Who is Alito?

I must say that I have supported Bush on many things. I was especially happy when I learned more about John Roberts before he was placed on the SCOTUS. I was of the opinion that old Georgie was going to leave a legacy by his Supreme Court nominations, and not the one suspected by the abortion-crazed partisans of either evil party, but one of a kind of mild liberalization of the Court, one in which the powers of governement were trimmed back and Social Security, min. wage laws, and Ted Kennedy were found to be unconstitutional.

But then Miers came along. I don't think she got a fair shake, but there were other solid Originalists to choose from. Justices like Owens and Brown who - and I admittedly haven't done research on these beyond the snippets I pick up from Cato, Fox News, CNN, and Progressive Radio here in L.A. - have lambasted the aggrandizement of government scope and power in terms taken from the libertarian tradition, and who have maintained some form of acceptability to the righty rights thereby giving them a chance to actually be appointed. I hoped that Miers might be one of these; perhaps will never know. One saving grace that should be obvious to everyone is that she wasn't acceptable to the abortion-crazed partisans of the Right, which means that Bush wasn't interested in simply pandering to them, i.e. a good thing.

But who is Alito? I suppose we'll know soon enough. But right now we know, at least the snippets tell me, that the abortion-crazed partisans are terribly excited, i.e. a bad thing. Oh, how I was hoping for Owens or Brown!

Washington Post
Cato Opining

A Bit Off-Topic, but a Good Cause

I, on a whim, donated coffee to our troops through this site (that I personally order my coffee through as well).

I just received a letter and a photo from the troop that I sent to, and it was really heartfelt.

If you would like to donate great coffee to our troops, you can do so on this website: http://www.bocajava.com/support_the_troops.jsp?promo=TROOP_SUPPORT

They match any coffee donation that you make, which is awesome.

Please pass on this text, or at least this link---it is a great cause!

-Jeanne

The Tao (Natural Law)

This is a must-read, especially if you were in the Witherspoon Fellowship or attended the IHS seminar in CA and heard me speak on Natural Law. Here's someone more articulate than me.

Another good one from Mises Institute

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behavior, — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. --William Shakespeare

RSS Feed

Here is info on a RSS Feed:

What is RSS?
"RSS" stands for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and/or Rockdale, Sandow, and Southern (Railroad) (if you trust the good folks at AcronymFinder.com). Really Simple Syndication is probably the most widely agreed-upon choice. As far as we are concerned, all three acronyms do an inadequate job of describing what RSS actually is: RSS is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content. Using this standard, Web publishers provide updates, such as the latest news headlines or weblog postings. Meanwhile, consumers use RSS reader applications (or one of a growing number of online services) to collect and monitor their favorite feeds in one place (RSS content from a publisher, viewed in one of these readers, is often called a "feed").
Consumer Bottom Line: RSS makes reviewing a large number of sites in a very short time possible.
Publisher Bottom Line: RSS permits instant distribution of content updates to consumers.

Who publishes RSS feeds?
Some of the biggest names on the web now offer content using RSS feeds:
USATODAY.com
BBC News Headlines
ABCNews
CNET
Yahoo!
Amazon.com
...and many more!
In addition, thousands of weblog authors publish feeds to keep themselves better connected to their readers/admirers/critics. Blogs are a driving force behind a recent surge of interest in RSS and syndicated content.

How do I read RSS Feeds?
If you want to collect and browse feeds you have many choices, but there are two primary categories of feed reading applications: installable desktop programs and online services. There are many desktop applications for Windows and Mac OS system users, but two of our favorites are FeedDemon (Windows) and NetNewsWire (Mac OS X). Both require a small purchase price but are tops for ease of use and ship with dozens of feeds pre-loaded so you can explore the syndication "universe" right away. Free readers are available as well; a search for "RSS Reader" at popular search sites will yield many results.
If you would prefer to use an online service to track and manage your feeds, you have the advantage of being able to access your feed updates anywhere you use a web browser (and in some cases, on mobile devices). Also, any upgrades or new features are added automatically. The trade-off comes in different (some would say fewer) features and slightly slower performance versus desktop systems. NewsGator, Bloglines, and new RSS content capabilities in My Yahoo! are probably the three best-known examples of web-based feed reading services.

