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Bush Administration Wins Appeal on Padilla

In a victory for the Bush administration, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the government can continue to hold indefinitely an American accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."

This decision is fully in line with long-standing precedent where US citizens who had been engaged as enemy combatants in WW-I and WW-II were held as POW's without any access or recourse to the civilian judicial system. Any other outcome would also be insane from the viewpoint of national security.

"The exceedingly important question before us is whether the President of the United States possesses the authority to detain militarily a citizen of this country who is closely associated with al-Qaida, an entity with which the United States is at war," Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote. "We conclude that the President does possess such authority."

This decision also happens to highlight a judge who may go to SCOTUS. This would be a welcome addition to them:

Luttig, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, was joined in his opinion by Judges M. Blane Michael and William B. Traxler Jr.

Gone with the Water

From an article in the October 2004 issue of National Geographic magazine:

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however?the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

Sound familiar? Read on:

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

Fortunately the casualty rate doesn't seem to be this high for NOLA, but the rest sounds spot on.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't?yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

Pretty good for a year in advance. Imagine what would have happened if the Louisiana state government, and the City of New Orleans had made some realistic emergency plans based on this sort of projection.

Like it should have been their priority, since they're the ones directly on the scene - right? As it turned out, wrong!

That is the title of a Dr. Ted Baehr column. Here is the introduction:People will either be self-disciplined or need the whip of tyranny, to paraphrase the famous 19th century sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville. He noted that the United States...

Chad at CCK has a post on the Roberts nomination to be Chief Justice (I checked, Professor Schaff and it really was Chad). The CCK position is perfectly reasonable.I don?t claim to be any expert on the nomination process. But...

Fuel protests 'will bring Britain to a standstill'

This is in the category of "I complained because I had no shoes...then I met a man who had no feet."

Fuel protesters vow to bring Britain to a standstill this week as the cost of petrol sits at a record £5 a gallon.

Let's see - £1 = $1.50 more or less. So £7.50/gal = $11.25 per gallon! Yowch! And it isn't just the market forces at play over there either:

The fuel tax duty of 47.1p a litre collected by the Government accounts for about half the cost of petrol sold at today's prices. British drivers pay far more than those in France and the United States, where prices per litre average 85.22p and 37.9p respectively.

(Emphasis added)

And we think WE have it rough!

As I realized John Thune had defeated Tom Daschle last November, the first thought that came to mind was that the people of South Dakota as just saved the Supreme Court. With the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the...

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Inter prize Institute has a great piece on the Broken Yardstick that is the official poverty rate. (TH to Real Clear Politics). Here's the problem:According to the latest poverty rate estimates - released by the...

Kaus has it about right: Sure, the Bushies are using the federalism issue, and Louisiana's potentially bruised feelings, as an excuse--especially when they talk about how "it would have been perceived" if Bush had seized control of the relief effort...

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