Monthly Archives: March 2007

Toss gonzalez Out Along With Some Other Detritus

This entry was posted in Law on by

In his exposition on how alberto gonzalez has made a mountain out of his own mole hill Charles Krauthammer explains why the executive branch might set enforcement priorities for its U.S. attorneys:

But the fact is that there are thousands of laws on the books and only finite resources for any prosecutor to deploy, which means that one must have priorities about which laws to emphasize and which crimes to preferentially pursue.
Those decisions are essentially political. And they are decided by elections in which both parties spell out very clearly their law enforcement priorities.

Herein lies one of the real problems of 21st century America. We do not live under the rule of law but of legislation pretending to be law. Laws to be meaningful must be knowable by and understandable to those who must follow them.
With thousands, hell-likely 10s of thousands of laws on the federal, state and local books we can hardly know them all. As to understanding them, pshaw…
Yes, gonzalez should step down.
Congress, though, would do better by us if it spent its time this session and in future sessions eliminating legislation and rewriting what must be kept until such time as the federal code is readable by and understandable to the average citizen.
When these and a few other conditions have been met* we may be able to say that we live under the rule of law. Yes, lawyers will still be needed but large numbers of them will be able to move on to productive work.

*See Randy Barnett, The Structure of Liberty, 84-107.

w Continues Support for Transportation Status Quo

This entry was posted in Transportation on by

w’s latest hyping of his energy plan appears to assume that cars are and should be our preferred mode of transportation:

President Bush, seeking to rev up support for his energy plan, praised domestic automakers Monday for building more “flexible fuel” vehicles capable of running on ethanol and biodiesel blends.
“That’s a major technological breakthrough for the country,” Bush said. “If you want to reduce gasoline usage like I believe we need to do so for national security reasons as well as for environmental concerns, the consumer has got to be in a position to make a rational choice.”

If you really want to reduce the use of oil, etc., a good place for w and the rest of us to start will be eliminating the ongoing federal and state subsidization of the automobile industry and, yes, any other transportation sector. Make sure the cost, including ongoing maintenance, of every new road, etc., is borne locally and most appropriately by the users.
One effect should be fewer roads built.
Another could be decisions to close roads.
For example, the latter is something that every city should be doing in its core right now. Even if it is as little as close one city block a year per city to automobile traffic the cumulative effect in terms of reduced miles driven can be huge. Over time the benefit in terms of increased human interaction and the possible development of profitable mass transit will be even greater than the ongoing reduction in noxious emissions.

Remember, too, that the ongoing subsidization of the automobile industry includes more than 40,000 deaths per year!

Friday Ark #131

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Entymology Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging Weekend Cat Blogging Weekend Dog Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Dogs

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn’t Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 156th edition, 3/18, is up at Pet’s Garden Blog. The 157th edition will be hosted on 3/25 by Scribblinngs . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 3/24-25 by CatSynth . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 45th edition is up and hosted by Journey Through Grace. The 46th edition will be hosted on 4/5 by lovely dark and deep.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 18th edition is up and hosted by Pharyngula. The 19th edition will be hosted at the end of March by Burning Silo.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat’s Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.