Can he pronounce “plenary”?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee today to explain the Bush Administration’s contention that the Terrorist Surveillance Program warrantless wiretapping is legal. He claims that the Constitution’s presidential powers and statutory powers granted by the Congress authorize warrantless wiretapping. In the past month he’s offered other justifications, which I suspect were dictated by the day of the week, as I can’t find any other coherent pattern. It was necessary that the Judiciary Committee challenged Attorney General Gonzalez, because it’s apparent to me that the warrantless wiretapping violates the Constitution.

Better analysis can be found elsewhere explaining why, so instead I want to focus on this peremptory editorial in today’s Opinion Journal by Attorney General Gonzalez. Specifically, consider this excerpt:

The president, as commander in chief, has asserted his authority to use sophisticated military drones to search for Osama bin Laden, to deploy our armed forces in combat zones, and to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives around the world. No one would dispute that the [Authorization for Use of Military Force] supports the president in each of these actions.

It is, therefore, inconceivable that the AUMF does not also support the president’s efforts to intercept the communications of our enemies. …

Sorry? What was that? I don’t follow that “A” leads to “B” logic. The legality is arguably more nuanced than I’m about to render it, but as his argument’s logic is absurd, I feel uncompelled to comply with any notion of realisitc outcomes. So, carrying that argument to its logical conclusion, why is it not acceptable for the president to use sophisticated military drones to search for al Qaeda terrorists in the United States? Let’s assume we allow the warrantless wiretapping. We want to win the war, right? We shouldn’t prevent the president from using any and all measures at his disposal, right? What harm would a few drone flights be, especially if I’m innocent?

Or do we accept that the rules are different for international and domestic actions, since American citizens (who are presumed innocent) are involved? Logic is a cruel master when you’re honest.

Uncle Sam is a brilliant banker

This article about state prepaid college savings plan raised an interesting point, without actually making that point. I noticed it because my experience reflects a flaw in the financial aid system for college. Consider:

But under the new law, prepaid plans will receive the same financial aid advantage that 529 college savings plans do. The money in 529 plans, which let parents save in a tax-advantaged investment account, is treated as the parents’ money. And under the federal aid formula, only 5.64% of parents’ money is expected to go toward college expenses, [Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert in Pittsburgh] says.

I haven’t dealt with undergraduate financial aid in more than a decade, so perhaps the rules have changed, but when I attended college, I faced a different reality than some alleged 5.64% parental responsibility. Coming from a poor background, I knew two facts: I was going to college and I was paying for it. The federal financial aid process would only recognize one of those facts by making it virtually impossible for anyone other than an orphan or 23-year-old to be considered independent financially from his parents. My mother had to take out PLUS loans, which amounted to 40% of the total I borrowed for four years of undergraduate study because the borrowing limits for me as the student were capped. (They still are.) So I ended up with only 60% of the debt from my 94.36% federal responsibility. My mother enjoyed debt totaling 700% of her responsibility.

But let’s continue pretending that turning private dealings over to the rule-making of government nannies works best.

The instructions explain the volume controls

Because turning the volume down is too obvious:

A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit that Apple’s iPod music player can cause hearing loss in people who use it.

Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint.

The iPod players are “inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,” according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.

Personally, I use my iPod at a low volume. Most times, I keep the volume at no more than 20% of the available volume. Perhaps this is still a significant volume and I don’t know it, but I’ve noticed no difference. And if a song, audiobook, or podcast is too loud, I quickly turn it down. (I usually don’t have to because I’m smart enough to start low and adjust up. Strange concept.) It seems apparent that Mr. Patterson’s lawsuit is without merit.

There are potential consequences to everyone who knows how to operate the volume if Mr. Patterson’s lawsuit ends in a victory for him:

Apple was forced to pull the iPod from store shelves in France and upgrade software on the device to limit sound to 100 decibels, but has not followed suit in the United States, according to the complaint. The headphones commonly referred to as ear buds, which ship with the iPod, also contribute to noise-induced hearing loss because they do not dilute the sound entering the ear and are closer to the ear canal than other sound sources, the complaint states.

I prefer the volume choice the iPod offers since I’m not always listening with earphones. Sometimes I feed my music to my car stereo through an FM transmitter. The transmitter sends a low volume signal. Turning up the volume on the iPod is the most effective way to get a quality, reasonable volume sound. When I want to hook it up to my stereo, the same scenario applies.

Apple appears to have engineered the iPod to be versatile, implementing flexibility with a dose of trust in the consumer’s intelligence. Aside from the meddling aspect, a change such as that imposed in France would reduce the functionality of the iPod. One day I’m going to want a video iPod. I expect it to offer me the same choice I have today. People like Mr. Patterson need to stop with the money grabs helping.

