The Interocitor

FTC Wants to Ban Domain Hosting

Well, not in so many words, but the FTC urges ISPs to block all email that doesn't go through their servers. The idea is to prevent robo-spam, but it will also prevent anyone who has a private domain hosted elsewhere from using their domain's servers to send email. Worse, this stopgap suggestion, known as Port 25 blocking, will prevent any workable resolution of the spam problem, such as SPF or Sender ID. The FTC's advisors are clearly technical incompetents and should be fired.

What is required to solve the problem is twofold:

1. All email should be validated against the purported sender domain, by inquiring if the sending mailserver is associated with the domain. This takes a minor additon to each domain record and some updates to server software.


2. All servers should detect outgoing spam via Bayesian filtering or some similar method. This would presumably be required under the FTC method anyway (assuming that they haven't argued for message-counting or some other equally incompetent means).

Probelm is that SPF and such require that email from private domains not go through local ISP mailservers, but instead go through the remote domain's server using logins for authenitication.

Spam is a huge problem, as are viruses and phishing. The FTC solution fails because a) it won't work; b) it blocks many legitimate uses; and c) prevents better solutions from working. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

(And yes, I am fairly expert in this area).

Too Good to be True?

According to Reuters:

Al Qaeda's group in Iraq said on Tuesday its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been wounded and urged Muslims to pray for him, according to a Web posting.

"O nation of Islam... Pray for the healing of our Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from an injury he suffered in the path of God," said a statement from the Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq. It's authenticity could not be verified.

The only comment I have on this is that one shouldn't get in God's path and expect to come out unharmed.

CBS News Anchor: A Modest Suggestion

The NY Times reports that CBS is seeking suggestions on a new anchor for CBS News. I have a humble suggestion: Glenn Reynolds.

Professor Reynolds qualifications include:

• being from a Red State (instantly differentiating CBS from the others)
• having built the top-draw blog from scratch (much like Murrow did with CBS News)
• being objective in his analysis and even-handed in his linking to diverse views
• seldom interjecting more than a "Heh" or "Indeed" into the discussion
• being able to pronounce "nuclear", the sine qua non for acceptance by the nomenklatura intelligentsia.

But mainly so that the NY Times will stop calling bloggers irrelevant quite so often.

Prediction: Cloture Passes

Given the constant "compromise" noises from the New York Times and liberal talking heads (mainly because the Democrats can't stop the rule change if it comes up), I'm betting the Democrats will step back from the brink and allow the cloture motion on Priscilla Owens to pass. This will maintain the filibuster for later (well, at least until next week). The Dems can talk about delaying Owen's appointment for several years, as a matter of Principle, while allowing an up-or-down vote in the end. My guess is something like 62-38.

The real question is whether this will allow them to continue other filibusters, making the argument that the rule change isn't needed because they're only filibustering a few judges -- giving cover to Senators like Specter to "defend Senate rules."

Speaking of Desecration

Newsweek (erroreously) reported about US troops desecrating the Koran, causing widespread rioting in the Arab world. Desecration of emotional symbols is apparently anathema to Newsweek's editors.

Except for one:

To be fair, they only ran it in their Japanese edition: the cover and the cover story never made it into the US edition. Too inflamatory, I guess, for the US readership. Wonder what was on the cover of their Arabic edition.

Details and translations at Riding Sun and LGF

Revenge of the Sith

Saw Star Wars III tonight and I rather liked it. It's better overall than Return of the Jedi (no Ewoks) and much better than I or II (no Jar-Jar except for a brief glimpse and a coherent plot). I was annoyed a bit by Anakin's dilemma, which seemed rather solvable, but I think it was meant to be an issue of Control vs Letting Go; could've been made less tractable though.

All in all, I think it belongs in the set with the "classic" three, rather than the two other prequels. Go back and watch them if you don't believe me how much better this one was.

McClintock on School Budgets

Tom McClintock satirizes the state school budget, pointing out that there are ample funds for far better schools than we're getting, if only....

Across California, children are bringing home notes warning of dire consequences if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's scorched-earth budget is approved -- a budget that slashes Proposition 98 public-school spending from $42.2 billion this year all the way down to $44.7 billion next year.

That should be proof enough that our math programs are suffering....

I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the State Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000 per year with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences.

This leaves a mere $6,937 per student, which, for the duration of the funding crisis, I propose devoting to the classroom.

To illustrate how we might scrape by at this subsistence level, let's use a hypothetical school of 180 students with only $1.2 million to get through the year....

Then he goes on to describe a "budget school" involving luxury facilities, new books and furnishings, gym memberships for each child, college professors teaching every class -- and comes in under budget. Read the whole thing.

(Hat tip: Dan Weintraub)

More Federal Bailouts Coming?

United Airlines has pretty good lawyers. They've found a way to get the government to bail out a company with large pension debts, without having to get any more than a bankruptcy judge to go along. The rest of the airlines will follow soon, and can companies like General Motors be far behind?

