In Other Iowa Blogger News

Royce, Kris, 29, and Joe all take a shot at Register columnist Ken Fuson. Ouch.

P.S. If anyone else dropped the hammer on this column, let me know.

You Have a Right to Bankruptcy?

State 29 pretty handily savaged the attorney who wrote a column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette about how horrible the new bankruptcy reform is. So, accordingly, I don't really need to cover all that much ground with it.

But, there was one statement made in the column that caught my eye.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution guarantees you the right to bankruptcy. The new bankruptcy law does not make it impossible to file bankruptcy, but it makes it very difficult and very expensive.

WTF? Article III of the U.S. Constitution guarantees you the right to bankruptcy? I say again, WTF?

Article III of the Constitution says nothing--NOTHING--about bankruptcy. Don't believe me? Let me quote, in its entirety, Article III.

Section. 1.
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section. 2.
Clause 1: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; (See Note 10)--between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

Clause 2: In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Clause 3: The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section. 3.
Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Clause 2: The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

I defy anyone to find a word about bankrtupcy in there. Section 1 of Article III creates the Supreme Court, states that the judges will serve during their good behavior, shall be paid, and that Congress can create other courts. Section 2 of Article III sets the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (and such lower courts as Congress shall create). Section 2 also grants the federal courts original jurisdiction in some situation. Section 3 of Article III lays out the crime of treason and the general parameters of what evidence shall be necessary to convict an individual of treason.

That's it. Nothing about bankruptcy.

The only mention of bankruptcy in the entire Constitution is in Article I, Section 8, Clause 4. That clause states that Congress shall have the power "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States."

That's still no granting of a "right" to bankruptcy. It merely allows Congress to set uniform rules on bankruptcy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's exactly what Congress has done with the bankruptcy reform: it set a uniform national rule for bankruptcy.

I can arrive at only one conclusion. You don't have a Constitutional right to file for bankruptcy.

I wouldn’t want to live like that

Well, Duh.
Of all the unhelpful sentiment that has come out of the Terri Schiavo tragedy, the above conventional wisdom is the most nonsensical. Seventy percent of respondents to a much-publicized poll said she should be allowed to die because they wouldn’t want to live like that. Well, what healthy person would?

As I recall, when I was twenty, I wouldn’t have wanted to live the life I have now – my paunchy belly, more hair in my ears than on my head, and above all, the way I now watch the Victoria Secrets TV special with (borrowing from Dave Barry) more regret than anticipation. That doesn’t mean, now that I’m here, that I want anybody to pull my feeding tube.

I’m trying to write this without rancor or prejudice. I don’t have the medical or legal knowledge to understand all the specific details of what Terri, her family or her husband have suffered or have hoped. And none of us can know what she is feeling now, or if she is even capable of comprehension. She may be feeling joy and hope; she may be feeling boredom or terror; she may be feeling nothing.

But supposing that she may still be capable of thought and awareness, how can anybody justify starving her to death? And don’t give me that crap about a feeling of euphoria. If she’s feeling something, it ain’t euphoria. The biggest little secret of this whole affair is that her family members are prevented from trying to sneak ice chips in when they visit her. Forget about artificial means of keeping her alive, she can’t even be fed by normal means. If by some miracle she were to climb out of her bed and start dancing around the room, she could not have her cafeteria privileges restored without the Pinellas County Court reversing itself. She didn’t just have medical intervention removed; she was sentenced to die, and not by the humane means that would be granted an axe-murderer, but by “natural” means. We have to maintain the fantasy that she is being allowed to die rather than being killed.

OK, end of rant. I’m trying to be logical here and to think in general terms rather than about Terri and Michael Schiavo.

For most of us, concerned that something like this could conceivably happen, I think we’re getting some really bad advice. Many thoughtful and compassionate talking heads on TV are telling us to make out a living will or we might find ourselves in Terri’s position. Huh? We should put it in writing that we want our feeding tubes removed if something bad happens at some unspecified time in the future? I’m sorry, but my current NCAA BB tournament brackets prove that I have no ability to foretell the future.

