Rabbit Island

Rabbit Island--so named because it looks like a Rabbit's head. This picture doesn't reveal it that well though.

Conjunction

I'm not sure how well this photo will display on the blog, but on iPhoto I can easily see the conjunction of Venus, Mercury, and Saturn. On June 27, Mercury paired up, leaving roughly one tenth of a degree between them (extremely close). The two planets were absolutely stunning as viewed with the eye, with Mercury situated to the left of Venus. Saturn (extremely faint in the twilight and unlikely to be resolved in this photo I'm posting) was visible a few degrees below Mercury and Venus.

Outlook

From an outlook in Oahu well over 500 feet in elevation. The wind was roughly 50mph up here...and it was a mild day at that.

Wired in Hawaii

Posting has been a problem as of late because until this morning, I haven't been able to access the wireless network at the University. But the problem is now solved so hopefully I'll be able to be faithful in posting some of the more interesting (hopefully not boring) pictures from our trip so far.

Aloha

Sunday night we made it to Hawaii. This place is great. I don't have time to post much now but for starters, here's a picture of Waikiki beach at sunset. Diamond Head is in the background.

More to come.

Developing...

Roved

The Democrats are going crazy over Karl Rove's recent observation that "liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." At first I was surprised at the fuss they were making about this, but I think two things explain it. The first is that Democrats have been reeling the past week over the uproar that followed Dick Durbans seditious remarks equating our military at Gitmo to Nazis. Polls indicate that 70% of Americans think that the prisoners at Gitmo are being treated well or better than they deserve. Politically, then, this makes Durbin's statement as stupid as it was repugnant. In light of all this, it makes a lot of sense that they would be waiting to jump on the first statement from a Republican that they could broadcast as being "insulting" (in the words of Hillary).

But there's another reason--one that I think better explains what's going on. Rove's statement is evoking such outcry from Democrats because they know that his statement resounds with truth. It's just that Rove said in a rather pointed way what many believe. He cut to the quick and exposed the great philosphical difference between liberal and conservatives. And in a world where we face an enemy that believes all Jews and Christians should be killed, the liberal approach will never work. Restraint, diplomacy, and trying to understand why we upset the enemy will never protect us from these savages. Only imprisonment or death will keep our enemy at bay.

Were liberals like Durbin not so inclined to believe that our military effort against the enemy is tantamount to the approach of the Nazis, perhaps Rove wouldn't have had as much ground to stand on to make the statement he did. Sadly, they are quicker to echo the complaints of the enemy than they are to stand behind the commander in chief who's waging a war for our national security.

Oh, I forgot one other thing. Democrats hate Rove because he's an evil genious who was the architect of their defeat in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

The High Court

The Supreme Court is truly mad. Bush better take full advantage of the appointments he has coming up. Here's the latest usurption of the constitution: Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes


Justice O'Conner writes the dissent where she begins by making the following point:

Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded -- i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public -- in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings "for public use" is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property -- and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent.

It's a shame that Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer, and Stevens don't understand that the right to own private property is one of the most important principals this country was founded on. Freedom and Liberty mean little if a person can't find security in his or her own property.

The case is KELO v. NEW LONDON, 2005 U.S. LEXIS 5011

The Star Tribune

The Minneapolis Star Tribune's editorial today is vile and sad. You can read it here. It's sickening see how a flagship paper in one of our nation's larger cities can so emphatically support the seditious statements made by Dick Durbin. The editors say the following:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., set off a firestorm last week when he compared U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to practices employed by Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot and their ilk. His remarks were condemned by the White House, the Pentagon, the Christian Coalition, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Newt Gingrich (who called for his censure by the Senate) and by the entire right side of the talk radio/television/blog world. The heat got so bad that, late in the week, Durbin apologized if his remarks had been "misunderstood." They weren't, and Durbin should not have apologized.

Instead, the senator should have hit back hard, just as the Amnesty International did when its comparison of Guantanamo to the Soviet gulag was attacked. By caving in, Durbin did just what the orchestrated right-wing smear effort required to succeed: It made him the story rather than focusing further attention on the outrageous violations of international law and human rights being perpetrated in Guantanamo and elsewhere in the name of the American people.

