We evidently posted Iraqi research into nuclear weapons on a website or something.  That was dumb.  But I have to go along with Jim Geraghty on this one: the lede is sort of… buried.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

Which is highly dangerous if posted on the Internet… but not the least bit dangerous IN THE HANDS OF A DESPOTIC MADMAN.

Conclusion? You’ll never guess.  See The Grand Unified Theory below.

I really haven’t, I still post every now and then at Begging To Differ. I’m really just kind of sick of blogging about politics. I was reminded why this morning. The BTD forum has a thread about some unfortunate remarks by Sen. Kerry. We can’t be having unfortunate remarks by Sen. Kerry, because discussing them distracts from the real issues, such as that Bush is an idiot. To be fair, partisans for both parties do this. Someone says something stupid. Proceed with any of the following, usually many at the same time (and at least five of which are on display on the first page of the BTDF thread):

• Genuine bafflement: I’m glad he said it. What’s your problem?

• Door’s open: I’m troubled that he said it… because he should have known the other side would viciously and unfairly attack him for it.

• I didn’t hear anything. Did you hear something? He didn’t really say anything stupid at all. You just don’t get it.

• Held upside down, refracted through a prism, in front of a funhouse mirror: He spoke the truth (possibly to power!), if you look at it a certain way. Often followed immediately by:

• How’s your road, down there? Can’t we use this as a springboard for a real discussion of the issues, instead of gratuitous attacks?

• The Grand Unified Theory: Bush (or, whichever unrelated target) is an idiot, too.

Reason #14 I stopped political blogging. Except about libertarians, but that doesn’t count. I said political.

Cato Unbound donates prime midterm election season real estate to Markos Moulitsas this month for an essay meant to convince libertarians to vote Democrat. Here it turns out the Daily Kos frontman learned to be a Democrat by believing deeply in libertarian principles. In fairness, I can imagine the Cato people casting about for someone to write a persuasive essay on why libertarians should vote Republican and coming up empty.

While this response by Josh Trevino seethes a little too much to inspire confidence in its analysis, I agree with its prediction that were the effort to court libertarians successful we would next “see Markos Moulitsas, having concluded that beekeepers are the next swing demographic, earnestly explain how he learned to be a Democrat by watching bees.” I’m less interested in the substance of Moulitsas’ case than the broader topic of which, if any, political party is the best home for libertarians, but there’s this bit:

There is also no individual freedom if corporations aren’t forced to provide –

Hell with it, I could really stop there. More engaging is Arnold Kling’s piece from last week on his own journey From Far Left to Libertarian. Excerpt:

The Far Left believes that bad policies come from evil motives. In this view, villains, such as powerful corporations, oppose good policies, and political incumbents lack the strength and courage to overcome the villains.

Libertarians believe that context is more important. We believe that government power is inherently corrupting, regardless of who holds leadership positions or how they are influenced. We believe that the market does a relatively good job of channelling self-interest toward socially desirable ends.

Hard to believe Kling whiffed by writing “In this view, villains, such as powerful corporations,” when the left today believes almost to the exclusion of anything else that the Bush Administration is comprised of the foulest creatures ever summoned from hell, but on. Kling believes the left and libertarians share these traits in common, and I mostly agree:

1. A passion for social and political issues. I grew up in a household where the dinner conversation often was politics. Far Leftists and libertarians both care more than the average person about what goes on in public policy.
2. Frustration with political incumbents. Far Leftists and libertarians both have a tendency to exaggerate the flaws in Presidents while in office and to overstate the virtues of past leaders. For example, Presidents Clinton and Kennedy are much more popular with the Far Left today than when they were in office. Similarly, during his Administration, President Reagan was considered a disappointment by libertarians.
3. Anti-elitism. Both Far Leftists and libertarians are willing to reject what they see as elitist views among politicians and political pundits.

Libertarian activists (and activists of any stripe, by definition), including, I can safely guess, most TCS Daily readers, care more than the average about public policy; most libertarians care only in self defense. But that’s a quibble. What, if anything, I wondered aloud, do today’s conservatives and libertarians have in common? I feel I can speak to this having made my own way from Western New Yorker (where you’re baptised Catholic but born a Democrat, as Tim Russert is fond of saying) to sometimes spittle-flecked conservative to the libertarian you so enjoy spending time with today.

Conservatives and libertarians share a distrust of people in power. You can roll your eyes and snort all you want, but how skeptical would libertarians be if Penn Gillette were president? Not very. George W. Bush seems to deeply believe things conservatives believe and wish to promote, and he’s rewarded with loyalty. At its root, though, conservatism bristles when smart people proceed as though they have a unique grasp on the world’s problems and are uniquely qualified to solve them. See, e.g. the Clinton administration. Libertarians are the same way, though since nobody who deeply believes their principles will ever be elected to anything, they’re immune from being counted on for their unflagging support at the polls.

