Target Centermass

The senate committee hearings for Judge Alito are now in full swing.

Judge Samuel Alito calmly deflected senators’ questions about abortion rights and presidential power Tuesday as he pledged to keep an open mind if confirmed for the Supreme Court and insisted that no person is above the law, including the president of the United States.

During a marathon question-and-answer session spanning more than eight hours, Alito told Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) that he believes in the right to privacy, as well as the principle of stare decisis, in which legal precedents should be overturned only rarely, for the sake of consistency in the law.

“People have a right to privacy in their homes and in their papers and in their persons,” Alito said.

The right to privacy, and the subsequent right to an abortion, is one of the issues that hangs in the balance with Alito’s nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, prompting repeated questions on the subject. Alito’s prominent mentions of the right to privacy and the power of precedent appeared to be an attempt to placate abortion rights supporters who fear he would vote to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade abortion case.

I’m not going to pretend that I’ve watched more than a few moments and, as I’ve said before that I think it’s already a done deal. What I have seen is about what I expected: Sens. Kennedy, Biden and Schumer essentially looking like caricatures of themselves while an atmosphere of oppressive tedium covers all.

Tough questions? Ha! Let Llama Butcher Robert put forth the really challenging questions.

On the other hand, as a concerned citizen, I feel it is my responsibility to participate in this process in at least some capacity. In that spirit, therefore, I offer

ROBBO’S TOP TEN USELESS ALITO CONFIRMATION QUESTIONS:

10. Yes or no – have you stopped beating your wife?
9. If you had a hammer, would you hammer in the morning or the evening and why?
[...]

Go read the rest. Personally, I think #5 just begs to be asked of this nominee.

“Retired Military Persons Needed”

Michael Yon is back from Iraq, but he wants the stories from the ground to continue.

Now that I’m back in the United States for a time, trying wring every bit of information of the war out of the news, only to come up dry most days, it’s become clear that in just under a year, the media gap has morphed into a chasm. Before this thing becomes a black hole, it’s time for a few good men and women to put their military experience and expertise to use in an operation that can create an alternative channel that will allow frontline information to break through and be heard.

This site gets much traffic from all around the world, from people searching for news from Iraq, making it an ideal place to host stories from deployed forces in harm’s way. Not comments, not those endlessly forwarded unattributed “true” stories that always seem airbrushed, but real stories about the ground situation. In my travels I’ve met many budding writers who are now wearing boots and carrying rifles, and I found their stories so compelling that I want the world to see.

One antidote to the no news but bad news flu would be to let more of these voices be heard. A simple “call for stories,” would probably stuff the inbox with emailed submissions. Having already made my ongoing inability to read email well known on these pages, any information system predicated on my reading emails would clog before it launched. This is where the volunteers come in.

If qualified and interested, go check out Yon’s call to arms … err, keyboards. Hat tip to the Fat Guy.

A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. And a crash may be just a crash.

Ahmad Kazemi, appointed last year as ground forces commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was among 13 people killed on Monday in a plane crash near the city of Urumiyeh, north-west Iran

General Kazemi was one of a wave of promotions made last August by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after new president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad took office.

Separate from Iran’s regular armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards have land, sea and air forces, and run a network of business activities. Iran’s reformists have long accused the Guards of playing too political a role.

The aircraft, a French-made Falcon jet, came down because landing gear jammed, reported IRNA, the official news agency, which put General Kazemi among the 11 commanders killed.

This was Iran’s second military plane crash in two months. On December 6, around 105 people, mainly journalists, died when a US-made military transport Hercules C-130 crashed into a residential building near Tehran’s Mehrabad airport after suffering engine trouble.

Iran has a patchy recent history of air safety, with spare parts for both military and civilian aircraft subject to US sanctions.

As I noted earlier, military aviation is a dangerous business. Still, given the recent radical behavior at the top of the Iranian government, I doubt I’m the only one with thoughts of the word purge.

Even if, after all is said and done, the problem stems from continued American sanctions, do not turn here for tears.