Back of the Envelope

It's been a slow day, with only one post. Rather than try to fill my quota with self-important ramblings on politics and such, I decided to give a quick summary of this week in the webcomics I link to in my sidebar. This may become a weekly feature. What I'm writing here are spoilers, of course, but they're so vague that if you're not familiar with the comic, you'll forget all about them by the time you get through the archives.

Sluggy Freelance -- "Who is Philinnon? What are the vampires' plans for Torg? Who is spying on the hunters from the dark woods? How many will survive the confrontation between Arminius, Amelia, and Sam? Wow, right when everything's getting good, what better time for an INAPPROPRIATELY TIMED FILLER WEEK! Tune in tomorrow to see what we do! I know I will!" Fortunately for us, Pete's filler week contains some truly gorgeous artwork, such that I'm not entirely convinced it would not have been less work for him to just do the regular comics.

Day by Day -- Sam wins her paternity suit, and then it's politics as usual.

It's Walky! -- Sal visits Danny while Billie's away, but it looks like he finally grew a spine.

College Roomies from Hell! -- The guys are reunited. That's how you know that things are about to get really, really bad.

General Protection Fault -- Trudy dreams of friends and enemies. This week has some nudity.

Schlock Mercenary -- In Tagon's and Breya's bids to double-cross one another, Tagon gains the upper hand and makes an offer that Breya can't refuse.

Update: This post has been bumped to the end of Saturday.

So I've gone a whole week and I still haven't tried pointing people to my personal homepage. It was good while it lasted, wasn't it? I'll admit that the page hasn't been updated in a while, but then it serves a different purpose than my blog. The blog, of course, is for me to post my thoughts and feelings about current events live. The webpage is my repository for autobiographical information, pictures, and finished, or semi-finished, projects which I want to share, mainly my writings. Each serves a purpose, and I love them both equally.

It's a legitimate question to ask. Why did we go after Iraq rather than, say, Iran, which recently has been showing signs of being much further along the WMD path? Well, when making the case for war, the White House considered a number of reasons, which Wolfowitz elucidates:

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but . . . there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two...

Now all these things are true concerns. While the WMD reasoning has come under a lot of fire recently, there's no doubt about Saddam Hussein's barbaric treatment of his own people. His ties to terrorists are well-known, and there's good evidence, if not absolute proof, of his ties to al Qaeda. As for the WMDs, it's true that no large stockpiles have been found. That they existed at one point is not in doubt; he used them in the war against Iran and against the Kurds. Whether they've been destroyed by US attacks against Saddam through the years, destroyed by Saddam in secret (the least likely, I think), buried in the sand, or shipped to Syria, I don't know. The programs, however, were certainly there--Kay reported on many of them. None of them involved large scale manufacturing, but when it comes right down to it, we were never as worried about large scale manufacturing as we were about producing just enough to contribute to a terrorist attack. It does not take a large quantity of chemical or biological weapons to mount a terrorist attack--remember the anthrax letters? They involved an absurdly small quantity of anthrax. Imagine what could have happened with larger, but hardly massive, quantities.

These are not the only reasons, however. Another reason, largely unstated, is that we are embarking on a mission to change the whole of the Middle East, and that could not happen with Saddam Hussein in the way. Contrary to what Edward Said would have had us believe, the biggest problems in the Middle East are not due to poverty and ignorance, but to tyranny and oppression. To deal with that, we have to bring democracy to the Middle East. Now, since a large number of people in the Middle East already want democracy, it's not as if we're forcing it upon them, but they are currently living under oppressive regimes who are uninterested in the idea, or use it just for show. See Iran's recent "election." The way to start that change happening is to show support for these native movements, to demonstrate that democracy can work in the Middle East, and to demonstrate our own determination to follow through. Aside from being a strong candidate of where to first establish democracy in the Middle East, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a living example of US impotence. While we beat Saddam in 1991, he had routinely thumbed his nose at US and UN demands. What is probably worst of all, when a popular uprising occurred in response to his defeat in the first Gulf War, he crushed it ruthlessly, while the US did too little, too late. In doing this, the US failed to show support for the democratic forces in Iraq, and as long as the US did nothing, this was taken as a continuing sign that the US either could not or would not do anything against the tyrants of the Middle East who oppressed their people.

There were other reasons to go after Iraq first, the main one being that the American people were willing. They saw Iraq as unfinished business, and believed that we would have to deal with Saddam sooner or later, so that when President Bush said that the time was here, they agreed. While the President can attempt to start a war without the support of the US people, Congress can very effectively stymie those attempts. Thus, while it was fairly easy for the President to gain popular support for a war to remove Saddam Hussein, the same could not be said for a war against Iran or North Korea, arguably as dangerous if not moreso. (There are probably other ways to deal with these countries, however. I may discuss them later.)

Finally, there was the international law. That may surprise those of you who call the Iraq War a violation of international law, but the truth is it was an open and shut case. Saddam Hussein had signed a ceasefire agreement at the end of the first Gulf War. He had violated it: time and time again. It was no longer valid, therefore the war continued. I'm surprised that people really have to argue about this one. That, I think, was the final reason to go after Iraq. Weapons of Mass Destruction gave the issue an urgency, possibly a false one, but the case for removing Saddam Hussein never needed them.

