Jinn of Current Events

It's simple, hence the French may dislike it, and it is most accurate: Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it [in] resolution 1441. [via CNN]

Ceterum censeo, delenda est Mecca. 

Did any deportation train pass through Switzerland, carrying either Jews to concentration camps, or Italian slave labour? No. The rumour that during World War II convoys carrying deportees passed through Switzerland is not new and resurfaces from time to time. ...not a single document has been found, either in Switzerland or abroad, that can confirm the accusation... On the contrary, all the evidence available shows that the accusation is false. 

Debray is a vile French communist, who among other ignominies helped Che Guevara. He gets to publish a hateful article in the New York Times, without them telling readers who he actually is. James Taranto (OpinionJournal): Boy, they sure are shoveling the merde over at the New York Times. Yesterday the paper of record published an article by one Régis Debray... 

BBC News: The jury found al-Faisal incited young, impressionable Muslims to kill non-believers, Americans, Hindus and Jews. Al-Faisal argued his words were taken from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, and had been misrepresented. One tape, Jihad, contained the words: So you go to India and if you see a Hindu walking down the road you are allowed to kill him and take his money, is that clear? Yes, your evil beliefs are loud and clear.

Ceterum censeo, delenda est Mecca. 

Michael Barone (US News): As this is written, it is not known whether another U.N. resolution against Iraq--the 18th, as Donald Rumsfeld points out, not the second--will be proposed and approved. And it is not known what the course of action will be. But it is already time to talk about what comes next. 

Exactly 200 years ago today, in Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court asserted its power to review acts of Congress and invalidate those that conflict with the Constitution.

The Supreme Court is distinctly American in concept and function. No other courts in the world have the same authority of constitutional interpretation. A century and a half ago, the French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville noted the unique position of the Supreme Court in the history of nations and of jurisprudence: The representative system of government has been adopted in several states of Europe, but I am unaware that any nation of the globe has hitherto organized a judicial power in the same manner as the Americans. ... A more imposing judicial power was never constituted by any people.

No other country has implemented so well, if at all, the principles of the Rule of Law and the Balance of Power between the three branches of government. The Founding Fathers did a magnificent job!