I’m working on a proposal that’s due on Sunday. Probably light blogging this week.
First Red Wine
…and now garlic turns out to be heart healthy. And a cancer preventative. Life is good. If everyone would eat it, few would be bothered by the aroma.
Counterproductive
Michael Yon reports that not only has Al Qaeda lost its war in Iraq, but that its attempts to foment a civil war have backfired on them. It may be that the incipient civil war there (which Yon was the first to note) is over before it really got started, and once again, the war opponents (who remain in denial about the enemy, and fantasize that this never was, and never would be, more than a civil war) are behind the curve. This possibility is buttressed by events like the Shia awakening.
Yon also has a much longer recent dispatch from Iraq.
[Update on Tuesday morning]
More good news from Iraq (and bad news for Al Qaeda, and those who continue to hope that the US loses):
…in order for the advances to be permanent, something else must take the place of U.S. kinetic operations. Solution? Concerned citizens. One reason for al Qaeda
Don’t Know Much About The Constitution
While I agree that Google’s behavior is blatantly partisan, that doesn’t excuse the continued misunderstanding of the First Amendment repeated in this Examiner editorial:
On its face, a policy that allows censorship of political speech critical of the trademark holder is a violation of the First Amendment. If Google maintains this policy, it will be handing a powerful tool for crushing dissent not only to political groups like MoveOn.org but to every corporation with a trademarked name.
Sorry, no. As I wrote not long ago:
Ahmadinejad had no First Amendment right to speak at Columbia, and he had no First Amendment right to not be criticized, either before, during or after his speech. And I have no First Amendment right to AT&T DSL service, or to not have it cut off if I express an opinion over its tubes. All that the First Amendment says is that “Congress shall make no law,” not “Columbia University will grant a podium and audience,” or “AT&T shall provide Internet service regardless of the behavior of the customer.”
It also doesn’t say that “Google shall not discriminate by political beliefs in which ads it chooses to run.”
Not that Google shouldn’t be criticized, and its hypocrisy pointed out on a daily basis, of course.
Don’t Know Much About The Constitution
While I agree that Google’s behavior is blatantly partisan, that doesn’t excuse the continued misunderstanding of the First Amendment repeated in this Examiner editorial:
On its face, a policy that allows censorship of political speech critical of the trademark holder is a violation of the First Amendment. If Google maintains this policy, it will be handing a powerful tool for crushing dissent not only to political groups like MoveOn.org but to every corporation with a trademarked name.
Sorry, no. As I wrote not long ago:
Ahmadinejad had no First Amendment right to speak at Columbia, and he had no First Amendment right to not be criticized, either before, during or after his speech. And I have no First Amendment right to AT&T DSL service, or to not have it cut off if I express an opinion over its tubes. All that the First Amendment says is that “Congress shall make no law,” not “Columbia University will grant a podium and audience,” or “AT&T shall provide Internet service regardless of the behavior of the customer.”
It also doesn’t say that “Google shall not discriminate by political beliefs in which ads it chooses to run.”
Not that Google shouldn’t be criticized, and its hypocrisy pointed out on a daily basis, of course.
Don’t Know Much About The Constitution
While I agree that Google’s behavior is blatantly partisan, that doesn’t excuse the continued misunderstanding of the First Amendment repeated in this Examiner editorial:
On its face, a policy that allows censorship of political speech critical of the trademark holder is a violation of the First Amendment. If Google maintains this policy, it will be handing a powerful tool for crushing dissent not only to political groups like MoveOn.org but to every corporation with a trademarked name.
Sorry, no. As I wrote not long ago:
Ahmadinejad had no First Amendment right to speak at Columbia, and he had no First Amendment right to not be criticized, either before, during or after his speech. And I have no First Amendment right to AT&T DSL service, or to not have it cut off if I express an opinion over its tubes. All that the First Amendment says is that “Congress shall make no law,” not “Columbia University will grant a podium and audience,” or “AT&T shall provide Internet service regardless of the behavior of the customer.”
It also doesn’t say that “Google shall not discriminate by political beliefs in which ads it chooses to run.”
Not that Google shouldn’t be criticized, and its hypocrisy pointed out on a daily basis, of course.
The Latest Carnival Of Space
…is up, over at Space for Commerce.
Define “Suffered”
In a Corner piece today, Jonah Goldberg discusses the humanitarian benefits that would have accrued had we forced a regime change in Moscow in 1946. But he states one of what he considers the down sides:
While the space program would have suffered without the Space Race, it seems a sure bet that the net gain of liberated human genius would more than have compensated for that.
While I agree with his post overall, I don’t agree that the “space program would have suffered.” Oh, we certainly wouldn’t have gotten to the moon as quickly, but as I argued at TCSDaily a week and a half ago, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
I also think that, even absent the superpower adversary of the USSR, we still would have found surveillance and communications satellites quite useful. And of course, had we removed the Stalin regime, it’s likely that we would have eventually picked up all of the German rocket team, and not just the ones that managed to escape with von Braun as the Soviets advanced. If you were a German who wanted to build rockets, given a choice between living in America, and Russia, even a free Russia, it’s seems most likely that most of them would have wanted to come here.
Define “Suffered”
In a Corner piece today, Jonah Goldberg discusses the humanitarian benefits that would have accrued had we forced a regime change in Moscow in 1946. But he states one of what he considers the down sides:
While the space program would have suffered without the Space Race, it seems a sure bet that the net gain of liberated human genius would more than have compensated for that.
While I agree with his post overall, I don’t agree that the “space program would have suffered.” Oh, we certainly wouldn’t have gotten to the moon as quickly, but as I argued at TCSDaily a week and a half ago, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
I also think that, even absent the superpower adversary of the USSR, we still would have found surveillance and communications satellites quite useful. And of course, had we removed the Stalin regime, it’s likely that we would have eventually picked up all of the German rocket team, and not just the ones that managed to escape with von Braun as the Soviets advanced. If you were a German who wanted to build rockets, given a choice between living in America, and Russia, even a free Russia, it’s seems most likely that most of them would have wanted to come here.
Define “Suffered”
In a Corner piece today, Jonah Goldberg discusses the humanitarian benefits that would have accrued had we forced a regime change in Moscow in 1946. But he states one of what he considers the down sides:
While the space program would have suffered without the Space Race, it seems a sure bet that the net gain of liberated human genius would more than have compensated for that.
While I agree with his post overall, I don’t agree that the “space program would have suffered.” Oh, we certainly wouldn’t have gotten to the moon as quickly, but as I argued at TCSDaily a week and a half ago, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
I also think that, even absent the superpower adversary of the USSR, we still would have found surveillance and communications satellites quite useful. And of course, had we removed the Stalin regime, it’s likely that we would have eventually picked up all of the German rocket team, and not just the ones that managed to escape with von Braun as the Soviets advanced. If you were a German who wanted to build rockets, given a choice between living in America, and Russia, even a free Russia, it’s seems most likely that most of them would have wanted to come here.