Title: Sanctimonious Fratricide, or Another New Republic Article.

Article: Will Scalia Blow the Whistle on This Constitutional Farce?

Agreeing with Bush

I don't know a lot about it, but i agree with Kevin Drum's take on the Dubai Ports deal.

Germany: Iran Sanctions Poll

In an online poll 61% of Germans are in favor of sanctions against Iran. These things are easily manipulated, but I just thought I'd pass that along. I can't find a link that goes to the results, but for now you can see them if you click here. The results are on the right side most of the way down, under the word 'Umfrage.'

Update: I fixed the link so that it goes straight to the right page. It's still 61% in favor of sanctions with 455 total votes. It's not a very big sample size, nor of course scientific, but at least the low number probably means it hasn't been manipulated yet.

Is that the money to ransom me? I'll take some, thanks.

This story just gets bizarrer and bizarrer. After her release Susanne Osthoff, the German archaeologist who was kidnapped in Iraq, was in possession of some thousands of dollars worth of the money paid to have her released. I'll keep my eyes open for the English releases of the story.

Iran, the Olestra of wars

In search of good options on Iran, I was watching Fox News. Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney USAF (ret.) was just on the Special Report with Brit Hume and contrary to much thinking on the subject says that there is a military option. It would involve 200 aircraft which will in part be contributed by, wait for it, wait for it, ... the surrounding Arab nations. Conveniently, there are also no consequences. We just do it (with our Arab friends) and then nothing happens. Shock and awe, I guess, will prevent Iran from having any response whatsoever.

Oh, and Brzezinski was highlighted as a hypocrite because he had criticized people who think a withdrawal from Iraq would result in catastrophic destabilization. He said that the same sorts of arguments were not borne out after Vietnam. Oh, tut tut tut, Mr. Brzezinski, you may have forgotten that you made the same argument against withdrawal, but Fox News and Google have not forgotten. Brzezinski said this in...1964. Yes, I will never trust a word from Brzezinski's mouth again. I feel so jaded.


CNN says the strike in Pakistan a few days ago may have killed Abu al-Masri. That would be very good news.

Trading privacy for...perhaps not much

Kevin Drum argues that the real issue is not whether or not the NSA program is effective or not, about which the NYT writes today, but rather its legality. I disagree somewhat. I agree that the legality trumps the effectiveness. If it's illegal and gets shut down because of that, then it's sort of a moot point whether it works or not. However, according to the polls people are not as concerned about the illegality as one would hope in a country that prides itself on the rule of law. The issue for the voters seems to be, "Is this necessary to catch terrorists?" If people believe it is, then the argument that we should do away with it is going to look small-minded, despite the fact that the small-minded person is defending the constitution.

The argument needs to be made that the administration is sacrificing civil liberties with nothing to show for it. That seems to be the case with the information we have so far. Of course, by nature there is a lack of information. It's one thing to give up some privacy to catch terrorists, it's another thing to just give up some privacy.

Relatedly, thus spake TPM:

The point Gore makes in his speech that I think is most key is the connection between authoritarianism, official secrecy and incompetence.
...
And it's often treated as, well ... he's power-hungry and incompetent to boot! Imagine that! The point though is that they are directly connected. Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power. Katrina was a good example of this.

At this point I'd prefer the more benign-sounding 'executive power grabbing' to 'authoritarianism.' I prefer to save the punch of my '-ism' accusations. However, I do think there is something to his substantive idea.

Iran: the proverbial hard place

Iran's been a popular topic on the internets lately. Lots of people are asking what options are left us and the consensus seems to be: not many. The frontrunners so far are sanctions and airstrikes. That's all very nice, but I'd like to see more discussion about the likely consequences of either of these. There seems to be wide agreement that sanctions would be ineffective at deterring Iran from going nuclear. I'd like to see more reasons why this is so. The main quasi-argument so far is just, "Well, didn't work for Saddam. Won't work in Iran." I don't find that particularly convincing. The most plausible argument against pursuing them is, as The Glittering Eye says, "I can’t imagine anything but the most namby-pamby of sanctions being approved by Russia, China, and France and I can’t imagine such sanctions having any effect." The only possible sanctions would be ineffectual.

The airstrikes option seems to exist in a vacuum. People are talking of them as an option to full-blown military incursion. Isn't Iran going to march into at least southern Iraq if we or Israel bomb them? That seems like the logical consequence and it looks an awful lot like a full-blown military conflict. The Glittering Eye is illustrative of what I mean by the vacuum analysis in this regard, though that's certainly not the only place it's going on:

Re-fueling issues aside, Israel simply can’t get to Iran without crossing the airspace of one or more of the following countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Russia. I can’t imagine them getting the go-ahead. In addition we have effective control of the airspace over the Gulf. Consequently, Israel needs at least our tacit approval before conducting such a raid. As I see it that means that there’ll be the same political costs for U. S. complicity as there would be for a U. S. raid.

Political costs? How about the cost of open hostilities between the U.S. and Iran? I think political costs are secondary considerations because no one has yet explained to me why Iran wouldn't cross over and begin a more open, more violent, more serious fight with the U.S. military. Whatever its veracity I somehow don't see Iran separating U.S. from Israeli action. The same likely goes for most of the countries around the world. The two seem functionally almost identical.

I'll keep my eyes open. There must be some better ideas out there somewhere.

One joke: $7285.20*

Chuckle-funny news from Germany. A rough translation:

Loud, shrill, dirty and occasionally below the belt--in his appearances the TV comedian Oliver Pocher doesn't arouse only laughter. Critics often contend that his humor is simply too crass. Now the 27-year old has been dealt a damper. A civil court in Hannover has ordered him to pay 6000 Euro in compensation. During the program "Wetten, dass...?" Pocher recommended that a 29-year old woman have cosmetic surgery done.

Judge Dorothea Wevell von Krüger saw in Pocher's joke ("You look really old for your age") a "considerably disparaging statement." The case turned on the fact that he set the 29-year old in profile in front of an audience of millions. The woman, from Rinteln in Niedersachsen, rejected a later apology from Pocher as 'half-hearted.' She had demanded as much as 35,000 Euro in compensation.
...

So, it's still safe to call people ugly in Germany. Just don't do it on popular TV shows. Gut zu wissen. Gut zu wissen.

*Exchange rate of 1 EUR=1.2142 USD

The obligatory first post/attempt to justify the blog's existence

My name is Joe Christensen and I plan to talk about current events here. I'm a first-year student in the University of Iowa's law school. I will also be talking about cultural things at Culture Hawk, miscellaneous things at Joe's, and American politics in German here. That should suffice for now.