Update: Welcome to readers from Captain's Quarters. It seems that shamelesslly selling myself in his comments section worked. I'd direct you to other posts of interest, but I really hate it when other bloggers do that (I did add a few links to the post if you're interested, however). My blog is archived by week rather than post, anyway, and since it's only a week old, pretty much everything is on this page.

New Post: And to be fair and balanced, I make the case against the war in Iraq above.

Lileks points to a disturbing attitude among conservatives towards Bush:

Woe and gloom have befallen some on the right. Bush has failed to act according to The Reagan Ideal.
...
And if a Democrat takes office, and the Michael Moores and Rob Reiners and Martin Sheens crowd the airwaves on Nov. 3 to shout their howls of vindication? If the inevitable renaissance of Iraq happens on Kerry's watch, and the economy truly picks up steam in the first few years before the business cycle and Kerry's tax hikes kick in? If emboldened Islamist terrorists smell blood and strike again? Fine. Maybe the next Republican president will do everything they want.

Now I could understand this attitude if these conservatives felt as many Liberals seem to feel, that Bush is another Hitler and the concentration camps and the end of democracy are right around the corner. I could even understand it if they believed that Bush's path in the War against Terror is no more effective than John Kerry's. I don't believe that is the case.

Kerry's stance on the War against Terror is the same failed policy we tried in the 90s: treat terrorism as a crime and rely on the cooperation of our recalcitrant friends and our outright enemies to fight it. This may net a few terrorists, who can be indicted, tried, and sentenced to life in prison (assuming our anti-death penalty allies would extradite them even if we promised not to seek the death penalty), but it would not destroy or even significantly damage the terrorist organization which seeks to kill us. During the Nineties there was a steady increase in the boldness and effectiveness of terrorism attacks, including the first World Trade Center bombing, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, until it finally culminated in 9/11. Al Qaeda is not destroyed, and even if Osama bin Laden were caught tomorrow, it would still be a threat. Right now it is on the run, under pressure, with many of their commanders caught by our military forces, but if we let the pressure drop for four years, they will be able to rebuild, and they will certainly attack again.

If you disagree with the above paragraph, then I'm not addressing you. If you do agree, and yet don't plan on voting for Bush because he's not conservative enough, then I'd like to know how many lives you are willing to sacrifice for ideological purity.

Some have said that if it were a choice between Bush and a more conservative candidate with the same plans for the war on terror, they'd vote for the more conservative candidate. I disagree. If Bush were a Liberal Democrat (while retaining his current foreign policy views and actions) and his opponent were the second coming of Ronald Reagan who said the same things about terrorism as Bush, it would make me sick to my stomach, but I'd probably still vote for Bush. The reason is that it's not just what he says about terrorism, but what he has done and continues to do about it, despite the hardship and despite the criticism from both the Left and the Right, that wins my trust. That's something that any other candidate would have a hard time proving without actually having held the Office.

The fact that Bush is a center-right candidate and an Evangelical Republican settles my stomach, and makes it an easy choice. I might wish his views were closer to mine, but I don't know of anyone alive whom I'd rather have as president right now.

Update: A bit of judicious editing to make it read better. Nothing substantive.

Yes, yes, I promised no more posts about the blog itself, but I also promised that I would let you know when the Google search started working. Well, it's working now. It is not a lot of help, though. At least, not yet. Since all my posts are archived by week rather than individually, searching for a word or phrase will only take you to the correct week, then you have to search the page containing a week full of posts for what you're looking for. That might be useful once I have a sizable archive, but right now all my posts are on the front page, so you can do that with just your browser's search feature. Still, I'm glad it's working.

In other news, it looks like Blogrolling is now noticing when my page is updated without a need for me to manually ping it. That's good. I'd tell you all about the technical details of why it wasn't working, but (1) it's boring, (2) I'd only be guessing.

Update: Regarding the second part of the post: sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. And I still have no idea why. Blogrolling definitely noticed an update I did earlier tonight, when I was simply editing a post. It didn't catch when I added this post, however. I think it has to do with the fact that I can't get the blog to automatically notify Blogrolling, but it does notify Weblog.com, which Blogrolling keeps tabs on. I can imagine all sorts of confusion there. Heh, I guess I'll have to keep giving it an manual ping whenever I'm trying to get noticed.

I said I might comment on this at some point, and now (as I monitor the temperature of a He-3 probe and not much else) might be as good a time as any. I'm not an expert on the subject, only having read a few articles, some positive, some negative. I am somewhat biased in the matter, as two of my grandparents are immigrants, so I am, broadly speaking, pro-immigration. Pro-immigration doesn't mean pro-illegal immigration, however. I'll admit that I've never given detailed thought to the matter before, but whenever faced with the problem of illegal immigration, my first instinct is enforce immigration laws, but make legal immigration easier.

