Monthly Archives: March 2007

The Democrats’ Constitution

Last night Paul and John commented on yesterday’s New York Sun story by Gary Shapiro on Senator Obama’s contribution to Laurence Tribe’s Harvard Law Review article “The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics.” According to Shapiro’s summary of the article, Tribe “argues that constitutional jurisprudence should be updated in a similar way that Einstein’s theory of relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics, a view that would release »

The Internet Jailbirds

I proclaim myself proud to be a member of any group to which Hugh Hewitt belongs. Dinocrat has found one I didn’t know about — “The Internet jailbirds” — but this group is going to provide some material for my anger management therapy. What’s wrong with American Airlines? Charles Johnson has more here. »

Star Tribune, department of corrections

The Star Tribune has posted a correction of the erroneous reference to Power Line by Curt Brown in his page one story yesterday: A story on Page A1 Sunday incorrectly attributed the source of an online comment about the refusal by some Muslim cashiers to scan pork products. The comment, signed by “scotty,” did not appear in a posting on the Power Line blog. It appeared on AOL’s News Bloggers »

How meaningful is the Obama-Tribe connection?

Here’s one we can file in the ever-expanding “much ado about nothing” category. The New York Sun reports that, as a law student, Barack Obama assisted Harvard’s Larry Tribe with an article Tribe wrote for the Harvard Law Review called “The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics.” The Sun claims that Obama’s view of the Constitution is “hinted” in Tribe’s piece. I read the Tribe »

Whither the Mainstream Media?

In the big-media world, the turmoil continues. At Market Watch, Bambi Francisco describes how the revolt among news consumers has impacted the economics of news producers: Not only are some consumers not paying for content, some are displacing those heretofore assigned to create it and others are affecting the economics by their online-sharing behavior. That additional power given to the audience is evident in the financial results of many companies. »

Praying for “Rain” in St. Paul

Last night I went to see the modern folk artist Patty Griffin perform at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul. Patty is touring in support of her new “Children Running Through” compact disc; her stop in St. Paul appears to have been close to the start of her tour, which continues in Madison tonight and Chicago, Iowa City, and St. Louis later this week. Here is a good look »

The un-Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson

Barack Obama has said that an “independent inquiry” into the conduct of Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong is “needed.” Nifong is the prosecutor whose mishandling of the case against the three Duke lacrosse players may have been criminal. Obama reportedly made that statement in response to a letter from a constituent. Obama noted that Rep. Walter Jones has already requested such an inquiry and that he “will be following its »

Duke wins “the game that wasn’t played”

This weekend, the Duke lacrosse team took on Georgetown, at Georgetown, in a contest full of symbolic meaning for the Blue Devils. This was the match that Duke cancelled last year at this time in the wake of rape allegations against team members, allegations that turned out to be bogus. Duke would not play again in 2006. The 2007 Georgetown match could thus be viewed as a renewal for Duke, »

Bring on the Hulk!

My pal and law partner Gerry Nolting has gotten a lot of good publicity since he volunteered to represent (for free) any “John Doe” citizens who are sued for reporting suspicious airport behavior. But no one has yet outdone Kathy Kersten in her column this morning: [T]he real bull in the imams’ china shop is right here in Minnesota. Like some legal equivalent of Hulk Hogan, Gerry Nolting of Minneapolis »

Fred Thompson for president?

No, Martin Sheen for president; Fred Thompson for his chief-of-staff. Sorry, I couldn’t resist spinning off of the old Ronald Reagan joke. But seriously folks, what about Thompson’s presidential prospects? It’s pretty obvious why he’s getting consideration — the Republican party is a conservative outfit but neither of its two leading presidential contenders is solidly conservative. That leaves a gap — the space that George Allen or perhaps Bill Frist »

Do As I Say…

The latest from Sam Ryskind; click to enlarge: »

Yesterday’s Radio Show

In the first hour of yesterday’s Northern Alliance radio show, we talked about the House’s narrow passage of the Democrats’ “pork and defeat” bill. We discussed the latest developments in the flying imams litigation and related local controversies. And we awarded our coveted Loon of the Week prize to a newly-elected Minnesota politician. Funny thing, I never realized penguins could drown! It’s another fun and informative show. You can download »

Check Out Our Advertisers (Please)

I don’t know how much attention you pay to our advertisers, but we’d appreciate it if you would take note of them. Sites like ours have a remarkably good demographic for almost any kind of advertiser, and a uniquely desirable demographic for some advertisers. If you check out our Blogads, you will see that Presidential campaigns, among others, are advertising here. The campaigns know that many of our readers are »

“Vitriol” From Northern Virginia-Based AOL

Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune has an article on the recent Twin Cities controversies involving taxis and check-out lines. Like so many “news” stories in the Strib, it’s an editorial posing as reportage. It begins with an anecdote about a Muslim teenager who decides not to “change who [she is] for $7 an hour” by working for Target, and presumably, scanning bacon. The theme of the article is that the recent »

Sharia in Minnesota

I’ll take the question mark off Katherine Kersten’s “Shariah in Minnesota?” column in the Wall Street Journal to highlight this eye-popping paragraph in Curt Brown’s page one Star Tribune article: Minneapolis Community and Technical College is poised to become the state’s first public school to install a foot-washing basin to help the school’s 500 Muslim students perform pre-prayer rituals. “We want to be welcoming,” MCTC President Phil Davis said, noting »

What You Find Depends on Where You Look

The cover story in last week’s New York Times magazine was titled The Women’s War. Its subject was women who return from Iraq suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder; its theme was that both combat and sexual assault–incidence of which, the author suggests, is likely to be elevated in a combat zone–cause great and sometimes disabling stress for women. The cover story, by Sara Corbett, was based mostly on interviews with »

One more note on WSC

I took looks at Winston Churchill’s attitude toward the Jews in “‘Flabergasted’: A note on WSC,” in “A note on WSC,” and in “When Hitler didn’t meet Churchill.” Churchill, incidentally, tells the story of the time Hitler avoided meeting him in Munich in “The Locust Years” chapter of The Gathering Storm. In “A Note” I quoted Andrew Roberts on Churchill’s attitude toward the Jews: [Churchill] believed the Jews to be »