Monday, April 07, 2003

Justice, Tobacco, and Retroactive Law. Like previous administrations in modern America, the Bush Administration has openly declared itself an enemy of the rule of law. Under such a regime, perhaps the readers need to be reminded that such a government considers all of us to be enemies of the state. Moreover, if well-heeled corporations are unable to defend themselves from what essentially are illegal prosecutions, what chances will avail to the rest of us? [Ludwig von Mises Institute] 2:14:35 PM    comment () Police Shoot Peaceniks. ... unfortunately, only with riot-type projectiles rather than hollowpoints. Here's the story. The protest was all part of an effort by the various "stop the krool war against that nice Mr. Hussein" organizations. If this picture doesn't make you giggle, you have a heart of stone: [Kim du Toit] I encourage readers to follow the link and see what kind of picture makes such a despicable creature as Mr. du Toit "giggle." The article mentions that six longshoreman who happened to be trapped in the crossfire were also shot. No doubt du Toit is all broken up that those innocent bystanders didn't get killed. 1:46:07 PM    comment () Powell brings out the brass knuckles. And shows that he's not afraid to use them. Check out this interview. Is this an A-Team moment or what? Wolfowitz as Hannibal ("I love it when a plan comes together", Rumsfeld as B.A. Baracus ("I pity the fool who fill in the blanks), and Powell as Face. Life imitates art? [Counterpoint] A Crusader compares the current administration to the cast of a cartoonish TV show from the 1980's. I have to agree that it's an apt comparison. 1:41:44 PM    comment () Army chaplain offers baptisms, baths. In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water. It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity. ''It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,'' he said. And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks. ''They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed,'' Llano said. First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible. [Miami Herald] I don't have a copy of the Uniform Code of Military Justice handy, but I certainly hope this person can be court-martialed for what he's doing. 10:06:47 AM    comment () Update on Blue on Blue. ARBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan — A little more information and clarification on the “blue on blue” (friendly fire) incident yesterday in Iraqi Kurdistan. Twenty-two Kurdish fighters and five Special Forces died. Forty-five peshmergas were wounded, including Wazeri Barzani, a brother of KDP president Massoud Barzani. The attack happened not because of the capture of Iraqi tanks, as early reports from Fawzi Hariri said yesterday, but because a Special Forces commander in the attacked convoy called in air strikes on a nearby Iraqi tank column and the American pilots hit the convoy by mistake. More details as they become available.... [Back In Iraq 2.0] This doesn't sound like an "either-or" thing to me--if the Kurds hadn't captured the tanks, they couldn't very well have been mistaken for an Iraqi tank column. It sounds to me like the two events together led to the mistake. 9:28:25 AM    comment ()

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