Bull Moose Strikes Back

I pretty much don’t care about Gore’s marital problems and/or the accusations of him being a sex crazed poodle.  Even if the “sex crazed poodle” or Laurie David incidents are real, it doesn’t sound like he misbehaved while VP, and he certainly didn’t do something like lie about them under oath, so, whatever.

But this quote didn’t escape my attention:

…suck it up; otherwise, the world’s going to be destroyed from global warming.

That’s advice that Gore’s alleged victim received from her fellow lefties.  I can’t decide if I hope that that quote is real or fear that it is real.

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What a difference a couple of years make. When I took Constitutional Law in law school in the 2006-2007 school year, Supreme Court Second Amendment jurisprudence was sparse, and what was there was a mess.  There were two very basic questions that were left outstanding: 1) Does the Second Amendment apply to individuals or the population as a whole? and 2) Does it apply to just the federal government or is it incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to the states?

The answer to the first question was supplied almost exactly two years ago in Heller: The SCOTUS held that the rights were indeed individual, the capstone of a long slow turn about of lower court jurisprudence (and left-wing echo chamber intellectual work) over the last half century.

Today, the court ruled in McDonald v. The City of Chicago (PDF) that the Fourteenth Amendment does indeed incorporate the Second Amendment rights to the states.

Which makes sense. Say what you will about the doctrine of Fourteenth Amendment incorporation, but either all of the constitution’s protections should apply to the states or none of them should (and the individual state’s constitutions should rule).  And since the doctrine of incorporation was pretty much settled on battlefields between 1861 and 1865, it seems like the Second Amendment is being incorporated rather late.

Note that this was a 5-4 decision which would have almost certainly been 6-3 the other way had George Bush not been reelected in 2004.  Presidential elections matter long beyond the term of the Presidents elected. The timing of this decision really emphasizes that since today we are seeing part two of a line change of the four left wing justices.

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McChrystal should be sacked simply because if his judgment is so bad that he lets a skeezy reporter writing something for Rolling Stone – Rolling Stone! – get him on record badmouthing his superiors, he obviously doesn’t have the judgment required to win the fight in Afghanistan.
Before any of this happened McChrystal was floundering. Obama has a golden opportunity: Use it as an excuse to replace him with Petraeus. Sure, it’s a demotion, but Obama can wrap it in a “he’s doing his patriotic duty and taking one for the team” speech and everyone wins. The country wins.  The people of Afghanistan win. Petraeus grows his legend and book advance fee.  And Obama looks like a competent commander-in-chief. They’d just have to make sure Petraeus stays hydrated.
The irony is that Obama won’t turn this into a win for himself and the country because what McChrystal and his aids said is true:  He has no idea how to handle this.  Any of this. If it doesn’t involve running for office or orchestrating deals in the senate he’s no good at it.

But I’ll hold out hope that he’ll surprise me on this. I guess he did let the SEALS kill those pirates.

UPDATE: I guess I should go on record that a half-assed firing of McChrystal without some kind of worthy successor lined up – James Mattis? – would be a disaster.  If Obama can’t find anyone, the best thing to do is accept McChrystal’s apology, admonish him, and send him back to Afghanistan to redeem himself.

This is bad news:  “Protocol dictates the next commander of the International Security Assistance Force  should be a general from another country.” If a non-American is put in charge in Afghanistan, everyone might as well all go home and save the time and treasure.

UPDATE 2: I am extremely pleased to be wrong. Obama did exactly the right thing.

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By now you’ve seen the video of a Seattle cop punching a 17-year-old “girl.” If not here it is:

Here is my only problem with the events depicted in the video: The cop punched a 17-year-old female in the face and didn’t drop her. Time to hit the weight room, officer.

Some of the criticism I’ve heard is that the cop should have used a Taser to subdue the girl. Now, I’ve never been hit with a Taser, but I have been punched in the face enough times to know that it’s no fun, and I’ve seen videos of what Tasers do. I think I’d rather be punched in the face. (Besides, according to reports on local radio today, the cop didn’t have a Taser.)

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Geeze, did someone read “Catcher in the Rye” and become activated or something?

I heard that the Congressman was acting “violent” and “vicious.” I don’t think he was acting violent so much as he was acting like a class A weirdo. I expected him to start asking “Is it safe?”

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Seattle is discouraging the use of skybridges, and is trying to tax Macy’s skybridge out of existence.

Why?

Because it never rains so skybridges are unneeded? No.

Aesthetics? A little.

Because skybridges are elitist? Bingo.

“What a skybridge does is it takes people off of the right of way and puts them up in the air, and leaves usually the people who aren’t good enough to go in the buildings down below,” City Councilmember Jean Godden said. “It’s really not very friendly.”

That’s right. They want to make sure all of the people who can afford to shop at Macy’s and spend money to keep people employed have as much uncomfortable contact with the human debris that Seattle lets accumulate on its streets as possible.

But at least they’ll prevent aggressive panhandling, right? Oh, I forgot. NO.  The free love idiot that they elected mayor decided to veto that ordinance.

