthlong state of emergency across the city.
...
Some prosecutors have objected to Melton's practice of putting on police gear and picking up a shotgun, and his habit of taking crime witnesses into his home in a sort of self-styled witness protection program.
...
Federal authorities have told the mayor to quit packing his pistol on commercial airline flights. ... Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood told him to stop wearing police gear, and Faye Peterson, the district attorney in Jackson, has said he is breaking the law by impersonating a police officer.

I blogged about this unstable clown previously. But the simple fact is that Melton received 88% of the vote. If you believe in unbridled majoritarianism, then you believe in Frank Melton.

And if judges are supposed to defer to elected officials such as Melton, or to the dolts who overwhelmingly elected him, then why bother even showing up for work in the morning? Just leave your judge's robe in the closet, put your feet up on the desk and tell everyone to resolve things the old-fashioned, "democratic" and "majoritarian" way -- with pistols and shotguns.

If it's good enough for the democratically elected mayor and majoritarian masses of Jackson, then it should be good enough for everyone.

...There's a land that I'm scared of, hence I will just fly by:

"We came here in search of our dreams, my wife always wanted a bed and breakfast and I always wanted a restaurant," says California native J.R. Knight.

But recently their dream has turned into a nightmare, all because of a flag they're flying outside. "It's a rainbow flag — to some people it means friendship to some people it means gay pride," says Knight. But for Knight, it was just a souvenir from his 12-year-old son [from a "Wizard of Oz" museum].
...
Local resident, Keith Klassen says the flag is a slap in the face to the conservative community of Meade [Kansas]. “To me it's just like running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood.

Of course, the fact that it was gays, not conservatives, who were sent to the concentration camps alongside Jews is a pesky little irrelevancy for the uptight upright citizens of Meade.*

The Knight's bed-and-breakfast is now foundering, as a local newspaper and radio station have shown their "conservative principles" by trying to drive out the family. Because those who are Friends of Dorothy fans of The Wizard of Oz are, apparently, now a core constituency of The Others Who Are Ruining America™.

I'm not sure this was the intended interpretation of: "The wind began to switch, the house to pitch, and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch..." Go figure.

(Via Konagod by way of Pam's House Blend. More thoughts at Hothouse.)

*And let's also not forget that, when the camps were liberated, many homosexual detainees were not freed, but simply transfered to civilian jails by the Allied forces.

Guess who said this:

Why should our laws make it more difficult to target al Qaeda communications that are most important to us -- those entering or leaving this country?

Hint: I warned you.

The ironic part is that Michael Hayden is now probably less of a threat to civil liberties in his new role as CIA Director than he was as head of the National Security Agency and chief architect of the scandalous warrantless wiretapping program.

In any case, the answer to Hayden's question is:

Because there is more to good governance, and more to
protecting the American people, than defeating al Qaeda.
And anyone who cannot appreciate that most fundamental premise is not competent to serve in a position of power, especially clandestine power, in our government.

More thoughts from defcon:blog.

It's quite simple really: the Washington Supreme Court's upholding of that state's DOMA is little more than New York's Hernandez v. Robles all over again.

DOMA is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children's biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature's view, further these purposes.

Translation: It is perfectly permissible to relegate an insular minority to second-class citizenship for no other reason than because the majority is too incompetent to control itself sexually and needs to be "encouraged" (i.e., manipulated) into certain behaviors in a way that gays, apparently, need not be.

From which it follows:

--Majoritarianism is absolute; the legislature is to be deferred to at all costs.

--Romer is dead; naked bigotry is once again a legitimate government interest, so long as it is sufficiently cloaked.

--Discriminatory laws are no longer subject to "overinclusiveness" or "underinclusiveness" review (e.g., apparently gay parents simply do not exist).

--It is permissible for a legislature to "believe" something, and to legislate accordingly, no matter how little evidence supports that "belief" or how much evidence contradicts it. (This was also the single most exasperating part of the Robles decision.)

--Judges have no prerogative, none whatsoever, to challenge the "beliefs" of the legislature, no matter unsupported, and unsupportable, those beliefs might be.

--Anyone who disagrees is a "judicial activist."

The opinions are astoundingly harsh and bitter toward one another — they will make an interesting if disappointing read.

More, possibly, later.

The case is Andersen v. King Co., Nos. 75934-1, 75956-1 (Wash. July 26, 2006). Links to PDFs here.

Back in May I blogged the following:

The chronic inaction of the Internal Revenue Service regarding the patently illegal political activities of fundamentalist Christian churches and clerics will one day go down as among the great scandals of American governance. But today is not that day...

Still, it's getting closer:

The Internal Revenue Service has been warning churches and nonprofit organizations that improper campaigning in the upcoming political season could endanger their tax-exempt status.

In notices to more than 15,000 tax-exempt organizations, numerous church denominations and tax preparers, the agency has detailed its new enforcement program, called the Political Activity Compliance Initiative[.]