Join the revolution, eh

I wrote a few weeks ago that Sirius would not carry Howard Stern on its Canadian service due to decency standards in Canada revolving around the country having no equivalent to our First Amendment. It’s embarrassing that a democracy in the 21st century has no guaranteed free speech, but at least it gives us some perspective on how much worse our situation could be. Unless our courts decide not to be activist or legislate from the bench and allow Congress to pass laws restricting pay content. But I digress. Yesterday, Sirius Canada announced that it would begin airing Howard Stern’s radio show beginning Monday.

“It’s no secret that Howard Stern’s programming is not consistent with the kind of programming you would find on CBC/Radio Canada’s airwaves, but this is a Sirius Canada decision,” said CBC spokesman Jason MacDonald.

The subscription-based network is 40 per cent owned by the CBC, 40 per cent by Standard Radio and 20 per cent by Sirius in the United States.

“Sirius Canada is a separate company,” noted MacDonald.

“Yes, we’re partners and Sirius Canada made the decision that was right for it based on what the market demands.”

This is obviously a triumph for free speech and free markets in Canada, but I don’t know how long it’ll last. Stern said as much yesterday. He was joking, but this makes me wonder:

[MacDonald] said new technology that allows Sirius Canada subscribers to block out Stern if they so choose was a significant factor in finalizing the deal.

Sirius Canada has said it does not expect Stern to run into censorship trouble this time because his satellite show is a pay service.

“It’s really up to the public to decide whether it wants to submit a complaint, regardless of the fact that it’s a service that is purchasable,” says CRTC spokeswoman Miriam Gennaro.

She couldn’t immediately say, however, whether different standards will apply to satellite radio.

I know Ted Stevens, Brent Bozell, and James Dobson would love to implement such a scheme in the United States, but I’m thankful the First Amendment says what it says. Now, if we just convince those non-“activist” judges to read it with the same deference to the text they would apply to any more favored portion of the Constitution. I know that’s crazy talk, but I can dream, right?

Next year, don’t interrupt American Idol

I didn’t watch President Bush’s State of the Union address last night. I’d like to think it’s abhorrence for the pep rally atmosphere, but it’s mostly blind cynicism. I flipped it on a couple of times, but those lasted only a few moments each, so I mostly skipped it. After reading the text this morning, I’m glad I did. I have many, many comments, but more than eight hours have passed since I read it, so I’ve had enough time to digest the reality that few, if any, of the promises will pass. Even if they do, it’s mostly the same nonsense that’s occurred for the last five years. Like I said, blind cynicism. So, instead of a point-by-point replay, I’ll focus on a few points worth noting.

First, as I’ve written over the last few weeks, the president discussed health care. He didn’t offer particulars, so there’s nothing to examine. I hope that will continue, since I don’t like the direction any potential details will follow. Specifically, this:

Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly, and we are meeting that responsibility.
…

We will strengthen health savings accounts, making sure individuals and small-business employees can buy insurance with the same advantages that people working for big businesses now get.

We will do more to make this coverage portable, so workers can switch jobs without having to worry about losing their health insurance.

The first sentence I quoted merely serves as a placeholder for my “Huh?”. I accept, for the moment, a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor. Why does that also extend to the elderly? The portion of our elderly population that should receive help is already included in “the poor”. I understand how powerful the AARP is, but perhaps we could have a little fiscal leadership to push aside the politics of influence on that issue. Following this definition of “public good,” if I’m rich, I don’t expect government-subsidized health care. Some attention to responsibility would be nice. But enough on that.

My key point on that excerpt is demonstrated by a personal example. Being self-employed, and having left a job with a large company that subsidized my health care costs, I’m in a good position to reflect on the president’s promise of portability. I’ve already stated that we should be removing the handcuffs that keep employee health care (specifically insurance) decisions tied to employers, not figuring out a way to let small business and individuals handcuff themselves to some monolith. That would be a terrible outcome and the reality of insurance portability explains it.

When I left my last employer, I kept my insurance coverage through COBRA. For the privilege I began to pick up the extra premiums. My monthly health insurance expense was $325. Upon replacing my coverage with individual private insurance, my premium for the same effective coverage fell to $160 per month, a drop of more than 50%. Admittedly, $160 would still be a significant sum for low-wage earners. I understand the scope of the challenge. But double the cost to join the same party isn’t a reasonable trade-off.