So let's look at the Bush proposal for what it is and what it is not. It's not a straightforward amnesty, although it does deal lightly with current illegal immigrants. They would only have to pay a fine before they could join the program. The important point, however, is that when they joined the program, they would not be given green cards and a quick path to US citizenship. They would instead be classified as guest workers, who could stay in the US for a limited duration of employment, and would have to apply through the normal channels to become US citizens. The program is not intended as a means of exploiting workers, since, by keeping track of the workers and their employers, it could enforce minimal benefits for them, including minimum wage, health and safety standards, and taxation. One of the things that peeves many of those who oppose the plan is talk of "jobs Americans will not do." They make the legitimate point that with the right wages and benefits, Americans will do the jobs. That is certainly true, but I would point out that with the program in place, the cost benefit of hiring cheap migrant workers will be decreased, to zero as opposed to hiring an American worker at minimum wage and benefits. Thus there will be less demand for foreign workers if there is indeed a ready supply of American labor for the job.

There is a very legitimate concern here. What about those who don't sign onto the plan? Businesses who want the cheapest possible labor, which can only be had sans the legal worker protections, and workers who can't get into the beneficial plan. There will still be a demand and supply of illegal labor. The question then becomes whether it is more possible, and there exists a greater political will, to enforce the new immigration plan than the old immigration plan. That is a question I don't have an answer to.

As you can see, I'm not arguing strongly for this plan. I think it is reasonable, however, and worth discussing, and I'm tired of hearing critics say the plan is mercenary political pandering. It was clear when he was elected that Bush was a moderate, and while he didn't push this particular plan, he made it clear that he was pro-immigration and seeking a compromise solution to illegal Mexican immigration. Moreover, there's plenty of evidence that Bush's views on Mexican immigrants are consistent with his Texan outlook and that he personally has a lot of empathy for the Hispanic community, especially given his behavior in this low-publicity visit.

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost has a list of studies supporting his contention that homosexual men are less interested in long-term monogamous relationships than heterosexual men. These studies are consistent with statistics I've seen before, but I don't think they get to the heart of the gay marriage issue, which is what Joe is addressing.

Let's say that Joe is right and as a group homosexual men are uninterested in monogamous relationships. What about those who are? Those advocating gay marriage are arguing that those homosexual couples who do want to marry want a monogamous relationship. This may or may not be the case, and Joe points to some statistics that suggest that what they want are open marriages. However, this is not easily proven, and those advocating gay marriage will argue strenuously that while some may want that, that is not what they themselves are asking for when they argue for gay marriage. They will continue to argue that once the ideal of gay marriage is in place, monogamous norms will become more common among homosexual couples. Ideally, marriage licenses could be denied to anyone who was asking for an open marriage, regardless of sexual orientation, but there is no way to determine that beforehand, and no way to enforce it afterwards. (This might have been possible in a society where adultery was treated more seriously, with actual penalties on the adulterer for breach of contract, but that idea's just so puritanical nowadays. That's not so out of line as it may seem, however, as marriage is a contract, not only between the individuals, but, arguably, with the state.) And since, as a group, lesbians are less promiscuous, this sort of argument only addresses half of the equation.

The long and short of it is that while Joe Carter may be right, it won't affect gay marriage arguments unless he can show that gay marriage proponents are advocating open marriages. Otherwise, the statistics are just statistics, and don't prove that homosexual men are unsuited for marriage any more than the 60% divorce rate proves that heterosexual men and women are unsuited for marriage.

Now that he's dropped out of the race, it hardly seems worthwhile to comment on Wesley Clark, but I will anyway. I always thought that Clark's biggest problem was that he wasn't a real Democrat, but he played one on TV. Thus whenever Clark was asked about his positions, he always came across as a caricature of a Democrat. The best example is when he was asked about abortion and said that "Life begins with the choice of the mother." This is not a position that can be defended on either scientific or religious grounds, the only ones which are truly convincing in this debate, so most pro-abortion rights politicians don't talk about life at all, and instead talk about the right of a woman to decide what to do with her own body. The best Democratic politicians can talk about how abortion is not a good thing (very, very few people believe that it is), but it must be protected since the alternatives to abortion rights (unsafe illegal abortions, unwanted and abused children) are worse.

There are other examples, but ultimately what did Clark in was that he wasn't a Democrat, he was just pretending to be one.

It's official: I've been at this for over a hundred hours now. This blog has lasted longer than some ground wars (although perhaps not as long as the ground war should have lasted). Since I'm sure you're getting tired of reading these blogging reports, I'll probably quit doing them soon and focus on discussing actual substantive issues. Although I will let you know when that stupid Google search is working properly (it's gotten to the point where it can find the page now, just not anything on the page). Overall it was a good day for me, although a slow day for blogging. That's going to happen from time to time, as I have an actual day job. Hey, not all of us can be tenured professors.

