A few days ago the news was released that a High Court in the United Kingdom ruled that Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, may not be shown to school students there unless preceded by court-mandated disclaimers:

… The Court found that the film was misleading in nine respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary’s advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

James Joyner picks up on Mario Cuomo’s piece in the NYT in which Mario says that Senators Jim Webb and Hillary Clinton are off track when they want Congress to enact law demanding that the president “go before Congress to ask for a ‘declaration of war’ before proceeding with an attack against Iran or any other nation.”

But there is no need for this demand to be put into law, as the two Democrats and their colleagues are seeking to do, any more than there is need for legislation to guarantee our right of free speech or anything else protected by the Constitution.

Article I, Section 8 already provides that only Congress has the power to declare war.

Mario has more to say, of course, and James goes on to discuss how the warring powers of the executive and the Congress have been muddied since Thomas Jefferson’s administration.

But here’s the part of Mario’s piece that caught my eye:

Because the Constitution cannot be amended by persistent evasion, this mandate was neither erased nor modified by the actions or inactions of timid Congresses that allowed overeager presidents to start wars in Vietnam and elsewhere without making a declaration.

What??? “… the Constitution cannot be amended by persistent evasion…”???

Sure it can, Mario, it happens all the time! The earliest example I can think of was Justice John Marshall’s declaration in Marbury v. Madison that the Supreme Court could invalidate the actions of the other two branches of government. Yet the Constitution does not grant the Supreme Court any such authority. As Thomas Jefferson complained,

In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that ‘the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.’ If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow . . . The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

—Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:212

So Mr. Cuomo might want to think again.

Last July Tennessee raised the state tax on cigarettes to 62 cents per pack - a 42-cent per pack raise. That made Tennessee’s cigarette tax higher than any of the eight states it borders, in some cases, much higher.

And Tennessee’s ruling class seems surprised - but shouldn’t be - that smokers living within an hour’s drive of the border, which is almost all Tennesseans, are cruising to another state the buy their smokes. Maybe smokers (I am not one) drive more than an hour, I dunno. But drive they do, even though their purchase savings are greatly offset, if not eliminated, by the cost of the fuel they use and the wear and tear on their autos.

Unles,, of course, they buy a lot of cigarettes. And therein lies the problem. It is also against the law in Tennessee to bring more than two cartons per person (I think, but it could be per vehicle) of cigarettes into Tennessee.

Under state law, bringing more than two cartons of cigarettes into the state without paying Tennessee taxes is a “Class B” misdemeanor, carrying punishment of up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine. Bringing 25 or more cartons is a “Class E” felony, with minimum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum of six years plus a fine of up to $3,000. In addition, the specific state statute dealing with untaxed cigarettes provides that vehicles used to transport more than two cartons “are considered contraband and are subject to seizure,” says a Department of Revenue statement.

Farr said that agents have been instructed to seize any vehicle carrying more than 25 cartons of cigarettes without Tennessee tax stamps. In cases where three to 24 cartons are involved, he said vehicle seizure is “at the officer’s discretion.”

As one wag remarked somewhere on the Internet, Tennessee’s increased revenue from the rise in taxes will be used to pay for stopping freelance bootleggers. James Joyner (whence the cite) asks, reasonably enough,

How this can possibly be constitutional is beyond me. First, what gives Tennessee police officers the authority to operate across state lines? Second, surely seizing a vehicle potentially worth upwards of $40,000 for the “crime” of possessing more than two cartons of cigarettes amounts to excessive punishment under the 8th and 14th Amendments?

First, Tennessee revenooers can’t make arrests outside their legal jurisdiction, but they may cross state lines in the otherwise performance of their duties. But the Constitutional questions are compelling, I think. I’d argue against what Tennessee is doing because of the Commerce Clause of the main body of the Contitution:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, reads as follows:”The Congress shall have Power …To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

I think it’s simply beyond arguing that Tennessee is attempting to regulate commerce across state borders, authority for which is reserved by the Constitution to the US Congress, and is thereby usurping a federal power.

Where does personal use end and bootlegging begin? Bootlegging meaning reselling the smokes in Tennessee for profit, not buying a dozen cartons for Aunt Esmerelda, who is too weak to drive because of her emphysema, and who pays back the exact amount of the purchase.