Under the initiative, the IRS plans to expedite investigations into claims of improper campaigning, no longer waiting for an annual tax return to be filed or the tax year to end before launching a probe.

The horror stories in recent campaigns, especially with fundamentalist Christians preaching bigotry from the pulpit in the form of flagrant campaigning for passage of state anti-gay-marriage amendments, were enraging in terms of both their intensity and their frequency. And essentially nothing was done, either proactively or after the fact.

And it is very much ongoing:

A nondenominational church in Texas that has donated $1,500 to the local Republican Party should be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
...
"This appears to be a blatant violation of federal law," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.
...
"When church-goers place their hard-earned money in the collection plate, they do not expect it to wind up in the hands of politicians," Lynn added. "That's an abuse of the people's trust and a flouting of the law."

The money went to Republicans. Go figure.

Of course, one puny redneck church in Texas hardly means anything. Pat Robertson in jail for tax fraud is closer to what must happen before this omnipresent law-breaking by supposed "Christians" will end.

When I read this, I laughed, I cried ... but I sure as heck didn't pray:

Public officials in Lubbock, Texas, are organizing a day to pray for rain.

"Nobody is going to tell God what to do and what not to do, but we are in a serious drought in West Texas and since he is the man who controls the rain clouds, we're asking him for his mercy and his help," Mayor David Miller told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

The City Council and the Lubbock County commissioners are expected to adopt resolutions this week asking local residents to both pray and fast for rain this Sunday.

If this weren't so hilarious I might contemplate some First Amendment analysis -- but it's too hilarious.

If this weren't so pathetic I might suggest that they pray instead for the cancer kid who who was (almost) forced by the government to undergo chemotherapy against his and his parents' wishes -- but it's too pathetic.

So instead I'll just sigh. Sigh to heaven. And maybe the Lord will answer my sigh by smiting these jackass politicians.

Time for me to gripe again about the Landmarks Preservation Commission:

The Landmarks Preservation Commission will hear a proposal today from the MTA and the owner of the "Honest Boy" fruit stand at the corner of Broadway and Houston in SoHo, Pan Gi Lee, to allow the construction of a two-story glass, steel, and aluminum building. The new structure, which would incorporate one of the entrances to the Broadway and Lafayette subway station, has been submitted to the commission for an advisory opinion because it would sit within the SoHo cast iron historic district.

It's bad enough that the LPC is out of control, declaring patently unimportant structures "historic landmarks" for no other reason than because, well, it's the raison d'être of the LPC to declare landmarks -- so where there are not enough "landmarks" to be found, the LPC simply invents them.

But now we also have the added gobbledygook of the "Historic District." If you visit New York City, you'll always know when you're in such a District by the brown (rather than green) street signs. And you will find them everywhere -- see generally, "the LPC simply invents them."

You have a subway station that is in no way historic or a landmark. You have a rickety old fruit shack. You have a plan to build a nice, aesthetic structure, increasing commerce in the process.

And you need the permission of a gaggle of unelected patronage appointees, not because any worthy structure is at stake, but because they have been granted central planner authority over an entire district?

Lovely.

More:

With the neighborhood exploding with shoppers and luxury, glass-encased apartments and boutique hotels, some locals said they would miss the old rickety stand.

And so everybody else, all the people who are not mentally questionable clods who enjoy dilapidation, have to suffer as a result?

Lovelier.

Still more:

Yesterday, the local Community Board 2 submitted a request to the Landmarks Commission that the proposal be denied and "something better built."

Clash of the unelected would-be central planners! Whoever wins -- we lose.

(Via Gothamist, which has a small picture of the shack in question.)

Who else could accomplish such a feat?

The city's OTB will go under in about a year unless the state overhauls the formula for distributing the agency's revenues, Comptroller Bill Thompson warned yesterday.

Thompson said OTB has to hand over so much money to the state and the racing industry that in fiscal 2008 -- which begins July 1, 2007 -- it will be flat broke.

My previous posts on Off-Track Betting are in the chain below. Unlike casino table games (but very much like slot machines), a parimutuel wagering operation simply cannot lose money from the actual gambling itself -- it simply skims off the top and its gross margin is therefore always positive. Only fixed expenses -- or taxes -- could kill such an impervious golden goose.

Enough said.

Even if I'm not winning over my fellow libertarians on the question of "getting government out of the marriage business," I'm sure we will all agree on the question of "getting government out of the marriage subsidization business" --

Ron McLain has no qualms about the federal government getting involved in marriage. Indeed, he's counting on it.

McLain has applied for a $550,000 federal grant to hire counselors for Marriage Mentoring Ministries Inc., a tiny business in Fresno County, Calif., that helps couples before and after they exchange wedding vows. He also has a bid in for a $250,000 grant to teach men to become better fathers.
...
The grant money represents the latest shift in welfare reform in the United States. For the next five years, Congress is setting aside up to $100 million a year to promote marriage and $50 million a year to produce committed fathers. This year's allotment goes out before Sept. 30.