The Fox & Friends were talking about living wills this morning. E.D. said that everyone should have one to make his or her explicit wishes known. Doocy said that he and his wife had talked about it, but had not written anything down. Brian Kilmeade said, “No, if it comes to that, I’ll trust that my wife will know what to do.”

I’m with Brian. If, God forbid, I were to find myself unable to speak for myself, my wife and my children would have ten times more information available than I do now. They would have a better idea about the degree of recovery possible, the upside and the downside of sustaining my life for whatever time could be left, and they should be able to judge what burden they are capable of carrying. How could I possibly plan for any and all eventualities?

Here’s the best advice I can give, in the event I can’t say so later:

I’m sorry that a decision like this has come your way, but being part of a family means making life-altering decisions. Not everything turns out as well as we had hoped, and this is one more time. Whatever you decide, I know that it will be the best possible choice you could make, given what you will know at the time. My only request will be that, if you decide you must pull the plug, don’t drag it out. Give me morphine and a lethal injection, or at least an I.V. full of tequila and a Patsy Cline CD on the stereo. Until later, God bless.

Please, Get This Done

The state legislature says that Monday it will take up raising the speed limit to 70mph on Iowa's interstate highways.

As a peace offering to the Democrats, the discussion will include raising the fines for speeding.

Count me as skeptical. I think we tried this a couple of years ago and the fines went up, but the speed limits didn't.

I hope they get this done.

I love NRO's The Corner. I check in with what's going on there several times a day. While I sometimes find Derbyshire's pessimism unwarranted and annoying, the only person regular poster who just leaves me totally cold is Mark Krikorian.

Why?

Have you ever heard the saying, "When you're a hammer every problem looks like a nail." That's Krikorian. He's a blunt instrument which likes to pound away. His nail of choice is immigration. To him, EVERY PROBLEM this nation faces is either caused by immigration or can be solved by getting rid of immigrants.

Terrorism? We can prevent it by not letting any immigrants in.
Unemployment? Immigrants are taking our jobs.
Bad schools? Immigrants clog up the schools.
Male pattern baldness? Crabgrass in your yard? Annoying rattle behind the dash in your car? Immigrants. Immigrants. Immigrants.

It's tiresome.

And while he typically hauls around the old "I'm not anti-immigrant, I just anti-illegal immigrant," his overall tone pretty much made me think that he's pulling our leg with that one. So, generally speaking, I skip over his posts in The Corner.

Yesterday he dropped the pretense and basically just stated that we shouldn't be letting in legal immigrants either. What caused him to day this? Well, he came across a story where, if I'm reading this correctly, the Pledge was being played over the speaker system in Spanish as part of a some cultural program celebrating foreign languages.

OH THE HORROR!

He sees this as a sign of a cultural decline so severe that we must, MUST, put our own intellectual/moral house in order before letting a million legal immigrants a year into the country.

Whatever.

Look, I'm in favor of having English declared the official language of the country. I think that we should encourage people to learn English. English is the key to becoming successful here. But, there is absolutely nothing wrong with learning other languages. There is nothing wrong with celebrating the immigrant heritage of this country. Frankly, the Pledge of Allegiance is specifically about how we have different heritages. You'll note that we pledge ourselves to the flag. We don't pledge it to the motherland, to the ethnic clan, or to our ancestry. We pledge ourselves to the republic for which the flag is a symbol. We pledge ourselves to the ideal that all men are created equal and that there should be liberty and justice for all.

We could, and should, do a better job of policing our border to prevent illegal immigration. We could, and should, do more to encourage people to learn English. Krikorian may even have some good points to say from time to time. (He's almost certainly correct when he talks about our porous border control being an invitation to terrorists to sneak in.) Unfortunately, all his xenophobic B.S. so turns me off that I can't stand to read him.

Yeah, What He Said

Ahh...sometimes it's frustrating. You read something on the internet, get jazzed up about writing a post, and then find out that someone who is about a hundred times smarter than you and writes about a thousand times better than you has already said it.

That's what happened to me. I read this column from the Instapundit and thought, "Hmm...I think Glenn's getting a little ahead of himself with the speculation. The Republican Party is not going to break up over Terri Schiavo. If anything were to break up the GOP, it'd be immigration. Hey, I think I've got a great post here."

I drove home from work pumped up.