I'd like to call your attention to Doc Rampage, who is the first blogger to link to me. His blog is less than a week older than mine. We've been engaged in a discussion of the merits of an alternative to the Federal Marriage Amendment, addressing the root problem of judicial activism and loose Constitutional interpretation. We both had a good day today, he getting a link from Donald Sensing on One Hand Clapping concerning his Constitutional amendment proposal, while I was linked to by Jonah Goldberg in The Corner for mentioning Dave Barry's Kerry DYKWIA story. (I know it's not technically a DYKWIA story, as Kerry never used the "Do You Know Who I Am?" phrase, but I'm referring to all stories which exhibit the attitude of demanded privilege as DYKWIA.) Since Dave's (Gudeman, of Doc Rampage, not Barry) post linked to me, I pointed to him in my post as well, although it was probably less effective since it was off-topic. Ultimately, I think we're both showing that new bloggers can still get attention if they work hard, come up with new ideas and new angles, and are not afraid to do some shameless self-promotion. ("Shameless self-promotion" is my middle name. Well, technically it's "Shane," so I guess I'm not really Shaneless. [bad pun mode off])

As a result of Jonah's patronage, I received over 700 visits in one day, over ten times what I had seen previously. Like all good things, the Cornerlanche will eventually die off, but if I'm lucky a few of you enjoyed what you saw and will come back to visit. Heck, if you managed to read all the way to the end of this narcissistic post, I know I have you hooked.

Evangelical Outpost reports that Larry Flynt is planning to print a story revealing that Bush paid for a girlfriend's abortion in the mid-70s. Curiously, most of the news stories I've seen are presuming that the story is false and based on Moby's suggestion that liberals attack the President where it will drive away his core constituencies. Now I'm not claiming the story's true, and I think that if Larry Flynt truly had the goods on Bush, he wouldn't be dropping hints about it, he'd wait until late summer and drop the bomb so Bush didn't have time to react. Dropping hints and promising to publish the story later indicates to me that he probably doesn't have the goods and is simply floating rumors.

However, what these stories show is that neither Moby nor Larry Flynt understand the constituency they're trying to drive away. Perhaps they should read more Mark Steyn:

More to the point, whatever Bush did or didn't do back in those days is consistent with who he is. As horrified European commentators are fond of pointing out, Mr Bush is a "born-again" Christian. We don't need to see grainy home movies of a soused goofball in a Mexican bar face down in the beer nuts to know more or less the kind of guy he was 30 years ago. But he changed; he was born again. If you found some video of Bush rat-arsed (as the British say) in 1974, how relevant is that to the abstemious tucked-in-by-nine family man of 2004?

Pro-life evangelical Christians, the core group whom Flynt and Moby are trying to keep at home, can sometimes be legalistic and harshly judgemental (and I'm speaking as one), but if there's one thing we understand, it's repentance and forgiveness. We're the ones who took in Jane Roe. We can certainly forgive the President.

What do I think? If there's any truth to the rumors, any at all, then the best thing for President Bush to do is go public, confess his mistakes, and ask for forgiveness. I think his testimony would not only be good for him, but also would benefit the pro-life movement. And if there's nothing to the rumors? Well, then Bush doesn't have to do anything at all. Even the press isn't buying this one.

Old Post: Dave Barry's Kerry story is quoted below.

Dave Barry's Research Department, Judi Smith, replied to my e-mail to tell me that (1) the Kerry story below matches Dave Barry's high standards of journalistic integrity, at least in the sense that he didn't make this one up, and (2) he won't be sending his high priced lawyers after me, for which we can all be grateful.

Update: Dan McLaughlin of The Baseball Crank e-mailed to let me know that the New York Daily News still has the complete column available with no fee.

New Post: More above.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner linked to my post of Dave Barry's DYKWIA encounter with Kerry. Unfortunately, the link is broken, but you can find the post here.

Update: The link's fixed now. Thanks, Jonah! And thanks for the Cornerlanche!

I'm something of a stickler for navigation, so I've implemented a scheme that makes it easier to find a series of posts. If a post is a continuation or clarification of an earlier post, I will start it off with a line marked Old Post where I link to the previous post. If there's a new post that continues or clarifies an earlier post, I'll edit the original to add the line New Post at the end, along with a pointer to the newer post. I had already been doing the latter, and I've edited my archives to implement the former. For the most part, this meant just adding a new line at the beginning, and I mentioned in an update if I had to re-word the post in order for it to make sense.

Old Post: I briefly mentioned the equivalency of marriage and sex in this post.

So you can see that I'm not the only Christian who thinks that the Bible treats sex and marriage as synonymous, I'll point you toward a sermon given by Daniel Harrell, the Associate Pastor of my former church, Park Street in Boston. This was a controversial sermon, and he didn't attempt to back it up Biblically in the sermon, although he does discuss it in more detail here. Personally, I would be much happier if he had given more Biblical explication. I will say, however, that Pastor Harrell is not responsible for my thinking on the matter, which I came to based on my own study of the Old Testament prior to hearing his sermon. I may discuss the Biblical verses more thoroughly at another point.

Update: Park Street Church is located in Boston, Massachusetts (we're not all liberals there). I added that above.

