Back after a long hiatus

I'm not sure if I am going to be posting often here, or at all for that matter. Just popped in to reclaim my account from an old email, and thought might write a post just for old times sake.

iamcool388

Supreme Court Vacancy?

There are rumors about an upcoming Supreme Court Vacancy. Justice Stevens is all set to step down at the end of this term of SCOTUS. However, according to many sites, it is possible that if Justice Stevens decides to NOT retire, Justice Souter might step down. He is known to dislike DC and, according to people who know him, wants nothing more than to live in his hometown in New Hampshire.

So much for the background. Hopefully there will be 2 vacancies, possibly 1, but most probably this is all speculation. Either ways, these are the people i would like to be nominated for these seats. Any of these would make me happy.

1.

Miguel Estrada: Just to stick it to the democrats, who filibustered him for years before he withdrew his nomination to the DC COA. His qualifications are top-notch (Magna Cum Laude from both Columbia and Harvard Law School) and he is well known as one of his generations best supreme court advocates. He is friends with Ann Coulter (which goes a long way with me) and is hated by Schumer, Leahy, Durbin et al. It would be fun to watch Dems try to filibuster him in the spotlight of a SCOTUS hearing, where it would be much more difficult for them to demonize Estrada. Of course, according to memos from Democrat staffers, we now know that the main reason Estrada was filibustered in the first place was because the Dems knew he was hispanic (as well as conservative - He is known as Little Bork, or Hispanic Bork). Cant let a Republican President appoint a hispanic to the SCOTUS, now can we? Miguel Estrada would be a dream nominee. While he makes sense politically as well as ideologically, i doubt Bush has the courage to nominate him. Plus apparently he did not shine in his hearings like nominees nowadays are expected to (John Roberts and Samuel Alito's public approval numbers went up after the hearings). But it should be kept in mind, he was one of the first people to be filibustered, and was probably not prepared for the vitriol. He will be this time.

2.

Janice Rogers Brown: Another nominee for the DC COA who was filibustered by the democrats. Her life story is extremely impressive, a single mom who grew up in a family of sharecroppers in segregated Alabama and supported herself through Law School. (I think the single mom part is true, but dont quote me on that. My memory might be playing tricks with me.) It does not hurt that she is African-American and a libertarian, although in my view this makes it unlikely that she would be nominated by Bush -- she is wary of executive power and near liberal on some issues, ex criminal sentencing. But i am very impressed with her courage (which reaches Clarence Thomas like levels) and her eloquence. Her speeches are an absolute joy to read (A whiter shade of pale and Fifty ways to lose your freedom) She would be a great addition to SCOTUS, but is probably a pipe dream.

3.

Michael Luttig : A conservative superstar. He is only 51 and served for about 15 years on the 4th Circuit. He recently retired and is now the General Counsel for Boeing. According to people in the know, his retirement was due to 2 reasons. One of them was being overlooked THRICE for a SCOTUS nomination, even though he was the absolute favorite pick of most conservatives, including Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas (How could it not hurt being overlooked for Miers?). The other one was being betrayed by the administration after giving them one of the biggest victories in their War On Terror cases (I believe it was the Padilla case.) Maybe he didnt like being hoodwinked/lied to/misled. Anyways, he wrote an absolute scorcher of a denial for transferring Padilla from military to civilian custody. Since he knew he'd burnt his bridges with the Bush Administration after this decision, he decided to move on to Boeing and make some money, especially now that his kids are approaching college age. In my view, this might actually work out in his, and Bush's, favor. Bush can nominate him and at least this would give the impression of him picking someone with whom he has had MAJOR disagreements. And can you imagine the intellectual firepower of a clique on SCOTUS which consists of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Luttig? (I dont consider Kennedy to be conservative, because though he reaches conservative decisions more often than liberal ones, he is more unprincipled in his philosophy than the others.) Thomas and Scalia have both almost always picked up Luttig's clerks (Luttig is the number one feeder judge to SCOTUS by far. I believe 43 of his 45 clerks went on to clerk on SCOTUS!) And he was Best Man at Roberts wedding, and they are supposed to be best friends. The only reason why he cannot be nominated is because... well, he has white skin.

4.

