Quick Links 6/30/05

*John Hawkins interviews the incomparable Mark Steyn.
*“[B]eing a terrorist makes me a good Muslim”. As the reader who sent this in points out, “It’s also interesting – although not terribly surprising – that TIME seems to have better sources within the insurgency than they do within the US military.”
*More Rehnquist and O’Connor rumors from RedState here and here. Ramesh is hearing the same things about replacements but nothing on resignations.
*This, via NRO, is classic:

COSTAS: If you had been elected president last November, by this point what would President John Kerry have done in Iraq?
KERRY: Well, I laid out — you know, I don’t want to get in — I mean, I think that’s not quite the way to go at it.

After that, Kerry launches back into his usual style, such as taking the words of unfriendly foreign leaders at face value. The man never changes.
*Drezner on the Iranian elections.
*One step at a time.
*I did not know that Evan Thomas of Newsweek was the grandson of Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas, but I can’t say I’m surprised.

Show Me

I’ll believe that the Mets are or were close to dealing Mike Cameron and Miguel Cairo for Gary Sheffield when I see such a deal go through. That’s a deal that sounds like something a Mets fan would get laughed at for peddling on WFAN, not something Brian Cashman would agree to, no matter how desperate the Hated Yankees are for a center fielder and how well Cameron has hit this season and how much Joe Torre loved Cairo and even how willing the Mets might be to take on additional salary. Aside from the various quotes from Sheffield about how he won’t go anywhere, Sheffield is the Yankees’ third-best player at the moment, a career .298/.527/.400 hitter who shows no sign of slowing down, and the Mets could get him without parting with a pitcher or anybody under 30? That only makes sense if he’s in more hot water over the steroids issue than we know.
Would I do the deal if it was offered, were I the Mets? Of course. The Mets lose nothing from their ability to win in the future, and greatly help their odds to win now. But it’s not gonna happen. George wouldn’t green-light something that carries such a large risk of looking bad at the expense of the Mets.

Fatina Abdrabboh – Fit to Print?

In case you missed it, the NY Times ran the most ridiculous op-ed piece I think I have ever seen last week; a woman named Fatina Abdrabboh (apparently a student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, naturally) wrote, from Cambridge, Mass., about how

[T]he Muslim headscarf, or hijab, that I wear makes me feel as if I am under a microscope. I try to go to the gym just about every morning. Because I work out with my scarf on, people stare – just as they do on the streets of Cambridge.

Then she described how upset she got watching the news in the gym:

Every television in the gym highlighted some aspect of America’s conflict with the Muslim world: the war in Iraq, allegations that American soldiers had desecrated the Koran, prisoner abuse at Guantánamo Bay, President Bush urging support of the Patriot Act. The stares just intensified my alienation as an Arab Muslim in what is supposed to be my country. I was not sure if the blood rushing to my head was caused by the elliptical trainer or by the news coverage.
Frustrated and angry, I moved to another part of the gym. I got on a treadmill and started running as hard as I could. As sweat dripped down my face, I reached for my towel, accidentally dropping my keys in the process. It was a small thing, I know, but as they slid down the rolling belt and fell to the carpet, my faith in the United States seemed to fall with them. I did not care to pick them up. I wanted to keep running.

But wait! Her faith in the nation was restored by an act of staggering heroism:

Suddenly a man, out of breath, but still smiling and friendly, tapped me on my shoulder and said, “Ma’am, here are your keys.” It was Al Gore, former vice president of the United States. Mr. Gore had gotten off his machine behind me, picked up my keys, handed them to me and then resumed his workout.
It was nothing more than a kind gesture, but at that moment Mr. Gore’s act represented all that I yearned for – acceptance and acknowledgment.
There in front of me, he stood for a part of America that has not made itself well known to 10 million Arab and Muslim-Americans, many of whom are becoming increasingly withdrawn and reclusive because of the everyday hostility they feel.
It is up to us as Americans to change how the rest of the world views us by changing how we view some of our own citizens. Mr. Gore’s act reminded me that rather than running away on my treadmill, I needed to keep my feet on the soil in this country. I left the gym with a renewed sense of spirit, reassured that I belong to America and that America belongs to me.

