TigerHawk

By accident, I ended up with virtually identical pictures of Barton Creek, which -- in theory -- flows through Austin, one set taken almost exactly on the anniversary of the first.

Here is Barton Creek, from a spot on the Greenbelt, in October 2010:

Here are the same views, respectively, in October 2011:

Central Texas need a helluva lot of rain just to get back to normal.

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I wanted to see what you guys thought of this thing. I'm not sure what exactly my opinion of their grievances are, but I admire the act of activism, which is just so much better than apathy. I've been checking a few newspaper websites about this thing, but they only really describe the number of people who have been arrested (around 800 so far? 700 got arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday) and not the size of the protest itself.
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We can be thankful that Anwar al-Awlaki is having his first pork weenie roast in Hades, having been whacked like Sonny Corleone in the toll booth scene in Godfather I, and that the Obama administration continues to green light successful strikes against high-value terrorist targets. Amen to that.

The wrinkle in this strike is that the late Mr. al-Awlaki was an American citizen, as Michael Hirsh writes in the National Journal.

Still, the strike was the first that was known to be launched against an American (Awlaki had dual Yemeni-U.S. citizenship). The nature of Awlaki's death once again raised legal and moral issues about the evidence against him, whether he was given due process of law, and the constitutional basis of the administration's covert strike program.

So, we can infer that President Obama, who used to teach constitutional law, who campaigned on closing Gitmo and assuring U.S. voters that "we are better than that," with respect to all of the bad international things that the Bush administration did, gave an order to deny due process to an American citizen in the purest way possible -- by ending his life without a trial. (Or, did I miss something -- was he tried and convicted in abstentia?). Hence, the Judge Roy Bean reference.

In my view, President Obama did the right thing as President of the United States, even if such an action further alienates him from his base, just as he is trying to rally his base politically in the run up to the 2012 election. We shall see how much noise is made about this incident from certain segments of President Obama's party.

Main

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The boathouse on Lake Carnegie, Princeton, one morning earlier this week.

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Heh.

CWCID: Bomber Girl.

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Pay attention, your government is costing you money in the name of "reform."

The federal government has enacted regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act that control the prices that banks may charge merchants for debit card transactions, cutting them on average by roughly 50% (from about $0.44 per transaction to $0.24, in the case of Bank of America). The aggregate dollars are not small; the new regulations have opened up an estimated $6.6 billion revenue gap for the biggest card issuers.

Predictably and obviously, the banks are doing their job and casting around for ways to recover that lost fee income. To that end, Bank of America has announced that beginning next year it will charge its own depositors $5 per month for the privilege of using debit cards to buy things (but not to withdraw money from ATMs). Taking in to account the $0.20 per transaction "savings" imposed by the feds, BofA's proposed monthly fee will generate more revenue than has been lost in the case of any customer who uses his debit card for purchases fewer than 25 times per month. Other large banks are following suit.

Put differently, this little corner of Dodd-Frank has potentially extracted a multi-billion dollar transfer from debt card holders to merchants, with the banks earning a nice incremental vig along the way. Why, exactly, is this useful policy? What other idiocy lurks therein?

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On my Facebook feed this evening, from one of my leftier FB friends (OK, my sister, so sue me):

While the headline makes clear that size does indeed matter, the text is too blurry for us to know in what respect it matters.

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I have a YouTube channel consisting entirely of me playing guitar covers. Check it out!
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The GOP is alive with buzz that Ann Coulter's longstanding favorite -- New Jersey's governor Chris Christie -- may jump in to the race for the Republican nomination. And the money's there. According to the WaPo,

There’s no question that certain major donors — primarily in the New York and New Jersey area — are simply waiting for Christie to say “yes” to put an aggressive cash collection in place that would immediately make the New Jersey governor a force to be reckoned with on the fundraising front. No other potential candidate — including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin — could put together so much money so quickly.

Now comes news that Governor Awesome has rocked the most recent polls in the Garden State, surging to a 54% approval rating at a time when virtually no incumbent does nearly that well. Christie is running ahead of other Republicans -- not surprisingly, in this deep blue state -- and perhaps as much as ten points ahead of President Obama.

At least one thing is clear: With the possible exception of Mitt Romney, there is no candidate among the current crop of Republicans who has a high probability of taking apart Barack Obama in the debates. Christie is better on his feet than any of them.