It's been approximately 76 hours since my first post, so I thought I'd give a quick report of the blog's status. First of all, there was a formatting problem that showed up in Internet Explorer but not Netscape 7.1 which scrambled the Sidebar badly (having to do with the "(today)" link next to the webcomics). That's been mostly fixed, although it still looks better in Netscape (where the "(today)" link is on the same line as the Webcomic name, rather than below, as it is in IE). I didn't notice it at first since I use Netscape. Why, you ask, do I use Netscape when the whole world uses IE? The main reason is that you can turn off pop-ups in Netscape, while you need external utilities to do it in IE. Now I've been given another reason, since it displays my blog better. Of course, I hardly needed that reason, since I'm always eager to thumb my nose at the evil empire.

I've signed up on Blogrolling, which gives me an easy way to manage my blogroll links, and even order them from most recent to least recent update. It also lets other blogs who use Blogrolling find out when I last updated, which is good for bringing in readers (especially since Blogs for Bush orders their blogroll from most recent to least recent, and this way I cycle through the top every time I post).

Unfortunately, the Google search still doesn't work. I've looked through the Google help pages, and they assure me that they'll index my page eventually, but it could take a while. I've submitted my page in hopes of speeding things up, but they haven't found me yet.

Old Post: This is a continuation of the discussion below.

Dave of Doc Rampage has published a more thorough explanation of what an amendment to enforce constitutional literalism would look like. Here is the key paragraph of his response:

This problem, obviously, is not one that you can fix with a procedural change. I think the only chance we have of effecting the issue in a positive way is by social change. And the kind of constitutional amendment I propose is intended to bring about that change. What I have in mind is something that says (1) Each part of the constitution is to be interpreted according to its clear and literal meaning as it was understood at the time of writing. (2) Neither precedent, nor cultural norms, nor foreign courts, nor religious doctrine, nor science, nor any other influence may be used to modify the clear and literal meaning of the constitution. This means (2a) Rulings may not drift away from the meaning over time through precedent and (2b) The only way to change the constitution is by those processes set out in the constitution. (3) All three branches are equally responsible to uphold the constitution and to refuse to cooperate with any branch that seeks to violate it. And maybe something like (4) the citizens are responsible to refuse to vote for any elected official who has violated the constitution, even if they agreed with the results of the action. And just for safety, (5) The current state of precedent and interpretation of the constitution is not the baseline from which we start, we start with the original document.

While I think his idea has much to recommend it, there are some difficulties with it.

Political: Any proposed amendment will have to pass the Brown test. If people can look at this amendment and say that it would have prevented the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, it will not pass. That ruling is almost universally accepted as good and just and necessary, and any amendment for which someone can make a strong case that it would have prevented the Brown ruling will not have enough support to pass. Any amendment to rein in the judiciary will face this criticism, but I think some amendments will weather it easier than others. There are other rulings which have strong constituencies defending them (Roe v. Wade, for example), but that is the one which has the most universal appeal.

Judicial: The fifth provision will be problematic as it will immediately invalidate a great deal of not only judicial precedent but also federal legislation. It would take years to sort out the chaos. It may be possible to ameliorate this by setting the date it takes effect to occur several years after its approval. That will allow the courts and Congress some time to work out the details.

Interpretation: I think provision (1) is problematic as there is always some room for interpretation. Someone needs to decide what the intentions of the founders were, and not everyone who approved the constitution agreed with the Federalist Papers. If we insist on staying with their intentions, then someone has to decide what they were, and that person or group will have a great deal of power.

In all, while I think Dave's proposal is closer to the ideal than mine, mine offers more flexibility and a better chance of passing, where it can at least stop the tide of judicial tyranny, even if it won't fully roll it back.

Update: Oops. I meant "federal legislation," not "legislature." It's fixed now.

Update: Implementing "old post, new post" scheme here.

New post: I talk about Doc Rampage's response to this above.

Old Post: I mentioned the Winter Soldier Investigation below.

I mentioned this when I was discussing John Kerry's testimony before Congress. A more thorough discussion of it can be found on QandO. (Thanks to Evangelical Outpost for the pointer.)

Update: I had to do a quick rewrite to implement the "old post, new post" scheme. No substantive changes.

Kerry is infamous in Massachusetts for using his status as a Senator to pull rank on unfortunate civilians, and is well known for using the DYKWIA (Do You Know Who I Am?) phrase. I don't have any stories myself, but you've got to figure that it's pretty bad if even Dave Barry has a Kerry DYKWIA story:

In conclusion, I want to extend my sincere best wishes to all of my opponents, Republican and Democrat, and to state that, in the unlikely event I am not elected, I will support whoever is, even if it is Sen. John Kerry, who once came, with his entourage, into a ski-rental shop in Ketchum, Idaho, where I was waiting patiently with my family to rent snowboards, and Sen. Kerry used one of his lackeys to flagrantly barge in line ahead of us and everybody else, as if he had some urgent senatorial need for a snowboard, like there was about to be an emergency meeting, out on the slopes, of the Joint Halfpipe Committee. I say it's time for us, as a nation, to put this unpleasant incident behind us. I know that I, for one, have forgotten all about it. That is how fair and balanced I am.

This story is from Dave Barry's September 14, 2003 column, "Staying Fair and Unbalanced in the Election Season," which unfortunately is only available for pay.

Update: In case you missed it, I mentioned Dave Barry's own presidential candidacy below.

