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Some Call It A Bonfire/Carnival Of Classiness...

We call it "Classiness, All Around Us."

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In no particular order, WILLisms.com presents classiness from the blogosphere (now with 50% more classy!):

1.

The SCOTUSblog picks apart the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision striking down two state laws prohibiting the shipment of out-of-state wine:

In soaring rhetoric, Kennedy said that preserving cross-country access to consumers was "essential to the foundations of the Union," citing the Federalist Papers, and the work of James Madison. The opinion said that it was a "central concern" of those who wrote the Constitution in the beginning to preserve economic access without individual state trade barriers. Indeed, this was "an immediate reason for calling the Constitutional Convention...In order to succeed, the new Union would have to avoid the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that had plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Articles of Confederation."

Meanwhile, Kip Esquire has two posts (here and here) with these thought-provoking comments:

...from a libertarian perspective it's "neat-o" that New Yorkers such as myself can now buy out-of-state wine directly over the Internet. But far more "neat-o" is the idea that the Constitution "means what it says and says what it means."

and

The Court has now granted itself the right to elevate implicit doctrine over explicit text under this new Jurisprudence of "Sorta Kinda."

I hope all these backflipping, high-fiving, cork-popping libertarians keep that in mind when the Supreme Court hands down its decision in the pending eminent domain case, Kelo v. New London. It might read something like this:

Individuals have a broad right to own property under the Fifth Amendment. This right, however, does not prevent States from seizing, or severely limiting the direct use of, property while simultaneously authorizing private-to-private takings as a "public use."

Because, under this supposedly "pro-libertarian" Internet wine ruling, "public use" could now easily mean, not "public use" at all, but "sorta kinda public use."

Who'll be popping corks then?

Professor Bainbridge explains the conflicting legal ideas at work in forming such coalitions:

You've got federal judicial power lined up against state legislative authority. You've got the original text of the constitution (albeit a principle extracted therefrom mainly by negative implication) versus an amendment tacked on validly but motivated by the worst sort of rent seeking. And so on.

2.

Speaking of Professor Bainbridge, he deftly dissects the dialogue in the new Star Wars movie, in which Darth Vader tells Obi-Wan "If you're not with me, you're my enemy," to which Obi-Wan responds, "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." For Bainbridge, this blatant shot at President Bush breaks with the original Star Wars trilogy:

The whole point was that both the Jedi and the Sith had fallen into a trap of believing absolutes, with Luke's task being to restore balance to the Force. The clear implication was that the Force had a yin-yang aspect, which both the Sith and Jedi had lost sight of. The core story arc thus was to be Luke's restoration of that balance despite opposition from both the remnants of the Jedi and the Emperor.

In choosing to put those words in Obi-Wan's mouth - "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes" - Lucas did more than just play to Hollywood left-liberalism. He betrayed his own creation. As Mr. T used to say, I pity the fool.

Chrenkoff (via PoliPundit), meanwhile, writes an open letter to George Lucas, noting:

You might be aware that all of us who saw the "Star Wars" trilogy throughout the communist world saw it as an entertaining, yet still nonetheless powerful commentary on the current world events. We simply couldn't escape the conclusion that the militaristic and freedom-crushing Empire with its legions of stormtroopers is a futuristic version of the Soviet Empire, which had conquered and enslaved hundreds of millions of people like myself....

But if in your mind, it's the United States that has slowly transformed itself into an evil Empire, and therefore, logically all those who stand up to it are our story's true heroes, than I have to say that the Dark Side is very strong indeed, and I have crossed over a long time ago. If America is the Empire, then please prepare a black helmet and uniform for me too.

3.

The indefatigable Patrick Ruffini has two in-depth posts on the Pew Research Center's recent political typology report.

Part 1.

Part 2.

For political junkies, these are both must-read blog-o-vision.

4.

Am I A Pundit Now? blog has two posts with some great thoughts--

Hitler The Left Winger:

The Left always points to Hitler as a 'warning' of what out of control conservatives will become....

American conservatism is pro-liberty, pro-rule of law, and laissez-faire. It is not, and can never possibly be, anything but the very antithesis of everything totalitarians such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao stood for.

Revisionists Kill The Past:

Revisionism is a type of cultural genocide that seeks to denigrate the colossal sacrifices of our elders, and seeks to villainize their very motives. It needs to be uprooted wherever it is found.

5.

