Vox Popoli

New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito split with the court’s conservatives Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.

Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri’s last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.

So that sound I heard last night was millions of Three Monkey Republicans gasping after being metaphorically punched in the stomach. Does this mean that Justice Alito has officially declared his Souterhood? No, not yet. But there’s no way conservatives can take it as a positive sign either.

I’m vaguely concerned by this myself, even though I’m opposed to the death penalty. (Don’t get sidetracked, everyone knows by now that I’m against it on the grounds of it being a terrible idea to give government a license to kill its citizens, based on the history of the 20th Century.)

But strike one has certainly been called. No doubt the abortionettes will be looking at each other this morning and thinking that perhaps Alito won’t be so bad after all.

“Contrary to popular belief, there is no absolute ban on [military] intelligence components collecting U.S. person information,” the U.S. Army’s top intelligence officer said in a 2001 memo that surfaced Tuesday. Not only that, military intelligence agencies are permitted to “receive” domestic intelligence information, even though they cannot legally “collect” it,” according to the Nov. 5, 2001, memo issued by Lt. Gen. Robert W. Noonan Jr., the deputy chief of staff for intelligence.

“MI [military intelligence] may receive information from anyone, anytime,” Noonan wrote in the memo, obtained by Secrecy News, a newsletter from the non-profit Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

Defense Department and Army regulations “allow collection about U.S. persons reasonably believed to be engaged, or about to engage, in international terrorist activities,” Noonan continued.

“Remember, merely receiving information does not constitute ‘collection’ under AR [Army Regulation] 381-10; collection entails receiving ‘for use,’ ” he added. (Army Regulation 381-10, “U.S. Army Intelligence Activities,” was reissued on Nov. 22, 2005, but had not previously been disclosed publicly.) “Army intelligence may always receive information, if only to determine its intelligence value and whether it can be collected, retained, or disseminated in accordance with governing policy,”

The distinction between “receiving” and “collecting” seems “to offer considerable leeway for domestic surveillance activities under the existing legal framework,” wrote editor Steven Aftergood in Tuesday’s edition of Secrecy News.

Oh, well, that’s okay then. There’s nothing like the creative use of a thesaurus to ensure national security and civil liberties. This sort of slow nibbling-away at limitations on central power isn’t going to end, indeed, the pace has quickened noticeably ever since George Delano came into power and there are no indications that it is going to slow down under any of his likely successors.

LL is back with a vengeance:

Like I care what your ass kissing, brainwashed cheerleaders think. You are the joke. I see you pick and choose which emails you post on your website. You don’t post the ones that reveal things about you that you don’t want people to know, but yo post emails of people that don’t know and don’t intend for them to be posted.

There is no joke on me. Knowing latin or greek or quoting from obscure books does not make you right. You are just a wise fool. You have knowledge (and you love to pat yourself on the back about in every sentence), but you have no wisdom

No matter how many misspellings or typos I have, that does not make me wrong and you right. You are wrong-about most things, and the more I see of your actions, writings and ideas, the more I am convinced that you are certainly no Christan. You are the one claiming to be a Christian. I never said I was, and I never said I wasn’

You would have done yourself a favor by not trying to make an example out of me You will be laughing out the other side of your ass now.

This latest missive certainly is amusing. I can’t help but wonder, though, if one finds it embarrassing to be quoted in public, is pouring more gasoline on the fire really the most reasonable response?

UPDATE: LL decides to get threatening in two subsequent emails.

You are the one pouring fuel of the fire. I couldn’t care less if I am quoted in public. You seem to be under the delusion your fan club is the world and you are God. You are the one that posts my emails. You don’t post emails with information about your past.

I am not a talker-I am a doer. Antone who knows me would tell you that it woud be better for you to not taunt me or laugh at me. I have my ways of making a point, and I have my ways of getting even.

Hey, you’re saying it, not me. Simply shutting your mouth is always an option, you know.