Somehow I suspect that many, many more organizations with the word "Ministries" in their names will be shamelessly sucking at this fiscal teat.

From the Marriage Mentoring Ministries website

Our goal is that by the year 2020, 75% of all churches in these areas will be mentoring churches, offering programs that will enrich and strengthen couples and families and lower the divorce rate.

First Amendment concerns? Apparently not. Go figure.

Meanwhile, I wonder if any federal money will go to promote same-sex marriage in Massachusetts?

DOMA concerns? Apparently so. Go figure.

How politicians (especially Republican politicians) and Christians (especially evangelical Christians) can engage in this farce with a straight face is beyond me.

A federal judge has dismissed the "Studs Terkel" lawsuit against AT&T in connection with the NSA "phone records scandal" --

"The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities," U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said.
...
He also said Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which sought class-action status, had not shown that their own records had been provided to the government. As a result, they lacked standing to sue the government, he said.

I have to defer to the procedure wonks, but isn't there a rule that if a judge determines that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit lack standing to sue, then he should dismiss on that basis only and not even attempt to reach the merits or any other defenses (i.e., including the supposed applicability of the "state secrets privilege")?

And if so, then is failing to so limit oneself not an example of true "judicial activism"?

Just wondering.

Stanford University computer science professor John Koza has a candidate:

Koza's scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn't require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

What an utterly atrocious idea.

Some hasty stitches:

--It's not at all clear that such an interstate compact would be constitutional. Yes the Constitution explicitly provides for interstate compacts, but clearly that mandate is limited to permissible purposes. See, e.g., Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968) (elector slates cannot be unduly limited to major parties). Would a compact that was expressly designed to subvert the Electoral College be considered "permissible"? Also, interstate compacts require congressional approval — another extra-constitutional intervention into the Electoral process that would deserve some serious judicial scrutiny.

--Regardless of how states allocate electors, it is still inarguably well-settled law that electors, once chosen, are free to vote as they please. An electoral interstate compact would not change that.

--Why would any state join such a compact? How would it not decrease, rather than increase, their influence in presidential elections?

--Why bother? There's a far better alternative — one that I have been touting for years: the District Method of allocating electoral votes:

This method divides electoral votes by district, allocating one vote to each district and using the remaining two as a bonus for the statewide popular vote winner. This method of distribution has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither state has had a statewide winner that has not swept all of the Congressional districts as well.

The District Method requires no constitutional amendment or dubious interstate compact plotting. It dilutes, significantly, the winner-take-all problems of the current system and reduces the potential for an electoral-popular divergence essentially to zero. It would bring candidates into more states during the campaign. And it might, just might, allow for a stray third-party electoral vote here and there, from time to time. Libertarians should love that prospect.

What do they say in medical school? Don't think "zebra" until you've ruled out "horse."

---

A quick digression:

Supporters say the proposal would avoid such controversial results as the 2000 presidential election when Republican George W. Bush was declared the winner despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore, a Democrat.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. Al Gore did not win the popular vote — the outcome of the popular vote will never be known, since many places with undisputed polling place victories never counted their absentee ballots or their disputed votes (what today we call "provisional ballots"). And let's not forget the "snowbird voter" fraud in Florida that almost allowed Gore to steal the 2000 election from Bush.

Far more to the point — why should it make any difference if Al Gore did indeed win the popular vote? The candidates did not wage a popular vote campaign — they waged an Electoral College campaign. The popular vote was, therefore, wholly irrelevant.

How would the vote have played out if the Electoral College had not existed and a popular vote was in place from the outset? Who knows? The candidates would have traveled differently, spent their money differently, postured and positioned themselves differently. And so on.

It would be akin to saying that, even though Player A won the tennis match, Player B made fewer unforced errors. So what? They weren't having an "unforced error" contest; they were having a tennis match. So too with presidential elections — you can't "win" or "lose" a contest that was never fought.

The 2000 presidential election was undeniably a sad chapter in our political history. The best way to ensure that it never happens again is by switching to the District Method, not some unworkable pipe dream about direct popular election or Professor Koza's bizarre interstate compact gobbledygook.

See if you can guess which institution of higher learning employs the professor of law who wrote this:

The United States, which historically was the world leader in defining and protecting basic human rights, has fallen behind many nations in protecting the fundamental human right (and basic social institution) of marriage. The FMPA votes in Congress this summer represent an ongoing commitment to secure such human rights protection by constitutional amendment.

That's right: the ability of a majority to oppress an insular minority by denying them equal protection of law, for no other reason than naked bigotry, is now apparently a "fundamental human right."

Answer here.