This is going to be a financial nightmare for the government. No longer does a Chrystler have to go hat in hand to the feds for help, In what is seemingly an unintentional result of bankruptcy law coupled with the federal pension guarantee, companies can dump their inconvenient pension funds on Uncle Sugar and walk off none the poorer. Last time we saw this kind of thing (the Savings and Loan crisis) it cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Considering that GM alone has underfunded its pension system by tens of billions, this one could go considerably higher over the next few years.

An odd result of this is that stockholders, usually the most unsecured of creditors, remain whole while normally-secured pensioners lose (as the federal guarantee has caps). In a reasonable world what should have happened is that the stockholders were wiped out, with ownership going to the pension fund. An IPO of new shares would issue, with the proceeds going to fully fund the pension system. Anything excess would be returned to the former stockholders. But that doesn't seem to be in the cards. Too bad.

2nd Amendment Dead Again

The 2nd Circuit (Bach v. Pataki) reaffirmed two idiotic notions Friday: that the 2nd Amendment doesn't mean anything, and that the "privileges and immunities" clause of the 14th Amendment Article IV also doesn't mean anything.

In a unanimous decision, the three judge panel said they were bound by the 1886 US Supreme Court decision Pressler v. Illinois and must rule that the 2nd Amendment binds only the federal government, not the states. Never mind that this ruling came before the incorporation doctrine where the Bill of Rights was retroactively imposed upon the states. Apparently this won't apply to the 2nd Amendment until the Supreme Court says so. They also ruled that "privileges and immunities" don't apply if the if the discrimination "has a substantial and legitimate connection" with a state purpose. Which could mean nearly anything.

It should be noted that Bach is not some right-wing crank or wife-beater seeking a gun for nefarious purposes. He is by all accounts just the kind of person who one would choose to license: an ex-Navy SEAL with a top secret security clearance. He has a carry permit in his home state and simply wished to be permitted to carry the weapon into another state (New York) on periodic visits to relatives. New York, however, limits permits to residents, so he is completely SOL, and cannot be trusted with a gun.

Given a few minor changes at the Supreme Court, this would be an ideal case to overturn Pressler after far too long.

Filibuster or Nepotism?

Missing in most reports about the judicial nomination train wreck in the Senate is the facinating story of how it started. It wasn't about ideology, it was about nepotism and thwarted Senatorial privilege, as a 2004 article about Carl Levin's nepotism in the National Review lays out.

It seems that back in the Clinton years, Michigan Appellate Judge Helene White was nominated for a seat on the Federal 6th Circuit. Judge White is the wife of a cousin of Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Senators are supposed to OK nominees from their home state, and the other Senator from Michigan did not OK Judge White, and she never received a hearing from the Judiciary Committee. The nomination expired with the end of President Clinton's term. Apparently, this stuck in Senator Levin's craw.

Fast forward to 2001, when President Bush submitted four nominations for the 6th Circuit (Henry Saad, Richard Griffin, David McKeague, and Susan Neilson). Carl Levin, upset that George Bush had not renominated Judge White, began to block every judge for the 6th Circuit, unless Judge White was among them. Since the 6th Circuit has at least 5 open seats and has been understaffed for the last decade, the Judiciary Committee declined to honor Senator Levin's blanket blue card, held its hearings and passed the nominations to the floor.

Where they were filibustered. Having crossed the filibuster Rubicon, other nominees that came along that some Democrat interest group didn't like were also filibustered. At one point or other twelve appointees have stalled on the Senate floor -- seven are left, with five dropping out along the way. Last month, Senator Levin offered to move the 6th Circuit nominees along in a "compromise" -- two judges would be approved if he was allowed to pick a third. Three guesses who.

Oddly, though, this story of nepotism doesn't seem to be making it into the story in the mainstream media. It's all about "Principle" asn stuff. Just today, it is suggested that the Democrats will "compromise" and approve some of the judges being filibustered. Never is it mentioned that these will be judges that have only been blocked because one Senator wanted his cousin-in-law on the Federal bench. This isn't a compromise -- it's a thief offering to return half of what he stole in return for getting away with it.

Does Frist really think this is going to get him any Republican support come 2008? Not that he has any chance anyway.

Four out of Seven?

According to a UPI report, Senator Lott is trying to broker a deal where the filibuster of judges ends, but the filibuster rule remains intact. The kicker: the deal includes withdrawing 3 names.

This gives me pause. The thing is that I only care a whit about one of the nominees: Janice Rogers Brown. For all intents and purposes, the others strike me as interchangable social conservatives, which seem to abound in large numbers. Brown, on the other hand, is a small-government, individual rights federalist who deserves to be on the Supreme Court, let alone the DC Circuit.

The libertarian wing of the party hasn't got a heck of a lot out of this administration, despite its blind support last election. We've swallowed all kinds of crap, from steel quotas to anti-gay amendments to runaway spending. So far, Justice Brown is all we have to show.

