Amazed!

Composing is a creative process, a process that I find almost impossible to do when depressed.

Lately, I have found it increasingly difficult if not impossible to post as an ever increasing sense of gloom seemed to overwhelm me.

Tonight a weight has been lifted! A burden has been remove, abet temporally.

You might think it was news from Iraq or the idotiarians in the ditch in Crawford Texas.

Well you would be wrong!

A co-worker has decided to take a few days of vacation. His incessant bitching, back biting and shear oneryness has sapped the life from me.

He's gone! I won't have to listen to him degrading the company or his constant complaints and ridicule of our fellow workers. No more smarmy insults that deserve a good bitch slap.

I'm free! FREE! FREE AT LAST!
MMMWWWAAAAA HA HA HA HA.

But he will be back Monday.


Anyone know a good hit man?

The only good constitution is a dead constitution.

Dahlia Lithwick, a Slate senior editor, posted a column titled, "Reasons To Go On Living". In the article she asks for help:

"So, I turn to you, dear readers, smart thinkers, and posters of great wisdom in the Fray, to ask simply: Is the living Constitution dead? Are the critics correct-was it all just a great drunken binge of Brennan and Thurgood Marshall's? What is left in its place? Is there room for a Brennan-esque defense anymore? Or am I correct in guessing that Scalia is right this time?"

In order, I answer her questions, yes, yes, The Constitution of the United States of America, no and Hell Yes!

In effect, she is saying that there is no comprehensive, logical defense for the myth of the "Living Constitution".

The "living Constitution" is dead.
Long live the Constitution of the United States of America!

Read the link for what intelligent jurists and legal scholars have to say .

Thoughts on the Iraqi Constitution

Sometimes, (as a history buff), I assume that my friends and others know their history and have the same perspective that I do. Sometimes, we know these things and fail to put them in their proper perspective.

As many of you, (no doubt, figuratively), have heard me say; all things lose their meaning when taken out of context. I do not mean words or sentences taken from a statement, paragraph, chapter or book. I mean that, literally, 'everything' loses its meaning when taken as a singular event.

I am going to attempt to 'not' make assumptions about historical matters and make an effort to provide context for events in the news.

As my first effort I will point out that the US Constitution did not get created overnight and some of the things we thing of as "normal", (e.g. a bicameral legislature), are actually compromises that required years to negotiate.

Now lets look at what Professor John Eastman had to say about the Iraqi Constitution.

From a transcript of the "Hugh Hewitt" radio program:

[...]
HH: And so they convene in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, and there are deep divisions. Identify some of those divisions for people.

JE: Well, the big divisions, often unspoken, but sometimes explicitly addressed, was slavery. By then, most of the northern states had outlawed slavery. Most of the southern states not only kept it, but thought it was critically important to their economy. And so, the balance of power in the new central government was going to have to be pretty even, so as to not interfere with this issue, because they couldn't grapple with that at the same time they were trying to establish a new union. They had just defeated the British, but the British were still salivating over coming back in and taking over again. The second thing is big states versus small states. If you give power in the central government's legislature based on population, New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania run everything, to the detriment of New Jersey and Maryland and Rhode Island and what have you. If you give it equal votes to each state, then the small states are going to have a much greater role in the national government than their population would warrant. And this was an intractable problem, finally settled by the compromise that gave population-based control to the House of Representatives, and state-based control to the U.S. Senate.

[...]

HH: Now given that background, are you surprised that it is so difficult in the birthing in Baghdad?

JE: No. I'm not at all surprised. In fact, if anything, you add to it the deep religious animosities, and cultural animosities that exist between the peoples there, that we didn't have. We were a largely homogeneous population in 1787, in a way that Iraq is not. The fact that they have gone as far as they have, as quickly as they have, is the real story here.

[...]

Read the whole thing and I think you will be more optimistic about the future of democracy for Iraq.

Remember that democracy isn't an event, it is a process.

What ya think?

I know this will seem a little strange, but please read the first five posts on this message board and tell me what you think.

LINK HERE



:^)

For wintermute

Islamic terror bombings in Bangladesh.

Must have been a reaction to the American presence... Oh, sorry wrong country!

Well, maybe they just need to set down and have a dialog.

LOL