Thomas at newsrack blog identifies a couple of the House Bankruptcy bill offenders.
Interesting aside: Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD-6) is one of the few Congress critters who I’ve met in person. On a trip back in the college era we chatted with him for a few minutes [a college classmate had interned in his office]. He’s also a fellow Seventh-day Adventist. I’m not sure how he squares selling out the interests of the poor to billion dollar credit card companies with the gospel message, but that’s a topic for a separate post.
Strict Constructionism And The Eighth Amendment
If people like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia are to be believed, what does the Eighth Amendment mean? Basically, nothing.
I guess it must have slipped in as a typo or something.
LAB Blog
League of American Bicyclists.
A bicycling advocacy organization, located in Washington, D.C.
No Timetable
This clears matters up:
President Bush said Wednesday he understands the desire of U.S. coalition partners to withdraw troops from Iraq, but he declined to set a timetable for bringing American forces home and said he hoped others would also stay the course.
“Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself,” Bush told reporters.
In other words, “not anytime soon.”
Presumably if when some sort of stable Iraqi government is erected, we’ll be able to reduce the American force down somewhere below the 100,000 troop level. But irrespective of Iraq’s ability to “defend herself,” we’re going to have bases and troops there for years to come. We’re sure as heck not going to leave American assets and oil interests up to the custodianship and good graces of our freedom-loving Iraqi hosts.
Common Sense From Alabama
It’s worth pointing our whenever you run across it.
Via Smijer, Southern Baptist minister Jim Evans offers 10 reasons why not to post the Ten Commandments. A good list.
Social Security And Self Interest
Jonathan Chait writes on the Bush administration’s failed efforts to make Social Security privatization a “me first” issue.
I’m a little wary about making sweeping generalizations about why people say they are for or against something. In many cases, people simply don’t have a well thought out opinion to begin with. And with some issues, such as Social Security, I suspect there’s a notable segment of the population who are simply opposed to any change, regardless if it’s in their “self-interest” or not. [See also state income tax.] So I tend to read a lot of these opinion polls with a skeptical eye.