Pun Salad

Nevertheless, I've updated yesterday's post which approvingly quoted Kevin D. Williamson, who said "We have an indecisive president—and it is decision time". This apparently turned out to be, um, a misguided missile.

So I guess it's time to look at the resulting commentary. The National Review editors are OK with bomb, bomb Iran: Trump Enforces His Red Line on Iran.

There's a bit of Constitutional throat-clearing later: "As we noted previously, such action should have been approved by Congress."

How about the WSJ editorial board? They say: Trump Meets the Moment on Iran.

I don't think the WSJ mentions that Congressional thing. For that, let's turn to Matthew Petti, Reason's resident peacenik: Trump Shreds the Constitution By Bombing Iran.

In case I haven't mentioned it recently: I am totally unqualified to comment on foreign policy, including war policy. I'm old enough to remember a long line of policy "experts" making confident predictions and plausible recommendations that turned out to be total wrong-headed garbage. So what chance do I have to do better?

All I can do is hope this makes things better in the long run.

Also of note:

• I'm always a sucker for a Casablanca reference. And Jonathan Turley brings it: The Claude Rains School of Constitutional Law: Democrats Denounce Iranian Attack as Unconstitutional.

  Yesterday, I wrote a column in the Hill discussing how Trump is unlikely to go to Congress in launching an attack on Iran and how he has history on his side in acting unilaterally. The column noted that many Democratic politicians and pundits who were supportive of such unilateral actions by Democratic presidents such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are suddenly opposed to Trump using the same power. It is the Claude Rains School of Constitutional Law where politicians are “shocked, shocked” that Trump is using the authority that they accepted in Democratic predecessors.

  Jonathan notes how silent today's Democrats were after (for example) Obama's bombing of Libya. And some who were not silent gloated jubilantly. But that was then, and this is…

• I missed Porcfest again. It was all the way up in Lancaster, from where Pun Son, my dog, and I witnessed the solar eclipse last year. And it cost money to get in!

  Probably David D. Friedman got in free, though. He was inspired by one of the speakers, "Angela McArdle, sometime chair of the Libertarian Party and currently of the Mises Caucus" to muse on Strategies for Libertarians.

  Andrea recounted the LP's flirtation with Trumpism, which caused the freeing of Ross Albricht and appointment of "libertarian" RFK Jr to be HHS Secretary. Win? David notes two problems with such a strategy:

  The first is to the reputation of the libertarian movement. The Libertarian Party has long labeled itself “The Party of Principle;” part of the attraction of the libertarian movement is the appearance of consistent support of liberty across a wide variety of issues, from drug laws to professional licensing to immigration, of being motivated by a consistent philosophy of freedom. If the party is seen as visibly supporting Trump, as it will be by anyone who listened to McArdle’s webbed talk, it will be seen as sharing the responsibility for all of his actions, some of them far from libertarian. That will make it harder to recruit or retain as members, of the movement as well as the party, anyone opposed to Trump’s policies. Since Trump is not a libertarian that is likely to include not only anyone left of center but also anyone seriously committed to libertarianism.

  The second cost is the effect of alliance with Trump, or with any other non-libertarian movement, on libertarian doctrine. Libertarians who are Trump allies will feel pressure to minimize the conflict between his beliefs and theirs, to create libertarian defenses for unlibertarian policies in order not to feel obliged to attack their allies. That effect will be reinforced by the change in the personnel of the movement as Trump supporters join, libertarians hostile to Trump’s policies leave. In enough time the result is likely to be a “libertarian” party, possibly a “libertarian” movement, that is no longer libertarian.

  I'm glad I'm not a political joiner.

Recently on the book blog:

Recently on the movie blog:

Pun Son and I went down to Newington for an early Saturday night viewing of the latest entry in the 28 Time Periods Later saga. Summary: it's horror, but not a simple squirm-and-screamer. It's got brains! (Braaaaiiins!)

The powers that be determined the repopulation/reconstruction effort attempted for Great Britain in 28 Weeks Later was a dismal failure. It was assumed that the victims infected with the "rage virus" would eventually starve to death. Which turned out to be untrue; they'll eat anything! And, as this movie makes explicitly clear, they also, um, reproduce. So the rest of the world quarantines the island, ruthlessly enforced by international navies; Great Britain becomes, literally, flyover country.

But there is a stronghold of uninfected humanity just off the coast in the Scottish Highlands, connected to Zombieland by a narrow causeway that is only passable at low tide. The community values safety, alcohol, and ruthless violence. The movie's hero is 12-year-old Spike, whose dad is eager for him to be initiated into killing the infected. And whose sickly mom is stridently opposed to that.

Spike's foray onto the mainland is, um, eventful, and he discovers something that may provide hope for his mother. And, later, he also discovers something less than admirable about his dad. Which sets him up for an even more, um, eventful expedition. Where he meets all sorts of interesting survivors.

The movie's opening scene eventually makes sense in the movie's final scene. Be patient, viewer.

And, while the movie is grim, it's not unremittingly grim; a shipwrecked Swede named Erik had some lines that made me chuckle.

Back in my youth, a book by Clifford D. Simak was an automatic buy. It helped that I was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club for a while, and they invariably featured his latest novel as a pick-of-the-month.

For some odd reason, these books languished on my shelves, mostly unread. I have no good explanation for that. Between cheap SFBC hardbacks and paperbacks, I counted 19. (And there are a bunch more I don't own.)

So: a new reading project was born. I fed these 19 titles into my book-picking system, and this one was the first up. It is from 1975, and the paperback cost me $1.25. Amazon will charge you more these days.

It is set on Earth, but an oddball one. There are Terran flora and fauna, the sun rises in the east, and so on. But there are non-humans aplenty; a goblin appears in Chapter One, soon to be followed by ogres, witches, gnomes,‥ The reader might ask: are we talking about a forgotten past, a strange future, or what? Neither, as it turns out, but I don't want to spoil a half-century-old book for you.

Anyway, the book opens with a scholar, Mark Cornwall, discovering a short manuscript hidden in a dusty tome in a candlelit university library. This is surreptitiously observed by a monk. And both Cornwall and the monk are being spied on by the "rafter goblin", Oliver. All note the importance of the hidden text. The monk informs a local bunch of cutthroats of Cornwall's find … and here's why you shouldn't trust a cutthroat: the monk gets his throat cut for his troubles.

But Oliver seeks out Cornwall to warn him that he's in mortal peril for being in posession of this manuscript. Cornwall takes the opportunity to light out on a dangerous quest to uncover the secrets described in his find. He also accumulates a ragtag crew of co-pilgrims, each with their own reason for helping out.

It's a lot of fun. Simak's prose style is unfancy, garnished with occasional dry wit. Think "Minnesota Nice" in print.