Veronique de Rugy answers her own question on NRO:

So which speech should we believe: The small-government or big-government speech? Do we believe the message of budget restraint from the White House or the calls for spending increases on the president’s favored programs? The track record does not leave much room for optimism. In the last five years, total spending has risen 40 percent — a figure larger than Clinton’s two terms combined. Moreover, real discretionary spending increases in FY2002, FY2003, FY2004, and FY2005 are 4 of the 10 biggest annual increases in the last 40 years.

The president may be a domestic disaster, but at least he’s bringing democracy to places like Iraq and Palestine. Because if Hamas and a new Shiite government doesn’t add up to a brave new world ahead, well, I don’t know what does.

Aren’t you excited that the Three Monkey’s Dear Leader harbors a desire to bring it to Zimbabwe as well now? It seems to be working so well in South Africa, after all.

The funny thing is that the ad headline on NRO said A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT IS ESSENTIAL! For what, I ask. For what, exactly?

LL is a big fan:

I read Vox Day’s Commentary “Beating he War Drum”. I was discusted by it. I used to think this man was a Christian, and I linked to his commentary on the Narnia Chronicles” in my blog, but after reading “Beating The War Drum”. I have no use for this man!

I hope youu will drop him because he isnot a Christian and he doesn’t have a clue about the post 911 era we live in, nor does he have a clue about the iblical times we live in. He is very sophomoric.

I can’t believe this man could suggest we wait for Iran to nuke Israel before we do something or that we should wait for Iran to give nukes to terrorist cells in USA or Europe, or that we should allow Iran to destroy USA with a EMP weapon fired from a freighter off our coast.

He is still asleep in a pre 911 paradigm, he knows nothing about Bibilical prophecy nor the biblical times we live in, he is antisemitic, he is a Bush hater, he is stupid.

Why is he allowed on your website?

I laughed, I cried, much better than Cats. It seems the definition of anti-semitism has been broadened to include insufficient enthusiasm for unprovoked attacks on Israel’s enemies.

Here’s a simple question for you. If Iran making threats against Israel justifies the USA preemptively attacking Iran, aren’t the USA’s threats against Iran similar justification for anyone else who wishes to attack the USA? If not, do please explain your reasoning.

Brookhiser on NRO’s Corner:

Did anyone else think that W’s praise of Bill Clinton, which was all over my AOL startup menu yesterday, was sly sabotage of Hillary (grossing out the Kossacks)?

If you doubted the depths to which Three Monkeys would sink, doubt no more. First, note the telling confession… AO-freaking-L? NRO has crawled so far up the elephant’s posterior that I have no doubt that Goldberg will soon be cracking wise about the pachydermic stomach acid and Lowry will explain how funding Hamas is a clever Bush administration plan to bankrupt it.

As for the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton crack, indications are that Hillary has already been Anointed. If so, George Delano would surely know and is not tweaking the Kossacks, but the clueless electorate. I still don’t see how Hillary can possibly be considered electable, but it is early yet and it is not hard to envision various scenarios that would render her so.

1. Hillary becomes the Border Warrior. This would be the easiest move, especially if the Republicans continue to alienate their base.
2. Republicans nominate a pro-choice candidate. A major Republican runs as a pro-life third-party candidate and splits the Republican vote ala 1992.
3. War in Iran goes poorly, Hillary becomes the Mideast Peace Candidate.
4. No war in Iran, inflation in 2007, Hillary becomes the New New Dealist.

From Debka:

After a series of muddled statements and zigzags, wishful thinking prevailed in London and Brussels after all. The European Union, led by the Middle East Quartet, agreed to release financial aid to a Palestinian government taken over by a terrorist organization….

The EU gave the PA $615 million last year. The US had budgeted $234 [million] for 2006.

Let’s summarize. The various Western governments claim they need the ability to track everyone’s financial information lest someone send any of it to those loathesome terrorists. At the same time, they are providing $849 million dollars per year directly to terrorist organizations.

Who buys this nonsense? Seriously, is everyone THAT brain-dead? And why on Earth would you want to provide anyone who is capable of accepting this twisted reasoning with the ability to vote?

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, on Monday reported a quarterly profit of $10.7 billion, capping a year of record earnings dominated by surging oil and gas prices.