Andrew Roth of Social Security Choice blog notes how the coalition of "450 economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, from across the country who have publicly endorsed personal accounts for Social Security" has gone unreported by the elite media, and asks:

Would it be newsworthy if 450 climatologists signed a joint petition saying that the ozone layer was being depleted? Or, to stay on point, would it be newsworthy if 450 economists jointly agreed that President Bush was WRONG to endorse personal accounts? Would the liberal media report it then? Of course they would. They would report the story even if 450 Hollywood actors agreed that personal accounts were wrong, and they aren’t even experts.

6.

Marginal Revolution blog takes a look at the strategies and goals of the Iraqi insurgents from a game theory point of view, noting 7 different possibilities.

A very interesting and succinct set of ideas.

7.

Steven D. Levitt, author of the book Freakonomics, responds on his blog to the critics of his "abortion reduces crime rate" hypothesis.

8.

By Dawn's Early Light blog examines Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent surprise visit to Iraq:

She takes Cold War American and Western foreign policy to task for promoting stability over a moral expansion of liberty for all, not just the former Communist regimes. She rightly claims we received neither stability nor greater security. America is at its best "when it is securing, and providing for" freedom throughout the world.

9.

Synthstuff tracks down the original source for the above piece of art, which has been floating around the internet for some time now.

10.

Both Outside The Beltway and Wizbang are happy to report that comedian Dave Chappelle is not crazy, is not on crack, but is, as the rumors placed him, in South Africa.

Yeee-ay-ah!

11.

Darius, of File It Under blog, posts his letter to Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich:

The United States NEEDS a representative like John Bolton representing it in the UN. We need to do what we can to shake up that organization to try to reform it. We need to send a message that we will NOT tolerate Kofi Annan's corrupt mismanagement, that we will NOT tolerate more scandals in the UN- like the UN Oil for Food Scandal and the UN Congo and East Timor Sex Scandals, and we need to send a message that the US does NOT approve of despotic nations like Syria, Iran and Sudan having membership on the UN Human Rights Commission.

If only more of Voinovich's constituents would have held his feet to the fire on this issue.

12.

Gateway Pundit has been busily covering the wild events in Uzbekistan:

Hundreds Dead in Uzbekistan.
New Violence in Uzbekistan.
More Violence Rips Uzbekistan.
Let the French be French.

And, most recently,
Ghastly Slaughter Reported in Andijan.

13.

The soapgun blog offers some brief but good thoughts on the reversal of the traditional correlations between political affiliation and idealism, with some nice quotes.

14.

Joe Katzman believes Newsweek's latest erroneous reporting disaster is a symptom of a lack of intellectual diversity at the magazine:

...the monoculture of social backgrounds and political beliefs in many newsrooms impairs the media's ability to ask these kinds of questions. Because they rarely bump into colleagues who might question their views, it never even occurs to them to ask certain questions, at least in a serious way. It also hurts their coverage of issues like religion, and the military where they have little representation and so misreport the issues - or fail to ask the right questions that would lead to good investigative journalism.

15.

John Hawkins reports that it didn't take long for the "Karl Rove is behind the Newsweek Koran-flushing article" conspiracy theories to pop up:

Of course, using that same logic, we could conclude that Ted Kennedy and Co. were responsible for Enron, that Harry Reid & Co. made Alan Keyes say all those dumb things in his Senate race against Barrack Obama last year, & that Hillary Clinton was behind the prostate cancer that kept Rudy Guiliani from running against her in 2000.

Also, don't forget to check out all the old Trivia Tidbits Of the Day, the Reform Thursday series, the Quotational Therapy sessions, and the Wednesday Caption Contest (entries are due Tuesday at 11:59 PM Central Standard Time).

Previous Certifications of Classiness from WILLisms.com:

February 8, 2005;

February 16, 2005;

February 18, 2005;

February 21, 2005;

February 22, 2005;

February 25, 2005;

March 3, 2005;

March 9, 2005;

March 15, 2005;

March 22, 2005;

March 29, 2005;

April 5, 2005;

April 12, 2005;

April 19, 2005;

April 26, 2005;

May 3, 2005.

and

May 10, 2005.

WILLisms.com offers a classiness roundup as a weekly feature, every Tuesday, (now) with 15 posts deemed classy. We love to spread the word on upcoming blogs, being that WILLisms.com also fits that description. If you would like to nominate a post on your blog or another blog for inclusion, email us at WILLisms@gmail.com. Write "Classy Nomination" in the subject.

Classy.

Posted by Will Franklin · 17 May 2005 10:27 AM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at May 17, 2005 12:39 PM

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at May 17, 2005 01:15 PM

Posted by: Cindy T. at May 17, 2005 01:47 PM

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at May 17, 2005 08:29 PM

Posted by: Aakash at May 19, 2005 10:22 PM