How can I publish my own RSS Feed?
If you have a website or weblog, you can add RSS syndication as a publishing option, in some cases automatically. How easy this is to accomplish depends entirely on how your site is served today. If you are using a hosted publishing tool like TypePad or Blogger, you probably publish a feed automatically. Investigate whether your provider's administration tools offer feed-related options or controls. Other types of websites and application platforms may require some programming skills in order to add RSS syndication capabilities.
Our service, FeedBurner, allows publishers who already have RSS Feeds to improve their understanding of and relationship with their syndication audience. Once you have a working feed, run it through FeedBurner and realize a whole new set of benefits.

...

And finally, some technical backstory
RSS is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet. RSS feeds can be viewed as plain text files, but they're really designed for computer-to-computer communication. We should point out that RSS is just one standard for expressing feeds as XML. Another well-known choice is Atom. Both formats have their boosters, and it does not appear that consolidation toward a single standard is imminent. However, most RSS users simply want fresh content and don't care at all about the underlying protocol. (FeedBurner helps publishers avoid this quandry, by the way. Apply our SmartFeed™ service to an Atom feed, such as those provided by Blogger, and your feed is delivered as RSS to readers that still don't support Atom.)

Government and Big Business Collusion

Big Brother is Reading

------So, you're casually printing out documents in complete anonymity... you thought...

Apparently not, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) has discoverd that color laser printers are embedding codes that can be tracked back to specific, individual machines as well as embedding information about the date and time the paper was printed. The EEF even provides instructions on how to find the coded information, although it does take special equipment (a magnifying glass or microscope and a blue light).

And, yes, the dots are apparently a result of an agreement between the US Secret Service and the printer manufacturers. And the list of companies doing this is pretty long: Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, HP, Konica/Minolta, Kyocera, Lexmark, Ricoh, Tektronix/Toshiba and Xerox.

Just something to be aware of, if you've printed it, the government, and others might be able to trace it back to you...

The EEF even asks for help in decoding some of the test sheets they have scanned.------

Cafe Liberty

Any chance we can set up an RSS feed for Cafe Liberty? Or is there already one set up that I don't know about. I keep getting behind cause I depend on my friend's list on my livejournal to keep me updated with life.

Thanks!

Big Government Is So Smart, It's Stupid

Watching the senate on CSPAN today, I was struck (again) by the scope of government in America. It’s too damn big. It’s so big that I don’t think the average citizen really knows how it works. Really. I think I’m a relatively bright guy, at least curious enough to seek out answers to my questions, and I have a tough time understanding how the bureaucracy works. There must be more people out there that have the same confusion.

It seems as if the bureaucracy has become so intricate, with so many rules, that only those who are already a part of the bureaucracy, or who have the ability to focus entirely on learning the bureaucracy, are able to become part of that club. It seems too incestuous to me, and too filtered to be fair and open.

Most of us would agree that government would work better if it was smaller and had fewer responsibilities. Limiting career politicians would also help. So how do we do this? My ideal America is one where folks serve their state or their country as one would serve a prison sentence. One does one’s time, and then one gets out. One doesn’t stick around. Politicians have too many incentives to stick around. We need to give them incentives to leave. What might those be? Any ideas?

Is anyone else worried about this? It feels like a giant monster is growing in the sewers. We are distantly aware that it’s there, but few venture down to take a look at it. It’s growing… it’s becoming more powerful… it’s surrounded us, it’s underneath us, it’s spreading like kudzu, and it feels as if it would be illegal to cut it down.

Everybody's Doggin' Harriet

Everybody hates Harriet.

Feminazis hate her because she is religious and servile, which are the real reasons why she has no husband, no kids, no casual sex even, and a myopic interest in her career and advancement?

Religious righters (not to be confused, as is so often done, with Natural Higher Law proponents) hate her because she's not conservative enough and they don't know where she really stands on the "fundamental rights" to Abortion and Gay Marriage, the new basis for measuring one's committment to liberty?

Lefties (being confused about what we actually do and do not have rights to) hate her because they don't know where she really stands on the "fundamental rights" to Abortion and Gay Marriage, the new basis for measuring one's committment to liberty?

Smart people around campus hate her because she isn't smart enough?

Less enlightened people hate her because everybody else does?

I haven't heard anyone just come out and say it yet, but I think I know why everybody hates Harriet. She's just one old, ugly elite-but-not-the-right-kind-of-elite, successful, religious Republican (dear God!), having no justicial philosophy, kinda weird bitch.