Tennessee does have a legitimate interest in prohibiting bootlegging of cigarettes, and for that the 25-carton limit seems reasonable to me. But conviction for actual bootlegging would require more than possession of some arbitrary number of cartons, would it not? If a legger bought other-state cigs, saving $4.50 per carton (45 cents per pack), then he’d have to charge his illicit customers at least half that to recoup costs and make a profit. So, 25 cartons bought at $4.50 discount = $112.50, call half of it profit at resale, or $66. Do that six days per week and the legger nets almost $400 per week.

But the state has brought all this on itself because it raised the tax and thereby generated the incentive for the majority of Tennessee smokers to buy across state lines. That’s the trouble with vice taxes, they require inordinate resources to enforce and often criminalize what would otherwise be seen as quite reasonable behavior. Tennessee’s standard sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation, why not just tax cigarettes at that rate (9.25 percent where I live) and be done with it?

Oh, I know, I know, don’t bother to try to enlighten me.

Via James Lileks’ site, here is an online slide show of the wreckage of the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed yesterday. Stunning. Even viewing the TV coverage, the magnitude of the disaster didn’t strike home until I saw these photos. A TV anchor just said up to 30 people are still missing. Please keep them in your prayers.

Update: Marc Danziger says of the collapse scene, “This is what not investing in infrastructure looks like,” and that ultimately, politicians who didn’t mandate and fund infrastructure maintenance or upgrades are to blame. At PopularMechanics.com, Stephen Flynn writes much the same:

In the end, investigators may find that there are unique and extraordinary reasons why the I-35W bridge failed. But the graphic images of buckled pavement, stranded vehicles, twisted girders and heroic rescuers are a reminder that infrastructure cannot be taken for granted. The blind eye that taxpayers and our elected officials have been turning to the imperative of maintaining and upgrading the critical foundations that underpin our lives is irrational and reckless.

But there’s no lobby for it and besides, the Congress would rather spend one-third billion dollars on a “bridge to nowhere” than spend only a tiny fraction of that to tighten screws or reweld a few seams on existing bridges.

There are almost 600,000 bridges in the United States. As Flynn reports, a quarter are rated as “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” And it’s not just bridges - all manner of infrastructure faces the same problems. One brake, though, on dumping the full load of blame on Congress or state legislatures is that much of this infrastructure is privately owned - think of power grids or natural-gas pipelines. OTOH, these kinds of businesses are regulated entities and a legislature has a lot more to say about their safety than, say, the condition of asphalt in a Giant Foods parking lot.

Not even a year ago the Democrats in Congress and others of their allies vehemently charged President Bush for not listening to the military. They criticized the civilian leadership of our defense establishment for creating a culture of fear wherein generals were afraid to challenge military policy. The capital sin, said they, was failing to listen to and heed General Eric Shinseki when he testified before Congress that we would need several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq as opposed to the 100,000-plus that Rumsfeld wanted to send.

Congress said they were listening and accused the administration of willfully deaf ears and further accused the administration of being married to a strategy of defeat.

Within this last year the Democrats in Congress got their wish. They won control and Bush listened as he sent Rumsfeld packing and appointed a man in Secretary Gates who promised to listen to the generals. The administration also replaced the generals who had gone along with the failed policy (or so as the Democrats had accused them) and replaced them with generals who preached a new strategy and whom Congress overwhelmingly approved. Enter General David Petraeus.

In the same vein as General Shinseki – previously hailed as a sage by the Democrats (and who did happen to be correct as was former CENTCOM commander General Anthony Zinni at the same time) – General Petraeus asked for more troops. Bush, who had been reluctant to send overwhelming force before, agreed to send a surge of the bare minimum – but send them he did. And Congress squealed. Why? Hadn’t they been the ones who were listening all along? Bush was finally listening!

And the military continues to speak its needs to those who will listen…and to those who won’t. Recently General Petraeus stated that while generals would always like more troops, what he really needs is time. Major General Rick Lynch, commander of thousands of US and Iraqi troops south of Baghdad states that we need time to capitalize on the success of the surge to date. He tells us that the first question he gets from Iraqis is “Are you going to stay?” That’s the same question Afghans asked me during my own tour in Afghanistan. Time is the precious commodity needed.

And the surge is working. The latest report comes no less from the New York Times in an essay written by leading members of the left leaning Brookings Institution. Regular critics of the war effort, this time Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack proclaim that “there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008,” exactly the minimum time that the military is asking for.