So, dear Senator Lott, make what deal you can, but if (not to put too fine a point on it) you leave the black woman off the slate, you're going to see a blogstorm that makes the Thurmond affair look like a walk in the park. And Senator Frist can go whistle for our vote when it comes to 2008.

(more at How Appealing)

UPDATE: According to Limbaugh, Brown would indeed be one of the ones to go.

This is essentially the identical deal that we read about in the David Broder piece two Sundays ago that Biden then started talking about on television the same morning, and among those three would be Janice Rogers Brown. She'd be axed on this.

Bitburg 2005

When Reagan went to Germany in May 1985 and laid a wreath at the German WWII cemetary at Bitburg, he was harshly criticized for honoring Nazi war dead, some of whom were members of the murderous SS. The idea that 40 years of peace and alliance required a measure of concilliation didn't cut it -- the Nazis were monsters and that wat that.

So today President Bush goes to Moscow and joins the Kremilin elite on the reviewing stand. Somehow, though, this is OK. The Hammer & Sickle, the posters of Stalin, the tanks and rockets and goosestepping soldiers -- the 20 million dead at Stalin's hand, and 50 years of brutal empire -- all is forgiven and not a drop of criticism from the media.

Balls. To my mind the Hammer and Sickle and the Swastika are two side of the same flag. The kind of thing you walk quickly away from should you encounter them, with distain and contempt.

Putin's Russia is not our friend, and is becoming increasingly less so. To talk about Liberty while honoring the icons of mass murder and oppression is irony of the worst sort. Shame.

Not the best argument

Apparently, the corrupt Canadian Liberal Party has been reduced to arguing that "we may be corrupt, but so were the Conservatives when they were in." (Never mind that the current Conservative Party has never "been in", having much the same relationship to the old Progressive Conservatives as the Republicans had with the Whigs.) As the Toronto Sun points out, this is a poor argument indeed:

Talk about being as dumb as a bag of hammers!

When Liberals argue that the Conservative government of 1993 was as bad as the Liberal government of today, they are also admitting that the Liberals of today are no better than the Conservatives of 1993. And if that's the case then, according to the Liberals' own logic, they deserve the same fate.

Have crazed Liberal supporters forgotten that voters reduced the Mulroney/Kim Campell Conservatives to two seats in the 1993 federal election? By their own logic, then, this is exactly what should now happen to the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberals, whenever they finally have to face the electorate.

A reader's letter is also quoted to damning effect:

"The sponsorship scandal has defined the major differences between liberal voters and conservative voters. When Brian Mulroney's government became arrogant, conservative voters decimated (it), leaving (it) with only two seats. Conservative voters know the only way to make governments accountable is to show them the door. They put honesty, integrity and the belief in good governance above political philosophy.

"It's very unfortunate liberal voters are not so astute. They rationalize, stating things like, 'Paul is not Jean', 'politicians are all the same' and 'the PCs are just as bad.'"

Lastly comes a quote I never thought I'd see in a major Canadian newspaper editorial, from P.J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

(via Neale)

Laura Bush

Some are clomplaining about Laura Bush's marginally off-color jokes at that dinner the other night. Having watched it, and laughed, I only have one response:

Bah!

Much is Said, Nothing is Done

One of the major difficulties in dealing with illegal immigration is the clause in the 14th Amendment that bestows automatic citizenship on any person born in the US. The amendment was originally drafted to prevent states from refusing citizenship to newly freed slaves by use of the original "grandfather clause" -- one would be considered a citizen of a state if and only if one's grandfather was also a citizen.

The issues that gave rise to this -- slavery and Reconstruction -- are long since past and new conditions (e.g. trivial international travel) have brought new problems -- which this clause exacerbates. In particular, a child born in the United States to parents not legally resident is still considered a native-born US citizen, with all the rights and priviledges of same. Any real attempt to deal with illegal immigration must begin with reconsideration of this prescription.

House Joint Resolution 41, offered by Mark Foley of Florida and co-sponsored by only Christopher Shays (!) of Connecticut and Rebecca Foxx of North Carolina, would change this by amending the Constitution as follows:

SECTION 1. No person born in the United States after the date of the ratification of this article shall be a citizen of the United States, or of any State, on account of birth in the United States unless the mother or father of the person is a citizen of the United States, or is lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States, at the time of the birth.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

All Senators and 432 House members have yet to co-sponsor this Amendment. Why? Do those 532 legislators believe that the child of an illegal alien ought, by right, be a citizen? Someone should really ask them why.

[Before you start, I should point out that I favor wildly increased immigration quotas, and believe that even illegal immigrants come here for work, not dole. But there is a need for order to the process, and nearly every attempt to deal with illegal immigration (once past the border) breaks on the rock of the 14th Amendment and the citizenship rights of minor children of illegals.]