Update: Welcome, Corner readers. Although you're just here for the Dave Barry story, you may want to check out the FMA alternative debate between myself and Doc Rampage.

New Post: Dave Barry's Research Assistant responded to my e-mail, and I pass on the facts above. Plus, I share where the column is still available for free.

Donald Sensing has proposed splitting the legal and the spirtual sides of marriage, letting the government offer CICs (Civil Interpersonal Contracts) to any two adults who wanted them, which grant all the legal benefits of marriage without calling it that, while letting the churches (and other religious institutions) issue certificates of marriage, which have no legal bearing while bestowing the name "marriage," with all its spiritual and cultural significance. While there are a couple of things to recommend it, this proposal does have problems. First, the ACLU would be up in arms if certificates of marriage could only be handed out by religious institutions, and I think that any satisfactory compromise would end up with everybody and their brother being able to hand out the things. Second, marriage would become much less common. In Reverend Sensing's view this may be an advantage, as he's not a big fan of people becoming married just for the legal benefits.

The interesting question which he doesn't address is what the Bible says about who can perform marriages, and quite frankly it doesn't say much at all. The Old Testament is full of regulations concerning the contractual obligations of both sides, and the New Testament in particular describes the spiritual aspects. As far as I know, neither one says anything about who performs the wedding, what papers need to be signed, what the ceremony looks like, or what vows are exchanged. From what I've read, I think that the sexual relationship itself makes people married. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh." (Gen 2:24) There are a few other verses that seem to support this (Deuteronomy 21:11-13, for example). If this is the case, then any man and woman who have a sexual relationship are married in God's eyes (the Bible clearly doesn't apply this to homosexual relationships), and all the legal, cultural, and ceremonial benefits and obligations are simply to support what is already a spiritual truth.

New Post: More on the subject of the equivalency of sex and marriage above.

No one's asked this question yet, but I thought I might as well get a jump on it. The expression is common enough, but if you're not familiar with it, a back of the envelope calculation is a quick, simple calculation done as an estimate. It's called "back of the envelope" because it can be written out on a small sheet of paper. I've used the backs of envelopes, the fronts of envelopes, scraps of paper, even pencil-friendly tabletops. Generally these calculations include all sorts of estimates and outright guesses at the unknown variables as well as equations simplified to the point of unrecognizability, and the result is not considered reliable, just close enough to work with.

When I first applied for this address on blogspot, the idea was to name the blog after myself. My last name is Crankshaw, so possibilities included Crankshaw's Thoughts, Crankshaw's Meanderings, The Book of Crankshawian Philosophy, etc. The blog has superseded the homepage as the ultimate vanity project. Nothing really felt right, though, so I started thinking of other names, a name appropriate for an engineer writing about things he was distinctly unqualified to discuss. It took surprisingly little time to come up with "Back of the Envelope."

I've joined the blogroll at Blogs for Bush. Since I have, I think it's appropriate that I explain why. [Aside from the free publicity?--Ed.] [Yes, aside from that.--DSC] Yes, I do support Bush for re-election in 2004. I am, as my description says, an Evangelical Republican, so you might think it's obvious that I would. However, I did not vote for him in 2000, or vote for anyone at all. Part of the reason was that I was living in Massachusetts but my residency was in Louisiana, and I didn't want to go through the absentee ballot mess, but the main reason was that I wasn't excited about either candidate. Both Bush and Gore were running as moderates, and I didn't think it would make much difference who won. Since that time, however, Bush has shown himself to be a strong wartime President, capable of making tough decisions and, most importantly, following through when the going gets tough. Gore has transformed himself into a shrill, angry far-Left liberal. Looking back, I am glad that the election turned out the way it did, and I'm sorry that I didn't do my part.

I still think Bush is too moderate. While he's a social conservative, he only pushes on those issues when forced to. He doesn't even pretend to be a fiscal conservative. However, the most important issue right now is the War on Terror, and I think Bush's "forward strategy of freedom" is exactly right, even if forty years ago it would sound more like a Democrat's foreign policy than a Republican's. On the big issues where conservatives depart from Bush, immigration reform and the Medicare drug benefit, I'm nowhere near as bothered as some other conservatives. (I may touch on them in some later post.) I don't consider either a betrayal or pandering, as they are consistent with his 2000 campaign and with his general attitude. While I don't agree with him on everything, I like Bush personally, and I am impressed by his faith and integrity.

The Democrats have based their entire campaign on hatred of Bush, on representing him as dishonest and partisan. I think he's been honest and open to compromise (sometimes a little too open), and I'll do my best to point that out in the year ahead.


New Post: I finally talk about the immigration plan above.

Old Post: Original post concerning an anti-judicial activism amendment.

A couple of days ago I pointed out that a constitutional amendment to rein in judicial activism may be a better way to go than a constitutional amendment to define marriage. Dave at Doc Rampage e-mailed me to let me know he had proposed the same thing, and scooped me by two days in the process. As this blog did not exist two days--or even two hours--before my post, this was not a hard thing for him to do, but I'll grant him that. My question for him, though, now that I've got his attention, is what form that amendment should take. My thinking, at least in this early phase, is to grant Congress limited power to overrule the court similar to its power to overrule a presidential veto. This has the danger of putting too much power in one branch and fails to provide defense against the tyranny of the majority, but at least the body making that decision is the one most representative of the people. Doc Rampage suggests what seems to be simply re-emphasizing the already existing limits on the court in the Constitution, but I'm not certain what that looks like as an amendment. I don't think I can get behind an amendment whose text is "This time we really mean it."