You should read the whole thing, although I’ve excerpted almost all of it as is; there’s so little there it’s amazing that a reputable college newspaper would find room for this piffle, let alone the New York Times (one staggers to think of all the worthwhile things written in the blogosphere last week that NYT readers would never learn about while they publish the likes of this). Chris Lynch and Jonah Goldberg make appropriate mockery of various aspects of the column (links via Lyford). Ankle Biting Pundits had some more serious background on the numerous times that Fatina Abdrabboh – presumably the same one – had been quoted in the media complaining about perceived ill-treatment in the U.S., particularly on account of her headscarf; it’s a must-read.
I had a few thoughts of my own:
1. Isn’t it, um, kind of dangerous to bend down on a treadmill while wearing a headscarf? Am I the only one who thought this was a tort case waiting to happen? (A scene at the end of “The Incredibles” comes to mind, if you’ve seen it).
2. In most Muslim countries, wouldn’t a woman working out on a treadmill in gym full of men (well, one man, at least) attract quite a lot more than some unusual stares? Like, say, rocks?
3. On the other hand, back in Al Gore’s home state of Tennessee, most women would not consider a man performing a simple act of courtesy like picking up a set of keys to be sufficiently newsworthy to justify writing to the New York Times about it. Whether that’s a comment on men in Cambridge or the men Ms. Abdrabboh grew up around, I leave to you.
4. As my wife pointed out, if people in Cambridge stare at her, it’s probably just because she doesn’t have green hair and a pin through her nose.

Not His Year

It is officially time to worry about Keith Foulke. After last night’s debacle, Foulke has a 6.03 ERA and the numbers to back it up – he’s allowed 8 homers and 14 walks in 37.1 innings, compared to 8 and 15 in 83 innings last year. His K/9 are down to less than 7 from close to 9. This is now past the point of “bad start” to “bad year,” and maybe then some. I have to wonder if he’s physically 100%.

What Ails The Yankees

As you will recall, my preseason Established Win Shares Levels analysis concurred with the general consensus that the Hated Yankees had the most talented team in the American League. But the 2005 season has thus far had other plans for the Yanks. Over at The Hardball Times, we can look at the semi-current (through last Thursday, when they were 37-34) Win Shares totals for the Yankees. Where have they gone wrong? Let’s compare the EWSL totals, projected over a 71 game season, to the Yankees’ actual Win Shares through 71 games to identify the culprits. First, the non-pitchers:

Pos Age Player EWSL WS WSAB +/-
C 33 Jorge Posada 7 9 4 +2
1B 37 Tino Martinez 5 4 1 -1
2B 35 Tony Womack 4 2 -3 -2
SS 31 Derek Jeter 9 10 4 +1
3B 29 Alex Rodriguez 12 15 9 +3
RF 31 Hideki Matsui 9 10 5 +1
CF 36 Bernie Williams 7 4 0 -3
LF 36 Gary Sheffield 11 16 11 +5
DH 34 Jason Giambi 7 5 2 -2
C2 37 John Flaherty 1 0 -2 -1
INF 37 Rey Sanchez 2 0 0 -2
OF 39 Ruben Sierra 3 2 1 -1
INF 27 Damian Rolls 1 0 0 -1
2B 22 Robinson Cano 3 0 +3
OF 28 Bubba Crosby 0 -1 0
TOT 78 80 31 +2

WSAB is a measure of marginal Win Shares against the number expected of a replacement-level player with a similar amount of playing time. I included it here so you can see which guys are falling short of their EWSL due to poor quality play vs. lack of playing time. I included one player here (Damian Rolls) who I had projected in the preseason but hasn’t played, and two (Crosby and Cano) I didn’t project who have. Of course, adding one extra player means the team should come in a bit ahead of its preseason numbers.
As you can see, while the Yankee lineup has some problems – principally the aging support players Giambi, Bernie, Tino and Womack falling short of even their modest, age-adjusted expectations – the Yanks have more than covered this by getting greater even than expected performance from their stars, notably Sheffield, A-Rod and Posada.
You know what that means. The pitchers:

Pos Age Player EWSL WS WSAB +/-
SP1 41 Randy Johnson 7 6 2 -1
SP2 36 Mike Mussina 5 6 3 +1
SP3 29 Carl Pavano 5 2 -1 -3
SP4 40 Kevin Brown 4 2 0 -2
SP5 29 Jaret Wright 3 -1 -2 -4
CL 35 Mariano Rivera 4 6 3 +2
R2 37 Tom Gordon 4 3 2 -1
R3 36 Paul Quantrill 3 0 -1 -3
R4 32 Felix Rodriguez 2 0 0 -2
R5 38 Mike Stanton 2 0 0 -2
SP 25 Chien-Ming Wang 3 2 +3
RP 34 Tanyon Sturtze 3 1 +3
RP 39 Buddy Groom 1 0 +1
SP 24 Sean Henn 0 -1 0
TOT 39 31 8 -8

There you have it: a falloff of 15 Win Shares (5 whole wins) from the guys who were counted before the season, and a net loss of 8 Win shares (almost 3 wins) even including the guys who weren’t counted. The damage was mainly done at the back of the rotation and bullpen: Mussina at +1 and Randy Johnson at -1 vs. their expected Win Shares are actually a wash, and Mariano, like the stars in the lineup, is doing his best to carry the stragglers. But Pavano, Brown, Wright, Quantrill, Stanton and Felix Rodriguez at -16 are just killing the Yanks; all that money spent on added pitching depth in the offseason went straight down the tubes.
Looking at these numbers also reassured me that my age adjustments weren’t too harsh, and in some cases were too mild: the eight Yankees age 37 and over are at a net loss of 11 Win Shares against even their diminished expectations.

Why I Love Justice Scalia

Yet another example, from the broadband case; in dissent, Justice Scalia explains why cable modem dealers are obviously selling telecom services:

I agree (to adapt the Court’s example . . . ) that it would be odd to say that a car dealer is in the business of selling steel or carpets because the cars he sells include both steel frames and carpeting. Nor does the water company sell hydrogen, nor the pet store water (though dogs and cats are largely water at the molecular level). But what is sometimes true is not, as the Court seems to assume, always true. There are instances in which it is ridiculous to deny that one part of a joint offering is being offered merely because it is not offered on a “‘stand-alone'” basis.
If, for example, I call up a pizzeria and ask whether they offer delivery, both common sense and common “usage,” would prevent them from answering: “No, we do not offer delivery – but if you order a pizza from us, we’ll bake it for you and then bring it to your house.” The logical response to this would be something on the order of, “so, you do offer delivery.” But our pizza-man may continue to deny the obvious and explain, paraphrasing the FCC and the Court: “No, even though we bring the pizza to your house, we are not actually ‘offering’ you delivery, because the delivery that we provide to our end users is ‘part and parcel’ of our pizzeria-pizza-at-home service and is ‘integral to its other capabilities.'” [The myth that the pizzeria does not offer delivery becomes even more difficult to maintain when the pizzeria advertises quick delivery as one of its advantages over competitors. That, of course, is the case with cable broadband.] Any reasonable customer would conclude at that point that his interlocutor was either crazy or following some too-clever-by-half legal advice.

(Emphasis in original; citations omitted, footnote in brackets).
I have no idea if I even agree with Justice Scalia’s preferred resolution of the case, but you have to love the way he frames an argument.

Looper Blows It

Not much to add to last night’s bitterly disappointing missed opportunity to sweep the Hated Yankees while they were playing defense like a beer league softball team that had gotten out of shape over the winter. Braden Looper just blew it, with a little help from David Wright not guarding the line with a man on first, nobody out and a 1-run lead in the bottom of the 9th. Looper’s not a terrible closer and he’s not a particularly expensive one, but he’s definitely not a positive in his role.

Why They Will Lose

Good Max Boot effort setting out the major reasons why the insurgency can’t and won’t win. His points about the lack of a leader and lack of territory are significant, and you would hope that the ex-Baathists and other misguided nationalists in the movement would begin to realize that they are playing a losing hand.
On the other hand, neither factor would prevent the country from slipping into civil war or just plain chaos, which may be the real goal here. The problem, especially with regard to the foreign jihadis, is the extent to which war with America is an end in itself. The problem with fighting nihilists is that you can’t take their nothing away from them. The best we can do on that score is (1) as Boot suggests, do a better job of sealing the Syrian border and (2) keep preparing the Iraqi military to carryu on the fight, since the real endgame for us here is having an Iraqi force willing and able to defend its own territory.
UPDATE: I do think the time will come when we will want and need a fixed exit date from Iraq, once we feel that the Iraqi forces are ready (just as we had fixed dates for the transfer of sovereignty and the Iraqi elections). But setting such a date more than a few months in advance of that day would be a disaster, for reasons Chester explains. And setting an October 2006 date – transparently linked to the 2006 Congressional elections rather than the facts on the ground – would be nothing but politics.