Come in the house. Turn on the computer. But before I dial up Blogger, I check out The Power Line. That was a mistake. Deacon had posted this:

Many conservatives will be disappointed with the Republican Congress' intervention in this matter. But few will hold a long-term grudge against their fellow Republican conservatives for being too intent on providing Terri Schiavo with additional process before she starved to death.

UPDATE: Reader Tim Barry writes to say that the one current issue that might lead to a crack-up is immigration. I agree.

That sucked the wind right out of my sails. And, to top it off, Deacon's got a nifty opening about how the "conservative crack-up" is an article of faith amongst liberals not unlike the how it was an article of faith that capitalism's fall was just around the corner.

Darn it.

Update: Jonah Goldberg's got a couple of nice posts on this up in The Corner as well. (Here and Here)

Slow Learners

Is anyone else paying attention to the "memo" allegedly circulated amongst Republican Senators talking up how the Terri Schiavo situation would be a great issue to play politics with so as to rile up the religious conservatives?

If not, here's the gist of it.

A couple days back, ABC ran a story about a "talking points" memo that was circulating amongst GOP Senators. What made the memo newsworthy in the eyes of ABC News was how the memo blatantly discussed the political benefits of exploiting Terri Shiavo's tragic situation as way of exciting the religious conservatives into a frenzy.

Of course, to ABC's eyes, this confirms the suspicions many MSM journalists hold of the GOP; that they couldn't possibly believe the things they say, so it must be demogoguery for the illiterate Bible-thumping masses. And, they ran with it.

Shortly thereafter, the Power Line noticed some problems with the memo. Well, I should back up. At first, they didn't notice any problems with the memo because ABC wouldn't produce a copy of the thing. However, ABC did quote it at length, including some odd typos and stylistic mistakes. Later, it showed up in a PDF format not at ABC, but on a left-wing blog. Interestingly, the PDF of the "memo" posted by the lefty blogger does not contain the spelling mistakes ABC quoted.

It gets better.

Senate memos typically come on the letter head of the Senator who is circulating it. The alleged memo was printed on blank paper.

The memo lists an incorrect Senate bill number, referring to it as "S.529" instead of "S.539". It should also be pointed out that at the time the memo was allegedly being circulated, the Senate was not even considering S.539, having moved on to an entirely new bill related to the Schiavo situation, S.686.

And, the memo refers to other issues up for debate incorrectly, such as saying "Budget Act" when what was actually being discussed was a budget resolution. I think it unlikely that a Senate staffer would incorrectly refer to a resolution as an Act.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, "Hmmm...didn't CBS get burned like six months ago when they rushed headlong into a story based upon documents which were obvious forgeries. Wouldn't ABC have maybe learned something from that?" That's a reasonable thought. ABC is trotting out the old standards about how they can't reveal their source, but the source is absolutely credible.

Whatever.

To members of the MSM, you can't just hope to slide this stuff past the public any more. Talk radio, cable news, and the internet have created a massive mental parallel computer that is processing and analyzing everything that happens. When something comes out that looks fishy, it's going to get caught. You need to recognize that and adjust your operations accordingly.

Look, there's not enough here yet to definitively say that this memo is a forgery. Just as I find it difficult to believe that some GOP staffer would make the stylistic and reference mistakes contained in this memo, I also find it difficult to believe that a Democrat staffer would make such mistakes. That makes me believe that this memo came from an outside source. But that's not what ABC reported. It was reported as a GOP Senate memo. That, it almost certainly isn't. And common sense should have made that obvious to ABC News as well.

McCain-Feingold: Bought and Paid For

Blogger Ryan Sager has been doing yeoman's work on a story that should be at the top of just about every blogger's interest list.

Beginning a couple days back, and continuing in several parts, he's been digging into a story of how eight charitable groups that are, how shall I say it, left of center, shelled out $123 million dollars to universities, local charities, businesses, and even media outlets, so as to induce those entities to jump on the campaign finance reform bandwagon.

I'd exerp, but frankly, if you haven't read up on this, you should go read the NY Post column as well as all of the many follow up posts at Ryan's blog.

The whole of McCain-Feingold was a con job that has usurped our fundamental right to criticize the government.