Neither group is a fan of planned innovation — libertarians don’t like the “planned” part, by which I mean imposed by force of law, and conservatives don’t like the “innovation” part. This is a Venn diagram with a very small shared area, but it’s important. If a public policy think tank lobbies Congress to pass a law requiring that a new program be implemented, libertarians will reflexively line up against the “think tank” and “Congress” parts in favor of a market solution (if there is indeed something to be solved; never a given), and consertatives will reflexively line up against the “new program” part.

As a corollary, of course, libertarians are great fans of innovation — you might call it dynamism — so long as it evolves from the dynamic pursuit of wealth and comfort, and conservatives are all about central authority, so long as it’s used to their ends. It’s in the shared space of the Venn diagram that the two groups ally, and fortunately or unfortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to occupy that space today.

Those are things they don’t like. Do they line up affirmatively anywhere? I think there is a shared sense of the virtue of personal responsibility, insofar as they each believe that people ought to live with the consequences of their decisions, and not be automatically excused, saved and/or hugged when they go astray. This is more difficult to diagram, because conservatives would use the force of law to make people behave themselves, while libertarians believe no one but you can effectively weigh the consequences of how you choose to act.

Both are pro-business, to one extent or another, though I’ve never considered that a fundamental philsophical position any more than being pro-aviation or anti-tax. It springs from deeper roots: Libertarians believe an actor’s willingness and ability to satisfy a need or want should be rewarded by cash; conservatives, I think, see business as part of the infrastructure of the country — approach it from a more macro level, in other words. Still, if they get there via different routes, they do share the interest.

Finally (for purposes of this post), I’ll get lots of people mad at me and say that conservatives and libertarians share a love for and devotion to America. Liberals hate America! No, what I mean is that I perceive in today’s left — please do correct me — a sense that we ought to be embarrassed by some of our backward ways, be less judgmental and parochial, and Think Globally. Today’s conservatives are viscerally defensive about such ideas, and you could argue for days about which group has the self esteem problem.

Libertarians, I think, believe after as objective an evaluation as possible that we’re doing it pretty much right, and the best way possible. Libertarians believe the country was founded radically brilliant principles and would like to see more radically brilliant thinking in the same vein. They wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here, all things considered, if for no other reason than if you don’t like it here, you can change it. And you don’t need the law or government to do it.

Australian computer experts need hobbies. Did Neil Armstrong blow his lines when he stepped on the moon?

Now, after almost four decades, the spaceman has been vindicated. Using high-tech sound analysis techniques, an Australian computer expert has rediscovered the missing “a” in Mr Armstrong’s famous quote. Peter Shann Ford ran the Nasa recording through sound-editing software and clearly picked up an acoustic wave from the word “a”, finding that Mr Armstrong spoke it at a rate of 35 milliseconds — ten times too fast for it to be audible.

Mr Ford’s findings have been presented to Nasa officials in Washington and to a relieved Mr Armstrong, who issued a statement saying: “I find the technology interesting and useful. I also find his conclusion persuasive.”

“And quit calling me a ’spaceman’,” he probably added. If someone says a word on the moon too fast for it to be audible, does it make a sound? I wouldn’t think it does, but I’m not an Australian computer expert.

One of the appealing things to me about Armstrong is his aversion to nonsense. Despite NASA memos and millions of people concerning themselves with what to say as he stepped on the moon, Armstrong gave it almost no thought till after the landing — the real challenge of the mission, to the accomplished test pilot. In First Man, he told Prof. James R. Hansen, his authorized biographer:

Once on the surface and realizing that the moment was at hand, fortunately I had some hours to think about it after getting there. My own view was that it was a very simplistic statement: what can you say when you step off something? Well, something about a step. It just sort of evolved during the period that I was doing the procedures of the practice takeoff and the EVA prep and all the other activities that were on our flight schedule at the time. I didn’t think it was particularly important, but other people obviously did. Even so, I have never thought that I picked a particularly enlightening statement. It was a very simple statement.

Try getting away with that now. The question, “what can you say when you step off something?” tells you almost everything you need to know about Armstrong: Everyone else on earth was thinking in terms of stepping on something — the surface of another world — while the pilot was thinking, and still thinks today, in terms of stepping off something — a fragile, thin-skinned, dangerous, badass boat nobody had ever flown before.

I’m nothing more than an Apollo buff, but I detect something wry in his purported statement “I find [Ford’s] conclusion persuasive.” In First Man, Armstrong said: “I would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it wasn’t said — although it actually might have been.”

“When asked how he prefers for historians to quote his statement,” Hansen reports, “Neil answers only somewhat facetiously, ‘They can put it in parentheses.’”

