Quote of the Day

“I’m confident we’ll have mixed results! I want to be apart of that proud tradition.”

Stephen Colbert on his opportunity to guest-edit Newsweek and his aspirations towards joining that pantheon of mediocrity.

Chart of the Day

GREECE has the highest smoking rate in the world, with each person puffing over eight cigarettes every day according to ERC, a market-research company. Of the 123 countries surveyed, 17 European countries feature in the top 20. Smoking rates tend to decline when countries get wealthier, thanks to higher taxes, bans and health education;

So that would explain phenomenas like Marlboro Man and his Continental kin furiously puffing away on heaters at half-time and time-outs.

Slummin' it.

We’re a little pressed for time and as such we are reduced at the moment to performing Cliff notes for other people’s articles. David Brooks of the NYT provides a nice summation of why the Fed’s involvement in auto manufacturing is a bad idea in article, here and the talking points therein, are provided below:

1. Because of how the current private investors have been treated, future outside investment and thus a potentially powerful source of external commercial pressure and innovation will be muted.

2 The old bosses have been kicked out only to be replaced by insiders that have no experience running a business. Also, an entity that fought tooth and nail for “job banks” has been given a larger role in running the company.

3. Since we now own G.M. and will continue to funnel money its way for ever after, what is now the profit motive?

4. No evidence that G.M. will be able to produce the smaller green deathtraps dictated to them by Congress and the Administration. No worries: see #3. (The President has advised us that he has no interest in running GM or Chrysler. We have no doubt he is speaking the truth. However, never confuse the day-to-day operations in running a business with imposition of demands on that business from afar)

5. Conflicts of interest. The fact G.M. has successfully sought to restrict the import of cars that might compete with G.M. brands would represent an anti-trust violation were we living in normal times.

6. The ever-thickening relationship between the new owners in government, G.M.’s management and the unions represents an unnamed system of governance that never really seems to work out. Oh, and Congress will be increasingly involve. What could possibly go wrong?

And for a bonus point let’s not forget the potential loss of liability protection to consumers uncovered by Ralph Nader.

More than just sticks and stones

The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has already achieved a boon for our political culture: It has helped leading liberals and Democrats to discover that being tarred as a racist on flimsy grounds is unfair and deeply unpleasant.

Mona Charen takes us way, way back to Bush’s (W.) first term and remembers one Judge Charles Pickering who was nominated by the President to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. You remember him, don’t you? The “forceful advocate for a cross burner”.
Read more, here.

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The (Bush) administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to reject a request for a hearing from 17 Chinese Muslims currently being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, arguing they have no right to come to America despite a district judge's orders last Fall that they immediately be brought to the U.S. and released.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of options for these people as they are not welcome on their home turf in China (actually, the Chinese would love to have the Uighurs back, in a manner of speaking) and no other country has stepped forward to accept them.

It’s all good, though because for the time being, their current digs aren’t too shabby. Take it from a Bush administration official who had this to say about the bunking arrangements:

"In contrast to individuals currently detained as enemies under the laws of war, petitioners are being housed under relatively unrestrictive conditions, given the status of Guantanamo Bay as a United States military base," Kagan writes, saying they are "in special communal housing with access to all areas of their camp, including an outdoor recreation space and picnic area." They "sleep in an air-conditioned bunk house and have the use of an activity room equipped with various recreational items, including a television with VCR and DVD players, a stereo system, and sports equipment."

Throw a copy of “Women of the Kyber Pass” on the coffee table and a bean bag chair in the corner and it’s a regular ol’ bachelor pad.

In other news this week, President Bush won some more breathing room in attempting to deal with detainees as a federal judge agreed on Monday to put on hold a ruling permitting legal challenges by some prisoners pursuing habeas corpus in seeking release from imprisonment that are currently being held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

Of course, this has definitely chagrined those on the left but they don’t much care for President Bush as it is. Fighting the bad guys in War on Terror is some tricky (and messy) business so we’re glad the President hasn’t abandoned common sense for lofty rhetoric and/or the narrow ideology clung to by fringe kooks who can’t stand him anyway.

Stay strong, sir.

Sports make people write the darndest things

Remember that fellow in the 23 uniform that hit that buzzer-defying jumper a couple of Fridays ago? These people certainly do.

Something has certainly been missing from his resume and perhaps even his mindset, but this shot could be the turning point for James. He will now have the confidence of knowing that he can do it and should make him even more dangerous in late game situations from now on. James looks as if he is developing the ability the legends have of willing their teams to victory and not accepting failure in the process from themselves or anybody else....