As Ryan Sager points out, we've reached a point where pornography enjoys greater Contstitutional protection than political speach.

Unbelievable.

Congress publicizes steroid use by ballplayers

It’s for the children, you know.
Availing themselves of any opportunity to get in front of a microphone, some members of Congress have held hearings with several past and present major-league baseball players who show evidence, to put it delicately, of having used steroids to enhance their abilities. Apparently the thought process is that holding these guys up to shame and ridicule will convince teenage athletes to avoid the stuff. Reportedly, 500,000 teenagers are using steroids.

Will claiming some big-name players may owe their achievements to chemical enhancement reduce teens’ desire for the stuff? I’m sorry, but it seems to me the more kids are convinced how effective ‘juice’ is, the more they will want it. “I can have pipes like those guys? I can go from fifteen homers per season to fifty? I can have babes and a multi-million dollar contract? I gotta get some juice.”

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has also admitted that he formerly took steroids, but has told young people they shouldn’t. How can his warning possibly be effective? He used steroids to enhance his body-building career, parlayed that into a Hollywood movie career, parlayed that into the governorship of the largest state in the union and has people talking about a Constitutional amendment to let him run for president. Fifteen-year-olds must wonder, “What’s the downside?” Schwarzenegger’s only effective message to kids might be, “Iff you taik sturroids, you vill tawk lok me.”

Maybe some good will come out of applying pressure to baseball labor and management, but it seems that teenagers might be more receptive to testimony from unsuccessful athletes with shrunken testicles and unmanly breasts. And while teens – who naturally think they are immortal – may be unimpressed by forty-year-olds with liver and kidney tumors, they might take seriously the threat of never reaching their full height because of starting the stuff too young.

If steroids are as harmful as it is said, these Congressmen should have no difficulty finding unfortunate examples willing to tell their sad stories, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as badgering a bunch of big-shot ballplayers. What’s the bottom line reason Congress puts on these dog-and-pony shows? Because they can.

Bankruptcy Redux

We got a bit of a discussion going in the comments to the last post, so I thought I'd put together a follow-up.

The main topic of the comments revolves around why so many conservative/libertarian bloggers, specifically Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, find the bankruptcy reform bill distasteful.

Instapundit, on several occasions has made references to bankruptcy reform being a sell out to the credit card industry. Generally, one of his posts of this nature links to a post that itself lambastes the bill.

What's missing in Glenn's posts is any discussion of why the bill is bad. He just asserts that it is and then moves on. In the second post I linked in the previous paragraph, Glenn quotes another lawyer describing why the bill is bad for lawyers. There's still no real discussion of why it's bad for consumers or why Chapter 13 is somehow not a viable alternative to Chapter 7.

Yet, that lawyer Glenn quotes does get at what I suspect is the real force behind the opposition to this bill: the lawyers don't like it.

The lawyers don't like it for a couple of reasons. First, bankruptcy attorneys are basically put personally on the hook for some fraudulent behavior of their clients. (Though, I somehow doubt it's as dire as Glenn's friend makes it seem.) More importantly, the bill drops attorneys in importance for payment.

In my post yesterday, I talked about a few general aspects of bankruptcy. A couple of things that I didn't bring up include how some debts are not dischargeable in bankruptcy (federally guaranteed student loans, alimony and child support payments, among others) and that the bankruptcy act sets up priorities for what order your debts get paid in.

Prior to this reform bill. The number one priority for payment was the bankruptcy attorney handling your filing. So, unless the client was dead-broke destitute, the attorney knew he or she was getting paid. After the reform kicks in, the attorneys get shuttled down a spot or two. The new number one priority is child support. So, attorneys stand to lose out in some instances.

So, my theory is that Glenn knows lots of attorneys. Attorneys, like most people, don't like the idea of working for free. They complain about the bill, overemphasizing the negatives, and Glenn Picks up on this. He likes them, he trusts them, and takes their word for it.

Then toss in the fact that nobody really likes credit card companies. And everyone knows that those big card-issuing banks are rolling in money. So, it just makes sense that if the bill passed, especially with the attorneys complaining about all the bad stuff in it, the credit card companies must have just bought Congress.

Bankruptcy Reform

There's been much handwringing and gnashing of teeth across the blogosphere over the new bankruptcy reform bill.