Your tax dollars at work -- causing Africans to remain stuck in poverty:

After five years of negotiations to reduce barriers to international trade, global trade talks broke down today when the United States and the European Union failed to agree to reduce farm subsidies and protective tariffs.
...
Developing nations are demanding that rich nations reduce the high tariffs they use to protect their farmers from low-cost foreign competition, and to reduce the billions they spend annually subsidizing farmers. Only then, the developing nations say, can they open their own markets to more Western manufactured goods and services.

And remember, the goal of farm subsidies -- which do not always go to farmers -- is often to keep agricultural prices high (i.e., to make you pay more) by bribing farmers -- who are not always farmers -- not to produce, to restrict supply. Which the government can only do if tariffs shut out other nations from our markets.

Higher taxes, higher prices, impoverished Africans. Lovely.

And what, meanwhile, are the Africans going to do about it?

But most importantly we need to realize that we should now look to Asian markets and China since the big boys (Western countries) are not ready," Erastus Mwencha, general secretary of [the] Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), told Reuters.

Remind me again how forcing Africa to sell their low-priced exports to China and not us, while keeping our prices artificially high through taxes, will help our economic position relative to China?

Higher taxes, higher prices, impoverished Africans ... and another economic advantage for China. Lovelier.

Senator Arlen Specter wrote a major defense of his "roll over and play dead" bill proposing complete Congressional capitulation to the Administration on warrantless wiretapping (a/k/a spying on American citizens on American soil).

The whole piece is pathetic tripe and doublespeak, but this is the black hole that is pulling in all commentary from everywhere:

The president's constitutional power either exists or does not exist, no matter what any statute may say.

My god.

There you have it: the first open acknowledgement of an unspoken premise that those of us opposed to the NSA program and the Administration's cross-eyed defense of it had feared almost from the outset --

The President is, according to Specter, a dictator in time of war.
The fact that the "war" is open-ended and against a nebulous non-nation-state entity does not matter.

And this comes from a self-professed opponent of the Administration's position, one who is selling his bill as a "major breakthrough" after "fierce negotiation."

Hogwash.

As others are explaining (see links below), the Specter view flagrantly disregards fifty years of constitutional jurisprudence and betrays one of the most famous separation of powers decisions ever handed down: Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) (the "Steel Seizure Case"), not to mention the recent Hamdan decision, which expressly rejected the concept of "inherent" plenary Article II power.

The Specter Doctrine also violates another basic legal premise, as I mentioned previously: It fails to distinguish between the validity or constitutionality of a law or government program "on its face" versus "as applied."

One review, by one court, of the entire program, conducted ex parte and in secret? This is judicial review? This is due process of law? And this is from the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

Let me give you an example of how a single court review of an executive program cannot possibly satisfy the Constitution: the draft.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that military conscription is re-instituted in its historical form. That form of the draft has been (wrongly) upheld by the courts. The program, as a "program," has been "approved" by a court. And certainly the draft would be part of the President's "inherent" wartime powers under Article II, no?

Now assume that the President, invoking his "inherent" Article II powers as Commander-in-Chief, starts drafting women. Women never had an opportunity to challenge the draft. And now they never can, because the "program" has been "reviewed" by a court? One bite at the apple and that's it? And besides, this is all optional anyway — the President has "inherent" wartime power, does he not?

Now assume that President starts drafting minors. That issue was also never litigated. Would anyone dare suggest it couldn't be, because the "program" was already "reviewed" by a court. And besides, the President has "inherent" wartime powers, right?

Now assume that the President offers a buyout from the draft, much like the infamous $300 exemption available during the Civil War. Anyone with $30,000 can buy their way out of the draft. Not to be challenged? See generally, "program," "reviewed," "inherent."

Now assume that the President starts exempting people personally, on an ad hoc basis. Maybe the son of a major campaign contributor. Maybe Jenna's boyfriend. Maybe he starts selling exemptions the way Bill Clinton sold pardons. But not to be challenged — "program," "reviewed," "inherent."

Surely this cannot be. So too can there surely not be one and only review of the NSA "program," by a secret court with no confrontation, no discovery and no public access. That is not judicial review, that is not due process of law, and that is not the American way.

And Senator Specter knows it.

More thoughts from Glenn Greenwald, Marty Lederman, Anonymous Liberal.

Gays (and everyone else) should take notice of an interesting case in North Carolina:

In February 2004, shortly after starting her job as a dispatcher for the Pender County Sheriff's Office, Hobbs was told that she would be required to marry her partner, move out of the house they shared together, or leave her job.

The law, General Statute § 14-184, states: "If any man and woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor."

In a ruling issued late yesterday, State Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford found the law to be unconstitutional both on its face and as applied to Hobbs.

Of course, when I hear "cohabitation law" I generally rush to observe that in Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977), the Supreme Court made it clear that the government cannot attempt to define what is and is not a family and cannot decree, without more, who may or may not live together. Previous post on the subject here.

Silly me:

The court ruled that the cohabitation statute violated Hobbs' constitutional right to liberty, citing a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case called Lawrence v. Texas which struck down a Texas sodomy law.