Obviously, this may not be a one-to-one comparison of what would happen under any proposed plan. However, my recollection of the initial push to enact COBRA standards is that it offered the same rhetoric about helping poor people maintain coverage. If, as President Bush said last night, helping individuals switch jobs without losing health insurance is the goal, detaching insurance from the job would be smarter. Perhaps the details will reveal something different than my example and we’ll all be better off. I doubt it.

Next, on saving the culture:

[Many Americans, especially parents] are concerned about unethical conduct by public officials and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage. They worry about children in our society who need direction and love, and about fellow citizens still displaced by natural disaster, and about suffering caused by treatable diseases.

As we look at these challenges, we must never give in to the belief that America is in decline or that our culture is doomed to unravel. The American people know better than that. We have proven the pessimists wrong before, and we will do it again.

A hopeful society depends on courts that deliver equal justice under law.

Blah, blah, blah. Forgive me if I’m slow to make the connection, but how do defining marriage as only between a man and a woman and depending on courts to deliver equal justice under the law intersect with each other as the optimal solution? I get the argument that, with “traditional” marriage, everyone has the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex. That’s a nice thought, but to pretend that a significant portion of society hasn’t moved beyond that to a broader acceptance of what is acceptable (not that acceptability itself is a sufficient argument) is intentionally simple to the point of being offensive. The purpose of our Constitution and the resulting government, as well as our underlying principles of equal justice, demand we recognize civil liberties to the greatest extent possible. “Protecting” society with marriage as only one man and one woman necessarily restricts the civil liberties of citizens who wish to marry a same-sex partner. Within civil law, that is forcing subservience to the state at the expense of free will. That’s not an America I recognize. Equal justice means equal justice.

Last year’s much longer post on the State of the Union speech.

Saving souls over the infected body

President Bush’s faith-based initiative developed foreseeable political baggage surrounding the allocation of $15 billion to fight HIV/AIDS. Mostly the baggage revolves around the distribution of condoms and the focus, or lack of focus, on abstinence and fidelity. I don’t want to go too in-depth on this because any thinking person could come up with the standard storyline for each side in the argument.

Personally, I don’t care for the religious angle coming from the federal government. That’s realistic more than anything. Just like any other arena where the independent, objective-minded interests of the government become quickly skewed to whatever dominant social theme prevails, this was bound to erupt into chaos. The goal is fighting AIDS and the spread of HIV. That shouldn’t be political, but a faith-based initiative means it will be so. It’s an inefficient waste of resources. That’s the outcome in which government specializes, of course.

Instead of worrying about whether we’re on message for what Jesus would want (hello, First Amendment), we should be practical. People are still dying, HIV is still spreading, and ignorance still permeates policy. Better to understand that human nature will not suddenly change, across cultures, in numbers sufficient to justify the “moral” solution. Essentially, at-risk people will continue to have sex, regardless of education, because that’s what humans do. As for the larger goals (incorrectly) promoted by faith-based initiatives, people will come to religion or they won’t; neither outcome is any government’s business. If government must pursue an international prevention policy, at taxpayer expense, it must approach the task with an aim for the proper results. No religious or moral qualifiers are appropriate.

Unlike this:

For prevention, Bush embraces the “ABC” strategy: abstinence before marriage, being faithful to one partner, and condoms targeted for high-risk activity. The Republican-led Congress mandated that one-third of prevention money be reserved for abstinence and fidelity.
…

The letters followed a briefing last year by Focus on the Family, run by Christian commentator and Bush ally James Dobson. The group’s sexual health analyst, Linda Klepacki, said even some religious groups emphasize condoms over abstinence.

“We have to be careful that the president’s original intent is being followed where A and B are the emphasized areas of the ABC methodology,” she said.

Focus on the Family would not be my first choice for medical advice on how to stop HIV/AIDS. No matter. Like everyone, I’m forced to pay for it. I only wish this next quote applied to government, in a much broader scope than a funding decision in one individual program:

“The notion that because people have always received aid money that they’ll get money needs to end,” Deputy U.S. global AIDS coordinator Mark Dybul said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The only way to have sustainable programs is to have programs that are wholly owned in terms of management personnel at the local level.”

If only, indeed…

Will the First Amendment suffer?

By now everyone’s probably heard about the 8-year-old boy who shot a 7-year-old girl at a Maryland day-care center earlier this week. More details are emerging, mostly surrounding an alleged robbery attempt by the boy. Those details are as absurd as they sound, but this is what most caught my attention:

The prosecutor also said investigators found photographs of guns in the apartment and learned that the boy had access to “very violent video games.” According to a police source, two of those video games are “50 Cent Bulletproof” and “187: Ride or Die.” The Washington Post agreed not to identify the source because the case remains open.