In order to explain why, I want to give just a quick little bit of bankground on how bankruptcy works. But first, I should give my disclaimer.

What I'm about to describe is merely a brief overview of bankruptcy law. It is not intended to be, and should not be relied upon as legal advice. If you are even contemplating filing for bankruptcy, you should consult with a licensed attorney who specializes in bankruptcy and is familiar with both the federal bankruptcy statute as well as the specific rules and exemptions applicable to your state.

There, got that out of the way.

One: There are two different kinds of bankruptcy for individuals. Chapter 7 is the more frequently encountered. Chapter 7 allows an individual to basically throw in the towel. They file a bankruptcy petition, offer up all of their non-exempt property, liquidate it, part the proceeds out to creditors at pennies on the dollar, and then get discharged. After the debts are discharged, creditors can no longer attempt to collect those discharged debts.

The less frequently seen form of bankruptcy is Chapter 13. In a Chapter 13 filing, the individual basically agrees to hitch themselves to a plow for between three and five years. A court-appointed trustee is, for all practical purposes, put in charge of their finances. Any money left over after essential expenses are met is parted out on a regular schedule to creditors. At the end of the three to five year period, the remaining debts are discharged and creditors may no longer attempt to collect those discharged debts.

On first blush, Chapter 13 might seem less onerous. Who wants to sell all their stuff as Chapter 7 requires. Why not just have someone manage your financial affairs and pay what's left over? It's not a bad question. I'll answer it in point two.

Two. Bankruptcy law is typically discussed as if it is universally applied in all fifty states. That's partly correct. The full story is that the individual states still have quite a bit of say in how bankruptcy works. How? Well, the federal bankruptcy laws provides a uniform framework for bankrupcty procedure across all states. However, the individual states are still allowed to set their own exemptions.

What are exemptions?

Remember in point one above where I mentioned that all of your non-exempt property goes into the bankruptcy estate to be liquidated to provide proceeds to the creditors? Well, depending upon where you live, different property is considered exempt. So, in some states, you can keep one car regardless of it's value. In other states, you can only keep up to $5000 in a car. So, if you're in a state that lets you protect exempt one car, you can keep that 1963 Corvette that's paid off and worth a hundred grand. In the $5000 state, you'd have to sell that puppy and put $95 thousand of the value into the kitty. In some states you can protect you home and all of the land adjacent to it. So, if you have a house sitting on one-hundred acres, it's all still yours. In other states, you might only be able to keep a quarter acre surrounding the house. Bye-bye 99 and 3/4. These same sorts of differences apply to clothing, furniture, "tools of the trade" that you use for work, jewelry, kitchen utensils, electronic equipment, etc., etc., and so forth.

Obviously, if you are in a state that allows for generous exemptions, the liquidation portion of Chapter 7 suddenly starts looking a lot less obnoxious. You can keep a lot, if not most of your stuff, liquidate just a part of it, and tell your creditors to take a flying leap.

So, that's what generally happens. Chapter 7 filings make up the overwhelming bulk of bankruptcy filings. What few Chapter 13 filings are made take place in eastern states that were, hystorically speaking, more creditor friendly.

That brings us to...

Three. Most people think that bankruptcy means that you are, in the vernacular, "broke." That's not necessarily the case.

As I recall, there are two different legal definitions for "bankrupt." First, there is the wealth definition. Simply stated, if your debts exceed your assets, then you may be bankrupt. Second, there is the cash-flow definition. If you are unable to meet your montly payment obligations, regardless of your assets, you likely qualify as bankrupt.

You only have to qualify under one definition, not both.

Which brings us back around to the blogospheric teeth grinding over the bankruptcy reform bill.

What the bill does is make it more difficult for people to file for Chapter 7 in situations where their cash-flow is still good. Basically, if you have a above-the-median income (as adjusted for family size) then you can be forced into Chapter 13. So, it narrows the ability of some to file for bankruptcy under the wealth definition.