The only thing this paper gets right is that Durbin's statements weren't "misunderstood." His moral equivocation of our soldiers at Gitmo to the Nazis, Soviet gulags and Pol Pot's regime was very clearly stated and understood. The Star Tribune writes as though the only ones in this country that are offended by these statements are the right wing extreme machine. While it's true that those on the right are furious about this, it should also be true that any American would find this offensive. His statement demands the outrage of all Americans.

Durbin's statement revealed that he doesn't merely have a policy difference with the Bush administration (that would be fine--I have my own differences with some of Bush's policies); rather, it demonstrated that he has a profound hatred for America and everything it stands for and tries to do while the Democrats are not in power. And I believe my assertion here is reasonable because if Durbin merely had a policy difference, there are a million different ways he could have articulated it without giving our enemies the red meat propaganda they long for.

A corruption in the Senate

Dick Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, said the following on the floor of the US Senate:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

He said this after talking about things like the air-condition being turned off and on in Gitmo prison cells and rap music being played all day. Please please remember that Gitmo is where we are housing those most vile of terrorists who supported the Taliban and were a part of Al-Qaeda. In other words these prisoners are the people who killed 3,000 Americans less than four years ago.

This embarrassment of a Senator has compared our troops and what they do to "the Nazis, the Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime" like Pol Pot. The Senator refuses to apologize.

Our troops in Iraq are daily wearing body armor in the 130 degree heat. And a small collection of the most despicable human beings to ever grace the planet--people who think it's their religious duty to kill any Christian and Jew they can--sometimes go without air condition in Cuba so they'll be more inclined to give up valuable information that can save more American lives and this Democrat is going to put that on the same level as the gassings in the concetration camp? On the same level as the ruthless Soviet regime? On the same level as the unfathomable slaughter under Pol Pot?

Dick Durbin has revealed the true nature of the Democratic party. Democrats do not stand for America. They hate Bush more than they love their country. They are not concerned with the security of America (otherwise, forcing a terrorist to listen to rap music so that he will give up information wouldn't be so problematic--and certainly not contrued to be of moral equivalence to the systematic campaign in Germany to exterminate an entire race of people). They certainly don't respect those men and women putting their lives on the line serving this country (comparing them to the Nazis is proof enough of that). Dick Durbin makes me ashamed to be an American. He makes me ashamed to live under his authority. He makes me think that we as a country do not deserve to win this war on terrorism. If he's so willing to put his hatred of Bush and his thirst for power above the security of this country how can we say that we learned anything from 9-11 about the threat that we face from Islamic radicals? Were this country to ever elect to the Presidency someone with his ideas of how a country should conduct itself in a war against those hell-bent on destroying it, then we would be exposed to attack and destruction in such a way that we have never known.

I know for a fact that our enemies see our weaknesses far more clearly than we do.

And look how Al-Jeezera is happy with Durbin: US senator stands by Nazi remark

Crime Booster

Another outstanding citizen of Mississippi: Woman under arrest for $1,270 theft at Wal-Mart

Police say Tamela Rash, 21, of Clarksdale emptied a box for a $39 child booster seat, filled it with merchandise and then paid for only the booster seat before fleeing in a rented SUV.

According to store manager Jason Curry, the pregnant woman stuffed the box with children's clothing and paid cash for the booster seat.

He said a clerk at the door checked her items and as the women lifted the box, the clothes fell out.

Sonic

I'm usually fairly sympathetic to Israeli policy for the simple fact that if I were living in constant fear of a 16 year old brain-washed boy blowing himself up in the market where I shop I would probably want to approach things like Israel has throughout its history. But for a while now I've been leery of their plan to force Jewish settlers in Gaza to relocate. While there is no question that the Jewish presence in the predominantly Palestinian Gaza is a huge source of conflict, there's something unsettling (forgive the pun) about forcing one's own people out of their homes to live somewhere else. And what's even more unsettling is that Israel is thinking about using a sonic weapon to accomplish their objective of relocating these settlers.

It's sad and it makes me think about how our politicians will expend so much energy and partisan foolishness over things like judicial nominees while Israel finds itself having to sort through some truly serious and thorny issues. I can't help but wonder how pathetically our Congress would cope with things if it had to deal with all the daily difficulties that Israel must contend with.

