2016-02-13

Daily Derp: Scalia Dies

Not derp.

Death of Antonin Scalia.

This is seismic and will have a rather large impact on American politics. Specifically, whether Obama will nominate a replacement and if the Republicans will block it thus leaving it to the next President.

Scalia was arguably the greatest intellectual Justice in Supreme Court history.

Pugnacious, blunt (he was known to have been critical of O'Connor), and sharp with wit he brought personality to the courts and his legacy will speak for itself. A devout Catholic of Italian heritage and conservative, some of his stances elicited much anger among progressive liberals especially his views on homosexuality and abortion. He was not able to get Roe v. Wade overturned as he had hoped but his influence was enough such that the right to bear arms did indeed extend to citizens in Second Amendment; a position Obama accepted.

Scalia came from a school of thought - Originalism or original meaning - that believed the Constitution should be interpreted and accepted as it was written. That is, not a living constitution as his friend but nemesis on the bench Ginsburg believed it to be. 

He was also vocal against judicial activism.

"...Purposivism is particularly susceptible to judicial activism. Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner explain: 
The most destructive (and most alluring) feature of purposivismis its manipulability. Any provision of law . . . can be said to have a number of purposes, which can be placed on a ladder of abstrac-tion. A law against pickpocketing, for example, has as its narrowest purpose the prevention of theft from the person; and then in as-cending order of generality, the protection of private property; the preservation of a system of private ownership; the encouragement of productive activity by enabling producers to enjoy the fruits of their labor; and, finally, the furtherance of the common good."
By ascending “the ladder of abstraction,” the interpreter can essentially rewrite legal texts by making them conform to a general goal of the lawgiver. The higher the interpreter climbs up “the ladder of abstraction,” the more freedom she has to rewrite the text. Intentionalism on the other hand is not concerned with what the ultimate goal of a law against pickpocketing is, only what the lawmaking body intended the legal text to mean."

Quite the loss.

Updated with link to Reason.

***

While reading on Scalia and purposivism in the Bill of Rights Journal linked above I came across


"The distinction between intentionalism and purposivism is important because if say that a lawmaking body’s intended meanings form law’s existential element, why not say that their intended desires and goals form the same? The reason is that intended desires and goals are not law; they are simply what a lawmaking body hopes to accomplish with a law. A law’s purpose or goal may in fact be frustrated by its own meaning. Consider Professor Thomas Sowell’s example: 
Ironically, cities with strong rent control laws, such as New York and San Francisco, tend to end up with higher average rents than cities without rent control. Where such laws apply only to rents below some specified level, presumably to protect the poor, builders then have incentives to build only apartments luxurious enough to be above the rent-control level. Rich and poor alike who move into the city after rent control has created a housing shortage typically cannot find a rent-controlled apartment, and so have available only housing that costs more than it would in a free market, because of the housing shortage.
The purposivist climbing “the ladder of abstraction” might invalidate the price ceilings if it would ultimately effectuate the goal or desire of the legislator to “protect the poor” or “make available affordable housing.” But the intentionalist would only be concerned with the meaning that the lawmaking body attached to the text—there would be no route to invalidation of the price ceiling."

***

'Death by GPS'.

"I called as I approached, asking if she was okay," wrote Ranger Amber Nattrass in a park report. "She was waving frantically and screaming, 'My baby is dead, my baby is dead.' "

"...Lately, Callagan has been working with technology companies to remove closed and hazardous roads from their navigation databases – but with only partial success.
"I'm pulling my hair," he said. "I was never able to reach a single human with Google Earth Maps. But in their system, they have a way you can let them know something is wrong. And over the course of a year, I was able to get their maps updated."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article2573180.html#storylink=cpy


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article2573180.html#storylink=cpy
 Yeah, Google's weak and blind spot is not humanizing itself.

1-800-Goo-gle1!

***

Those "refugees":

"Thousands of Iraqi refugees who arrived in Finland last year have decided to cancel their asylum applications and to return home voluntarily, citing family issues and disappointment with life in the frosty Nordic country.

Europe is in the grip of its worst migrant crisis since World War Two, with more than a million people arriving last year, fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and beyond."

Refugees my ass.

People fleeing war aren't picky and don't split and go back home.

***


The 'E' in EPA stands for evil.

***

Tesla continues to disappoint.

***

Williamson at NRO has a good, honest account about how police forces are in serious trouble in the United States. He wrote what observers see and what's seen is not good at all. It's the opposite of 'war on cops'.

"...Is it really so difficult to believe that there is widespread wrongdoing, and widespread lying about it, among U.S. law-enforcement agencies, particularly those in big, Democrat-run cities infamous for the corruption of their other municipal institutions? Why do conservatives find it so plausible — obvious, even — that the IRS and the EPA and the Atlanta public schools are corrupt and self-serving, but somehow believe that the Baltimore police department isn’t?


It is possible that what is really at play here is an emotional response to protest culture. Seeing the Black Lives Matters miscreants and Baltimore rioters on one side of the line, conservatives instinctively want to be on the other side of the line. The same thing happened with the Iraq-war protests: When the dirty hippies take to the barricades, conservatives are drawn to the other side.

...Why conservatives and Republicans should be defensive about the fact that Baltimore, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Honolulu are misgoverned to various degrees of criminality is a mystery. Conservatives with real political power in those cities are as scarce as hen’s teeth. Could it really be something so simple as the fact that we do not feel comfortable standing on the same side of a bright red line as the malefactors in Ferguson and such opportunists as DeRay Mckesson, now a Baltimore mayoral candidate, and Al Sharpton? Sharpton is a grotesque and one of the most dishonest men in American public life, but that does not mean that the people running Baltimore and its police department aren’t also crooked. Some police officers are indeed heroes. Some are villains. Most are ordinary, time-serving municipal employees like any other, and telling ourselves otherwise is sentimental rubbish."

David French has a sadz.

***


"Canada’s fighter jets will end combat operations within the next two weeks and be replaced by an enlarged and riskier military training mission and a new humanitarian focus on the refugee crisis engulfing the region around Syria.

The expanded mission will see the number of Canadian special-forces trainers climb to 207 from 69, which Canada’s top general warned will increase the risks of their being killed or wounded in firefights with Islamic State militants."

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.
***

Those tolerant liberal/progressives.

Lyndon Penner Retweeted Derrick O'Keefe
When Stephen Harper dies, I'm having a cake made & hosting a party. 

***

Is Amazon taking over the world?

Maybe.

As long as their customer service remains where it is.

From Amazon to Uber, the new economy has arrived and youz better all get uzed to it.



1 comment:

Mysterious and anonymous comments as well as those laced with cyanide and ad hominen attacks will be deleted. Thank you for your attention, chumps.