The question, of course, is whether the ideological purists on the Republican right can stomach Christie. Since the right believes -- incorrectly, in my view -- that it can have it all (just as the left believed that in 2008), his main achievement might be to make Mitt Romney look more (acceptably) conservative.
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A "maxed out" Obama donor calls for an end to the "class warfare" rhetoric. A nice essay, missing only an admission of the accountability that the author then demands from government.

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Michael Barone, who in his command of American political statistics is an American treasure, notes that the current crop of GOP presidential candidates has not run well in their home states, at least relative to other Republicans. In other words, if you were under the impression that our current choices are not particularly appealing, you are not necessarily a Democrat, liberal, or pinko.

The same, by the way, is not true of Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, or Mitch Daniels.

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I don't reboot my computer as often as I should, and right now have a huge number of open tabs. Rather than lose them to posterity, I hereby bequeath them to you, our loyal readers, in no particular order, along with the occasional comment.

"An accounting question: Is 'ass rape' a debit or a credit?" It is actually SFW, unless maybe if you work at Goldman Sachs.

An interesting report from Deloitte on federal taxes on individuals, looking at the likely direction of tax rates. The chart on page 2 particularly interesting.

More chartage: A brief history of health care spending since 1965. Fodder for both sides.

Since everybody should read some sloppy lefty thinking once in a while, I commend you to Joe Nocera's defense of the Solyndra financing.

A video for the age: Rick Perry dancing -- I shit you not -- with Orthodox rabbis. No matter how much you hate politics and politicians, there are always moments like these.

I have to admit, I grudging admire the diabolical genius of this publicity stunt, even if it is at the expense of Sarah and Todd Palin.

TTYL.

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A single article in Princeton's Town Topics brings all sorts of exciting news from the animal kingdom.

It seems that Princeton's deer population has doubled in just a year, and the herd is infected with a hideous cervine disease, "epizootic hemorrhagic disease." In my experience, the word "hemorrhagic" is always bad news. In a rare moment of candor, a member of the Princeton Township Committee actually admitted that it was "very unfortunate" that they had suspended their contract with the professional hunting firm White Buffalo.

Professional control of the huge deer herd in Princeton has been extremely controversial, largely because of a vocal -- and asinine -- group of animal rights activists going back at least a decade. The loonier of the local liberals would prefer that we thin the herd with ineffective and expensive contraception, our automobiles, and epidemics than through controlled shooting.

Fortunately, the political tide has turned a bit, and it looks as though Princeton will return to responsible management of its venison. And we can help the poor, too!

Committeewoman Sue Nemeth asked for clarification about what happens to the meat from hunted deer, and was told that after being handled by a USDA-approved butcher, it goes to Hunterdon and Warren County soup kitchens.

Apparently the soup kitchens in Princeton's Mercer County, which includes the relatively poor town of Trenton, do not want venison. The article does not say whether the obstacle was bureaucracy, logistics, or the culinary preferences of the beneficiaries.

Let's just hope they test the donated meat for that hemorrhagic business, because we surely don't need for any more of those hideous diseases to jump to primates.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald would have turned 115 today. Had he not, you know, died in 1940 or any year since then.

He led a great literary life -- the Wikipedia entry is more entertaining than most things you will read today. Fellow Tigers will appreciate that he died making "notes in his newly arrived Princeton Alumni Weekly." Considering This Side of Paradise, a helluva fitting way to go.

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Rumor has it, New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie is "reconsidering" his decision not to run for president. He must have seen last night's Republican debate...

Part of me loves the idea, and another part hates it. We need Christie in New Jersey. For example:

Awesome stuff, if you care about effective government. My question, though: Will "screwed" play in Peoria?

Reminds me of a conversation I had just today with a nice woman from the heartland, who was particularly offended by the word "douchebag." Here in the Garden State, it is a totally acceptable and frankly mild term of opprobrium.

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Via Glenn Reynolds, a rather amazing case of local government oppression:

An Orange County couple has been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city ordinance as a “church” and not as a private gathering.

Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called “a regular gathering of more than three people”.

