Quickies

A look at some news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye over the past week or so.





Confirmed: Fewer Laws Make Better Beer in Japan

“This vibrant craft brew scene is a recent development—in part because it was actually impossible not long ago. Before 1994, microbreweries were illegal in Japan. Licenses were granted only to brewers producing well over half a million gallons a year. That protected the well-entrenched large brewers from any upstart competition.”

All things being equal, we believe fewer laws would make better beer, wine, spirits everywhere. We saw it here in California in the late 70s when wine makers broke out onto the international scene because they refused to be hemmed-in by strict French regulations and classifications and again in the early 80s in the craft beer scene when the last vestiges of the Volsted Act were wiped off the books.





Profiles in courage: House votes for resolution against our involvement in Libya yet does not pass a bill to defund our military kinesiology there.


Plus this from the NY Times marshalling all their strength to wrist- slap the President. It must have hurt. The Times that is.

Mr. Obama made the wrong choice, trying to evade his responsibility under the 1973 War Powers Act to seek Congressional authorization within 60 days of introducing armed forces into “hostilities” — or terminate the operation. The White House claimed that the Pentagon’s limited operations are not the sort of “hostilities” covered by the act. It is not credible.

Mr. Obama would have done better arguing his case for the Libyan operation. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was playing catch-up on Capitol Hill on Thursday. We are certain if NATO had not intervened, thousands more Libyans would have been slaughtered. We also believe Congress has an important role to play in this debate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to vote on the Kerry-McCain measure next week. The majority leader, Harry Reid, has said he has the votes in the Senate. Thankfully, some Senate Republicans also seem to understand the importance of the United States following through on its national security commitments.

(italics, ours)

Perhaps these born-again hawks from the Times can explain to us precisely what those national security interests are because the President sure as hell isn't interested in doing it.


And more from Charles Krauthammer:

But things are not so simple. No president should accept — and no president from Nixon on has accepted — the constitutionality of the WPR, passed unilaterally by Congress over a presidential veto. On the other hand, every president should have the constitutional decency to get some congressional approval when he takes the country to war.

The model for such constitutional restraint is — yes, Sen. Obama — George W. Bush. Not once but twice (Afghanistan and then Iraq) did Bush seek and receive congressional authorization, as his father did for the Persian Gulf War. On Libya, Obama did nothing of the sort. He claimed exemption from the WPR on the grounds that America in Libya is not really engaged in “hostilities.”

To deploy an excuse so transparently ridiculous isn’t just a show of contempt for Congress and for the intelligence of the American people. It manages additionally to undermine the presidency’s own war-making prerogatives by implicitly conceding that if the Libya war really did involve hostilities, the president would indeed be subject to the WPR.

The worst of all possible worlds: Insult Congress, weaken the presidency. A neat trick.

So, we've finally found that one area where the Nobel Peace Prize winner isn't like the cowboy? Good to know.






Terrific: Pam Geller, publisher of Atlas Shrugs comes out in favor of banning the burqa. Is it us or does anyone else see an inherent contradiction in the previous sentence?







There's that word again...

Reuters writing pretty much the same lede they have been for the past two years... as expected.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, suggesting little improvement in the labor market this month after hiring stumbled badly in May.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed by 9,000 to 429,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had expected claims to come in at 415,000.

(italics, ours in case you missed it)




Rich Lowry on Rick Perry and throwing dirt on the grave of that vile concept, compassionate conservatism.

The Republican noncandidate flavor of the week is Texas governor Rick Perry. If you squint just right, you could mistake him at a podium for his predecessor, George W. Bush. Except for his message.

There might be no more powerful symbol of the death of compassionate conservatism in the Republican party than Bush’s successor and former running mate in Texas stomping all over it with cowboy boots emblazoned with the words “Freedom” and “Liberty.”

We would love to see the Texas governor in the race. Nowhere close to endorsing/supporting anyone yet but it does make the dating pool that much more attractive.





Jonathan V. Last reviews a book that claims that since the late 70s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by parents seeking sons.

Mara Hvistendahl is worried about girls. Not in any political, moral or cultural sense but as an existential matter. She is right to be. In China, India and numerous other countries (both developing and developed), there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In "Unnatural Selection," Ms. Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance: what it is, how it came to be and what it means for the future.

Here's some more of that "new civility" everybody has been talking about.



If you're curious about a double standard here, remember that as per Harry Reid, it would be rather difficult to mock President Obama's dialect.

Besides, we actually like the idea of 3-page bills and wonder just how is it that Jon Stewart sees law-makers not bothering to even read what they want to foist upon us as somehow a "fictional issue".




B-Daddy on gun control and racism

So Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Superintendent, links federal gun control regulation to racism. Turns out he is right, but not in the sense he means. First, his comments:

“I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of African-American history in this country, and tell me if I’m crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers, across this country, that are killing black and brown children,”

Well, Garry, you are crazy. Keeping guns out of the hands of blacks and Hispanics has been the racist goal of gun control attempts. A review of the historical record reveals that gun control in America has been directed at keeping guns out of the hands of blacks.

We've had a strong notion all along that gun control was all about power, control and social engineering and had, at best, a tenuous relationship with public safety. Read more at the link about the soft bigotry of low expectations that is codified in the liberal-Left mentality.


And finally...
Shane Atwell's weekly regulation watch, here.


We may be back later today with a new post or an update to this one but we'll definetely be back tomorrow.