Hooligans vandalize a war memorial. A 50 year old woman gets angry, tosses one yob's bike into the road. Of course she's convicted of causing criminal damage. Ordered to pay 400 pounds -- an awful lot of money.

Here's the thing: As a purely technical matter of law, she probably was guilty of some very low-level vigilantism. The state is required, pretty much, to insist that only it can dispense justice, and has to put people through the ringer for taking the law into their own hands even when everyone on the planet Earth knows that person did the right thing.

But there's also a thing called prosecutorial discretion. And another thing called "tanking the case." One can go through the motions of insisting on the state's monopoly on the dispensation of justice while not really fighting particularly hard to convict the person who did, let's face it, the right, but technically illegal, thing. Any prosecutor could easily dismiss this case by noting, quite rightly, that the little shits who are the main witnesses to this barely-a-crime are not particularly credible, so that prosecuting is chancy and, in the scheme of things, just not worth the effort.

Instead, they seemed to have gone after this woman with zeal.

Why?

Here's a little more:

The trial - estimated to have cost taxpayers more than £100,000 - earlier heard how Mrs Lake was surrounded by up to 25 jeering youths by the memorial at the end of last year.

She told how the gang surrounded her, pushed her and shouted: ‘You can’t touch us, we’re 15, we can do what the fuck we like.’

What lesson has the prosecution taught the public here? Apparently that these vicious little moron-nihilists -- nihilists out of simple stupidity and malice, rather than even the low level of philosophical inquiry that real nihilism requires -- are quite right. They can do what the fuck they like, and if someone says boo to them, they'll call in the cops to enforce their right to be rotten little bastards.

Thanks to Instapundit.

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (66)
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Two shocks: That such a thing would happen, and that the MSM would mention it all.

But notice how obliquely the success in Iraq is almost always mentioned by the MSM. How many front-page articles have you seen noting the great success of the surge? Or that victory is, yes, finally at hand? The mythical "light at the end of the tunnel" we heard about during Vietnam is really now a light, and we really are at the end of the tunnel.

How many? Zero. The WaPo had an editorial about why progress in Iraq was not being reported, but that was an editorial, not a page one story, and even that dealt with the subject obliquely.

By obliquely, I mean just that: Rather than report on the success of the surge simply in and of itself, the MSM now simply mentions the success of the surge in articles about other topics -- how does the success of the surge affect McCain? How does it affect Obama? Etc. The MSM has finally begun acknowledging we've all but won the war -- we are in the mop-up phase now -- but only as a secondary premise in a story about something else.

How about addressing such a sea-change and such an astounding victory not as it relates to some other political story -- getting a one paragraph (if that) mention -- but in a report dedicated to that story and none other?

Or, if the media insists on treating it obliquely -- how about addressing our victory in a report on the most important secondary effect: How has victory in Iraq changed our national security for the better? (Or, arguably, for the worse, but I'd like to see even the NYT editorial board make that case.)

Basically, the US was on the brink of failure and withdrawal in Iraq, and has now achieved an astounding success that will change the world (let alone Iraq) for the better and will be discussed as among the greatest counterinsurgency operations in all of human history. The media went from refusing to report on this victory at all -- remember the WaPo reporter arguing that it was "too early" to call it a trend -- to simply assuming its existence as "old news" and "background information" in a political story.

We went from not reporting it because it wasn't necessarily a trend to now not reporting it because it's such an obvious trend that it's old news and a waste of time to even mention it.

So we won a war without the media dedicating a single story to noting that fact.

We went directly from "we don't know if this will result in victory" to victory is no longer newsworthy in a couple of months.

At no time during that period did our victory actually warrant a front page story?

It's unfathomable, or at least would have been unthinkable a few years ago: America won a major war, and an excruciatingly difficult one, and the American media decided it was simply never worth reporting.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (40)
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He lasted 1:37 against former Philadelphia Eagle Vai Sikahema, who is also a former Golden Gloves fighter and possesses actual boxing ability.

Including trash talk:

Asked after the fight if there were any surprises, Sikahema said, "That it didn't finish in the first 30 seconds."

"Don't even think your size is going to matter," Sikahema, who is seven inches shorter and 43 pounds lighter than Canseco, continued. "In Philadelphia we will chop you down. I must break you."

Course, it ain't just talk if you can back it up.