Robert Bork : First, yes, he has no chance in hell of being nominated. But he was, and still is, by far the best qualified nominee a conservative president can appoint to the SCOTUS. A legal giant by all standards, he is acknowledged to be perhaps the best legal mind of the last few decades. Justice Stevens, who is the most liberal member of SCOTUS, publicly supported Bork's nomination to the court in 1987, calling him "perhaps the most qualified person ever to be nominated to the Supreme Court." This whole politicization of the confirmation process started with Bork. Teddy Kennedy's "Roberts Bork's America..." speech has entered folklore (It can be found in the dictionary in the entry titled 'Hate Speech.' Heh.) If we were serious about putting the most qualified candidate on the court, period, Bork would be a lock. However, considerations about age, personality, confirmability and weird facial hair make his nomination about as likely as my own. His nomination would cause Teddy Kennedy's head to explode, so if you see Bush joking about Bork being the next nominee, now you know why.

5.

Paul Clement : My home-run pick. Sure, he would be the third white male nominated in a row, but if Bush is serious about making the court return to its original role, I cannot find a person who fits all the required criteria better than Paul Clement. His qualifications boggle the mind. Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown, a Master's degree in Econ from Cambridge, and then a Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School. Oh, and he was also Supreme Court editor for Harvard Law Review and a star debater. His arguments in front of SCOTUS as the Solicitor General regularly draw gasps of admiration from masters of the field. He argues without notes, is impeccably prepared and is known for his comfort in front of the justices (and cameras). He clerked for Judge Silberman on DC COA and then Justice Scalia. He has worked with Ken Starr and John Ashcroft, not to mention his defense of the legal positions of the Bush administration. It will be almost unimaginable that he is not universally hated by the democrats and liberals, and yet he seems to be genuinely liked by all people who come in contact with him (If only Bork was like this!) His conservativeness is beyond question, his intelligence on a level of its own, and his qualifications are better than the best.

There are many more candidates who are worth spending political capital on. Michael McConnell has been a great advocate of Originalist jurisprudence and is respected by both sides of the academia. He will be a legend on the court, no doubt about it. Edith Jones is, well, radioactive. But she is the most qualified woman when it comes to jurisprudence. Her record speaks for itself. There is Frank Easterbrook, who would be a great addition to the court. He is probably the 2nd most influential COA judge in the country after Judge Posner, who is probably going to join the ranks of Judge Learned Hand in being a truly great judge who was never elevated to the Supreme Court.Judge William Pryor would cause a meltdown in the Senate (Can you imagine a nominee calling Roe "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law", and furthermore refusing to back down from that statement when asked about it during his confirmation hearings? Pryor is that man. In fact, when asked whether he stood by this quote by Arlen Specter, he further stated,"I stand by that comment. I believe that not only is [Roe] unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution, but it has led to a morally wrong result. It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children." The GOP base would go wild if any of these ultra-qualified nominees were picked.

But again, they wont be picked. Because this White House is about as imaginative and risk taking as Miers was qualified. Which means its not. In place of these superstars, we would probably get Karen Williams, Diane Sykes, Maureen Mahoney or... sigh, Connie Callahan. I could live with the first two, Mahoney would be an underwhelming pick, and Callahan would lead to Republicans working on the "get out the vote" campaign of the democrats in 2006. What a waste of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Of course, I write as if a retirement is a done deal at the end of this term, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. I am basing this all on rumors i heard from people supposedly in the know. I guess we'll find out soon enough when the current term of SCOTUS ends.

Democraps

A cowboy was holding his herd in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban
sunglasses, YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formula. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant for the Democratic party," says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked; and you don't know anything about my business...

.....Now give me back my dog

I am a bloody racist.

I was called a "bloody racist" today by a person i considered to be a friend.

We need some context here. NYU College Republicans had a bake sale recently in which a cookie could be bought by a white male for 1 dollar... for a black male for .75... for a white female for .50 and a black female for .25. This was to highlight the inherent racism in Affirmative Action (Only its not called racism because its against whites and asians. Apparently racism is only against black people.)

We were talking about affirmative action... and my view was that in its current form it does not help black people as much as its supposed to... and in fact discriminates against other races. My idea to solve it was... since black people are treated leniently because they are supposed to be poor and discriminated against... and AA is supposed to meet their needs... lets change it to make it race blind and need based. Why should a rich black lawyers son have an advantage over a poor white farmers girl just because he is black? No one says black people are stupid but says its required because black people are generally more poor.

