Ten Commandments rulings from the Magic 8-Ball: "Yes," "No," "Ask Again Later"

Okay, is everybody clear?

The Ten Commandments display on the grounds of the Texas capitol does not violate the First Amendment. The Ten Commandments display in a Kentucky courthouse does.

In the future, the U.S. Supreme Court reserves the right to allow or ban displays of the Ten Commandments depending on whether they go too far in promoting religion.

In each of these two cases the justices split five to four, which means the entire issue turns on the next justice's view of how far is too far.

This incoherent comedy is the inevitable result of something you probably have never heard of: the Supreme Court's 80-year-old "incorporation doctrine."

Take five minutes and read "Cornered: The Supreme Court's Ten Commandments Problem" and "How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing" to find out what's really going on here. It's worse than you think.


Copyright 2005

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The great Paul Winchell, 1922-2005

The Los Angeles Times carried the sad news today that Paul Winchell died Friday at the age of 82.

I vividly remember the frustration I felt as a little kid, wrestling with the UHF antenna on the back of a black-and-white TV in Chicago, trying to get WFLD's signal to come in clearly so I could watch the Winchell Mahoney show.

Paul Winchell was a ventriloquist, a comedian, a genius. If you never got a chance to see him, you can thank the nihilists at Metromedia who erased the tapes of the 288 episodes of the brilliant show Paul Winchell did for kids from 1964 to 1968.

That was in the days of two-inch videotape masters in tape boxes the size of phone books, and before digital copies allowed pirates and thieves to PRESERVE THE WORK OF GENIUSES WHO WORK FOR IDIOTS.

Those of us who remember Paul Winchell's wonderful work will never forget it.

Condolences to Mr. Winchell's wife Jean, his five kids and his three grandchildren.

Bring back IQ tests and save childhood

The Sacramento Bee reported recently that the personality tests used by an estimated 30 percent of employers as part of the job interview process are essentially worthless. The story mentions that the tests were aggressively marketed to employers starting in the 1970s, when tests for aptitude, intelligence and achievement were criticized as unfair to minorities and women.

Observe the Law of Unintended Consequences in action.

Employers were afraid to test applicants for intelligence, or even judge a prospect's intelligence by a maybe-discriminatory gut feeling, but they didn't lose their desire for intelligent employees. They found a substitute for the IQ test and it wasn't the goofy questionaire about personality traits. It was the degree from a top university.

There was a time in this country when children were not pressured at the age of three to take tests in order to get into the best pre-schools so that they'd have the "credential" to get into the best private elementary school so that they wouldn't miss the cut to get into the best high school so that they would be accepted into the best universities.

Why are parents so stressed about getting their kids into top colleges? Because future employment depends on it.

But why are employers so rigid about credentials from the best universities? Everyone knows there are plenty of capable people without Ivy League degrees and plenty of incompetents with them.

Apparently this is the answer: Thanks to the fear of discrimination, employers aren't allowed to test applicants for intelligence. So they rely instead on top universities to separate the wheat from the chaff, brain-wise.

The trouble with this model for hiring is that it locks everyone into place at the age of eighteen. That means intense pressure on children to succeed at the highest level from the earliest age. And it also means adults who find themselves out of work will have a terrible time finding jobs to replace the ones they got before the world went credential-crazy. Without intelligence or aptitude tests, they have no objective way to demonstrate their ability to a prospective employer in a new field.

So childhood feels like a bar review course and midlife unemployment feels like the 1930s Depression. Employers are stuck in a bidding war for unproven Ivy League graduates. Millions of anxious parents push their kids toward the same small group of top schools, driving tuition costs to the sky and saddling graduates with student loans the size of mortgages. And all because of an irrational fear that intelligence tests discriminate against minorities and women.

Will the 1970s ever end?



Copyright 2005

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Funniest joke of the year...

From Argus Hamilton's Thursday, 6-23 column:

The American Film Institute released its list of the top one hundred movie quotes of all time. The number one slot went to Rhett Butler's famous exit line from Gone with the Wind. Everybody's pitching in to help President Bush find the words to get us out of Iraq.

Copyright 2005 Argus Hamilton
All rights reserved.
Used by permission.

Read Argus every day at: www.argushamilton.com/argus.htm

Read a serious plan to get out of Iraq:
www.extremeink.com/susan/iraq.htm

Laura Bush's big disappointment

Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison announced today that she will run for re-election to the U.S. Senate next year instead of challenging the current governor of Texas, Republican Rick Perry.

That means no opening in the U.S. Senate's Texas delegation. Sen. John Cornyn's term is up in 2008 but he's a Republican in his first term and unlikely to retire.

That means Laura Bush dragged herself all the way to the Middle East to have her picture taken for NOTHING! She traveled around to schools in bad neighborhoods and gave speeches about how to raise boys for NOTHING! She lost weight and had a wardrobe makeover for... well, that's never wasted.