Krugman on Ohio

I had meant to link to Don Luskin’s brutal takedown of Paul Krugman’s article on scandals with the pension funds in Ohio; Krugman’s mendacity in spinning the news to create falsely negative impressions about Republicans is pretty boundless. (Via Maguire). Of course, the real scandal here isn’t the perfidy of Republican politicians and businessmen or the perfidy of Democratic politicians and businessmen or even (as Luskin suggests) the distorting effects of racial preferences; the real issue is that big giant honey pots of other people’s money are being invested by politicians and people appointed by politicians. That’s a dangerous trend and one that GOP reformers should crusade against at the state and federal levels. I hope Arnold succeeds in changing that in California.

Hot Water?

The Wall Street Journal ($) and CNN report on what could be big news in my neck of the woods:

Federal prosecutors are investigating one of the nation’s most aggressive class-action law firms, Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, for alleged fraud, conspiracy and kickbacks in scores of securities lawsuits, and could seek criminal charges against the firm itself and its principals.
The three-year investigation focuses on allegations that the New York-based firm routinely made secret, illegal payments to plaintiffs who appeared on securities class-action lawsuits brought by the firm, according to court documents and lawyers close to the case. A grand jury in Los Angeles convened last October has been hearing evidence of alleged illegal payments in dozens of suits filed against oil, biotechnology, drug and chemical companies during the past 20 years, the lawyers close to the case said.
Prosecutors offered a glimpse of the broad investigation in an indictment filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday against a single plaintiff, Seymour M. Lazar, a retired Palm Springs, Calif., entertainment lawyer who is 78 years old.

[snip]

The indictment alleges that Mr. Lazar or a member of his family appeared as a plaintiff in more than 50 Milberg Weiss securities cases during a period running from 1981 to 2004. Mr. Lazar and family members together received more than $2.4 million in secret payments from the law firm, the government charges. During this period, Milberg Weiss earned at least $44 million in legal fees from cases in which Mr. Lazar or a family member was a plaintiff, according to the indictment.
Investigators allege that Mr. Lazar was illegally promised a share in the legal fees that would result from the cases in which he was a plaintiff, according to the indictment. Named plaintiffs in class-action cases can’t have a special interest or concealed inducements beyond others in the class.


[snip]

Most of the cases being investigated were filed before a [1995] change in the law [i.e., the Private Securities Litigation Rerform Act] altered the way law firms jockeyed for the lead in class-action cases. Previously, the first to file a case was assigned the lead, allowing it to control the case and win the highest fees. As a result, many law firms kept a stable of clients to help launch suits quickly. Today, courts usually decide which firm will be given the lead role based on expertise, resources and increasingly, the lowest fees.

Political Math

Diane Ravitch has another of her infuriating exposes of politicization of education:

Partisans of social-justice mathematics advocate an explicitly political agenda in the classroom. A new textbook, “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers,” shows how problem solving, ethnomathematics and political action can be merged. Among its topics are: “Sweatshop Accounting,” with units on poverty, globalization and the unequal distribution of wealth. Another topic, drawn directly from ethnomathematics, is “Chicanos Have Math in Their Blood.” Others include “The Transnational Capital Auction,” “Multicultural Math,” and “Home Buying While Brown or Black.” Units of study include racial profiling, the war in Iraq, corporate control of the media and environmental racism. . . .Teachers are supposed to vary the teaching of mathematics in relation to their students’ race, sex, ethnicity and community. . .
It seems terribly old-fashioned to point out that the countries that regularly beat our students in international tests of mathematics do not use the subject to steer students into political action. They teach them instead that mathematics is a universal language that is as relevant and meaningful in Tokyo as it is in Paris, Nairobi and Chicago. The students who learn this universal language well will be the builders and shapers of technology in the 21st century. The students in American classes who fall prey to the political designs of their teachers and professors will not.

The mischief just never ends, does it?