Gee, I should look up that "Lawrence v. Texas" case — sounds interesting.

Okay, sarcasm over.

I like the idea that Lawrence is rescuing straights as well as gays from archaic and irrational discrimination and persecution (straights were, for example, also occasionally prosecuted for private consensual sodomy; it wasn't just used against gays). But in a sense I also think it's somewhat sad that libertarian-minded jurists need to pull out "the big guns" to swat little insect-minded politicians and their indefensible laws. I would have preferred a simple rational basis smackdown: the government has no legitimate interest in regulating who can and cannot be roommates — whether they share a house, a room or a bed. End of discussion.

The case is Hobbs v. Pender County; links and citations are not yet available. More thoughts at Pam's House Blend.

I've previously chronicled the rather remarkable, and disheartening, erosion of some core criminal procedure liberties in the United Kingdom: double jeopardy, the hearsay rule and even jury trials. And of course we all know that there is no First Amendment in Europe.

Well, add another one to the list:

The historic legal principle that husbands and wives cannot be forced to testify against each other in court could be swept away, with ministers announcing a consultation tomorrow on the merits of such a reform.

There is particular concern in two areas. One is where an accused marries a key witness and thus silences that testimony, and the other relates to assaults on children by a parent, where the spouse is often the only witness.

Two footnotes: First, this is Scotland and not all of the U.K. Second, this version of spousal privilege is far more expansive than that enjoyed by American spouses, which only covers private communications occurring during the marriage and does not include conspiratorial criminal plotting. Still, it would be regrettable to see the entire privilege discarded in order to "close a loophole."

In any case, this story actually intersects another major thesis of my blogging and is the main point of this post:

The current criminal law that witnesses cannot be forced to give evidence against their wives or husbands, except where one is the direct victim of an offence at the hand of the other, has been extended to include civil partnerships for same-sex couples.

As I've pointed out repeatedly, marriage is not simply a "contract." It is a legal status that, in many ways, simply cannot be replicated by contract. Spousal privilege is among the most clear-cut examples of this. No private contract can possibly replicate it -- only the government can grant it.

Another example is estate law. Yes a person can (and usually should) draft a will (not a costless undertaking, incidentally) specifying how one's estate is to be distributed. But there are two complications:

1. Elective share, the law (in most states) that says you cannot completely disinherit a spouse.
2. The law of intestacy: You should have a will. But what if you don't?

Both of these longstanding legal provisions are strongly biased in favor of spouses (or, in enlightened regimes, spousal equivalents such as registered domestic partners).

So the question for the "government should get out of the marriage business" crowd is: Are you suggesting that spousal privilege is invariably and facially wrong as a legal concept? Should "government get out of the testimonial privilege business" too?

And is elective share an affront to your libertarian sensibilities as well? Why exactly?

And how, exactly, is the government supposed to "get out of the intestacy business"? Intestacy is by definition the government's business. What would the anti-marriage libertarians replace it with? Would they force people, by law, to draft wills? Threaten the intestate with summary escheat of their estates? Are those libertarian propositions?

As I've blogged previously:

The real meaning of marriage in modern society -- automatic property rights, automatic inheritance rights, automatic child custody rights, automatic healthcare rights, automatic decision-making rights of all kinds, these all derive not from some abstract "bundle of contracts" concept of marriage, but from the legal status concept.

The government cannot "get out of the governing business." Which is why it cannot "get out of the marriage business."

(Via Fark.)

---

Just draw up contracts?

[Eric and Crispin] had made for one another all the necessary legal arrangements: powers of attorney, mutual wills, etc etc. All their bases were covered, so they thought. As soon as he heard the news [of Eric's death], Crispin had flown straight out to Provincetown, where Eric died, to make funeral arrangements. A friend who accompanied them said that when Crispin began to detail the requirements for the cremation and commitment at the funeral home in Provincetown, the funeral director drew himself up and demanded to know what the basis of their relationship was. He told Crispin: “I don’t believe you will be making the funeral arrangements”. It required the intervention of [gay rights] lawyers and lawyer friends on both coasts to convince the funeral home that he was indeed authorized as a legal partner to make the arrangements. Crispin requested an autopsy, which was contested by the Medical Examiner on the same grounds, and the cremation was subsequently questioned as well (they called during the funeral to argue the case with Crispin).

I remember in Agency & Partnership class in law school when the professor explained that banks invariably try to (illegally) refuse to honor powers of attorney unless they are on the bank's own forms. And that's not even factoring in any anti-gay bigotry.

Can you imagine such incidents occurring everywhere, with everyone, every time? That's what would happen if government "got out of the marriage business."

---

Embedded deep down in this unrelated (and lengthy) post today, ueber-blogger Glenn Greenwald discusses his attempt to litigate for same-sex spousal privilege in New York State, a decade before the same-sex marriage defeat in Hernandez v. Robles. [Scroll down to "My Sexual Orientation."]

