H/T HotAir
Must watch all the way to the end for full impact:
Need a lift? This bears repeating:
Allah Pundit has this good news and newsworthy tidbit:
Palin, who emerged as a leading voice in the Republican Party after Arizona Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate in the contest against Obama, is thought to be considering a run for president in 2012. Auburn residents welcomed her to the podium at City Hall with a chant of “Run, Sarah, run!”…
Palin rode the mile-long parade route in a red convertible, getting out to walk about 100 yards while carrying small U.S. and Alaska state flags in each hand. Spectators yelled out “Welcome, Sarah” and “Thanks for coming” as Palin waved back.
Local resident Chris Stone, with his wife and three children, said he didn’t care for Palin’s politics but didn’t want to miss the chance to see her in person.
“You can see by the turnout, she’s become a personality and a historical figure,” said Stone, who voted for Obama. “I know all these people aren’t Republicans. This is a chance to see someone who has had a big impact on history.”
Michelle Malkin is settling into a comfy chair while N.Korea takes to the skies with more and more fireworks.
Charles Krauthammer is for the U.S. encouraging Japan to take a bold and powerful step by getting into the nuclear ring. The message would pack more punch than either Obama’s disarmament talk, disgruntling Krauthammer:
He certainly has a vision. Rather than relying on America’s unique technological edge in missile defenses to provide a measure of nuclear safety, Obama will instead boldly deploy the force of example. How? By committing his country to disarmament gestures — such as, he promised his cheering acolytes in Prague, ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban.
It would be more of a message than the one Obama’s sends with spending cuts in our defense budget and weakening our defense capabilities or the UN’s laughable assault with more empty words and inaction. Krauthammer’s beat this drum before :
The immediate effect of Japan’s considering going nuclear would be to concentrate China’s mind on denuclearizing North Korea. China calculates that North Korea is a convenient buffer between it and a dynamic, capitalist South Korea bolstered by American troops. China is quite content with a client regime that is a thorn in our side, keeping us tied down while it pursues its ambitions in the rest of Asia. Pyongyang’s nukes, after all, are pointed not west but east.
Japan’s threatening to go nuclear would alter that calculation. It might even persuade China to squeeze Kim Jong Il as a way to prevent Japan from going nuclear. The Japan card remains the only one that carries even the remote possibility of reversing North Korea’s nuclear program.
Japan’s response to the North Korean threat has been very strong and very insistent on serious sanctions. This is, of course, out of self-interest, not altruism. But that is the point. Japan’s natural interests parallel America’s in the Pacific Rim — maintaining military and political stability, peacefully containing an inexorably expanding China, opposing the gangster regime in Pyongyang, and spreading the liberal democratic model throughout Asia.
Why are we so intent on denying this stable, reliable, democratic ally the means to help us shoulder the burden in a world where so many other allies — the inveterately appeasing South Koreans most notoriously — insist on the free ride?
Hot Air questions using logic on the illogical while seeing the logic this way:
Why would Japan want its own arsenal when it already enjoys the deterrent effect of being under America’s nuclear umbrella? Simple: A Japanese arsenal wouldn’t really be aimed at deterrence. It would be aimed at scaring the hell out of China, where memories of Japanese aggression are long. The thinking, I guess, is that China would be sufficiently cowed by Japanese nukes that they’d have no choice but to try much harder to calm Kim down lest they end up being drawn into a three-way nuclear war with North Korea and Japan.
Hot Air on Sotomayor including Rush and response:
The context of the quote still leaves it in the ranks of racism or reverse racism:
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.
AllahPundit is waiting for answers:
I’m looking forward to hearing whether she thinks any of the white men on the Court currently aren’t devoting the “time and effort” needed to neutralize their white-male-ness, and to whether she’s devoted any of her own to understanding the “experiences” of people who aren’t female and Latino.
Be Holy! 