I knew it

Remember that straight Wisconsin professor who was challenging his state's gay marriage ban? Well, most of the charges have predictably been dismissed:

Wednesday a judge dismissed much of the professor's challenge because it was ruled McConkey is not an injured party. That's because McConkey is not a homosexual; however, he does have a daughter who is gay.

A procedural challenge to the way the amendment was presented to voters last November will continue.

But now McConkey's daughter may take up the challenge. McConkey's daughter and her partner are named as co-plaintiffs in his lawsuit. McConkey says at first he wanted to take up the case because he felt responsible as her father.

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Sweet!

There exists a judge in the United States that understands her job!

Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

...

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

Elden Rosenthal, an attorney for Mayfield, issued a statement on his behalf praising the judge, saying she "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency was reviewing the decision, and he declined to comment further.

[Edit] Ed Brayton has more on the ruling.
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But it's all Saddam's fault for complying with our demands

And yet more confirmation that Bush had decided to invade Iraq come hell or high water, despite everything he said to the contrary:

Though Aznar asked Bush to "have a little patience" and urged, "It is very important to have a [UN] resolution," Bush pushed for war throughout the meeting, telling the Spanish Prime Minister, "We will be in Baghdad by the end of March."

Guh.
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Isn't it nice that racism was completely eliminated in the '60s?

A few days ago, John Gibson of Fox basically intimated that people protesting the treatment of the Jena Six were the real racists in this story:

So, this is -- what they're worried about is a mirage of 1950s-style American segregation, racism from the South. They wanna fight the white devil. I -- you know, there's no -- you can't go fight the black devil. Black devils stalking their streets every night gunning down their own people -- can't go fight that. That would be snitchin'.

See? The problem isn't institutional racism that allows Louisiana schools to remain segregated, and the threat of lynching to those black students who dared to challenge said racism--the problem is black people are all gun-toting murdering thugs! And anyone who goes after the first problem, not the latter, is racist against white people.

But of course, Mr. Gibson staunchly denies the simple fact that racism is still a problem in America:

But I have been trying to point out the last couple of days that people have been loaded on buses to go to Jena to protest the racial injustice there -- you know -- and be told that slavery still exists and that segregation still exists across the country; that there are -- being told there are schools where principals allow white students to segregate themselves from black and won't let the black students sit under their tree. Tell -- they tell them that. I bet they can't find one other example of it. But they're being loaded on buses from cities where black people are being killed every day, at an astonishing rate, by black people, and no one's saying a word.

Again--racism doesn't exist, unless it's used to attack those white people who have to suffer the existence of black people in their cities, because (as we all know) black people are all gangsters.

And he played a clip from a news report of the Jena Six protests, interspersing it with his own brand of informative commentary:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not an isolated incident. Things like this happen all over the United States --

GIBSON: Where?!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- whether they go reported or unreported --

GIBSON: Where?!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- or publicized or not.

GIBSON: Where do they go?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, it's our job to make everyone accountable for what's going on.

GIBSON: Where?!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #2: Racism is not confined just in Louisiana, and we have to confront it everywhere, but racists feel --

GIBSON: Where?!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #2: -- ashamed at being racist. That's not acceptable here.

GIBSON: Where?! Where is this going on? I'll tell you where it's going --

Such brilliant insight. He doesn't know of anywhere where racism exist, therefore racism doesn't exist!

Oh, wait.

No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.

First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.

Then the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."

Over the weekend, white extremist Web sites and blogs across the Internet filled with invective about the Jena 6 case, which has drawn scrutiny from civil rights leaders, three leading Democratic presidential candidates and hundreds of African-American Internet bloggers. They are concerned about allegations that blacks have been treated more harshly than whites in the criminal justice system of the town of 3,000, which is 85 percent white.

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena's white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.

But of course, if John Gibson doesn't know about that, we can't really think that it exists, now can we?



And as an amusing aside, from that second article:

McMillin has insisted that his town is being unfairly portrayed as racist—an assertion the mayor repeated in an interview with Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss., who asked McMillin to "set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks."

"I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do," Barrett quoted McMillin as saying. "Your moral support means a lot."

Yep. He's not racist, but he really appreciates white supremacists.
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Shouldn't we have done this, say, four years ago?

We agree that there must be a clearly defined and measurable mission for our continued military involvement in Iraq. This mission must be further and continually defined so that the military and the country are aware of the end goal of our mission in Iraq and what progress toward that goal is being achieved.

So they admit that they still don't have a clue what they're doing there.
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Gays don't exist in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. It's only the West that's Fabulous.

As a follow-up to my last post, or perhaps more appropriately a follow-up to this post, President Ahmadinejad would have us believe that there are no gays in Iran.

President Ahmadinejad's contention during a speech at Columbia University that there are no homosexuals in Iran drew a swift rebuke from human rights organizations, with one activist challenging the president to explain how he, a gay Iranian, exists.

In response to a question on the treatment of gays in Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad said: "We don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. We don't have this phenomenon I don't know who's told you we have it."

The response drew derisive laughter and booing from the assembly of 600 faculty members and students.

Said many gay Iranians (who had to flee because of, y'know, the persecution and all): "Then what am I?"

The executive director of the Toronto-based Iranian Queer Organization, Arsham Parsi, who said he fled to Turkey from Iran in 2005 to escape arrest, had a question for the president today.

"Who am I," he said. "Who am I? If we don't have any queers in Iran."