Remind me again how a post-Kelo Congress was going to come to the rescue to prevent eminent domain abuses?

The United States House of Representatives voted 349 to 74 to acquire a monumental cross and the park around it from the City of San Diego. The 29-foot cross has been the target of a 17-year court battle between an atheist and the city, which owns the hilltop property where the monument stands. A federal judge ruled in May that the cross could not stand in the municipal park because it violated a state constitutional prohibition on the governmental endorsement of any one religion. That ruling is being appealed by the city. Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican congressman from San Diego, said in floor debate that federal ownership would make the existing lawsuit moot.

No word on how the bill will fare in the Senate.

As background, that ultra-liberal, ultra-activist judge -- Anthony Kennedy -- granted an emergency injunction preventing the removal of the cross while litigation proceeds through the federal courts. A federal eminent domain condemnation would mean that the cross would be reviewed according to federal Establishment Clause jurisprudence rather than California law.

In other words, an activist Congress is trying to out-activist the "activist" judges that they profess to abhor. Go figure.

Incidentally: A "public-for-public" taking? How perverse is that? One wonders what might be next -- "Gee, New York State, that's a mighty fine state courthouse you have there -- mind if we seize it via eminent domain and convert it into a federal courthouse?" And wouldn't the more logical route be to go in the opposite direction and privatize the monument? No government involvement, no Establishment Clause problems -- no harm, no foul.

Meanwhile, would a "Federal Mount Soledad Cross" survive a First Amendment challenge in a way that a "San Diego Mount Soledad Cross" could not? I have no idea. The case law these days is far too schizophrenic to say with any certainty. But that's not my point.

This is: Politicians are politicians -- whether federal, state or local -- and eminent domain is too tempting a tool for them to use responsibly. The notion that Congress -- or any other legislature -- was going to "save us from Kelo" was a foolish fantasy.

(Via Jurist.)

The Good News: A federal judge has struck down Maryland's obnoxious bill of attainder forcing Wal-Mart — and only Wal-Mart — to dedicate a minimum of 8% of its compensation budget to health care. I blogged about the law here, here and here.

The Bad News: In striking down the law, the judge ruled not that Wal-Mart is free to offer whatever compensation packages it sees fit, but merely that the state law was pre-empted by the federal version, generally known as ERISA.

So government interference in free markets and infringement of economic due process (i.e., freedom of contract) are alive and well — just only at the federal level.

I suppose that's something.

President Bush's veto of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research using blastocysts that are slated for destruction anyway is of course the entirely correct course of action — but for the entirely wrong reason.

Senators voted 63 to 37 to approve a House-passed bill that would pour millions of dollars into a field of medical research that is promising — but also controversial because it requires destroying human embryos to extract the cells.

Bush announced in his first nationally televised address, on Aug. 9, 2001, that he would ban government funding for research using embryonic stem cell colonies created after that date, and he has vowed to cast his first presidential veto to block the legislation rescinding his executive order.

There should indeed be no federal funding of stem cell research — because there should be no federal funding of any medical research of any kind.

Demand creates its own supply. Where there is a need (i.e., a potential market) for the fruits of such research, private "greedy" capitalists will undertake it. And even where there are potential shortfalls (e.g., rare diseases, orphan drugs), the non-profit sector, relying on charitable support, can pick up the slack.

The government can never catalyze discovery; it can only forcibly misallocate resources away from where people actually want them to be deployed.

The President, meanwhile, sees none of this:

This bill would support the taking of innocent human life of the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our society needs to respect, so I vetoed it.

Instead, he is yet again pandering to his base, the evangelical ignoranti who wallow in anti-science cloaked as "choosing life." (Those who can distinguish between an amorphous clump of cells and a bona fide human fetus are, to the Bush base, a major component of The Others Who Are Ruining America™.) The fact that not a single (proto-)life will be saved by this veto, meanwhile, is a pesky irrelevancy. Go figure.

More thoughts at To the People, Below the Beltway.

Somewhat related to my previous post: Demand creates its own supply -- or not:

West Virginia's lone potato chip maker is scrapping its low-fat recipe after consumer reaction to the healthier creations resulted in a 6 percent drop in sales.

Parkersburg-based Mister Bee, which hadn't changed its recipe since it opened in 1951, launched its new chips in March. The chips are made using all cottonseed oil, which is free of artery-clogging trans fat.

But the new chip drew immediate reactions from customers who said if they wanted healthy, they wouldn't be eating chips.
...
Since March, the company averaged 15 phone calls a day from consumers. ... To restore peace, the company will revert to frying up batches of its chips in soybean oil and all the trans fat that comes with it.

I suppose the chips will soon be banned in Chicago -- or perhaps everywhere -- if the nanny-staters get their way.

In any case, there's a reason why food companies prepare their products the way they do -- because that's how customers want them prepared. Forcing companies to make, and consumers to buy, products that do not actually satisfy consumer preferences is, obviously, not a logical way to make us "better off." Go figure.