Home Sweet Home

The Wall Street Journal had an entertaining article Friday ($) about how home teams screw around with the schedule to have more night games on getaway days, leaving the visitors to depart bleary-eyed; apparently this has become a particularly common tactic in an escalating war of minor indignities fought between the Devil Rays and the Hated Yankees.
The NY Times also had an interesting article – no longer web-available – on the question of what to call the Mets’ new stadium, which presumably will not be named after William Shea, the lawyer who brought National League baseball back to New York. Of course, Shea’s family has no cause to complain (as, mostly, they don’t) – it was honor enough that the Mets played in a park bearing his name for four decades, and that five four World Serieses (the four by the Mets plus 1976) were played there, and one All-Star Game.
UPDATE: Dr. Manhattan reminds me that Yankee Stadium was, in fact, open in time for the 1976 World Series.
As I should have noted, the candidates for a new Mets stadium name would be either Jackie Robinson Stadium or a corporate sponsor. I’m fine with a corporate sponsor as long as it is (1) not something ridiculous (I think my favorite, from college football, is the infamous Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl), and (2) not a bank, telecom company or other company likely to change its name every three years.

Vinny No Go

Vinny Castilla, month by month:

Month AVG SLG OBP OPS
April .347 .613 .395 1008
May .245 .327 .339 666
June .176 .257 .215 472

Yup, after that hot start, Castilla has been worse than worthless. Another reason why my Hacking MASS team over at Baseball Prospectus has surged to #65 out of 1,859 teams. My roster:

Position Player 2005 ESPN
Catcher Mike Matheny 10
First Base Darin Erstad 19
Second Base Tony Womack 71
Third Base Vinny Castilla 25
Shortstop Alex Gonzalez 22
Left Field Scott Podsednik 23
Center Field Marquis Grissom 36
Right Field Jacque Jones 8
Pitcher 1 Jose Lima 97
Pitcher 2 Russ Ortiz 49
Total 360

The interesting question is whether the Nationals will eventually bail out on Castilla. Naturally, the hot April has made it that much harder to do.

Anyone But Her?

I got the following email from the Republican National Committee on Thursday:

As we’ve all come to see through this year’s debate, the current Social Security system is financially unsustainable for future generations of Americans. We need to make sure when our children and grandchildren retire, they will receive the benefit that today’s retirees currently enjoy. The problem is, every year we wait will cost $600 billion more to fix the problem.
We need to pass Social Security reform this year and we need your help today.
Will you call Sen. Charles Schumer at 202-224-6542 today and ask them to reform Social Security now?
Since his State of the Union speech in February, President Bush has shown remarkable leadership by traveling the country, talking to Americans about the challenges facing Social Security and the need for personal accounts to be a part of that solution. Simply put, personal accounts will help secure Social Security for future generations and allow younger Americans to grow a nest egg they own and can pass on to whomever they want. Democrats have done nothing but obstruct the President’s plan and offer no solutions of their own. This type of attitude will do nothing to solve a problem Americans realize is getting worse every day.
Soon, Congress will start drafting legislation to make sure Social Security remains solvent for our children and grandchildren in the future. Call Sen. Charles Schumer at 202-224-6542. Tell them now is the time to come to the table with real ideas on how to fix Social Security. Also let Sen. Charles Schumer know that you’re tired of the Democrats’ obstructionism when it comes to Social Security. Our children and grandchildren deserve better and Democrats must stop their partisan obstructionism.
Then sign our petition to show your support for the President and Republican’s efforts to fix Social Security.
Sincerely,
Ken Mehlman
Chairman, RNC

(Emphasis added). Now, this is obviously a national form letter in which the RNC inserts the names of your local Senator and/or Congressperson. But I have two Democratic Senators, not one. Did the RNC decide that registered Republicans would be so averse to having the RNC ask them to call Hillary Clinton that they just left her off the list?