Well duh. Sure they are... but that does not mean that other poor people should not get through. Make it need based... and it would be a much fairer system addressing the needs of people with similar disadvantages.

You guys might be wondering why this political question is being answered here in my personal blog? Its because the person i was having this conversation with... i wont give out her name... kept repeating in response to my questions asking her to state her position that we have to start somewhere... that she didnt want to talk to me about it cuz i was close minded... cuz she didnt need to prove her point to anyone... and that she knew what was right and that was enough for her. I kept asking her to tell me... that i was willing to change my views and to learn... i asked her if i was missing something... i got no replies.

I must have asked about 10 times before i got a reply... "we must start somewhere"... and where does that take us? Nowhere. AA has been in existence long enough for its results to come out... and they are not as encouraging as you might believe. Lemme know if u would like to know more about this topic. Its controversial... but that doesnt mean it shouldnt be talked about. Its politically incorrect... but that doesnt mean it shouldnt be criticized.

Anyways... i was going to print our whole conversation... but i am not doing so for the following reasons.

1. It is too long to print here.
2. It has her aim screen name... and to remove that would mean i changed something... which i am not going to do (u will know why soon)
3. It has statements like these... which are direct quotes... only without her screen name

a) You are a bloody racist.

b) lol fuck the church..what i was saying was that that is a completely unrelated topic..why ru against blacks?

c) Have fun..and make sure you tell the world that you were right and i was wrong...i m sure that makes you extremely happy..good luck

d) Oh ya make sure you put this on ur weblog and delete all the parts where i am right so that everyone can "believe" that you proved me wrong.. (This was when i said i would put the conversation on my blog. Baseless attack on my integrity? Fear of being proven wrong? You choose what u want to believe - Piyush.)

This... and tons more. While this might make it seem that i was attacking her and her ideas... lemme point out right now that i could not do that since it was impossible. To attack her, i would need her to reply to my questions... to take a position on this issue... this she didnt want to do. She wouldnt tell me why she thought AA was a good idea. Here are a few quotes in which she tried to run away from the topic.

a) u keep believing that.. and i will believe what i want to believe..

b) i dont want you to change ur belief..i dont care about what you think..as long as i know what i believe

c) well if after the past hour u dont know what i believe there is no point in continuing ..lol

d) i dont need to..i dont have to prove a point to u

e) i am not trying to change ur "beliefs"

f) well i dont think we should continue this conversation..coz i dont want it to get personal. (This was way after the bloody racist remark -- Piyush.)

g) i allready answered that question and i dont need to repeat myself if you cant get it.. (She didnt. All she did was repeat you have got to start somewhere, even though i had proven what a bullshit argument that was -- Piyush.)

h) cool man..have fun thinking that everyone in this world believes or should believe in what you think is right..if that works for you..

i) i know this conversation is pointless so i dont know why you even want to continue it

j) go learn from someone else.. (This was after i told her i wanted to learn, and to teach/tell me her answer/point/argument -- Piyush.)

k) coz i am not interested in teaching someone who has no intention of changing his views or someone who has no intention of being open to someone else's views (Refer to 'a' and 'b' to see who has a closed mind -- Piyush.)

l) both of us know who here is not willing to change his/her view...and i am not talking to u to prove a point or have a competition about who can prove their beliefs..i dont even know why ur being so defensive. ( No idea where the defensive part comes from. Is asking questions defensive? -- Piyush.)

m) hah thats what you think about me..coz YOU dont know me ..as much as you would like to believe that you do (Err... no. I dont believe i know. Maybe that is why i was asking -- Piyush.)

n) ok i have a 6 page paper due soon so i dont really want to continue this conversation coz when you see that i answer one question you try to think of another question..this will go on and on..so i gtg

o) i didnt say anything coz i dont feel the need to say anything

p) i dont enjoying conversing with "close minded" people

q) omg is that all u were doin the whole time..trying to find stuff with which you could attack me..talk about out of context ( this was after i told her that i was offended by her calling me a bloody racist without any justification -- Piyush.)

r) ok cool..to each his own...to you it sounds kind ..to me it sounds racist.. (This was after i said the bake sale idea was correct to show that AA is racist. Selling cookies to black women for .25 is a good way of showcasing the problems with AA. Was that sale racist? Of course it is racist. Thats the whole point -- Piyush.)