Original Intent

Charles Krauthammer, in light of the Court's recent decision upholding a federal law that prohibits the use of medicinal marijauna, writes about Justice Thomas's originalist approach to interpreting the constitution:

Thomas's dissent refuses to bow to such 20th-century innovations. While Scalia's opinion is studded with precedents, Thomas pulls out founding-era dictionaries (plus Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers and the ratification debates) to understand what the word commerce meant then. And it meant only "trade or exchange" (as distinct from manufacture) and not, as we use the term today, economic activity in general. By this understanding, the federal government had no business whatsoever regulating privately and medicinally grown marijuana.

This is constitutional "originalism" in pure form. Its attractiveness is that it imposes discipline on the courts. It gives them a clear and empirically verifiable understanding of constitutional text -- a finite boundary beyond which even judges with airs must not go.

And if conditions change and parts of the originalist Constitution become obsolete, amend it. Democratically. We have added 17 amendments since the Bill of Rights. Amending is not a job for judges.

The entire article is well worth a read.

New blog

National Review has launched a new media blog...

96-3

There's a stark difference in the Republican's treatment of Clinton's judicial nominees and the treatment Bush's nominees are enduring by the Democrats. Edward Whelan provides just one example.

Freshman Power

The White House would be wise to see that Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City South Dakota is not closed as the Pentagon has suggested it be. Doing so would put freshman Republican Senator John Thune in an impossible position and make it very hard for him to be faithful to the party and the Bush administration. R. Andrew Newman does an excellent job of explaining Thune's predicament in his column at National Review Online: Not Another Maverick

Amazon

Having greatly enjoyed two weeks in the Amazon some six years ago, I was upset to read this:

Far from cleaning up the atmosphere, the Amazon is now a major source for pollution. Rampant burning and deforestation, mostly at the hands of illegal loggers and of ranchers, release hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the skies each year.

Here's the article: Rain Forest Myth Goes Up in Smoke Over the Amazon

The Doctor is in

From a strategical standpoint, I've had a hard time understanding the political value of all the crazy statements Howard Dean has made since he became the head of the DNC. As a conservative anticipating 06 and 08, I'm rather pleased every time the dear doctor from Vermont makes a fool of himself.

Yesterday the story broke that Dean said the following:

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same and they all look the same. It's pretty much a white, Christian party."

The audio link is here.

This strikes me as odd for Dean to say given that the Republicans received far more minority votes in terms of percentage than the minority population of Dean's home state. But more importantly, I wonder how Dean would explain the 40% of the Hispanic vote that Bush picked up in the last election.

I can't help but notice how quickly Democrats are to characterize the GOP as Christian--as though that characteristic poses the greatest threat to them. I suppose that that may very well be the case given how so much of the Democratic agenda is grounded in the values of secularism.

Update: I forgot to post Susan Estrich's commentary on Dean.

Israel be warned

Jose Maria Aznar has cautioned Israel about the desire of Europe to appease the Palestinians. In essence, he is encouraging Israel to ignore Europe and look to the US to push through any meaningful developments in the Middle East. He recognizes that the Europeans use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a tool to distinguish themselves from the United States. He says:

"Europe likes appeasement very much; this is one of the most important differences between us and the States," Aznar said in an interview on the Bar-Ilan University campus. "Europeans don't like any problems. They prefer appeasement."

The Jerusalem Post carries the story here.

Terminal Futility by Hitchens

Anyone who has flown since 9/11 knows what a hassle it can be. Security, mindless questions, searches at the most inopportune times--all these things characterize an average airport experience. But Christopher Hitchens argues that the mammoth security machine we endure is little more than an illusion to make us feel like we're being protected from possible jihadists. He says

What we are looking at, then, is a hugely costly and oppressive system that is designed to maintain the illusion of safety and the delusion that the state is protecting its citizens. The main beneficiaries seem to be the pilferers employed by this vast bureaucracy—we have had several recent reports about the steep increase in items stolen from luggage. And that is petty theft that takes place off-stage. What amazes me is the willingness of Americans to submit to confiscation at the point of search. Every day, people are relieved of private property in broad daylight, with the sole net result that they wouldn't have even a nail file with which to protect themselves if (or rather when) the next hijacking occurs.

Read his article here.