Flit

YET ANOTHER REMINDER WHY I

YET ANOTHER REMINDER WHY I LOVE THE WEB

The Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics.

JUST TO CLARIFY It's not

JUST TO CLARIFY

It's not that I think war with Iraq would be a global harm. I just don't like the precedent. For what seems to be being considered here is a declaration of war by a President, without assent from either the Security Council, or even more alarmingly, Congress. If Constitutionalist diehards like Den Beste, Reynolds and Quick want to see the Council off, well, that's a consistent position... I agree that as a supranational body it leaves much to be desired. But for the U.S. to go to war when the UN is explicitly opposed would be the final death knell of that organization's ability to control war, by definition.

You can see that as a good or bad thing, maybe. But it's hard to see an intellectual position that opposes supranationalism, that doesn't instead look for strength to the U.S. Constitution. And as George Will points out today, it risks being badly trampled, too. Past presidents have circumvented the need for Congressional assent to war mandated by that document because the other side declared war first, or because the action was relatively small and the action dependent on surprise. This proposed action on Iraq meets none of those stipulations... as Will says, if this kind of war isn't covered by the Constitution, then the Constitution has effectively been rewritten in practice to cut Congress out.

If you think just wars always need the assent of Security Council, that's consistent. If you think wars only need the assent of Congress, that's consistent, too. But for George Bush to go to war in this case without the assent of either... that's just creeping Caesarism, and could mark the beginning of the end for the American experiment, as well as the UN's. That's what I'm worried about.

ANOTHER KIND OF BLOWHARD By

ANOTHER KIND OF BLOWHARD

By the way, do you think there were any Hill hearings on removing Adolf Hitler?

--Howard Kurtz, also praised by Instapundit today

Of course there weren't, you silly man. Hitler declared war on YOU.

GOOD QUOTE FROM A BLOWHARD?

GOOD QUOTE FROM A BLOWHARD?

It is frustrating. There are environmentalists that want to compare wind plants with nothing, and we can never win. Nothing is really great, except it's hard to get any electricity out of it.

--Leading wind power advocate Tom Gray on environmentalist opposition to plans for more windmills. (From Instapundit).