Update: Dave clarifies what he means. He prefers enshrining constitutional literalism in an amendment over a procedural change. I'll hold my thoughts on this for another post, and I'll just ignore his snarky response to my non-existence defense against his scooping me.

New Post: More on this subject above.

After 28 hours, I think I'm off to a pretty good start. I'm still learning the system, changing color schemes and layouts to my liking, working out the kinks in the HTML code. You'll note that I now have a counter, courtesy of Sitemeter, and a search engine, courtesy of Google. The counter works, the search engine doesn't. I think it may just be that Google hasn't indexed this website yet, so hopefully it will start working on its own in a day or two. If not, I'll have to fix it.

As for the counter, it seems okay so far. Looking at the visit statistics, I'm responsible for a plurality of the visits and the vast majority of page views (if it says rr.com, it's probably me). That's not too surprising as I've been bouncing off the website quite often as I edit and tweak it.

All in all, the blog is shaping into something I can work with, with all the tools and utilities I need to run it. In another week or two, it'll either be running smoothly or I will have abandoned the whole project. Right now, I'm thinking the former is more likely.

Joe Carter responds to Matthew Yglesias's thoughts on Christian libertarianism with sarcasm. I'd like to address it more seriously. Here is what Matthew said:

At a different New America event I heard one guy briefly discuss his "Christian libertarian" outlook in response to Amy Sullivan's Christian liberalism. Basically, he said, all this stuff liberals (and particularly religious liberals) say about the moral imperative to aid the poor, etc. is all quite true. That's why he thinks he has a duty to live his life virtuously by giving time, money, etc. to helping others. When he does this, he does a good deed personally, and provides help to a second person. If, however, he were to try and force me to give my money to help someone else, that would not be a virtuous act on his part or on mine. Christian compassion is all well and good, but using the state as a surrogate Robin Hood is not.

Now I don't agree with that at all. Indeed, I think it's roughly the reverse of correct. Cultivating personal virtue, whether in myself or in others, is irrelevant. The key is to help those in need by hook or by crook and, indeed, in the ideal set-up everyone would just act selfishly and the mechanisms of the state would ensure that our selfish behavior winds up serving the general interest. Like Adam Smith's invisible hand, but with progressive taxation.

Nevertheless, it's a viewpoint worth noting, because liberals have a somewhat deplorable tendency to simply assume that the only cogent reason for opposing government action to alleviate suffering is an indifference to suffering. In fact, however, what's at issue really is the role of the state. We liberals do not, at the end of the day, endorse Robin Hood like behavior on the part of private citizens so we, too, see an important distinction between state and non-state action, albeit a different distinction.

Now I am not a libertarian, and I think there are times when the state is the only agent capable of alleviating suffering, when only it can mobilize the necessary resources in a timely manner, and it is thus appropriate to use the state. However, I think that those times are few and far between. In most circumstances, when there is a choice between the state and a private institution, I think the state is less efficient, less capable, less personal, and less compassionate than the private institution would be.

But that merely addresses the specific of why I'd rather have some vague, faceless institution helping people than some vague, faceless state entity. I think there's a bigger problem with Yglesias's thinking, and that's theological. I think his perspective is, in fact, the opposite of God's.

God is capable, pretty much all monotheists agree, of solving all the world's problems. Well, why doesn't He? Why does He let people suffer? Why let them doubt when He can prove his existence? Why act out His compassion through the Church, through fallible, corruptible human agents rather than doing the job Himself? In Reaching for the Invisible God, Philip Yancey expresses his belief that it is because God is more concerned with our faith than our happiness. He is more interested in our relationship with Him and with each other than in making sure all our physical wants are met. What Matthew Yglesias is proposing would deny people the need for each other, and the opportunity to serve that need. I think that his "ideal set-up [where] everyone would just act selfishly and the mechanisms of the state would ensure that our selfish behavior winds up serving the general interest" is the opposite of what God sees as ideal.

Update: Changed the wording to make it more clear that the block quote is what Matthew Yglesias said, not my response to it. Plus I capitalized Church.

Update: I spent a lot of time attacking Yglesias's view of the role of the state, but in doing that I glossed over the last paragraph, which I think is the main point of the post. I just wanted to make it clear that I appreciate that he takes the effort to understand and respect other opinions. And while I strongly disagree with his opinion on theological grounds, I don't think he is insincere in what he said. I'll also give him the benefit of the doubt on his ideal set-up. I think what he is describing is a system that would care for the poor even if everyone is selfish, not that he wants a system which encourages everyone to be selfish. I'm just not sure the two can really be separated. You don't learn compassion and self-sacrifice if no one needs them from you.