Ode to the Instalanche

Bubblehead:
“‘Twas the day after Sunday, and all through my site,
Not a visitor was active, not getting a bite;
My posts had been writ with the greatest of care,
In the hopes that some comments would fill up dead air;
“My referrers log empty, most bloggers would scoff,
My visions of blogofame seemed quite far off;
No trolls came to visit, leaving posts in ALL CAPS,
So I settled my head for a sorrowful nap;
“But now my Sitemeter spun faster and faster,
I clicked “referred by”, thinking ‘who’s the spam blaster’;
When what to my bloodshot, wet eyes should be seen,
but “instapundit.com” that was filling the screen;
“Much faster than spambots the linkers they came,
I shouted and yelled as I called out their names:
‘Oh Billy, oh Steven, oh Cut On the Bias,
Daimnation, Yay Chrenkoff, Atlas Shrugs, and the Argghhh!!! guys,
From the depths of all blogdom and blogrolls so small,
Now link away, link away, link away all!'”
via Ninme

That’s Your Daddy

Well, Pedro quieted the howling masses at Yankee Stadium tonight, with a little help from two great center fielders and some horrible defense by the Hated Yankees. You know, the whole “who’s your daddy” chant is just tiresome. And worse: it’s a clear message that you should never show respect for the Yankees, because it will just get rammed back down your throat for the rest of your career. Good riddance, for one night, at least.

Decision Time

I was down this road last week, but I thought it would be worth revisiting in more detail today. The Mets through 72 games now stand 35-37. Does that mean that this team is going to finish around .500, let alone contend? Hardly, given recent history:

Year Thru 72 After
1991 39-33 38-51
1992 36-37 37-53
2002 37-35 38-51
2003 33-39 33-56
2004 36-36 35-55
2005 35-37
Avg 36-36 36-53

The “average” does not include 2005. Clearly, this Mets team the past three years, like the early-90s Mets, has shown the ability to hang around for about half a season and then run off the rails. Now, with the NL East as close as it is, it would be silly to run up the white flag today. But Mets management needs to be preparing in every way for the possibility that, by the time mid/late July rolls around, they will be dealing from the position of a team rebuilding for 2006-07, rather than contending. That means putting people like Floyd and Cameron and Glavine on the table.
Specifically, a final decision will have to be made on the Mets’ scheduled off-day of Monday, July 18. Counting the just-completed series in which the Mets took 2 out of 3 from Philadelphia, the Mets are in a stretch where they play 17 of 23 games between June 21 and July 17 against their own division, culminating with a 4-game set at Shea against the Braves. To my mind, they need to win at least 11 of those in-division games, while at least splitting the other 6, if they are going to be anything like serious contenders the rest of the way; otherwise, they are just treading water. Of course, if – like last season – the team suddenly runs off the rails the last 10 days of July, they should reconsider any effort to make trades to help in 2005. But by preparing themselves mentally and emotionally now to play for the bigger game later, Mets management can help avoid a repeat of last season’s futile panic deals near the deadline.

Does Whatever A Spivey Can

On a gut level, I liked the Nationals’ gamble in dealing Tomo Ohka for Junior Spivey, at least as far as the fact that Ohka has been playing with fire thus far this year and is likely to crash and burn.
As for Spivey, he’s a lot less impressive than he seemed a few years ago. But he may have a role. The righthanded hitting Spivey, for his career, is batting .305/.568/.409 against lefthanded pitching, as opposed to .257/.379/.331 against righties. If Spivey is used as a role player, he can be spotted more against lefties.
Of course, dealing a starting pitcher, even a combustible one, for a role-playing infielder isn’t usually a long-term winning strategy. But if Frank Robinson uses Spivey properly, he can get the most out of this deal.

Quick Links 6/23/05

*Mike Lupica on Steinbrenner’s decline with age. I’m not the biggest fan of the “he’s being manipulated by his advisers” genre, with its inevitable vilification of some advisers and hosannas to others (i.e., sources). But Lupica does convincingly argue that George just isn’t the same.
*The real corruption in Ronnie Earle’s pursuit of supporters of Tom DeLay.
*Captain Ed notes Jaques Chirac bending on agricultural subsidies, one of France’s most intransigent and damaging policies. It’s worth considering as well this manifesto from the EU Referendum blog, setting out why “Euroscepticism” is about democratic accountability, which is under seige throughout the Western world.
*Cat got your tongue? Or the other way around? There’s tough and then there’s tough.
*Why do men with stay at home wives make more money? This article overlooks two possibilities: (1) Men who are married with stay at home wives have an increased incentive/need to work hard; (2) Women are more likely to stay at home if they have a reasonable expectation that their husband will make enough money to support them.
*This lawsuit, demanding a constitutional right for felons to vote, seems unlikely to go anywhere. (Via Bashman). The Fourteenth Amendment itself, for example, explicitly contemplates that states will deny felons the right to vote:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

*Bush is interviewing candidates for the Supreme Court. Via Bashman.
*Interesting point about Dick Durbin’s pressure points.
*The Onion sees Hollywood’s future. In your heart, you know it’s true. In fact, we’re already there.