For Discussion: I can't say that I've ever tried Mister Bee Potato Chips, with either cottonseed oil or soybean oil. Anyone care to write a review? I'm a Ruffles man.

POST SCRIPT: I wonder what fraction of my readers are old enough to know whence comes the expression "No Fries -- Cheeps!"...

It's tempting for capitalist-libertarians to cite the recent announcement by Marriott International that all its U.S. and Canadian hotels will go completely smoke-free as a demonstration of the viability of private markets to allocate, and re-allocate, resources based on consumer preferences as they evolve over time (i.e., that demand creates its own supply) and that government mandates in private markets, such as smoking bans, are unnecessary.

But I wonder if there isn't another factor at work here.

If one state (e.g., California) mandates higher emission standards for automobiles, then which is more likely: that auto makers will produce two different kinds of cars or that they will simply mass-produce the more compliant vehicle? The presence of economies of scale strongly encourages the former.

So too, perhaps, with Marriott:

Currently more than 90 percent of Marriott guest rooms are already non-smoking and smoking is prohibited in many public spaces due to local laws.

Maybe the company's management simply tired of worrying about complying with a mish-mosh of local laws, the violation of any one of which could lead to both fines and negative publicity (who wants an army of Eliot Spitzer acolytes pursuing them over smoking ban violations?). Perhaps it was simply more prudent to ban all smoking everywhere and be done with it.

The real test of the evolution of the markets for smoke-free environments will be, not hotels, but casinos -- which, incidentally, enjoy almost universal and almost absolute exemptions to smoking bans, thanks of course to the Politics of Pull.

So let's start a pool: How long until we see a major casino in a major market go completely smoke-free? I'm guessing it will be at least another ten years.

And let's not forget that none of this economic analysis changes the inarguable impropriety of smoking bans as property rights violations.

For Discussion: Marriott International does not actually own its branded hotels -- it is, for the most part, an operator and franchiser only. Does this change the analysis? If so, how?

Back in this post I noted the incredible tactic by the Administration to obstruct investigation into the warrantless wiretapping scandal by denying security clearance to Justice Department officials. As if FBI agents were potential al Qaeda operatives.

Well, now we now that "the Administration" was in fact the President himself.

The President, personally, obstructing members of his own Administration in order to protect -- members of his own Administration.

So I ask again: Are we at "Worse than Nixon" yet?

---

This will simultaneously make you laugh and cry:


(Click to enlarge.)
The terrorists want to destroy our way of life. They are succeeding.

It's quite simple really: If you believe...

...that 50 local hack politicians have the authority to ban a food ingredient that is in no way suspected to be adulterated or contaminated, poses no immediate health risk to anyone, poses no direct, physical externalities to innocent bystanders and, to the extent it supposedly creates "financial externalities," does so only minutely, on average, in the distant future and because the state created those financial externalities itself in the first place...

...then you must, by implication, believe that there can be no checks on the power on government. Ever.

Even more so than the bigot amendments. Even more so than the flag desecration amendment. Even more so than Social Security. Even more so than the War on Drugs. Even more so than the Internet gambling ban. Indeed, even so more than that ultra-favorite litmus test of libertarians -- the motorcycle helmet law.

Even more so than all these, Chicago's proposed ban on trans fat in restaurants is a declaration that the power of government is unlimited, that "tyranny of the majority" is an oxymoron and that legislators can declare themselves not only smarter than you, but also so much so that you can and should be declared, literally, a ward of the state.

Is this the kind of faith you have in local politicians? Is this the level of confidence, or lack thereof, that you have in yourself and your ability to run your life as you see fit? Is this the kind of society you want to live in?

If so, then be my guest -- but leave me the hell out of it.

I know you'll all suffer withdrawal, but blogging will be very light for the next week or so, for two good and two not-so-good reasons:

Bad Reason #1 — A catastrophic software failure, including System Restore, on my laptop. It will take a day or two to re-install, update, etc.

Bad Reason #2 — It's the busy season here at my greedy Swiss bank employer. "It's the hard-knock life, for us..."

Good Reason #1 — I am so excited.



Good Reason #2 — Did I mention how excited I am?

First it was revealed that you don't actually have to farm to get taxpayer-funded farm subsidies.

Now we learn that you don't have suffer from drought to get taxpayer-funded drought relief.

On a clear, cold morning in February 2003, Nico de Boer heard what sounded like a clap of thunder and stepped outside his hillside home for a look. High above the tree line, the 40-year-old dairy farmer saw a trail of smoke curling across the sky -- all that remained of the space shuttle Columbia.

Weeks later, de Boer was startled to learn that he was one of hundreds of East Texas ranchers entitled to up to $40,000 in disaster compensation from the federal government, even though the nearest debris landed 10 to 20 miles from his cattle.
...
In all, the Livestock Compensation Program cost taxpayers $1.2 billion during its two years of existence, 2002 and 2003. Of that, $635 million went to ranchers and dairy farmers in areas where there was moderate drought or none at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post. None of the ranchers were required to prove they suffered an actual loss. The government simply sent each of them a check based on the number of cattle they owned.