To be more specific, bankruptcy filers who make above average money, who are capable of making $100 a month in payments ($1200 a year, $6000 over five years) to creditors can be forced into Chapter 13. That's not a particularly high amount of disposable income, so in theory, a lot of people might be forced into Chapter 13. However, while I haven't read the specifics of the reform bill, I suspect that it won't work to that many people's detriment. I'll bet that if your excess cash flow were trully limited to just $100 a month, and your non-exempt assets totalled more than $6000, the bankruptcy judge and the creditors would just as soon let you file the Chapter 7, discharging you in just a short while.

For the most part, the complaints about the refrom bill boil down to this:

Credit card companies bought the Senate and they are big and mean and they give cards to anyone with a pulse (and some that don't have a pulse) and did you see the episode of The Simpsons where their dog, Santa's Little Helper was given a credit card and a credit card company once ran over my best friend's kitten when I was young.

Or, in other words, credit card companies are evil.

Color me unimpressed with this line of thought.

Sure, credit card companies hand out cards like Chicklets. So what? Chase Manhattan didn't show up in your house and holds a gun to your face to send in the application. Citibank didn't kidnap your mother in order to get you to charge that new pair of hundred dollar pair of shoes.

Royce covered this admirably. As did Tom Veal. And, finally, Todd Zywicki covers quite a bit of this as well.

The more I read about this bankruptcy reform, the more I think it's probably a good idea.

Recycling Bleg

I would appreciate it if readers would let me know how waste recycling is handled in your community. In Davenport, we have curbside recycling in which homeowners put “recyclables” in a special tub for pick up every other week along with regular trash collection. Recyclables include plastic jugs, glass, tin cans, cardboard and newspapers, and we just throw everything in the tub and they sort it. There is no penalty if we put recyclables in with regular trash.

It seems to be working better than I had assumed it would as about half the houses in my neighborhood still have their tub out on any given collection day. For this service, we pay $3.72 per month on our sewer bill which is an increase from a little under $3 when it started. It was also weekly collection when it started about eight years ago.

If you would like to participate in my survey, post a comment or e-mail me with the service at the bottom of this post. No salesman will call. Oh, but do please tell me what city or county you are describing, if you don’t mind. Or state, if not Iowa.

Thanks

Say It Isn't So

Iowahawk claims that this is the last chapter in the Dan Rather Mystery Series. Nooooooooo!!!!!!

Taking a break from really important stuff

Not every issue that interests me is Fate Of The World stuff like the last few posts. Sometimes, I get riled up by fairly minor nuisances like this subject. Its effects don’t reach beyond the borders of Iowa, which, let’s be honest, is only a mid-tier state anyway. But dammit, either me or my wife spends a minute or two every day dealing with this, and also another fifteen minutes every other week. That adds up to almost 16 hours per year - two entire workdays - in addition to a not insignificant financial risk.

My subject is a state law which is under consideration for revision. It’s a “popular” law, God knows why, except with one special interest group which has to carry the brunt of complying with it (other than the “cost-free” inconvenience the citizenry endure). All of the revisions being considered would make compliance either more expensive or more inconvenient.

I am, of course referring to the absurd bottle-deposit law. It is an ABOMINATION. REPEAL IT. NOW.

Illinois doesn’t have this law. Its roadways are no more littered than Iowa’s. The states that have this or similar laws passed them twenty years ago. Since then, other states haven’t said, “Hey, that’s a great idea. Let’s us pass a bottle deposit law, too.” Either bottle and can litter isn’t a problem in those states, or they have found a way to deal with it. My personal suggestion would be to make chain gangs of high-school students who refuse to serve detention pick up such trash as there is. They’re the ones who toss it, anyway.

But let that be a backup plan. The first priority is to take the bottle deposit law out behind the barn and beat it to death with a dull axe.

Like a computer virus, relentlessly chewing up your hard drive...

There are some monumental issues facing the American people during the next few years. The approaching Social Security crisis and the (global) war in Iraq have the potential to fundamentally alter America’s economic foundation and the stability of the whole world, respectively. I might include the threat that a growing immigrant population could pose if we can not handle it better than, say the Dutch have. But there may be no greater threat to the principles the nation was founded on than that posed by a federal judiciary intent on implementing an agenda of its own.

