Merry Christmas
My end of the year "list of things that piss me off" is getting ever longer. I really wanted to gripe about how much Delta sucks (hint: you know a merger is not going well when you see palpable tension between Northwest and Delta crews). I am beyond annoyed by faux "the individual health insurance mandate is not constitutional" arguments that fail to explain how that can be true in light of 70+ years of mandatory social security participation (not to mention medicare). Exposure of Tedford's incompetence (though this actually makes me a bit happy the same way that exposure of Karl Dorrell's incompetence made me happy). Holiday shopping. Christmas cards. The list is long.
Instead, I'm just going to go with pictures of Chip playing in the Minnesota snow. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and here's to a better economy in 2010.
Instead, I'm just going to go with pictures of Chip playing in the Minnesota snow. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and here's to a better economy in 2010.
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 10:42 AM
18 Comments:
Is Tedford that incompetent, or is Utah THAT FUCKIN GOOD!!!
GO UTES!!!
Add google to your list. Goddamn motherfucking cheerful little techno-nerds, with their unlocked phones, sleeping pods, digital books, proprietary web browsers, and now....stock options.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/early-holiday-gift-for-googlers/?partner=rss&emc=rss
No offense 11:46, but I've basically done all my Christmas shopping thanks to Google shares. I bought them in the spring of this year. Blogger is a crappy platform, but everything else they touch turns to gold. They are basically the Southwest Airlines of technology.
Nothing could be clearer than realizing that Social Security, Medicare, the disability program, etc are all unconstitutional, if by "constitution" you mean the document adopted in 1787. What we live under now is the state collectivist abortion that replaced it. So, yes the courts will uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate. And we'll be one more step down the road to destruction.
Come on, '93 Alum, it's not "road to destruction" -- it's "road to serfdom."
If you're going to be a nut, at least be the kind of nut who gets his Hayek references straight. Thanks.
Jesus, you people are crazy.
"...if by 'constitution' you mean the document adopted in 1787."
Some might point out that the document has been amended considerably since that time.
Someone else might point out that none of the amendments are relevant to the question whether the Commerce clause can be stretched to encompass every economic activity, no matter how minor or how local or how uninvolved with interstate commerce it is.
And I wasn't referencing Hayek, but thanks for pointing out that the road to serfdom does indeed mean the destruction of individual liberties.
Sure, let's just go back to how things were in 1787. The country was largely rural, people owned slaves, women had no rights and cutting edge technology was the horse. It makes a lot of sense to try and interpret the Constitution as it would have been interpreted in 1787.
We should probably also bring back debtor's prisons and instead of providing medical services to the poor and sick we'll just let them die or put them in the debtor's prison when they can't pay their medical bills.
I didn't realize that individual liberty meant ensuring that millions of people do not have access to health care.
Yes, lets get into an argument about the constitutionality of the healthcare bill in a Merry Xmas thread with pictures of a dog playing in the snow.
11:41,
Congrats on another worthless straw man argument on N&B. If you are going to argue against an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, make a logical argument; technological advances have nothing to do with evolving interpretations of the Constitution, and, as '93 implied, various amendments ameliorated your other reasons for a modern reading, obviating any such need.
Originalists remind me of those guys from that South Park episode who refuse to acknowledge that it is no longer 1864, even though they are being held up by modern terrorists.
"Sho thing, I ain't never seen strange clothes like you all are wearin!"
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/166704
Entertaining JY interview here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03fob-q4-t.html
Best excerpts:
Were you close to George Bush?
No, I’ve never met him. I don’t know Cheney either. I have not gone hunting with him, which is probably a good thing for me.
...
So you’re saying you were just one notch above an intern, you and Monica Lewinsky?
She was much closer to the president than I ever was.
---
I see various groups are protesting a decision by a California government lawyer to teach a course with you that starts on Jan. 12, claiming he is legitimizing your unethical behavior.
At Berkeley, protesting is an everyday activity. I am used to it. I remind myself of West Berlin — West Berlin surrounded by East Germany during the Cold War.
Are you saying the citizens of Berkeley are Communists, reminiscent of those on the dark side of the Iron Curtain?
There are probably more Communists in Berkeley than any other town in America, but I think of them more as lovers of Birkenstocks than Marx.
However, does Prof Steele wish to weigh in on this gem for us?
---
Do you regret writing the so-called torture memos, which claimed that President Bush was legally entitled to ignore laws prohibiting torture?
No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered.
---
When you say you had “a client,” do you mean President Bush?
Yes, I mean the president, but also the U.S. government as a whole.
---
But isn’t a lawyer in the Department of Justice there to serve the people of this country?
Yes, I think you are quite right, when the government is executing the laws, but if there’s a conflict between the president and the Congress, then you have to pick one or the other.
Do the interviews by Deborah Solomon ever strike you as the kind of tight, witty repartee that you usually see only in film noir? (Go rent Double Indemnity.)
That's because she edits the hell out of her interviews -- edits them to a degree that most readers didn't realize until Tim Russert and others interviewees complained. Since then, the NYT runs a disclaimer on her interviews "Edited and Condensed."
The NYT's own public editor severely criticized her technique, calling it an "illusion." Others were less kind.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14pubed.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The ethics of the OLC memos is an important topic, but I would never treat a Deborah Solomon "interview" as something worth taking seriously.
They did seem awfully succinct, particularly given Prof. Yoo's (and most lawyer's) desire to explain things in depth.
Thanks for shedding light on that, Prof Steele!
Nice marmot, Armen.
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