No actual loss? I wonder how the Katrina victims would feel about that.

And a per-steer subsidy of course inevitably means that larger (i.e., wealthier) ranchers get more taxpayer money. Because we have to help those "in need." Great disaster, if you can get it.

Those who insist that the redistributionist state can serve supposedly "noble" purposes forget that the people who create and administer such programs are as a group anything but "noble" --

Hurriedly drafted by the Bush administration in 2002 and expanded by Congress the following year, the relief plan rapidly became an expensive part of the government's sprawling system of entitlements for farmers, which topped $25 billion last year.

This Congress -- this Republican Congress -- has repeatedly shown that it has no scruples whatsoever when it comes to buying votes.

Remember, much of this no-disaster relief goes to Texas ranchers. What state is President Bush from again? Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay?

And when you factor in the disproportionate representation of the agricultural "fly-over states" in the Senate, how can farmers and ranchers not, um, "reap" a windfall, while the rest of us are, um, "slaughtered" by redistributionist, Politics of Pull programs such as this outrage?

---

Incidentally, if beef is unhealthy, then why are we subsidizing it in the first place? Shouldn't we be taxing cattle rather than underwriting it?

A key premise of Galbraithian anti-capitalism was that much, if not most, demand for consumer goods is contrived and concocted by businesses. Stated differently, the goal of capitalists is not to satisfy wants, but to create them.

So, to the Galbraithians, most businesspeople sit around the boardroom all day thinking to themselves, "we can sell anything to anyone if we just have the right ad campaign."

Exhibit A:

A perfect example of such deterioration under the Board's watch is the failure to maximize the full value of the iconic Bazooka brand over the past 20 years. Bazooka and other gum products sales were $26.2 million in fiscal year 1985. Twenty-one years later, gum sales were down more than 60% to $10 million in fiscal year 2006. But don't just take it from us. Paul Cherrie, a Topps Managing Director stated publicly that "We've almost missed an entire generation."
...
AdvertisingAge reported recently that "Bazooka disappeared from the airwaves and virtually all other forms of communication over the last decade." It seems to us that the Bazooka brand is not the only thing that disappeared during this time. Where was the Board and management ... ?

So say the instigators of a proxy fight to take over the Topps board of directors.

But this is, of course, utter nonsense.

At 39, I'm probably among the youngest demographic that actually remembers Bazooka Joe bubble gum as a dominant candy brand. And I remember that it sucked. It was so hard that you could chip a tooth on it. And the standard two-cent piece was nowhere near big enough to actually blow a bubble -- you had to buy at least three or four pieces.

As for Topps trading cards (which I did not collect as a child), one childhood collector notes:

I generally tossed the gum in the trash after opening a pack of cards. I recall opening a whole box of Topps cards once with a friend (probably 1983 Topps) -- and tossing a whole lot of gum in the trash at the end.

This is not to say that there wasn't necessarily mismanagement at Topps; there might very well have been (inadequate R&D comes to mind). But the lament that sales declined exclusively because of inadequate advertising is preposterous.

Indeed, these same would-be directors acknowledge another, far more important reason that you don't see much Bazooka Joe gum anymore:

[T]he reason why Topps does not currently sell its Bazooka gum to warehouse shopping clubs, such as Costco and Sam's Club, is that the clubs' retail price for bubble gum was LESS than the cost for Topps to manufacture its gum...

There's that evil Wal-Mart again, making it impossible for people to sell expensive gum that sucks. Have they no shame? Didn't they read Galbraith?

Meanwhile, all this blogging has made my mouth go dry -- time for a stick of my favorite gum (at least since 1994, when it was first invented).

(Via The Conglomerate.)

Happy Monday:

---

ITEM: "Well you came and you stopped me from sleeping..." --

The town of Rockdale [Australia] has been blasting out Barry Manilow tunes to drive away car enthusiasts who gather on weekends at Cook Park Reserve.

"Barry's our secret weapon," Rockdale Deputy Mayor Bill Saravinovski said four weeks after the start of the effort. "It seems to be working."

But some people living near the park are less than happy. They say the barrage of "Copacabana" and "Que Sera Sera", blasting from 9pm to midnight every Friday, Saturday and Sunday is driving them crazy.

MY TAKE: The Law of Unintended Consequences is one that no legislature can repeal.

---

ITEM: "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner trying to win a million dollars?"

A proposal to award $1 million in every general election to one lucky [Arizona] resident, chosen by lottery, simply for voting -- no matter for whom -- has qualified for the November ballot.
...
"It's clearly illegal," said Jack Chin, a professor at the University of Arizona law school who has studied voting rights issues.
...
But [the measure's sponsors] said the laws were meant to stop individuals from buying o