Like a computer virus, relentlessly chewing up your hard drive, the trend of recent court decisions has been to declare the Bill of Rights and the concept of federalism as no longer applicable. A case in point is the recent legal ruling ending the internet exemption of the BCRA (McCain-Feingold campaign reform). First, the Supreme Court decided that paid speech is not FreeSpeech as the plain text of the First Amendment says. Then, a lower court judge interpreted that decision to mean that bloggers’ free speech is also not Free Speech. Finally, the FEC will implement the judiciary's directive. Captain Ed has the details here:

McCain and Feingold want us to believe that only paid advertising falls under the FEC's scope and the BCRA regulations. However, either they failed to read their own lawsuit or they are being deliberately deceptive. In the decision by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Shays-Meehan v. FEC, buried deep within its lengthy text on page 153, this argument is effectively destroyed by the charge given to the FEC. Directly disputing their statement, the judge notes that the plaintiffs (in this case the Congressmen who wrote the companion bill for the House) want unpaid communications regulated by the FEC as well -- and the judge agrees[.]

These ludicrous situations wouldn’t occur if even five members of the Supreme Court would simply read words such as these rather than try to force meanings into them:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

We could ask SecDef Don Rumsfeld to remind the Supreme Court, “You go to court with the Constitution you have, not the Constitution you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Or we could try to impeach a judge or two. But realistically, our best bet is to appoint some judges who understand the intent of the Constitution was to limit what government can do, not to limit what the people can do.

The next few years will likely see the appointment of enough judges to determine whether the founding principles of this nation will be respected or further eroded. And that is a monumental issue.

What I said (see preceding post)

Educators tout Vilsack's initiative
At a public forum, backers say the early childhood plan would help boost the economy; a few opponents call for more parental care.

God bless those “few opponents”

If you don’t want to raise them...

Our local school district has determined that teachers don’t have enough opportunity to talk among themselves, so the board is discussing a plan to dismiss students an hour early, one day per week so that the faculty could confab. Maybe this is a good idea, maybe not. Never mind that it costs an hour per week of instruction time; the possible deal-breaker is what it would do to working/child-care schedules for a lot of parents. Luckily, plans are already being developed to offer daily after school programs and activities and this extra hour could easily be absorbed. This situation has given the QCTimes editorial staff a brainstorm that resulted in today’s lead editorial:

Davenport schools flirt with revolution
Could Davenport be the first Quad-City school district to guarantee first-class education and child care for working parents?

Indeed. It would be revolutionary to guarantee a first-class education, but that’s not what the editorial is about. The real subject is another proposed expansion of the public schools’ babysitting child-care service. Deep into the column, the QCT asks readers to embark on a flight of fancy:

Imagine if Davenport became the first Quad-City school district to offer programs that would assure parents their children would be educated and well cared for from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every weekday, regardless of school schedules.
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Before and after-school programming offered for a fee would allow parents to rely on their neighborhood schools to be a safe, productive place for children even on weekday holidays, early dismissals, teacher inservice days or whatever. Parents who chose to participate in those fee-based programs wouldn’t have to juggle child care schedules. Businesses that rely on those parents wouldn’t have to worry about last-minute schedule accommodations. Instead, a Davenport schools family could be assured that the best education and the best day care could be handled at the same place every weekday.
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This alters schools’ traditional mission, but in a way we believe many parents would cheer.

Sigh. I’m afraid the QCT is right. Some working parents take their offspring to daycare on their days off. They would cheer if their kids were kept until 5:30. The little monsters are mostly a pain in the neck anyway — an expensive hobby at best, right? So why stop at ten hours per day? The schools could start feeding them dinner and then have “study hours” from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Finally, why not keep them overnight and on weekends, too? “Parents” could still attend sporting events, school plays and graduation, but otherwise, why get involved? Just pay your taxes and your fees and periodically you will be sent a report on how “your” child is progressing.

The education establishment, the governor and working parents all agree that the schools should be in charge of children as soon as they are potty-trained, so fine. What have these little ingrates ever done for their parents anyway? Once upon a time parents knocked themselves out to bring their children up properly so that their grown children would care for them in their old age, but we’ve got Social Security (hahahahaha) for that now.

One final question for anybody who thinks I’ve been talking to them in the last two paragraphs: if you don’t want to raise them, why have them?

