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Tuesday, March 22, 2005
PROCUREMENT: The U.S. Armys Blank Check
From http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/howtomakewar/default.asp?target=HTPROC.HTM March 18, 2005
March 18, 2005: The U.S. Congress has caught on to how the Department of Defense is using up to 20 percent of the money, earmarked for Iraq or Afghanistan operations, for regular operations and special projects. In particular, the U.S. Army, which is getting most of this "Supplemental Appropriations," is using a lot of it to finance a transformation and reform program. Actually, a lot of the transformation efforts the army is paying for with the Iraq money is unavoidable. Congress is under lots of political pressure to "support the troops", keep casualties down and win the war. This means trying new ideas, and new equipment. The army was already working on lots of new ideas, and equipment, before they invaded Iraq in 2003. Now the army has what amounts to a blank check, and they are using it. Congress, however, is also worried about ideas, especially expensive ideas, that don't work. Right now, all you have to do is shout, "don't you know there's a war going on," in order to get what you want. But a lot of these bright ideas are not working. No surprise there, that's what happens when you try anything. But as the war in Iraq dies down, the investigative reporters will be out looking for recent examples of "wasteful military spending." There will be plenty of procurement-gone-wrong to jump on. Now every bright idea works, and you don't find out what works, and what doesn't, until you try it. The successes, everyone can stand around and salute. But the failures will make a lot of reporters famous and rich.
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I am informed that there is corroboration of Terri Schiavo's wishes, namely that she said, at a funeral, that she wouldn't want to "live like that" and was heard by witnesses. I have also received passionate defenses of the good intentions of the husband. Both I think are nearly irrelevant: remarks at funerals are not formal declarations of intent; and her husband's intentions are not the matter at issue here. In any event I have no reason to change my views of the principles as I stated last week.
There is an issue of popular sovereignty. The Florida Supreme Court has, unsurprisingly, ruled the the legislation empowering the Governor to preserve Shaivo's life unconstitutional on the grounds of "separation of powers." Their notion of separation of power is judicial supremacy.
Were I Governor Bush I would order the state police to conduct a National Guard physician to reinsert the tube, deliberately defying the Florida Supreme Court's assertion of supremacy and sovereignty in the state of Florida. The resulting Constitutional Crisis would be illuminating.
It would seem to me that when courts -- those holdovers of Royal arbitrary power -- decide to defy the "political departments" they must be on very solid ground. I do not think their judicial supremacy reasoning is very solid. Courts are at most equals in the separation of power; they have no automatic claim to residual Royal Sovereignty. That, I would think, was firmly established in 1648 and again in 1688 in England; and again in 1776 in the United States. For good or ill, legitimacy in go0vernment in these United States comes from the consent of the governed, and that consent is most commonly expressed by Congress and the state legislatures. Courts exist to "interpret" laws, and since Marbury v. Madison have asserted a right, unknown in the letter of the Constitution, to nullify Federal laws. This is not one of those powers necessary to government, and it has been defied before. Holmes once said that the stars would not fall from the Heavens if the Supreme Court did not have the power to nullify Federal laws. (He then added that Federal judicial power over State legislation was entirely another matter.)
I find this case interesting in that those asserting state sovereignty are not those who usually give a fig about such.
My views on Schiavo's medical condition and the likelihood of her even partial recovery are not relevant. My proclivity is with President Bush, that it is better to err on the side of life rather than death, and I find that consistent with the whole matter of government by consent of the governed; but I also find it astonishing that so many would rally around the judiciary in defiance of the state legislature when there is no clear constitutional principle (other than judicial supremacy) at stake. I do not believe that judges have any special powers not granted by legislation; I do not believe that the intellectual heirs of the 0ffice-seekers and courtiers who surrounded the King and toadied to his wishes inherited any Royal sovereignty; and if it comes to a showdown on which is sovereign, judiciary or legislature, I side with the legislature. And this despite a romantic streak: I certainly prefer Prince Rupert to Cromwell, and I can sing the old songs about Bonnie Prince Charlie with the best of them.
I doubt that Governor Bush will do it; but this is one constitutional crisis that perhaps ought to be provoked, reluctant as I am to have matters come to such loggerheads. Legislative supremacy ought to be exercised with restraint, and executive defiance of the judiciary ought to be even more so; but Judicial Supremacy is not a principle worth defending.
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Now HERE is news:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/
story_page/0,5744,12471871%255E2702,00.html
Digestion pill to end diabetes diets
Clara Pirani, Medical reporter
March 08, 2005: RESTRICTIVE diets for millions of Australians with diabetes and gluten intolerance may soon be a thing of the past after the development of a new pill.
The pill, taken 20 minutes before a meal, improves intestinal function, makes foods easier to digest and allows sufferers to eat food that would normally make them ill. "It is very exciting," said Bob Anderson, a gastroenterologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. "It's the first drug that is being promoted as being useful in coeliac disease."
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"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." John Quincy Adams
"Why not?" William Kristol and Robert Kagan
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