Quick Links 6/22/05

*So, we’ve been giving trials to the Guantanamo inmates all along?
*Patterico notes the final insult from Michael Schiavo.
*Chrenkoff has a visual roundup of the Coalition of the Willing. (Via Winds)
*If this Mitt Romney broadside against “people within our country, and most of them are Democrats, who take delight in attacking our own country, and the way we treat people” isn’t a sign that Romney is running for president instead of running for re-election in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, I don’t know what would be.
*WaPo thinks Alberto Gonzales may have the inside track to replace Rehnquist.
*The Third Rule of War. Via INDC.
*The National Taxpayers Union wants our money back from Senators who didn’t show up for work last year. Just wait until 2008.
*Profile of political consultant Mike Murphy. Romney’s association with Murphy worries me – his candidates never seem to have a coherent philosophy or much of a policy program.
*Joe Katzman has some helpful thoughts on same-sex marriage and its place in the larger marriage debate, with links; I should return to Katzman’s points at some point.

Dumping DeJean

I’m not sure there are easily fox-able answers to what ails the Mets at the moment – especially the lack of a second baseman – but I do know at least a few things that will help and a few that won’t.
Do:
1. Dump Mike Dejean, as the Mets did last night. The Mets have a bevy of young pitchers with potential upside – Heilman, Seo, Bell, Ring, Koo. Each of them has some reason to believe they could pitch effectively in the majors now or very soon. And even Manny Aybar has posted great K/BB ratios. DeJean, alone among the bullpen crew (since the departure of Felix Heredia) offered no cause for optimism. Might as well at least see what the kids can do backing up Looper and the rejuvenated Roberto Hernandez.
2. More Daubach, which we’re starting to see. Brian Daubach’s nothing special, but Minky has been so totally lost at the plate that you need to try somebody with a little power.
3. Get Reyes out of the top of the lineup. Reyes in the lineup every day is a good thing despite his low OBPs; he can hit for a good average (despite recent slumps), give you extra base power, speed and defense, and he’s learning and improving. But there’s no rational excuse for a guy with a .280-ish OBP (lowest in the majors over the past year) batting ahead of the big boppers. At this point, I’d just set the table with Cameron and Wright.
4. Replace Ishii with Heilman. Ishii’s just not getting the job done. I don’t know if he can hack it in the bullpen, but the more important thing is getting starts from guys who can keep you in the game.
Don’t:
1. Boo Beltran. Really, do we need another Bonilla or George Foster situation with a guy with a seven-year contract? Beltran’s yet to get really hot, but he was hitting at about 80-90% of his expected production until he got hurt. When healthy, Beltran will be fine. As is, he’s batting .327/.561/.385 with men on base, .306/.486/.375 from the seventh inning on, and .417/.722/.447 in the late innings of a close game. Can you say “clutch”? Give the guy a break.
2. Fire Willie Randloph.. Rookie managers have to learn, and by all appearances Randolph has handled the “respect of the players” part of the job well, and has done some things (like sticking Heilman out there) that have paid dividends. But if he’s going to succeed long term, he really needs to show he understands the basics by getting Reyes out of the top of the order; he’s finally at least taken the first step by dropping him to #2 lately.

Who Died at Gitmo?

One of the unfortunate ironies of the furor over Guantanamo Bay (as noted here) is that, while over 100 prisoners have died in U.S. custody, approximately 27 under suspicious or questionable circumstances, there do not appear to have been any deaths at Guantanamo Bay. A fact confirmed by Dick Durbin himself:

Q: I guess one of the reasons people are having such a hard time with this one, is when comparisons are made and you use names like Nazis and Soviet gulags, when you are talking Nazis there were what, 9 million people killed in the camps there. The gulags had about 3 million and so forth. And I know Gitmo is not the Holiday Inn down there, but I don’t think anyone has died down there, have they?
Durbin: No, that’s true. In all fairness, they did not. But I don’t believe we were dealing with deaths at Abu Ghraib either. We were dealing with a situation where when people saw the digital camera photographs, they said “My God! Americans should not be involved in that kind of conduct.”