Bummer, huh?

Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole have all the fun.

This could throw the First Lady into a mid-life crisis. Maybe a career change is on the horizon. When is David Letterman's contract up?

More likely: the president will nominate Sen. John Cornyn to a lifetime post on the U.S. Supreme Court. The things a president has to do these days to keep his wife from leaving him.


Copyright 2005

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Mary Carey turns the clock back to 1958

Check out this photo of porn star and former California candidate for governor Mary Carey posing in front of an American flag with only forty-eight stars on it.

Maybe she counts as two.


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Note to Chinese bloggers: Just say "French"

The government of China just made Microsoft knuckle under and agree to censor the word "f***dom" on the MSN China site. Bloggers in China who write about f***dom will get an error message telling them they have used a banned expression.

In support of China's f***dom movement, may I suggest that Chinese bloggers use the word "French" instead.

Best wishes from the land of the f*** and the home of the brave.


Copyright 2005


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John McCain shakedown update

Recently we noted that John McCain was abusing his power as chairman of the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee to hold a hearing for no reason except to remind tribal leaders that he has the power to "review" the Indian Gaming Act. Unspoken--but heard loud and clear--was the senator's threat to impose costly new restrictions on Indian casinos. The reason for the hearing, in other words, was to generate lots of donations to the senator's re-election campaign committee.

Of course, the senator doesn't accept cash right there in the hearing room.

Check out this paragraph from the AP's story about tonight's big GOP fundraiser:

"Events Tuesday include a reception and luncheon with Vice President Dick Cheney; a lunch with Arizona Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee; and a breakfast with Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee."

Pay the cashier, gentlemen. Nice casino you've got there, it'd be a shame if anything should happen to it.


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The federal ban on medical marijuana: Life at the bottom of the slippery slope

Welcome to the bottom of the slippery slope.

In 1973, the U.S. Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act and asserted that the federal government had the power, under an elastic definition of interstate commerce, to regulate and prohibit certain drugs. Was it a usurpation of powers that the U.S. Constitution had reserved to the states? You betcha. Prohibition of alcohol required a constitutional amendment.

But drugs are dangerous and voters elect politicians who take a hard line against them. And one step at a time, we have stumbled down the slope to where we are now: the Supreme Court just told the states that they do not have the power to legalize marijuana for medical uses. Or, more precisely, that users of state-sanctioned medical marijuana can be prosecuted for a federal crime even if the marijuana is not sold across state lines, even if the marijuana is grown at home by the person who uses it and there is no "commerce" at all.

Why did the U.S. Supreme Court reach this decision?

Well, it appears that six of the justices were reluctant to constrain the federal government's power by enforcing the Tenth Amendment, which would cause no end of havoc in federal law if the American people ever took a moment to read it.

If you would like to read it, you might like to click over to Marijuana, Prohibition and the Tenth Amendment at www.SusanShelley.com.



Copyright 2005

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Goodbye, Guantanamo

It looks like the Bush administration has decided to turn the lights out on the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. On Wednesday, the president said "We're looking at all alternatives," and on Thursday Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld said the U.S. would prefer to have the detainees imprisoned in their home countries. Maybe they haven't made up their minds, but if they had made up their minds, this is exactly what it would look like.

And it's about time, too. Terrorists are dangerous, but so is a practice of holding people without charges and without lawyers and without evidence and without end.

Unless there is some kind of procedure or trial, the American public has no way to know how many of the Guantanamo prisoners are really terrorists and how many of them are the Afghanistan equivalent of Richard Jewell. Maybe that can be tolerated for a while, but the administration has said they will be there for the duration of the war on terrorism, and the war on terrorism has no end.

The courts may uphold all of this as part of the president's constitutional powers as commander-in-chief during wartime. But if we're going to talk about the Constitution, it should be noted that the power to declare war belongs to the Congress. The framers went to a lot of trouble to make sure that one man did not have the power to take the country into war.

Many Americans are concerned about a situation in which the president decides that we are at war, the president decides to hold enemy combatants indefinitely without charges, and the president decides when the war has ended and the prisoners may be released. If President Bush closes Guantanamo, he deserves a lot of credit for being one of those Americans.



Copyright 2005

...And Starring Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a pound-on-the-carpet funny movie based on the books by the brilliant Douglas Adams. And here's a note for fans of political satire: Sam Rockwell steals the picture as Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the universe, with a hilariously subtle impression of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Don't miss it.

The flawed premise of airport security

The New York Times says a confidential report by the Department of Homeland Security has concluded that there are significant gaps in security at the nation's airports which can be fixed with a few simple changes like longer tables and lockable doors.

Please.

There are significant gaps in security at the nation's airports because the government is trying to do a job that cannot be done. They are trying to eliminate every possible item in every passenger's possession that might possibly be used in a dangerous manner.

It can't be done.