Friendly reminder:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The "free exercise" clause has applied to states since 1940, and the "freedom of assembly" clause has applied since 1937. The officials who are enforcing this ordinance should be impeached or, failing that, required to pay damages.
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There is a lot of complaining on the left about Georgia's execution of convicted cop killer Troy Davis, which went from proposed to actual last night after the United States Supreme Court declined to intervene. According to the New York Times, there was no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime, and the Savannah constabulary applied defective line-up procedures that substantially raised the risk that witnesses misidentified Davis. So Georgia may have just executed an innocent man, or at least one defectively convicted.

Oops. (Yeah, I'm a sociopath.)

Commentary

Capital punishment is one of those subjects about which my opinions outrage more or less everybody.

With two exceptions, I think capital punishment is bad policy. It is so sparingly and expensively applied that it does not deter most crimes. Or, rather, it is impossible to believe that the incremental deterrence is worth the cost. The "cost" is not just monetary, but also social. The minority who oppose capital punishment are so disgusted by it -- both in the abstract and because of the occasional execution of innocent people, by some reckoning the ultimate systemic injustice -- that we ought to ask whether the benefits (deterrence and the satisfaction in retribution) are worth the social division. Personally, I think they are not.

There are, however, those two nettlesome exceptions. I believe that the death penalty should be available for punishing people who kill law enforcement officers or hostages, and people who engage in violent insurrection against the United States.

In the first case -- killing cops, prison guards, and hostages -- you need the prospect of the death penalty to have something for negotiators to trade. Otherwise, there is (potentially) no reason for a prisoner not to kill a guard, or a trapped suspect not to shoot his way out of the house, or a kidnapper not to whack his hostage.

In the second case -- violent insurrection and terrorism -- the perpetrators have allies who might commit further violence to force the release of their imprisoned comrades. Government needs the option of killing people who have no reason to live, or whose only reason is to inspire more violence.

Of course, Troy Davis killed a police officer, so even if I had my way on the subject he would have been eligible for the death penalty. If he was wrongly convicted, then I ought to face up to the possibility that even in those limited cases in which I would make the death penalty available, our government might execute the wrong person.

Wrongful execution is tragic, no question about it. It is not necessarily more tragic than the murder of a cop, but it is right up there and in any case two wrongs do not make a right.

We know that the criminal justice system wrongly convicts many people. In the DNA era, new physical evidence has sprung something north of 100 death row inmates. Even allowing for the possibility that some of these condemned people may still have been guilty, it does seem likely that we convict a significant number of innocent people.

The question is whether the small but real possibility of wrongful conviction is a reason not to execute people, ever, under any circumstances. I think not. Many government policies kill innocent people, but we accept them because we know perfection is impossible and they advance some greater good. Innocent people die every day because the Food and Drug Administration has not approved drugs and devices that are available to patients in other wealthy and regulated countries, such as Canada, France and Germany. We accept those deaths because we -- or at least some of us -- believe that the FDA is avoiding other adverse consequences, including from drugs and devices that perhaps ought not be sold.

That said, the imperfection of government is not a reason to avoid better practices in the criminal justice system.

Which invites a question for my conservative friends: If we generally believe that government is incompetent and the heavy hand of the state inflicts a lot of collateral damage, why do you have such faith in prosecutors and police?

We ought to go to great lengths to avoid wrongful execution. Police and prosecutors have a special obligation. So do governors and presidents.

Which invites a question for my lefty friends.

If the execution of Troy Davis is such an obvious and profound injustice, why didn't President Obama commute his sentence? [UPDATE and CORRECTION: Because the pardon power does not extend to state crimes! Doh! Shoot me now.]

Release the hounds.

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Whatever one thinks of turbans as a sartorial matter, there is no doubt that they are a security risk:

An assassin with explosives hidden in his turban was ushered into the home of the head of Afghanistan’s peace process on Tuesday, embraced him and then exploded the bomb, killing him and dealing a potentially devastating blow to the effort to reconcile with the Taliban and end 10 years of war.

Friendly reminder:

As usual, the jihadis are all about lengthening the war and extending the killing:

The assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council and a former president, on the heels of a carefully planned attack on the American Embassy a week ago, underscored the fierce opposition of those who want to shatter the country’s tenuous stability and thwart its tentative steps toward peace.

No wonder we are building more secret bases for drone attacks.
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