He’s Dead, Jim

Joe Biden becomes the first to don the red shirt for 2008.
I like Biden in some ways; he’s certainly more likeable than Kerry (faint praise, indeed), is prone to occasional bouts of candor, and at least seems to have given some thought to serious foreign policy issues, although his instincts are erratic at best. But he clearly suffers from the same classic Senate combination of inflated self-importance, windbaggery and inconstancy that has damaged the presidential runs of Kerry and so many others; he’s the textbook Senate “show horse.” Plus, he may have the worst hair in American politics, which is not going to help.

Denial

June 15, 2005 editorial in the leading Egyptian government daily Al-Akhbar:

All the evidence proves that Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi is working for America, because his victims are Iraqis and not [members of] the coalition forces under the command of the American occupation forces in Iraq. . . .
Let’s read the statement issued two days ago on behalf of Al-Zarqawi in Iraq after he killed and wounded dozens of people from among the Interior Ministry and Iraqi army forces, by means of booby-trapped cars in a number of cities in Iraq!
Raising a few questions is unavoidable in order to clarify the situation and [to understand] who this Al-Zarqawi with Jordanian nationality is.
One of the questions is: which of the two should Al-Zarqawi oppose – the American occupation army and the foreign coalition forces, or the Iraqi military and police forces?! The statement issued by Al-Zarqawi and his organization says that they struck and killed dozens of [members of] the Interior Ministry and Iraqi army forces, whereas there was no mention of Al-Zarqawi targeting the American occupation forces and the coalition forces of the various nationalities. [In fact,] the statement did not even mention the occupation army in Iraq!

[snip]

[W]hy is Al-Zarqawi massacring innocent Iraqi citizens and [members of] the Iraqi National Guard, the Iraqi army and the Iraqi Interior Ministry? Al-Zarqawi undeniably aims to harm the Iraqi people and members of the Iraqi forces, who undergo training to protect [their] homeland in the future. This massacre of the Iraqi forces and the Iraqi people is meant to strengthen the American occupation of the region . . .

You could call this more evidence of paranoid anti-Americanism from a nominal ally, Egypt. But is there more to this? After all, if you read between the lines here, the Egyptians are (1) denouncing al-Zarqawi for attacking Iraqis, (2) noting the obvious fact that any violence in Iraq only serves to prolong the U.S. military presence, and (3) going out of its way to note that Zarqawi is a (Jordanian) foreigner attacking Iraqis. Baby steps, cloaked in the language of baroque conspiracy theory, but steps in the right direction nonetheless, perhaps.

Harmonic Convergence of Wingnuttery & Moonbattery

Crazy gay-bashing preacher Fred Phelps has taken to disrupting the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq:

A Kansas preacher and gay rights foe whose congregation is protesting military funerals around the country said he’s coming to Idaho tomorrow to picket the memorial for an Idaho National Guard soldier killed in Iraq.
A flier on the Web site of Pastor Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church claims God killed Cpl. Carrie French with an improvised explosive device in retaliation against the United States for a bombing at Phelps’ church six years ago.

UPDATE: This guy has pictures. What loathesome characters.

Sunnis Accept Compromise

This NY Times report seems like it should have been a bigger deal:

Iraqi political leaders broke weeks of deadlock on Thursday, with Sunni Arabs accepting a compromise offer to increase their representation on the Shiite-led parliamentary committee that is to draft a constitution.
The agreement was a significant step forward in Iraq’s political process, which has been mired in arguments between Shiite and Sunni Arabs over how many Sunnis to include on the committee. Still, it fell short of being final, as political leaders have not yet agreed which Sunnis would be chosen as members.
The offer – 15 additional seats and 10 adviser positions for Sunni Arabs – was first made last week, but was rejected by many Sunnis, who said they wanted more seats. Since then, Shiite committee members sweetened the offer, saying the committee would approve the new constitution by consensus and not by vote, making the precise number of seats held by each group less important.

Time to declare victory? Of course not. But seeing as how “we need Sunni participation” is the gripe du jour of the anti-war crowd, it’s encouraging to see another hurdle cleared.