[Edit] Ezra Klein has a video of Ahmadinejad being laughed at and booed.
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At least Pelley didn't talk about Bush's masculine odor

I don't know what to make of this exchange--is Pelley just revealing his man-crush on Bush? Or is he trying to corner Ahmadinejad into saying that he can't think of any admirable trait of Bush's, which is clearly unfathomable to anyone in the U.S. who loves their Fearless Leader? Or maybe he's hoping to be able to lump liberals and Iran together as knee-jerk "Bush-haters". Or maybe he's just crazy. At any rate, Ahmadinejad's response was perfect:

AHMADINEJAD: As an American citizen, tell me what trait do you admire?

PELLEY: Well, Mr. Bush is, without question, a very religious man, for example, as you are. I wonder if there's anything that you've seen in President Bush that you admire.

...

AHMADEINEJAD: What religion, please tell me, tells you as a follower of that religion to occupy another country and kill its people? Please tell me. Does Christianity tell its followers to do that? Judaism, for that matter? Islam, for that matter? What prophet tells you to send 160,000 troops to another country, kill men, women, and children? You just can't wear your religion on your sleeve or just go to church. You should be truthfully religious. Religion tells us all that you should respect the property, the life of different people. Respect human rights. Love your fellow man. And once you hear that a person has been killed, you should be saddened. You shouldn't sit in a room, a dark room, and hatch plots. And because of your plots, many thousands of people are killed. Having said that, we respect the American people. And because of our respect for the American people, we respectfully talk with President Bush. We have a respectful tone. But having said that, I don't think that that is a good definition of religion. Religion is love for your fellow man, brotherhood, telling the truth.

Some other interesting points from the interview:

• Ahmadinejad flatly denies that Iran is seeking a nuclear bomb:
  

  PELLEY: For the sake of clarity, because there is so much concern in the world about this next question, please give me the most direct answer you can. Is it your goal to build a nuclear bomb?
  
  ...
  
  AHMADINEJAD: It is a firm "no."



• Irony is dead:
  

  PELLEY: I asked President Bush what he would say to you if he were sitting in this chair. And he told me, quote, speaking to you, that you've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people and made your country the pariah of the world. These are President Bush's words to you.



• Per my previous thought, I imagine that someone is going to use this quote to say that liberals are on Iran's side with the terrorists:
  

  AHMADEINEJAD: I think Mr. Bush, if he wants his party to win the next election, there are cheaper ways and ways to go about this. I can very well give him a few ideas so that the people vote for him. He should respect the American people. They should not bug the telephone conversations of their citizens. They should not kill the sons and daughters of the American nation. They should not squander the taxpayers' money and give them to weapons companies. And also help the people, the victims of Katrina. People will vote for them if they do these things. But if they insist on what they are saying right now, this will not help them.

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The only people we're fighting are al-Qaeda, and anyone who looks at us cock-eyed.

Uh, wow. Completely destitute of good ideas, the Pentagon has decided that the best way to distinguish insurgents in Iraq from civilians is to leave things lying in the streets, and shoot anyone who picks them up.

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of "bait," such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

...

"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. "Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces."

Never mind that anyone could pick this up; never mind that in a war-torn area, civilians might pick it up to defend themselves against all the other insane fuckers with guns; never mind that this is basically entrapment; if someone picks up something lying on the street, it's okay to kill them!

"In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back," [president of the National Institute of Military Justice Eugene] Fidell said.

Which, of course, might be the whole point.

There's also the fact that this program is ripe for abuse: soldiers could simply plant the "bait" after the fact to make wholesale slaughter of civilians legally justified. In fact, that's how it came to light:

The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.

So in addition to "driving while black", we now have "living while brown"?

Via BarbinMD.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Atlas Shrugged Edition

Q: When you consider the cultural genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of blacks, and the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War Two, how can you have such a positive view of America?

A: ...
Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you're a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn't know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights--they didn't have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal "cultures"--they didn't have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. It's wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you're an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a "country" does not protect rights--if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief--why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect? The same is true for dictatorship. The citizens in it have individual rights, but the country has no rights and so anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in that country; and no individual or country can have its cake and eat it too--that is, you can't claim one should respect the "rights" of Indians, when they had no concept of rights and no respect for rights. But let's suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages--which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched--to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it's great that some of them did. The racist Indians today--those who condemn America--do not respect individual rights.

--Ayn Rand, Q & A after a speech at West Point Military Academy, March 6, 1974. Ayn Rand Answers pp. 102-04. Thanks to d at LG&M for alerting me to this.

I wonder how quickly her attitude would have changed if someone had thrown her out of her house because she wouldn't use it as well as they would. And it's not like anyone would have to respect her rights, since she didn't respect the rights of Native Americans.
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Next we'll buy the entire planet of Mars from the Native Martians for one lousy bead.

"The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men."
--The Simpsons, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"

My brother alerted me to this: on the Diane Rehm show today, she had on General Wesley Clark and Peter Rodman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and currently Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Near the very end, starting a little after 49 minutes into the audio they have up, there was the following exchange between Ms. Rehm and (I think) General Clark:

Rehm: And finally... General, in a Washington Post op-ed this past Sunday you wrote, "The next war is always looming." Explain what you mean.

Clark: I think when you're in the military you have an obligation to not only learn the lessons from the past but to think about the future. And so, as we think about the future in the United States armed forces, we're looking of course at the lessons learned from Iraq ground troops. We're looking at the possible requirements to go against Iran, air and naval power, and we're looking at the need to protect our domination of space.

Rehm: ...space.

Clark: Space. The ultimate high ground. It belongs to us.

Uh, yeah. Looks like manifest destiny isn't dead yet--it's just changed targets.
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