The conventional wisdom is that al Qaeda only needs to outwait the US. Time is on al Qaeda’s side, we are told. Well, al Qaeda has no more time than we do. Why would we cede a strategic advantage to our enemies by imagining that we have less time to accomplish our objectives than they do? We have as much time as we are willing to take. Away with electioneering when lives are at stake!

President Bush is willing to stake the remainder of his presidency and indeed his entire legacy on giving Petraeus what he needs - time. The military is speaking. Bush is listening. The skeptical Brookings Institute is no less listening. And even the Bush-hating New York Times is listening inasmuch as they are willing to publish such essays and reports of surge success. The momentum has shifted in our favor in Iraq. Nothing is lost so long as we don’t give it away. So is the Congress – anti-war Democrats and weakening Republicans alike - listening? Who is now married to a strategy of defeat?

Presidential candidate Barack Obama says that he will order combat missions inside Pakistan.

“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” …

Obama said that as commander in chief he would remove troops from Iraq and putting them “on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Good grief.

Here’s a short blogosphere roundup:

Thomas Lifson: “Nothing is more dangerous than a naïve appeaser, other than a naïve appeaser who erratically takes rash steps in order to look tougher than he really is.”

BCB: “To Heck With Our Enemies, Let’s Invade Our Allies”: “[I]n a week or so we have had Obama say that stopping genocide was no reason to stay in Iraq, that he would personally meet with heads of rogue states and that he would invade a nuclear-armed ally.”

Michelle Malkin, who has a link roundup of her own.

Captain’s Quarters provides a snippet of a debate between Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Norm Coleman on the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which was once law and empowered the federal government to regulate media broadcasts regarding political coverage to ensure (it was claimed) “dalance” and “fairness.” There are member os the Congress of both parties who want the “fairness doctrine” reestablished in law. So over to Dick Durbin:

Since the people who are seeking the licenses are using America’s airwaves, does the government, speaking for the people of this country, have any interest at that point to step in and make sure there is a despair balanced approach to the -a fair and balanced approach to the information given to the American people?

Get that? “… does the government, speaking for the people of this country… .”

Senator, here’s a clue. You do not speak for the people of this country. Nor do your 99 colleagues, nor do the 435 members of the House.

The people of America speak for themselves. That’s why the states required the guarantees that the government would stay away from speech regulation to be amended to the Constitution before they would ratify it. Hence the First Amendment.

Why does Durbin think he speaks for the people? Because of Den Beste’s Law: “The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left themselves they will regulate everything they can.” But not everyone is infected with regulatory disease. Sen. Coleman responded,

We’re at a time where we’ve got 20,000, you know, opportunities for stations and satellite, where you have cable, you have blogs, you have a whole range of information. I think it would be — I — I can’t even conceive — I can’t even conceive that the market could not provide opportunities for differing positions because it does. And in the end — in the end, consumers also have a right based on the market to make choices.

Now, Norm’s close but still doesn’t the cigar. The “market” has nothing to do with this. Consumers making choices, right or wrong, have nothing to do with this. This is not a mercantile issue. This is about a fundamental human right that strikes to very heart of democracy: the unhindered right of the people to speak, publish, post or broadcast without government constraint about matters relating to their government. If the First Amendment is intended to protect anything, it’s intended to protect political speech. But as Radley Balko wrote, “This is all thinly-disguised posturing for what’s really bothering the senators: They don’t like that people are allowed to criticize them on public airwaves.” Yep.

So Durbin and allies want to regulate the people’s speech because they incredibly believe that they speak for us and therefore must protect us from our own speech.

(Linked at OTB’s Traffic Jam.)

Michelle Malkin posts a jpeg sent her by a reader who was sent a renewal form for his RNC membership. He sent the form back suitably modified.

Yesterday I was called by an RNC pollster. (I am not a member of any political party.) For some reason I’ve gotten several calls in the last few weeks from various polling organizations, but have always declined to participate. This guy was pretty smooth, though. before I could say, ‘no thanks, have a nice day,’ he went straight to his first question. It went like this:

RNC: Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Bush is doing his job?

ME: Disapprove.

RNC: -click-

I take it there are some feedbacks they just don’t want to hear. But Tennessee’s new senator, Bob Corker, seems to get it. No fear, Bob, after you’ve been in DC for four years or so you’ll be as tone deaf as the rest of them.