I might have messed up that last quote.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:07 AM | Comments (22)
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An en banc panel of the Fourth Circuit announced its decision in a Guantanamo detainee case, Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli (PDF) today and it is a mindnumbing 216 pages long. The decision itself is per curiam which means the court came to a conclusion without assigning a specific judge to present it. Why? There are nine judges and seven different opinions, including two different 5-4 decisions and four decisions "concurring in part and dissenting in part." This is what the War on Terror looks like in the federal courts. It is an unholy mess.

Boumediene is cited throughout the opinions. It would be amusing were it not so important, but the judges have conflicting ideas about the meaning of several Supreme Court cases, including Boumediene and Hamdan. The opinions also have duelling claims about international law. Justice Stevens' disastrous mistake of international law in Hamdan (characterizing the war against Al Qaeda as "not of an international character") is cited as binding precedent by one opinion, while another ignores it completely. These judges are doing a very good impression of nine people who simply have no idea what they are doing. One judge even attempts to justify his decision by declaring that he can predict how Supreme Court justices would rule on the questions, explicitly admitting, I suppose, that the law is only what the Supreme Court says it is and legislatures be damned.

I don't have time right now to go through the opinions to see what they got right and what they got wrong (and we might as well wait for the inevitable Supreme Court case anyway), but I will summarize the result. First, Al-Marri, even though he is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., can be held as an enemy combatant. My reasoning last year on that point was that if we can hold a U.S. citizen (as in Hamdi), we can hold an LPR. Second, Al-Marri has not been given his constitutional due process opportunity to challenge his detention.

I am pleased that they came to the conclusion that I predicted in June of last year, though that was when it was possible that the Supreme Court could take the case. Still, I have no confidence in how they came to their conclusions:

Well, if the Fourth Circuit takes it en banc, I expect that they will reverse, but that is based only on the conservative reputation of the circuit.

If the Supreme Court takes it, I expect that we will see something similar to the Hamdi case in 2004. The Hamdi ruling establishes that the AUMF 2002 allows the indefinite detention of enemy combatants, even U.S. citizens, but they must be given limited due process because they possess Fifth Amendment rights. Here, Al-Marri (who as a resident alien has Fifth Amendment protections) was denied even limited due process.

I just can't wait to see the mess when the district courts and the other circuits get involved.

Update: Oh yeah, and while I'm thinking of it: Judges Matter.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:07 AM | Comments (14)
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Even drilling in ANWR now commands a thin plurality, 47 in favor, 43 opposed.

Will Republicans exploit this? Yes, of course. They're not doing it as quickly as we might hope, but they're politicians, so they are of course slow to champion principle over polls. But as the polls shift more and more to the correct principle, suddenly they'll find the backbone to really push for drilling, and punish the Democrats for opposing it.

It's possible this is an election game-changer. The Republicans have been blamed for the weakening economy, despite the fact that until Democrats took control it wasn't weakening at all, and only began to falter on their watch. It is very difficult to change the public's attitude on an issue, especially when they haven't bothered to think about it all that much. After all, someone who has thought about it a lot is open to further thinking about it, and his mind could be changed. Someone who merely feels economic malaise and feels Republicans are in some way responsible is less amenable to persuasion -- as they say, you can't reason someone out of a position they haven't been reasoned into.

But the oil issue can, and I think will, cut through this to a fair degree. People are being forced to actually think about the economy, and not merely "feel" it, and think about making hard choices about their own personal fortune and the hardcore preservationist/Agent Smith theory of "environmentalism" now all the range. Previously they could support both lower oil prices and a ban on US exploration, simply feeling in their minds that people in government should figure out a way that we can have our environmental cake and eat our oil too. But the reality of $4.50 gas is forcing a confrontation with this unconsidered "I want it both ways" impulse.

And, more and more, thinking and deciding and weighing and making hard choices is leading to the public adopting a better, and much more GOP-friendly, policy position.

There was previously no way to disturb the unconsidered feeling that Republicans were somehow to blame for a weakening economy. Now there's a potent counter-narrative that's on everyone's minds. And this one has the virtue of actually being true.

If that counts for anything.

Posted by: Ace at 09:58 AM | Comments (38)
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From the headlines over on the sidebar, here's a piece about how farm raised tilapia is a worse diet choice for those with heart disease or other inflammation-related conditions than "pork bacon". (As opposed to "hobo bacon", which melts in your mouth like veal, or so I'm told).

A food that's worse for you than bacon? That's a little like someone saying that any given activity is less safe than "riding a motorcycle blindfolded in LA traffic", or "standing between Chuck Schumer and a videocamera".