I was in danger of running out of alphabets. Anyways.. you get the picture. If you dont trust these quotes or are worried about the context in which these were said, lemme know and i will send u the full transcript.

This is what friendship gets you. Intellectual debate is dead. Does friendship compel you to be always in agreement with your friends? I dont think so. My best friend in the world is communist. I am a hardcore capitalist. We have been best friends since we were in our diapers. That hasnt changed (Not the diaper part, the friendship part). We still have debates... and learn a lot from each other. THAT is friendship.

As for that girl... i told her to have fun in her life... and bid her the best of luck.

Just like intellectual debate... i guess that friendship is dead.

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P.S -- The post on domestic issues is coming soon.

State of the Union

This is my assessment of the State of the Union.

I am going to take it one topic at a time. We will start of with International anf foreign affairs topics and move later on to domestic affairs in my next post. While I have my reasons to be cynical about the propaganda being put out by both the parties, on the whole i am optimistic about the general path America is treading upon.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS :-

1) War On Terror : This is Pres. Bush's legacy. Twenty years from now, he will be remembered because of his uncompromising war on terror and their safe harbors. He has been hardcore and unapologetic about it which is fine with me. When people want to kill you it is not a good idea to try to appease them or fear that saying something politically incorrect will inflame tensions... because they ALREADY want to kill you.

Iraq is a success... despite what you hear on the news and read in the newspapers. I cannot recall any other war which was waged in (1) such a hostile country (2) for so long (3) with such less casualties. We captured Saddam Hussein and uncovered mass graves which purportedly hold more than 300,000 bodies. Thats one hell of a dictator. If nothing else... the Iraqi elections alone have done more to justify Bush than any other single event.

They have led to a wave of freedom among countries in that region. It is impossible to ignore the millions who are thanking Bush and America for giving them hope and courage. There were a Million protestors in Lebanon which has a population of 3.5 Million... thats public support for you. Egyptian president decided to hold the first elections in 2000 years. Palestine held peaceful elections... and surprisingly, there were no celebrations held when a suicide bomber killed a few Israelis, common for an event like this. There is a true middle east peace process going on which promises some good results if everything falls into place properly, though that hardly happens. There are countries galore... Syria has accepted a plan to get out of Lebanon by April end supposedly... while its own people have started protesting in small numbers... Municipal elections were held in Saudi Arabia for the first time. Sure, women didnt vote.. but the world was not built in a day.

The democrats should just stop carping about the War on Terror right now. They are out of issues and evidently out of ideas. And it is an unusually poor argument that Bush had nothing to do with that. He was the catalyst... The liberator... The Lebanese had signs in their protests thanking Bush. There were also other arguments for going to Iraq instead of the WMD one peddled by the media. Sure WMD's was a threat... and a genuine one... since nuclear capability had been found along with tons of anthrax... biological... You get the idea. Read Bush's speeches before the war and you will see this point come up again and again... that every person wants to be free and a free Iraq would lead to freedom in other countries... which would pose less threat to America. So i'm guessing Bush had a LOT to do with these amazing developments.

Bush had nothing to do with it

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2) Immigration : Tough laws have been passed on People coming to USA regarding visas. The no. of work visas has been reduced... students have a tougher time applying... basically, it has become more arduous for someone to come to the USA.

Not really. It is tougher for someone to come into the USA legally... yes. But there is a loooong border with Mexico which is being infiltrated every single day. Who knows how many people come here illegally? And where do they go? No one knows... and the politicians dont care. Because the hispanics are too important a voting block to take steps against. Its like removing Affirmative Action... the right thing to do, yet not a politically correct thing to do. In the case of immigration... it is not feasible for most politicians to stand on ideals instead of making sure the votes are locked in.

Bush has done a poor job on this count. Am i disappointed? In a way... not really. He is good friends with Vincent Fox, the head honcho of Mexico. It is understandable that he doesnt want cheap labor to be difficult to obtain for businesses.