John Kerry's Vietnam record consists not only of his honorable service in the war, but also of his activities afterward, when he testified before Congress about the "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia." (Thanks to Hugh Hewitt) He was quite adamant about the barbarity of US soldiers, describing the testimony of soldiers in the Winter Soldier Investigation:

I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

This does raise a number of interesting questions that I would like to ask John Kerry.

• Do you stand by the accusations you made before Congress in your 1971 testimony?
• Were these accusations consistent with your own experiences in Vietnam?
• If so,
• Did you witness war crimes?
• Did you report those war crimes as required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice?
• If not,
• Why were you so convinced that these crimes were "committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command"?
• Why repeatedly include yourself by saying things such as "we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out"?
• According to your own words, you interacted with upwards of one hundred and fifty self-proclaimed war criminals. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. Do you intend to prosecute these criminals? Why or why not?
• Since you claimed that these crimes were committed with "full awareness of officers at all levels of command," who else do you intend to prosecute?

Hugh Hewitt has asked whether Kerry's past has anything to do with the present. In response, James Lileks has said " I don?t care what John Kerry said when he was 25. I care about what John Kerry says today ...about what he said when he was 25." Since I'm only 29, I don't have Lileks's experience of a radical change of my own opinions in my 30s. But I do believe that people can change, so I won't make an argument that Kerry's past statements condemn him as long as he can explain that he has changed since the time he made those statements. I would like to know whether he still stands by the discredited Winter Soldier Investigation. The best path for him to take is to claim that he believed it then, but later realized his error. This makes him look gullible, and he should explain how experience has made him more skeptical. If he never believed it, then he was a liar, and he needs to explain how experience has made him more honest. If he still believes it, then he should be pressing for war crime charges against not only the people he met in Detroit, but against hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people currently and formerly in the military, and he needs to explain how experience has made him more tolerant of war crimes.

New Post: I've posted more on the Winter Soldier Investigation above.

Since I mentioned a few already, I decided to put a list of webcomics I read in my sidebar. What are webcomics? In short, they are comic strips published on the web. There's more to it than that, however. Because they are published exclusively on the web, they keep their entire archives online. Aside from meaning that you have several years worth of comics available to read immediately, it also means that it's easier for the artist to create long, complex storylines which refer to incidents occuring weeks, months, or even years previously, since the reader has ready access to the previous events. Thus webcomics tend to be serial comic strips like Prince Valiant or Mary Worth--comics which I never read because I could never figure out what was going on. If they had online archives, maybe I would have. In any case, because of the importance of reading the archives in order to understand the current storyline, the links on the sidebar link to the very first comic in the archives, with the "(today)" link pointing to today's strip. These are not the only webcomics I read; I chose to highlight these because they are some of my favorites, plus they met my criteria of being daily strips, regularly updated (although some of the artists occasionally take short vacations), and in reasonably good taste. Here's a quick overview:

Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams-- My favorite these days. It's about a boy, his mad scientist buddy, and his homicidal bunny. We meet these folks, the male half of the cast, the first week. Rounding out the cast are the women: a man-eating alien, a hyperactive ferret, the magic-addicted ex-girlfriend, and the obligatory "normal" castmember, who's only a little cursed.

Day by Day by Chris Muir -- This one's the least serial, more gag-a-day. It's like Doonesbury, only funnier and conservative.

It's Walky! by David Willis-- It starts as a normal college comic strip. Then the aliens arrive. Don't worry, the artwork gets better in time.

College Roomies from Hell!!! by Maritza Campos -- This also starts as a normal college strip, but the supernatural stuff starts much sooner. The artwork in this one gets much better with time.

General Protection Fault by Jeffrey T. Darlington -- This starts as a normal software company strip, and then... you know the drill.

Schlock Merenary by Howard Tayler -- This starts as a normal far-future, intergalactic mercenary strip, and then... well, actually, it doesn't get much weirder than that.

Day by Day, a daily political cartoon by Chris Muir, is looking to get syndicated. I intend to make that happen, using my vast Internet audience of myself and, if he drops by again, Jay Manifold of A Voyage to Arcturus. If that works, I intend to do the same for Sluggy Freelance and General Protection Fault. You're welcome, guys.

Dave Barry has published an important position paper, also known as his weekly humor column. I think we can all support his political efforts, knowing that his views, whatever they are, are just like ours.

New Post: It's not quite in the same vein, but a Barry/Kerry story up above.

I've just started this blog and already I have two substantive posts. Cool. Of course, both posts were things I had been thinking about for a while, and part of the reason I started the blog was so I'd have somewhere to put them.

Of course, I have other things I'd like to post: questions I'd like to ask Kerry about his testimony before Congress 30 years ago, the ability of the US to apply military force to other trouble spots (e.g., North Korea, Syria, and Iran) while still engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Bush National Guard controversy. Alas, I'll need to do some research before commenting on those. And then I have yet to discuss anything related to theology or quantum computation, the latter being the only thing I'm professionally qualified to discuss (assuming that a doctoral degree really makes me qualified). Between these items, I probably have enough material to have a fairly productive first week. I have no idea what I'll write after that, but I'll try to post something every day.