Yeah, I felt compelled to comment on this item, mainly because you retards mention my name every time the word "bacon" comes up in a story. It's typecasting, just like Bob Denver had to deal with as "Gilligan" or Charles Manson has to deal with when everyone refers to him as "that psycho whackadoo who told his "family" to slaughter all those people". Of course, unlike those two, this typecasting means that I get to eat more bacon, so in my case, it's a GOOD thing. more...

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 09:01 AM | Comments (18)
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Thanks to Fritz for the leak.

Good Quote: "It's not surprising then that the poverty stricken terrorists get bitter, they cling to planes used as missiles or radical religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them, such as innocent American citizens."

Again, Obama displaying that he can only conceive of problems in Marxist economic terms. Every problem -- from terrorism to the more serious problems of gun ownership and faith in God -- is explicable as a symptom of the Ruling Classes stealing wealth from the Proletariat.

Keep Hope Alive: Obama's "sense of entitlement" and "arrogance" causes resentments among the party's leaders and officials. Ed Morrissey spins an optimistic revolt-of-the-superdelegates scenario.

Arrogance? Shush yo' mouth:

In his pre-campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama proclaims, "I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that a striving for rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience."

Posted by: Ace at 08:52 AM | Comments (30)
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Instapundit:

D.C.'S HELLER COMPLIANCE seems to focus on imposing bureaucratic barriers in place of legal ones. My favorites: "If you want to keep a handgun in your home, the MPD will have to perform ballistic testing on it before it can be legally registered. . . . Firearms in the home must be stored unloaded and disassembled, and secured with either a trigger lock, gun safe, or similar device. The new law will allow an exception for a firearm while it is being used against an intruder in the home." So you can assemble it and load it after the burglar breaks in, without breaking the law. How helpful! This seems flatly inconsistent with the Court's opinion in Heller.

Note that while we conservatives are expected to conform with the diktats of the court without question, liberals feel no such compulsion.

I have to hand it to them, though: This is exactly the sort of ballsy open defiance of the courts many of us have urged Bush and state governments to display.

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (30)
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Heh.

Here's the video, the second half of which is just a close-up repeat.

The clerk, 17-year-old Rudy Sandoval, didn't take too kindly to that. He told MyFoxDallas.com he decided to fight back, which ended with him punching the robber out.

The video follows the action, including the devastating blow which left Ramirez unconscious for several minutes.

He pulled himself together and took off, but was followed by witnesses who led police to him.

But it gets better. Daddy?

DENTON, Texas — Police here say they will not file charges against a clerk whose parents and husband were charged with robbing the pizza restaurant where she worked, officials said.

Police said the clerk, Stephanie Martinez, didn't know they planned to rob the Pizza Patron Friday night.

Husband and parents charged with aggravated robbery, husband out on $50,000 bond.

Mom and Dad? Held without bail on immigration violations.

thanks to IreneFingIrene

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:58 AM | Comments (25)
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Several lefty blogs pointed out a so-called flip-flop from McCain on the DREAM Act yesterday. Michelle Malkin jumped on the bandwagon, probably because it's something we'd all expect from him. Unfortunately, she was taken in by the misleading video that's been passed around by the left. Allah has the real quote.

QUESTIONER: Hi. IÂ’m a part of One Dream 2009 and I am one of the 6 million who either have an undocumented parent or is undocumented and I wanted to know if you would support humanity all around the world and support our Dream Act that we are trying to pass.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Yes. Yes. Thank you. But I will also enforce the existing laws of a country. And a nationÂ’s first requirement is the nationÂ’s security, and thatÂ’s why we have to have our borders secured. But, we can have a way and a process of people obtaining citizenship in this country. And, we cannot penalize people who come here legally and people who wait legally. And so, thatÂ’s a fundamental principle on which we have to operate. Thank you.

Most of the video being passed around cuts off McCain's answer after the first or second "Yes." In reality, McCain has been consistent since his decision to secure the borders that security comes first. Keep in mind that this answer was given in front of La Raza, where McCain's pandering instincts must have been in full force. And yet he stuck with the promise he made to conservatives after the comprehensive reform fiasco. Good for him.

That doesn't mean he is giving up on DREAM. After all he's one of the cosponsors. The bill is not a bad one and I support its most recent incarnation...provided the border is shut. Giving amnesties without ending illegal immigration just incentivizes more illegal immigration.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:55 AM | Comments (8)
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