Most importantly is the city. A city that has had no succes to speak of. A city that has long been plagued by anti-heroes and its teams' failures experienced somethind different. They can now go into the future knowing that nothing is impossible and that they will always have a chance to win with James on the team. They have finally had their faith rewarded and that by itself will change a city that for too long experienced only the feelings of failure. After that shot failure seems a distant prospect, because Cleveland fans know that James will do everything in his power to carry this team across the finish line with a championship the perfect ending.

Deadspin has a compendium, here, of some of the most over-wrought and tortured prose imaginable all in honor of some dude who isn’t even competing for an NBA title this year. Just think of what they might have been saying if he hadn’t rolled over in the 4th quarter of the Eastern Conference-deciding Game 6 against the Orlando Magic on Saturday?

Not so random thought for the day

The murder of George Tiller was wrong. Wrong, plain and simple. Regardless of how much you hate the practice of abortion and, in particular, late-term and partial-birth abortion, the taking of another’s life is not justified in any way shape or form.

And it is because of that, we fervently wish that George Tiller and his (alleged) assassin, Scott Roeder, will be treated with the mercy, grace and compassion in the hereafter that was found wanting in them in this realm.

Ohio St. gets crushed by yet another team from the South

Buckeyes lose to Florida St. 37-6 over the weekend.

What? Did we miss something? Did we get transported into the future to some early season game in September of which we were unaware? Unlikely as that would mean OSU is actually playing another non-cupcake for their non-conference slate in addition to USC on Sept. 12. So, it must be bowl season, already. Naw. Not that either. This is all merely an opportunity to pile-on the Ohio State baseball team who lost by that score to the Seminoles in the NCAA playoffs.

A cheap shot to be sure, but a cheap shot nevertheless.

Clarification

We hope we weren’t being too obtuse or coy in our post last week that was meant to juxtapose what is required of a juror vs. some relevant quotes from prospective and former justices on the Supreme Court. So, just to clear up any confusion, Andrew McCarthy wonders, here, if Judge Sotomayor would see the light of the jury box if she dropped the “Latina woman” hammer on a judge or an inquiring lawyer during the jury selection questioning?

At the end of the day, though, we’re probably going with Krauthammer's advise: Criticize, then confirm.

Let’s let Ms. Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy be exposed to the light (like, how much is she and by extension the Democratic party beholden to identity politics) and confirm her as her ascension to the high court does not necessarily alter the balance of the court and because the numbers in the Senate are not there and, hopefully some degree of deference to the Presidents' choices can be returned to a process that has been nuked by Senate Democrats. Or, as can be summed up in this says-it-all headline from Jack Tapper:

“First President in US History to Have Voted to Filibuster a Supreme Court Nominee Now Hopes for Clean Process”

We'll jump right on that, sir.

Quote of the Day

"You think the Jews and the Chinese are dumb enough to ask the public school to teach them their culture?"

That, from Ben Chavis, the founder of Oakland, California’s American Indian Public Charter that recruits prospective teachers with launguage like:

"We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply."

Good lord, these people are insane. They get away with this in California…? In the Bay Area…?

That American Indian is also one of the highest achieving schools in the state is a little bit of “scoreboard” that neutralizes its critics. Read more about the little school that kicks ass and takes names, here.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of perspective

In his column, here, Ruben Navarette praises the President for choosing Sonia Sotomayor because of her top-flight academic credentials, her intellect and, yes, her empathy.

In a column he penned a couple of weeks back, Navarette was critical of a jury’s decision of finding the white defendants who had beaten to death a Mexican illegal in Shenandoah, PA. guilty of merely simple assault when the more serious charges of ethnic intimidation and third-degree murder were thrown out.

The jury foreman contended that he thought that some of the people on the jury were indeed racist but another juror took exception to that:

"It was really not as cut and dry as a couple of white kids beat up a Mexican and killed him," Silfies told reporters. "It's not like that. I sat there for a week and heard the testimony and heard the evidence, and I had a lot of doubt that these boys were heinous."

In fact, here’s what Navarette wrote in a follow up to that quote:

A lot of what happens in the court system is all about empathy. The jury might have found it easier to relate to the teenagers sitting at the defendants' table than to an illegal immigrant from Mexico lying in the morgue.

Thank you, Mr. Navarette. In the span of two columns over two weeks, he has illustrated perfectly the sticky mess one can get into when one starts putting a premium on “empathy” as a qualifier in the courtroom. Sure, everything is dandy when “empathy” results in “favorable” outcomes but what happens when “empathy” swerves off the course for which you had intended? What happens when your concept of "empathy" does not necessarily reflect that of someone else? And what happens when “empathy” overrides objectivity? Objectivity, a concept and practice in the courtroom that I’m sure Mr. Navarette would now liked to have seen a little bit more of in the Shenandoah case.

Empathy giveth, Empathy taketh away.