Mark Byron

Al Davis Conservatives

One of the news items of the day was Al Qaida biggie Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three assistants are going to be put on trial in New York in civilian court; KSM is deemed to be the mastermind behind 9/11.

A military tribunal would be a bit cleaner, as things could be done a notch more secretly and possibly include waterboard-induced testimony that would likely not pass constitutional muster in a civilian court. However, we're a country that likes to have the moral high ground where possible, and using legal short-cuts to get these people locked up for good will be detrimental in the long term.

I got this e-mail from Red State's Erick Erickson earlier today; he don't like the idea. He posted on it earlier but his e-mail was more vitriolic

In that trial, the terrorist will get all the rights afforded an American citizen in a criminal trial, including the right to a fair trial, the right to a taxpayer funded attorney, the right to review all the evidence against him, potentially including classified intelligence matters, the right to exclude evidence against him including, potentially, any confession obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques, etc.

OK. Most of those aren't bugs, those are features. You want an unfair trial where he has to defend himself, can't question his accusers and can't call BS on torture?

Yes, we may have have to bring some classified material to the party, stuff that we might not want publicly seen. However, we've busted spies in the past and had to get sanitized versions of our intel into the public record in those cases.

At best, this will be a show trial fit not for the American Republic, but a third world kleptocratic totalitarian regime.

Them's fighting words, sir; it borders on false witness. I'm reminded of that one photo from the Vietnam War where a suspected Viet Cong was summarily executed by an officer with a bullet to the head on the street. That's efficient, but it isn't how we do things.

Doing away with those legal niceties is the mark of a banana republic, not abiding by them. We have something called the rule of law in the United States of America. Even if you are dead set on destroying the country, you still get your day in court where the prosecution has to prove its case and have its allegations double-checked by the defense. Even Mr. Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, will get better treatment than he deserves, but that's how the system works; even the nasty guys have to have the proscecution prove their guilt.

What you're proposing is Al Davis geopolitics, "Just win, baby." Torture and constitutional shortcuts are just fine as long as it gets you a victory in the War on Terror. However, that attitude can come back to bite you in the long run; check out how Davis' Raders have done lately.

We can do better.

A Generic Donkey is an Ass

Some interesting polling from Gallop; their generic Dem-versus-GOP congressional question favors the Republicans 48-44. That's within the margin of error, as I would tell my Managerial Econ students were my voice up to it, but given the fact that Republicans tend to underpoll in those generic questions, it means bad juju is coming for Democrats next year if the current mood holds.

The Republican brand got hammered in the second Bush term, but the Democratic brand is not faring so well in 2009, as Will Rogers again proves prophetic when he answered "I don't belong to an organized political party... I'm a Democrat." Nancy Pelosi would rather be a cat-herder right now, since any House majorities are made out of radiocative materials and have a half-life measured in hours.

The Gift that Keeps on GIving

I've got one of those viruses that refuses to go away. I tried teaching through it last night but was coughing my way through an hour of class before calling it a night.

I went back to the doctor today and got some better drugs to try and clear out my bronchitis. Even though I'm felling better than I was this time last week when I had a double-dip of a bacterial and viral bronchitis, I'm not up to talking for long periods. That would be OK if I had a office job, but it's death to a college professor.

The doctor order me back home for two days. Other than my attempt yesterday, I've been out the last two weeks.

That's depressing. What's more depressing is that the virus has to run its course, and other folks have fought it for a month or more. I'm only two weeks in. Lovely.

Prayers for patience and healing are an order.

No I-AA Double-Dipping

I had someone Google in looking for the answer to "why did the northern arizona football game not help ole miss with their bowl eligibility"

Looking at the Reb's schedule, it seems that they scheduled two I-AA (or Football Championship Subdivision in NCAA-speak) clubs this year (SE Louisiana was the other), and you can only count one of them towards the six wins for bowl eligibility. Ole Miss is 6-3 but has to win one more game to be eligible for post-season action. However, they get a short-handed Tennessee team in town Saturday; three Vols got busted for armed robbery in the wee hours of this mornings.

Kentucky has the formula down. They seem to have a recipe of Louisville, two mid-majors (Miami-OH and LA-Monroe this year) and a I-AA club (Eastern Kentucky this year) as their Twinkiesque out-conference schedule. Thus, they can limp into a 2-6 conference record and still be playing a bowl game. Cheesy, but effective.

Ole Miss, they need 7-5, since they went back for seconds on I-AAs.

Mio in Da Moonlight

I'm still recovering from a baaad case of bronchitis that has had me down for the count for over the week; two doc-in-a-box visits and a Sunday visit to the ER later, and I'm starting to recover from the crud I came down with on Halloween night. I'm slated to come off the IR on Thursday if all goes well.

I was thumbing through a Meijer flier for this week and I was reminded of the high holy day coming up in Michigan; November 15. That's the start of firearm deer hunting season, where lots of folks head north for a bit of hunting and a lot of male bonding. It's a non-trivial part of Michigan folk culture, such that seeing Flint-centric Michael Moore as an NRA member isn't shocking; a blue-collar UAW guy is more likely to be a hunter than a Brady Campaign backer.

They had a corner of this week's page three as "Deer Camp Must Haves": Mayo, pancakes, jerky (Sasquatch to tease sold separately) and peanuts. They left off the beer, however. They also may have forgotten that the rest of their domain might not be on the same schedule; that's a bit of a headscratcher for a Kentuckian who doesn't know Meijer's Michigan base.

At least it falls on a Sunday so absenteeism won't be as bad... at work; expect to see a lot of pickups heading north on I-75 Friday night packing hunting gear. However, there will be a lot of churches that will be short quite a few of their menfolk this Sunday.

Sending a Video

We're looking at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today. What's wrong with the following passage?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was joined at the Brandenburg Gate by Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, France's Nicolas Sarkozy and UK PM Gordon Brown.

In a special video address, US President Barack Obama said Berliners had rebuked tyranny on 9 November 1989.

Is Air Force One in the shop? Did the president get so tied up in watching the health care debate that he forgot to RSVP?

I'm reminded of the pro-lifer's critique that conservative presidents would merely sent a taped message to their January marches on Roe's anniversary but wouldn't show up in person; their support was more talk than action.

Murder, Aged Seven Years

Has it already been seven years since the Beltway Sniper case; elder sniper John Allen Muhammad is due to get the better-dying-through-chemistry treatment tomorrow and the Supremes have refused to step in. His last best hope is to have outgoing governor Tim Kaine to give him clemency. Unless Kaine gets the Ryan bug and wipes out Virginia's Death Row on his way out, I don't see that happening.

I'm not a fan of the death penalty, but once someone has gone through the appeals process, it can be morally defensible. This would be one of those cases where it seems appropriate.

It's All in the Spices

Here's an odd story about a Cleveland mass-murderer; the mayor's niece and he were an item.

Residents of the area near the home said they had noted a smell in the neighborhood, but assumed it was from nearby Ray's Sausage Company.

Asked whether she had noticed a foul odor, [Lori] Frazier told WOIO, "Yeah, I smelled stuff, but he always told me that -- at first he said it was his stepmother downstairs. And then I guess after she left, he told me that it was Ray's Sausage."

In Fried Green Tomatoes, it was "all in the sauce." Next door, it must be all in the spices, since you don't want to know what goes into either sausages and laws.