Of course, a lot of the justices are old, ugly, elite (the right kind), successful, weird, politicians. And they do have justicial philosophies to boot. Like the kind of philosophy that holds rights are gifts from the government, like property. And the kind that guarantees your money and profit belongs to someone else. And the kind of contradictory philosphies handed down in Grutter and Gratz.

I guess that still leaves "religious Republican." Too bad the religious Republicans hate her too.

Why can't we just have another nominee whom we all understand so clearly as John Roberts? Now there's someone we can all get behind, totally different from that enigma Harriet. That John Roberts is one handsome, manly, elite (the right kind), religious Republican, great justicial philosophy having, pretty weird, stud-muffin.
That must be just what we're looking for.

Boy, I guess Bush really screwed up with old Harriet?
She's just not what we're looking for.

A New Web Log

I have created a blog of my own. Why? In the hope that any one out there interested in keeping up with me may do so; Because I will have a creative outlet; Because I need something to fill the hours that I used to spend partying :-)

It shan't be much and I don't expect much visitation, but feel free to stop by and leave a comment any time.

And William, would you please add a link to it on Cafe Liberty?

nothingforever1.blogspot.com

Mid Terms Already, for God's Sake!

Max and Steve were kind enough to respond to the last post and have thus rekindled my desire to reach out through this strange glowing box before me, ostensibly for chatting up some of the finest young minds strewn around the globe, but more personally for connecting to kindred peers in cities and towns that seem so far away, and yet not out of reach. I hope that you have enjoyed your new school years, jobs, and lives since our departure from the campus I now frequent. It probably was a strange twist of fate that led to me that place, surrounded by wonderful and engaging friends of liberty for an incredible week, and now to be surrounded by the most insane bomb-lobbing commies anywhere in the world! The irony.

As mid terms approach I am reminded how fast time goes by when your having fun :-), or when your frantically studying mean standard deviations, Pacificus Helvidius debates, and the Politics of Aristotle, all the while trying to remind yourself that you've done this before and can do it again, and that the thirty-thousand dollars a year really is a good investment. I suppose many of you have similar, and quite different, stories to tell to be sure!

Like Simon Mann, the smiling happy guy still searching for John Galt; like Russ the party animal; Roman, the traveler; Brandon, the future Judge; Anders, A is A, and Anders is, well, Anders; Priscillia, travelling to England I believe?; Jeanne Marie, hopefully enjoying Ave Maria (is that spelled correctly?); oh, and how about Katie Creel, that crazy fun loving crazy girl!

I know I would love to hear from you, and the other 60 people that, with the colossal energy of a Hamilton, I may have been able to list, but with only the small talents I have, have not. I feel comfortable speaking for all the rest who have remained that silent majority when I say that we would all love to hear about what's going on in your lives and your corner of the world! But if the response is lacking, I won't feel discouraged or unhappy; just saying hello again, and knowing that you're out there making a difference, has been enough.

Bidding you Godspeed, and to the Europeans and Atheists, good speed :-)

War Powers

If anyone is still out there...

One of my classes this semester focues on the Constitution and the Presidency. I am having a wonderful time discovering a large debate about just what branch was originally intended to have control over war making, to what extent, to what purpose, and for which reasons. I am leaning toward the idea, at least now, that the Founders intended the Legislature to be the supreme war making/declaring branch, whereas today, obviously, they are mere paper weights on appropriation bills.

Although there are good arguments for an Originalist point of view against mine (see John C. Yoo and "The Continuation of Politics by Other Means", California Law Review), nevertheless, I think that the real strength in the argument for expanded Executive powers lies more in modern reliance on precedent and arguments for unitary necessity, due to technological concerns, mostly.

So, at least in this instance, I would venture that as we have moved away from an Original understanding of the Constitution, both its intent and meaning, which were directed to securing liberty through limits and enumerated ends and powers, we have moved toward expansive goverment in the most dangerous of all areas: war making.

If this holds, it might be time to re-examine, yet again, the efficacy of understanding the Constitution as it was meant to be understood, and in so doing, rediscover the Higher Law background of our American experiment (see Edward Corwin, "The Higher Law Background......" Harvard Law Review).

By the way, grad school hasn't been that much fun yet. I think I don't get along with California. If any of you have good suggestions, like where is a fun and engaging place to attend grad school, please let me know.

The guy from Utah :-)