Now that John Roberts might be chief justice instead of just a plain old justice, how can we sleep not knowing how he would vote on the unexamined but crucial Third Amendment?
Now that John Roberts might be chief justice instead of just a plain old justice, how can we sleep not knowing how he would vote on the unexamined but crucial Third Amendment?
People are trying to fathom the Katrina aftermath in terms a little more sophisticated than political blame. The experinece of Galveston and Charleston might offer some insight. Some argue that one part of New Oeleans will come back -- the tourism mecca -- but not the commercial center.
William Rehnquist has died. As chief justice he was able somehow to coax some harmony from the "nine scorpions in a bottle." That leadership quality is likely to be just as immportant as ideological leaning in his replacement as chief justice. Putting John Roberts on the bench is the appointment that changes the court's philosophical alignment -- the "moderate," swing-voting Sandra Day O'Connor replaced with someone who at least appears to be a committed conservative.
So much attention has been focused on New Orleans that Katrina's devastation in Alabama and Mississippi hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves. The newspaper in Biloxi is owned by Knight Ridder, the same company responsible for my News-Sentinel paychecks. We've been told that Knight Ridder will match all employee contributions, up to a $500,000 total, with everything raised going to help the newspaper's employees.
So, you want to go live where you will be the safest, at least as far as nature's wrath is concerned -- the one place where you would be least likely to suffer a hurricane, tornado, blizzard, flood, killing frost that makes you run around calling "Wildfire." But the tradeoff is that you have to live in the most boring place in the world, right? Not exactly.
I hope Indiana officials don't get too worked up over price gouging on gasoline. The law of supply and demand can be flouted once in a while, but it can't be ignored in the long run, and market forces are better at sorting out what needs to be sorted out than anything the government can come up with. Since we're on the subject, I've never much understood the outrage over scalping, either.
I guess I must look for complicated reasons for simple problems. I had presumed the lack of a brilliant performance in getting aid to the Gulf Coast might have been a combination of, 1) the fact that it was the biggest natural disaster to ever hit the United States in modern times and, 2) mistakes made by lots of people at all levels of government. Silly me.
I know some of you are going to go all Mom-and-Apple-Pie over this and call it grumpy and downright un-American. But I live on an ice-cream-truck street, and the "music" is plain awful. It's not so much that it's too loud. You just hear it day after day, over and over again, until the high, tinny notes start boring into your brain. I don't know how the people who drive these things keep doing it without going berserk. How about a law requiring that the music be reasonable?
Steve Forbes pushed the flat tax as a revolution that would unleash the enormous economic power of people able to work and produce under a sane, uncomplicated tax system. He was right. The revolution is here. Just not, you know, here.
Got a letter in the mail this week:
Dear Mr. Morris: In your column of Aug. 13, your topic was cell phones and how many people use the "stupid things." When my children were young and said "that stupid car" or "that stupid chair," etc., my retort: This car (chair, whatever) is an inanimate object and therefore incapable of being stupid. I always got the rolling-eyes treatment, therefore it's OK if you did also. However, I hope you did smile. God bless, Nora Walters.
It's not quite true that, while the U.S. rushes with aid whenever disaster strikes somewhere else in the world, the rest of the world is indifferent to our disasters. Hurricane Katrina has gotten the world's attention. On the other hand, we might have been just a little slow to get it here in this country.
I hope you were paying attention when I warned you about French fries a couple of days ago. Otherwise, you have to keep worrying about the salt you put on them, too. I'm probably in real trouble, because I like salt on a variety of things, like apples, and watermelon.
Of course, I want to hear what he has to say first, and I won't make any judgments until I actually do hear it. No, I don't mean what John Roberts will say in answer to questions at his Senate confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court seat. I mean what Sen. Evan Bayh says when he introduces Roberts to the Senate committee. Bayh says he's doing this as a courtesy because both of them are Hoosiers (sort of) and to reduce the level of incivility in Washington.
Is any useful purpose really served by trying to chase religion out of the military? ACLU acknowledgment of reality:
. . . midshipmen are reluctant to "begin their career by suing the Navy."
As a white male, it's always bothered me that I have more trouble than others in being a victim. It's made me rather crabby, in fact. But I'm not just a Mean Old Man -- I have a syndrome! I can be a victim, too, so nothing is my fault:
Off course, you don't have to read about this on a blog or in a newspaper or see it on TV; all you have to do is pull up at the pump in Fort Wayne. At least it means we won't have to keep reading the lectures of the adjust-it-for-inflation know-it-alls. Gasoline was -- gasp! -- $3.03 in 1981 in today's dollars? Those lucky guzzlers.
Tonight's lead editorial is about last night's City Council discussion on whether or not Fort Wayne and Allen County should make use of a Capital Improvement Board.
City Council normally meets every Tuesday, except Tuesdays that are the fifth ones of the month. This year, Council President Tom Smith has decided to meet on the fifth Tuesdays, too (I think there are four or five of them this year), and dedicate the sessions to topics of broad community interest -- Big Ideas, in other words. Last night, the session was devoted to whether we could use a Capital Improvement Board to expedite the funding of huge capital projects, most especially those for downtown -- a Big Idea for how to do Big Things.
I write quite a bit about government and politics here, so you might find some of the posts tedious. You might even consider this site a little dull once in a while. But, trust me, this is not the dullest blog in the world.