The results pushed up Exxon’s profit for the year to a staggering $36.13 billion — bigger than the economies of 125 of the 184 countries ranked by the World Bank. Profit rose 42 percent from 2004.

The company and its peers have come under fire for posting billions in profit while consumers struggle with high gasoline prices. Exxon was quick to emphasize that such results would help it make long-term investments to meet energy demand.

The Irving, Texas company’s fourth-quarter net income rose 27 percent, to $10.71 billion, or $1.71 a share, from $8.42 billion, or $1.30 a share, a year earlier. Revenue was just shy of $100 billion.

Try to keep this little profit statement in mind the next time you run into one of the morons from the “No Blood For Oil” crowd. As I pointed out in an article two years ago, oil is paid for in dollars, which are nothing but debt. So, there’s no national incentive to wage war for oil unless you can’t pay for it in dollars. And if you want to theorize about global corporate conspiracies influencing politicians behind closed doors, you should probably know that the oil companies LOVE expensive oil, for as the quote above demonstrates, they make significantly more money. Nobody wants cheap oil except the masses, whose feelings are irrelevant no matter which way you look at it.

I am no fan of the Bush administration, the neocons or their World Democratic Revolution, for a myriad of reasons. But don’t ever make the mistake of lumping me in with those utterly clueless cretins on the Left.

The Fraters Libertas can’t resist, even when the bear in question is busily soiling itself again:

…never underestimate the power of an MSM internal watchdog to pardon the unpardonable. And in Platt’s column I recognized the familiar style of the Star Tribune’s so called “Reader Representative” Kate Parry. That style, outlined and excerpted for your pleasure:

1) Cop to a lesser charge:

It’s not a monumental goof… We dropped a plate here; we didn’t smash the china cabinet. Though the editor’s personal sensibilities are to be admired, this time they did not serve the readers, or the newspaper, or journalism

2) Question and belittle the motives of the readers pointing out the error:

but it’s [an error] that fuels suspicions some readers have about the news media in general and this newspaper in particular. Also, his couching of the mayor’s statements made the newspaper a target for familiar broadsides of bias. In trying to address potential sensitivities of some readers by excising the controversial remark, it could be taken by other readers — and believe me, it was — that the newspaper was trying to cover or protect this particular public official from his own articulations.

3) Mention how hard it is to work at a newspaper and characterize those who made the error as the real heroes of the story.

One more thing about copy editors: They are the mostly unsung heroes and heroines of daily journalism. They spin a lot of important plates in a very short amount of time, and on deadline to boot. Theirs is a difficult job and their efforts go mostly unnoticed when they do the job right, and keep all those plates spinning — which is most of the time.

Always remember, these are the same people who insist that blogs and the Internet media can’t be taken seriously because they lack editors – you know, the same gatekeepers who are too busy making the words of black politicians look more palatable and protecting the editorial pages from dangerous thinking to actually verify the accuracy of the news that the newspaper is reporting.

Their self-aggrandizing apologies are disingenuous, too. For example, the 611 errors reported by the Star & Sickle’s omsbudswoman won’t include the many ludicrous predictions which are always carefully shielded by the word “could”. Sure, a carry law COULD cause the streets of Minneapolis to run red with blood, just as it COULD cause them to run green with blood as the armed citizenry defends itself against saber-toothed aliens from the planet Wumpus. Of course, the fact that the chances of the former actually happening aren’t much higher than the latter – or that it didn’t come to pass – never seems to find its way into print.

Americans’ personal savings rate dipped into negative territory in something that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the purchases of cars and other big-ticket items. The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing.

The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before _ in 1932 and 1933 _ two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs.

With employment growth strong now, analysts said that different factors are at play. Americans feel they can spend more, given that the value of their homes, the biggest asset for most families, has been rising sharply in recent years.

Morons… that’s my first thought. And then I stop and think, you know, if we have to invade Iran because the worthless nature of our money is on the verge of becoming apparent to the world, why bother saving it?

After all, you’re going to watch the empire begin to crumble, you might as well do it on a 50-inch flatscreen plasma.

I can’t help but wonder how the I=S crowd explains this. Was there also no investment in 2005?