Waterloo Courier is Geeked Up

"Iowa Geek"ed that is. This story from today's Waterloo Courier talks about blogs in Iowa, including Iowa Geek, and even mentions the Blogger Bash from last weekend. Cool.

(Hat Tip: Kris)

Prescient P.J.

Practically every female at the march was a bowser. "We're not being sexist here," my friend insisted. "It's not a matter of looks per se. It's just that beautiful women are always on the cutting edge of social trends."

P.J. O'Rourke writing in "Among the Compassion Fascists," Parliament of Whores.

If that's the case, I can only assume that Lebanon is well on it's way to getting rid of the Syrian yoke.

Clarification:

In my post below, 'Is it time to impeach a Supreme Court Justice?' my issue is only that of encroachment by the court against the Constitutional authority of the other branches of the federal government and of the states. I am not addressing the issue of the legitimacy of the death penalty for minors or for anybody else.

Is it time to impeach a Supreme Court Justice?

Despite all the impotent rage the Right is sputtering about the SCOTUS decision yesterday to immunize seventeen-year-olds from any fear of the death penalty, no matter how horrendous their crimes, no one is suggesting that one or more justices be impeached. I just googled “impeach Anthony Kennedy” – zero hits. Then I tried “impeach Kennedy”. I got more hits for John Kennedy than for Anthony and the ones I did get were for some of his transgressions in 2003.

After the Clinton fiasco, I suppose the girly-men and girly-girls in Congress are reluctant to reassert their Constitutional authority. But the entire blogosphere is silent? There must be something I’m missing in my understanding of the Constitution. Article VI says that judicial Officers, (among others) “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution,” and are then appointed for “good Behaviour” (sic) which apparently means for life unless they do something really bad. How bad does it have to be? I don’t pretend to be a lawyer; I’m just asking the question.

Mark Levin, who is a lawyer, and who wrote Men in Black about how the Supreme Court has gotten out of control said of Justice Kennedy, “I think a good argument can be made that Anthony Kennedy has "evolved" into the most activist of the justices… demonstrating his complete contempt for the Constitution and his role as a justice”

Here is a sampling of other commentary from The Corner at NRO:

From Shannen Coffin:An email on today's death penalty decision:

Various comments in The Corner have touched on SCOTUS' citing an unratified treaty as reasoning for it's decision. No one, however, has directly addressed the implications of Scalia's comment that (paraphrasing) "the court now joins and ratifies treaties." While SCOTUS has heretofore acted *only* as an accountable domestic legislature, it is now assuming the power to create international law. Pretty damn scary it seems to me.

Jonathan H. Adler reports:The second treaty that Kennedy cites is not the ICC treaty, but the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This treaty was ratified by the U.S., but with the following reservation:

the United States reserves the right, subject to its Constitutional constraints, to impose capital punishment on any person (other than a pregnant woman) duly convicted under existing or future laws permitting the imposition of capital punishment, including such punishment for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

In other words, the reservation nullified the specific claim at issue -- that U.S. participation in the ICCPR suggests the existence of a "national consensus" against the death penalty for juveniles. Justice Kennedy shrugs this off noting that the reservation was in 1992, and much has changed since then. (No, really, that's his argument.)

Adler again:A D.C. lawyer notes that today's death penalty opinion in Roper v. Simmons is also an affront against federalism:

By invoking an imagined "trend" by state legislatures toward the statutory abolition of juvenile capital punishment, the Court effectively is allowing certain states to dictate policy in other states. States like Texas and Virginia now are bound by the policy preferences of legislators in Vermont and Oregon. It's the perfect, if perverse, complement to the Court's increasing invocation of foreign sources of "law," as a result of which the American people as a whole are to be governed by elites in Brussels. . . . Roper thus represents not just an assault on judicial restraint, but an offense against federalism.

So you see my confusion? Article I vests ALL legislative power in the Congress. Article II gives treaty-making authority to the president and the senate. Article IV guarantees “to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”. I think that’s where the federalism comes in. The Tenth amendment also has something to say about limiting the federal government’s power over state laws, and I think the Eleventh suggests the court should not base US law on what other countries do.

So why, with all the dismay over this decision, is no one demanding that something be done about it?