The Dish

The news from London is confusing right now and I’m trying to piece it together. This seems odd:

Reports suggested that a number of blasts had been caused by dummy blasts caused by detonator caps exploding, unconnected to explosives. Witnesses at the various scenes said the blasts had come from rucksacks; police appealed for images from mobile phones from witnesses. The Met said after initial examinations at Warren Street and Oval, “early indications show no trace of chemical agents”.

Copy-cat scare tactics? Failed explosions? 7/7 repeated as farce? No casualties as yet. Londoners seem to be responding appropriately:

Witnesses at the Oval described a “small explosion” from a bag. One witness said man had joined the train carrying a bag and that passengers had scuffled with him but failed to stop him. “He had a black holdall when he boarded the train,” he told Sky News. “He put it down and suddenly ran off the train. People tried to stop him but he got away. There was then a noise which sounded like the popping of Champagne corks.”

Stay tuned.

Women’s rights are limited and then there’s this about Israel.

Good for the Roberts family for adopting children. Good for the church and the state for blessing their civil and religious marriage, despite its non-procreative character. If more people adopted, we might have fewer abortions. Just don’t go further and use others’ inability to procreate their own biological children as a reason for denying them equal treatment under the law – either in adoption or marriage.

A classic diss.

Here’s a good one from Greg Gutfeld:

“A FUNNY BAR JOKE! (burp!)
Jann Wenner walks into a pub and sits down next to a man with a dog at his feet. “Does your dog bite?”
“No.”
A few minutes later the dog takes a huge chunk out of Mr. Wenner’s leg.
“I thought you said your dog didn’t bite!” he says indignantly.
“That’s not my dog,” says the other man.
“I can’t help but believe that this is in part the result of Bush’s War on Iraq,” says Jann, before limping out to his car.

More jokes suitable for the children of contributors to HuffPuffnStuff here.

Here are two reasonable ones. The first concerns Roberts’ support for untrammeled executive power in wartime. I’d expect nothing less from conservative judges, but given the fact that our current war is indefinite, some worries are legit. Here’s another view:

My guess is that he would not vote to overrule Roe v. Wade but would sustain state efforts to chip away at abortion rights. On economic liberties, however, he might well be a more adventurous innovator. He wrote articles as a law student suggesting that courts use novel theories of the Takings and Contracts clauses of the Constitution to strike down state action affecting business (such as legislation creating new rights for workers). He has done advisory work for right-wing public-interest firms like the Washington Legal Foundation. He may well be a quiet but effective influence for the piecemeal demolition of the regulatory welfare state.

Fine by me. Do I expect him to be a friend of gay rights? Nope. But I didn’t expect that of Kennedy either. Sometimes, reason finds a way.

“Last night, I saw Howard Fineman call Roberts a ‘brilliant’ pick on one of the cable shows because he is the most conservative candidate Bush could appoint without sparking a battle with Democrats. As usual, Fineman is astonishingly wrong. A better way to characterize Roberts is: the most moderate and uncontroversial candidate Bush could appoint without sparking a battle with James Dobson and the Christianists.

Three months ago the President would have delighted in jamming an untra conservative like Janice Rogers Brown down the Senate’s throat while invoking the nuclear option and spitting in each Democratic senator’s eye. Fast forward to this week, when he was forced to accept a late night visit from Arlen Spector, who had the audacity to demand that Bush replace O’Conner with a “moderate justice” in order to “maintain the balance.” This the same Spector who was on his knees vowing fealty to the President just last year.

The Roberts nomination is not a sign that Bush is finally getting “sensible” on judicial matters. It’s an indication of just how politically weak he’s become. Roberts is just conservative enough to squeeze by the Dobson crowd without howls of anger. He is arguably the least conservative of Bush’s “short list” of nominees. Clearly, Bush and Rove were terrified about losing this battle to the Democrats and moderate Republican senators. Having lost already social security and with the Rove scandal boiling, such a loss would be too devastating to contemplate.

Roberts may turn out to be an extremely conservative justice who votes to strike down Roe v. Wade and many other liberal favorites. The fact that we’re not certain about this must be a bitter pill for Dobson and friends, however.”

“Your post on the Islamo-fascist hanging/murder of the two gay men confirmed for me that my recent decision to join the U.S. military was correct. I have to stuff myself back in the closet – something I thought I left a decade ago – but our war on terror trumps my personal comfort at this point. Whenever my friends and family criticize – I’ll show ’em that link.”

“We are witnessing one of the greatest betrayals by the left since so-called left-wingers backed the Hitler-Stalin pact and opposed the war against Nazi fascism. Today, the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values. While it deplores the 7/7 terrorist attack on London, only last year it welcomed to the UK the Muslim cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who endorses the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. These same right-wing leftists back the so-called ‘resistance’ in Iraq. This ‘resistance’ uses terrorism against civilians as its modus operandi – stooping to the massacre of dozens of Iraqi children in order kill a few US soldiers. Terrorism is not socialism; it is the tactic of fascism. But much of the left doesn’t care. Never mind what the Iraqi people want, it wants the US and UK out of Iraq at any price, including the abandonment of Iraqi socialists, trade unionists, democrats and feminists. If the fake left gets its way, the ex-Baathists and Islamic fundamentalists could easily seize power, leading to Iranian-style clerical fascism and a bloodbath. I used to be proud to call myself a leftist. Now I feel shame. Much of the left no longer stands for the values of universal human rights and international socialism.” – Peter Tatchell, left-wing gay rights advocate, telling it like it is. Read more of the statements of leftists and others against terror, and excuses for terror, and feel encouraged.

Some Roberts disgruntlement here, here and here. Money quote:

Republicans have tried the blank slate route before. That’s the Supreme Court pick whose opinions are unknown–perhaps even to himself. What did it get the GOP? David Souter, for one. President Bush has twice been elected president, and his party controls 55 Senate seats. If he really is a social conservative–let’s face it, this is all about Roe v. Wade–why should he operate from a position of weakness and nominate a consensus candidate? While Roberts is neither the consensus candidate nor 2005’s David Souter, his views on Roe v. Wade, at least, are unknown. Is a crapshoot the best conservatives can do? On the other hand, the Democrats refused to confirm him when George H.W. Bush nominated him to the bench, and took two years to confirm him when George W. Bush nominated him to the DC Court of Appeals. Perhaps the Democrats know something that we don’t. Time will tell.

I’d say that’s more like the private musings of some hardline conservatives than most will admit publicly.