Baghdad is calm and peaceful and the GOP supports limited government.

Baghdad "is much more calm and stable than what many believe it to be" said the website of a Republican seeking election to Congress. And to prove it his site showed a picture of a peaceful, quiet neighbourhood. Only problem was the neighbourhood was part of Istanbul, Turkey. But the candidate, Howard Kaloogian, when the "error" was caught says nothing sinister was going on. It was just a mistake. Photos had become mixed up from his trip. "They used a picture that was wrong. There's nothing sinister about it," he said.

The original photo was a close up of the neighbourhood, close enough that people could see the signs were not in Arabic which is how critics of the candidate exposed the photo. The "error" has been corrected. Except the new photo, linked to above, is a very distant photo of Baghdad taken from a high vantage point --- no doubt a hotel safely inside the a ring of military protection. The original, but false, photo indicated that Kaloogian was actually in the calm, peaceful neighbourhoods. The other photo indicates he probably got no where close to them. If they were so calm and peaceful you have to wonder why that was?

Justice Scalia and his obscenities

Justice Scalia is guilty of two public obscenities. One he admits and one he lies about. Recently when the Supreme Court Justice left a church service he was asked what he had to say to people who question his objectivity on the issue of separation of church and state. Scalia made a gesture widely considered obscene and said: "To my critics, I say, vaffanculo." The term is Italian and means "fuck you". If you don't believe me google it and see. Scalia is saying it didn't happen. He eventually admitted the gesture, as a photograph exists showing it, but then cited a book to claim it had a different meaning. But journalists who checked the book say it was referring to a very different gesture not the one Scalia made.

As disgusting as this is for a justice of the Surpeme Court the real obscenity was an earlier statement he made.

He was in Europe speaking at a law school and said: "Is there a constitutional right to homosexual conduct? Not a hard question for me. It's absolutely clear that nobody ever thought when the Bill of Rights was adopted that it gave a right to homosexual conduct.'

Scalia's interpretation comes directly from the extreme Left. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, it recognises some rights, but it does not grant any rights at all. The Constitution was never meant to be a list of rights but a litany of powers. Government has the power to do that which is specifically granted by the Constitution and NOTHING else. The Founders said that it would be impossible to list all the rights which people possess. Instead, since government powers are clear and few, they would enumerate the funcitons of the state while refusing to list the rights of the people. The 9th Amendment even specifically says that the Constitution is not meant to delineate rights at all and that the absence of a right from the Bill of Rights should not be construed to mean it does not exist.

The real issue never was one about whether or not the Constitution specifically says people have a right to be homosexual. The issue is, and always was, whether the Constitution grants the power to regulate people's private lives to government. If the government is not granted such a power then the power does not exist. And I assure you that you will search the Constitution in vain looking for such an enumerated power.

Scalia's view is extremely authoritarian. He is saying that only the very few rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights reside with the people. While govenrment power is vast and expansive and only limited by the few rights mentioned. That is not the view of the Founders at all.

Scalia previously caused a ruckus when speaking to a right-wing Christian school. He had banned all recordings of his public speech. A journalist covering the talk had a tape recorder to make sure that the Justice was quoted accurately. Federal Marshals grabbed the tape recorder and erased the tape. At the time Scalia invoked the "right not to speak on radio or television when I do not wish to do so." Of course that is not one of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights either. But Scalia is willing to invoke rights not enumerated in the Constitution when it suits his purposes. Of course the question is whether a Surpreme Court justice can invoke such a right to not have his comments reported when he is making a publc speech. Scalia has a very odd view of the Constitution. I suspect, that given the current make up of the court, that he is the Justice least inclined to support individual liberty.

Hell bent for war no matter what.

A previously secret memo from within the Blair government shows that Bush was hell bent on war regardless of the facts. The memo, written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser, according to The New York Times, said Bush "was determined to invade Iraq" regardless of whether or not weapons inspectors found anything amiss.

The memo shows that Bush was convinced of a quick victory followed by a transitional government that would be a cake walk compared to the reality. Bush also said it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different regions and ethic groups." The Times writes: "The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein."

Maybe I am misreading this but it seems to be saying that George Bush had determined he would go to war even if nothing justified it and even if he had to manufacture an incident to justify it. The more you know about Bush the more he looks like FDR.