“Bulletproof,” released last fall, depicts rapper 50 Cent in a bloody New York underworld overrun with gangs and crime syndicates. Survival in the game requires shooting nearly anyone who gets in his way. The game costs about $50. “Ride and Die,” an older game with a similar premise, is based in Los Angeles.

Darlene Hall, the boy’s aunt, said her brother has been a positive influence on the boy, who she described as deeply troubled. She said the boy denied that his father taught him how to use guns.

“He beat on the desk and said: ‘No, my father didn’t do that. I learned it from 50 Cent,’ ” Darlene Hall said, describing how the child acted during a hearing on Wednesday that was closed to the public. She was present at the hearing.

No doubt Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton are in conference figuring out how to pin this incident on violent video games and the businesses that produce and sell them. It would be too easy to admit that a parent allowing a “deeply troubled” boy access to violent video games is responsible, rather than the game or its availability. Until we learn (which we have no reason to) the 7-year-old girl’s name, I guess the Jane Doe Keep Kids Safe from Violent Video Games Act of 2006 will have to suffice.

Because Liberals like only French food

Speaking at a Philander Smith College audience yesterday, Ann Coulter tried to make the Ha Ha.

“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

I’ll just say that, to be considered a joke, it should be funny. How soon before right-wing political pundits blame this on the liberal media?

I have no faith in my fellow Virginians

When the polls close November 7, 2006, I suspect I’m not going to appreciate my neighbors:

The state Senate all but guaranteed on Wednesday that Virginia will hold a November referendum on whether to amend its 230-year-old Bill of Rights to bar same-sex marriages.

The Senate voted 28 to 11 to follow the House of Delegates in approving the amendment. Though each chamber still must pass the measure adopted by the other, their wording is identical and support among the senators and delegates is strong.

There’s nothing new here, of course. Already codifying a ban on same-sex marriage and adding an additional, stricter law against binding personal relationship intentions through contracts wasn’t enough. Fine, Virginia, I get it. I live in a state full of anti-gay bigots who can’t see the reality that allowing same-sex marriage will mean nothing in your life other than a growing respect for equal treatment under civil law. (Hint: no one will force you, or your children, to marry anyone of the same sex. Shocking, I know.) But can’t you fathom the lunacy involved in modifying the Virginia Bill of Rights to impose the will of the majority on the minority? Or is this too hard to grasp:

The state Bill of Rights was last amended in 1996, when voters supported adding a section protecting the rights of crime victims. Although changes to the state constitution are common, the 1996 action was the only time the Bill of Rights has been amended since 1970, when voters ratified a new version of the constitution.
…

“The only place in the constitution to put this is in the Bill of Rights,” said Sen. Stephen D. Newman (R-Lynchburg). “There is currently no right in the United States, or certainly not in Virginia, for anything other than a marriage between one man and one woman.”

That’ll look real nice merged into Section 15 of the Virginia Bill of Rights (Qualities necessary to preservation of free government):

That no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.

That free government rests, as does all progress, upon the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge, and that the Commonwealth should avail itself of those talents which nature has sown so liberally among its people by assuring the opportunity for their fullest development by an effective system of education throughout the Commonwealth.

From protecting victims to victimizing in ten years. Well done, Virginia.

$10 for $5 of silver = peace of mind?

Here’s an amusing story from Buffalo concerning Liberty dollars and the supposed risky nautre of United States currency. The details aren’t particularly important because it’s just two dimwits allegedly badgering vendors into accepting alternative currency. What’s most amusing is the reason why Liberty dollars, which are “backed” by silver, are in use in Buffalo (and many other areas, apparently). Consider:

“About 20 of my regular customers use them. They pay me with silver, and they accept silver as change,” said Daniel Hyman, owner of the Red Apple convenience store on Route 78 in Strykersville. “With inflation and government deficits, I see more and more people who don’t trust paper anymore. Eventually, I hope the banks will accept Liberties for deposits.”

“We take it at par with dollars,” said Shawn Clawges, owner of Opener’s Grille, a restaurant on Seneca Street in East Aurora. “They’re a pretty coin, and they’re backed by silver. It’s a commodity that’s going up in value, unlike the U.S. dollar.”

If a private business wants to accept Liberty dollars as currency, good luck to them. I’d contend that it’s no less challenging to purchase silver and gold with “excess” dollars than trying to create a new currency if they’re convinced a crisis is coming, but I’m inclined to value liquidity over paranoia principle. Silly me. Regardless, it just confirms that stupid people exist in many forms of mental deficiency. That delights me.

Hat tip: Hit and Run