We might as well throw sponges into the ocean and then issue a report saying there remains some water left to be absorbed, and larger sponges are recommended. Yes, of course, larger sponges will absorb more water. This can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of five separate blue-ribbon panels and a congressional committee. And it certainly accomplishes the primary goal, which is to generate a lot of activity while pushing the whole problem past the next election.

The dangerous gap in airport security is not the failure of a half-awake screener to find some woman's nail clippers. The dangerous gap is a screening process that wastes time and resources pretending that a grandmother from Cincinnati is every bit as likely to be a terrorist as a 25-year-old man with a Saudi or Egyptian passport. It's the fear of being unfair that has made airport security what it is today.

What do we gain by "wanding" little girls on their way to Disney World with their parents? Compare that to what we've lost: money, time, the civilized treatment that Americans have a right to expect when they travel in their own country.

Here's a thought: Let's discriminate and then apologize when we're wrong. Let's explain in advance that innocent people from countries with a history of exporting terrorists may be subject to extra scrutiny, and we're terribly sorry for the inconvenience, and we hope to make it up to them someday when things calm down a little, but for now, we'd like to make sure they don't have any sharp objects in their carry-on luggage.

Let's maintain an accurate, publicly available, verifiable list of people with terrorist associations and keep them off commercial flights.

Let's admit that a reasonable person can judge visually that some airline passengers are not going to be a threat no matter what they've got in their luggage.

Is it discrimination? You bet. Is it the worst possible thing that can happen? Not by a longshot. We are living in a dangerous world and it is not made any safer by an airline security system built on the flawed premise that every passenger presents an equal potential threat.

Remember that on September 11th everyone began the day believing that hijackings were best handled with non-violent cooperation, that hijackers always set a plane down safely and then negotiated for their demands, that the best course of action was to sit quietly and wait it out.

It was a flawed premise, not a box cutter, that brought down the World Trade Center.


Copyright 2005

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The secret of Hollywood politics

Why is almost everyone in Hollywood a liberal Democrat? Many reasons may jump into your mind but there's one you probably never thought about, and it was on display at two fund-raisers for Hillary Clinton Wednesday night.

One event was a $1,000-per-person dinner at the home of Warner Bros. executive Alan Horn. The other was a late-night get-together at the home of "Independence Day" director Roland Emmerich, co-hosted by Christina Aguilera, Scarlett Johansson and Lindsay Lohan, among others. The co-hosts paid $1,000 each and tickets to the event were priced at $125 and $250.

Organizers of both events reported that they had to turn people away, demand to get in was so great.

Why?

Why do you think?

How do you meet a director in Hollywood? How do you get in to see a studio executive? How do you get Scarlett Johansson to read your screenplay or sign with your agency? In a business that's built on contacts and relationships, networking is no easy task in a city where security makes the U.S. Capitol look like a market in Beirut.

How many people in Hollywood lay awake nights fearing the consequences of Republican policies on taxes and stem-cell research? Some, but more are worried about aging and unemployment. That's what keeps them up at night. Well, okay, that and cocaine. Either way, $125 or even $1,000 is a small price to pay to stay in touch with people who might be able to get you your next job.

Now you know why Hollywood Democrats supported campaign finance reform. If donations aren't limited they'll all go broke doing this.

Copyright 2005

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Supreme Court retirement? Don't bet on it.

The Associated Press noted today that "many expect" Chief Justice Rehnquist to announce his retirement in the next few weeks.

Don't bet on it, for two reasons.

First, the Court has agreed to hear an abortion case next fall to decide the constitutionality of New Hampshire's parental notification law. If the justices want to do this, then in all likelihood they want to do this personally. Chief Justice Rehnquist in particular has shown great concern for the national reputation of the Supreme Court, and the idea that he'd step down and let a rookie justice take all the political heat for a 5-4 abortion ruling is just out of character for him. Far more likely that he'd stick around for the most controversial rulings and then leave, satisfied that he had personally overseen the Court's most difficult decisions and left the institution in good shape for the future.

Second, people who have gold stripes sewn on their sleeves never retire. They go out like Elvis.

Will any of the other justices retire? Not likely. Justice O'Connor, frequently mentioned as a likely candidate for retirement, will not want to take any action that shifts the balance of the Court away from the moderate views she favors. She has worked too hard and given up too many years to have all her carefully-crafted efforts go spinning down the drain now.

Likewise, eighty-something Justice John Paul Stevens will not give up his post as the Court's liberal lion to be replaced by a conservative. He'll break Cal Ripken's record before he lets that happen.

Beyond ideology, it's just an iron law of fame that people don't give up those jobs. They like the power, the prestige, the chauffeur-driven car, the special perks and privileges that make a quiet private life so desolate by comparison.

Barring the sound of an ambulance in the night, there will be a No Vacancy sign on the Supreme Court when it adjourns for the summer. Bet on it.


Copyright 2005

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