In an economy which requires retail and downtown establishments to have much help as possible, Seattle continues to make petty rules to assure shoppers that their trip downtown will be as uncomfortable as possible. Brilliant.

And I would point out that this is a skybridge that is already there. It’s not like Macy’s is asking for a new one. It makes this move twice as silly.

And I have a feeling that if the skybridge was connecting a Whole Foods to an Apple Store it would be given a free pass.

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Yesterday was the running of the North Olympic Discovery Marathon, I ran my fourth half marathon, but my first since lap band surgery and the 50 pound (so far) weight loss that has accompanied it.

First of all, even though I missed the goal of 2:20, I have to say that I am pleased with the fact that my chip time 2:26:58 demonstrates a huge improvement.  My chip time for the same race last year was 2:43:28, exactly 16.5 minutes more.  And my chip time for the much hillier Seattle Half Marathon last Thanksgiving weekend was 2:48:02.  Obviously, I’m able to maintain a better pace through the course now that I’m not carrying 50 extra pounds the whole way. I was pleased that where last year the marathon winner passed me at about 1 mile left to go, this time he finished after I finished, walked to my car, and was walking the dog.

BUT… I think I should have been able to make my goal. Just before mile 6 of the course, my stomach started doing strange things and I got incredible pain in my side that lasted for about 3 miles.  Not only did it slow me down, but  I had to stop occasionally to try to stretch it out and ended up walking up some of the hills as to not aggravate it.

If you look at my split (as taken by my Garmin Forerunner) there is a marked difference between the first half and the second half:

(Note the extra 0.09 mile required through the course of the run for zig zagging around people and such.) I was ahead of pace for a 2:20 finish before my side stitch.

It wasn’t the normal side stitch that one gets from not breathing properly. I would have welcomed that instead as an easy to solve problem, but it was the kind of side ache I get whenever I have tried to run with something in my gut.  I think the problem was that I had too much sticky spaghetti late on Saturday and it kind of just hung around my stomach pouch for hours and hours. I felt it kind of hanging around my stomach late into the night and never felt like my stomach was empty on Sunday morning.

So, while I was stewing from about mile 6 to 9 about my band “betraying me,” the fact is that it has been the tool that has been most useful for me to be able to move as fast as I did for the bulk of the race to start with.

Next time any carb loading will be done at lunch time and dinner will be light or liquid. Though I’m so sore right now, I don’t really want to think about next time.

I also have to give props to my wife. She ran her second half marathon with me yesterday, and improved her time by about 16 minutes, too. Only she didn’t have the advantage of being 50 pounds lighter. She just trained it out.

(Cross posted at The Band Blog.)

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Never forget.

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Watch for me finishing the North Olympic Discovery Half Marathon tomorrow at the streaming video of the finish line.
I hope to finish at about 11:20 AM Pac-10 time.

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From my e-mail in-box:

Latinos & Immigration in America

A Discussion About Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law & Upcoming Legal Challenges

Featured Guest Speaker:

Thomas A. Sae nz

MAL DEF President and General Counsel

Panelists:

Jorge Bar ón, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project

Luis Fra ga, University of Washington

Pramila Jaya pal, OneAmerica

Shankar Naray an, ACLU

Rebecca Smith, National Employment Law Project

Moderator:

Dan Ford, Latina/o Bar Association of Washi ngton

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

7:00p.m-9:00p.m.

Town Hall

1119 8th Avenue

Seattle, WA 98101

The need for national immigration reform has never been greater. On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 which requires law enforcement to question people about their immigration status during everyday police encounters and criminalizes immigrants for failing to carry their “papers.”

MAL DEF President Thomas Sae nz will speak on MALDEF’s legal challenge to the newest anti-immigrant law out of Arizona and on the pressing need for federal immigration reform.  Following Saenz’s remarks, a panel of speakers will join Saenz to discuss these issues as well as the recent incident involving the beating of a young Latino man and the use of a racial slur by a Seattle police officer.

I’m not sure why they are calling this a “town meeting.” This is an invitation to an echo chamber. It might be interesting to go just to see if anyone takes the 10 minutes to read the bill.

I’d like a ruling on whether “Mexican” is a racist slur, by the way.  In case you missed it the cop who was “beating”  the Latino man said, “I will beat the Mexican piss out of you.”  It seems to me that if he was trying to be racist, he could have said about a half dozen other things.  If I go to France and some frog assumes, with good reason, that I am American and threatens to “beat the American piss” out of me, he’s not being racist, right?  I realize it is somewhat different because Mexico isn’t quite the melting pot America is, but I still don’t think “racist slur” is the correct term.  “Slur based on prejudice of nation of origin,” maybe.

And the reason I put “beating” in quotes isn’t necessarily to defend the cop’s actions, but in America’s history some people have taken real beatings from cops.  I don’t want to take away from those beatings by equivocating a graze of the boot to the head while stomping on a hand to those beatings. Unnecessary use of force? Maybe, I wasn’t there, but from what the tape shows I could buy that. A beating? No.

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