But this is not to say that i am not properly enraged by his tactics. A porous border is simply not acceptable especially since we know that there is a terrible terrorist threat, and the terrorists are looking at getting into USA through Mexico. There are cases in which the families living near the border are being harassed. There is a lack of border patrol officers. According to some estimates, a Million people come into the USA illegally every year. It takes one dude to blow up Times Square. You do the math of the threat level.

I must mention the MinuteMen Project. They have shown that the border CAN be sealed if appropriate measures are taken. The politicians in Washington can give speeches and make empty promises... but these heroes have shown that it takes courage to get the job done. And make no mistake... LOTS of courage was required in this case. The media was after them like a stain on velcro. The ACLU is watching the MinuteMen to make sure they dont do anything illegal... not the illegal aliens ! ACLU = Watching everyone's Civil Liberties... As long as they are NOT American.

Immigration remains as one of the biggest problems in front of this nation. I fear that people will wake up only after a tragedy.

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3) Future Foreign problems : I see a few stumbling blocks. There is the threat of Iran which is committed in its goal of getting a nuclear warhead. North Korea is in the same boat as Iran... along with being a mass murdering regime. And China is threatening Taiwan with its Anti-Secession law. Not to mention their encouragement to Anti-Japanese sentiment among its citizens. Russia might be a problem since it seems to have gone back on its vow to be a democracy. Bush likes Putin... though Putin is certainly taking more and more power in his hands. Lets see how that scenario works out. On a more personal note... India's relationship with USA should be generally smooth... except regarding Pakistan. But there is a perception that USA is only helping Pakistan to help with the War on Terror... and i suspect its true. But these are not the biggest problems.

The biggest problem is going to come from... EUROPE ! Surprised ? Dont be... jealousy makes wedges faster than ur local Burger King. CIA has a report predicting that Europe will collapse within 15 years. I believe that report simply because i dont see how their system can be sustained.

Lets take Britain. With the elections coming up, all parties are making big promises. More police... more hospitals... more teachers... more public works... etc etc. And how do they fund all this? By taxing the rich, of course !! Tax the people who generally dont use these services... so that others can. I believe the current rate is somewhere between 35-40%. While that might sound not so bad... there are TONS of other taxes... National Insurance Tax... Council Tax... name a official/local sounding name, and it probably has some tax associated with it. Where does that lead us?

To economies which have no real growth... burgeoning unemployment... public discontent with the government/corporations/courts/hospitals... The perception is that crime is out of control. The perception is that empty promises are being made. All 3 major parties (labor, conservative and liberal democrat) have promised big spending with freebies for the poor.

I dont have anything against poor people... i just dont like politicians doing what they do without trying to genuinely help them. Dont help them be comfortably poor. Help them be uncomfortably middle class. If i am poor, i should have the sense to save what i can... to work more... do whatever it takes. Where is the drive in Europe which makes them work?

Germany has an unemployment rate of 12.1% . France has an above 10% unemployment rate... oh, and the workers called a strike during the time when Olympic officials were in Paris to evaluate it as a prospective host for 2012 olympics. Good job guys. A study found 70% workers in Germany's capital were depressed. Germany's growth rate is 1.5%. France has a work week of 35 hours. The statistics just keep coming.

Another area in which Europe is mad at America is because of our "unsophisticated" way of treating terrorist countries. Who wants to listen to a simpleton like Bush when you can have cultured and refined politicians like Blair, Schroeder and Chirac giving you moving speeches? I do... and it seems so does the rest of Middle East. Cuz we get stuff DONE. Sure... America doesnt have a prize like the Nobel to give to terrorists like Arafat and incompetent leaders like Jimmy Carter, but what the hell. Lets just give their countries freedom.

Then they cried about how we could not 'export' freedom. How we cannot wage war on 'Terror' because it was just a term... an ideology... a movement. Well... we beat afghanistan... we beat iraq... we installed democracies in those countries which were not supposed to receptive to something as foreign as 'freedom'. Oh... and we cannot install freedom at gunpoint.

Tell that to Germany and Japan. They know how democracy was installed in their countries at Gun Point.

Be afraid of Europe. Be very Afraid.

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These are a few foreign issues and my views on them. My next post will hopefully be on Domestic issues. Thats a conflicting issue for me... and would be difficult to pen down. Lets hope the source of all this indecision is cleared by the time i write the post... though i doubt it.