Today is Constitution Day, which we’re celebrating tomorrow. I put off my shopping till the last minute, as usual.

To celebrate the anniversary of the day the framers dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, the Chronicle of Higher Education graced us with a quiz on the Constitution. There you’ll find the highly original complaints that the Constitution was put together by rich white men and the President is a tyrant. Here at Socratic Rhythm Method, we celebrate the right way. Here then is a Constitution Day quiz you can use.

1. The Constitution mentions God:

A. In the Preamble
B. In the presidential oath of office
C. Elsewhere
D. No, it doesn’t

2. Which of these persons whose portraits grace U.S. currency did not sign the Constitution?

A. Thomas Jefferson
B. George Washington
C. Ben Franklin
D. Alexander Hamilton

3. Who opposed Jefferson’s harebrained idea that the Constitution should be set aside and rewritten every generation?

A. Alexander Hamilton
B. James Madison
C. Gouverneur Morris
D. George Washington

4. Which of the following amendments would the Constitution forbid?

A. An amendment establishing Presbyterianism as the official religion of the United States
B. An amendment giving California an extra Senator
C. An amendment fixing the size of the Supreme Court at an even number of judges
D. An amendment providing for a nationwide popular vote for President

5. A Bill of Rights proposed by James Madison in Congress in 1789 would have provided that:

A. The judicial branch could not exercise the legislative power
B. Political speech could not be restricted within 60 days of an election
C. Private property could not be taken in eminent domain for other than public use
D. No search would be reasonable without a warrant

6. The General Welfare clause, according to the Supreme Court:

A. Has no legal force and effect, being part of the Preamble
B. Is a limitation on the power of Congress to spend on local projects
C. Authorizes New Deal-type legislation during widespread economic depression
D. Is an expansion of Congress’s powers enumerated in Article I

7. Which of these bodies of federal law is not specifically authorized by the Constitution?

A. Copyright
B. Bankruptcy
C. Labor
D. Maritime

8. Which of these cases has been cited the most often in subsequent Supreme Court opinions?

A. McCulloch v. Maryland
B. Gideon v. Wainwright
C. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
D. Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC

9. Not an early fan of the Constitution:

A. Georgia
B. Massachusetts
C. North Carolina
D. Rhode Island

[T]he longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his aid?

10. Who said this?

A. James Madison, in A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785
B. Ben Franklin, during the Constitutional Convention of 1787
C. George Mason, during the Virginia ratification convention, 1788
D. George Washington, in his farewell address, 1796

Answers

1. C. The signatures are prefaced as follows:

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth

Good enough to win a bar bet!

2. A. Jefferson was in France at the time.

3. B. Madison addressed the argument in Federalist No. 49:

[A]s every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would, in a great measure, deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability….

The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied.

4. B. Article V forbids depriving a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent, including by amendment — Article V deals exclusively with the amendment of the Constitution. An amendment granting California extra Senators would deprive the other 49 of equal suffrage.

5. A. Amendments offered in Congress by Madison, many of which were incorporated into the ratified Bill of Rights, included the following provision:

The powers delegated by this Constitution are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: so that the Legislative Department shall never exercise the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial, nor the Executive exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial, nor the Judicial exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive Departments.

6. D. In U.S. v. Butler (1936), Justice Roberts wrote for the Court:

Since the foundation of the nation, sharp differences of opinion have persisted as to the true interpretation of the phrase. Madison asserted it amounted to no more than a reference to the other powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses of the same section; that, as the United States is a government of limited and enumerated powers, the grant of power to tax and spend for the general national welfare must be confined to the enumerated legislative fields committed to the Congress. In this view the phrase is mere tautology, for taxation and appropriation are or may be necessary incidents of the exercise of any of the enumerated legislative powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintained the clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Each contention has had the support of those whose views are entitled to weight. This court has noticed the question, but has never found it necessary to decide which is the true construction.

Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries, espouses the Hamiltonian position. We shall not review the writings of public men and commentators or discuss the legislative practice. Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading advocated by Mr. Justice Story is the correct one. While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of section 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.

(Footnotes omitted and paragraph break added.)

7. C. Article I, Section 8 provides specifically for the others. Perhaps interestingly (or perhaps not), an amendment was passed by Congress that would have empowered Congress to “limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.” Its ratification failed, and in the meantime, the Supreme Court held that labor laws, including child labor laws, were generally the purview of Congress under the Commerce clause.

8. C. According to this source, only Miranda v. Arizona has been cited more often by the Supreme Court than New York Times v. Sullivan. The source’s methodology is briefly described at the end of that page.

9. D. Rhode Island sent no delegates to the Constitutional Convention, refused to call a ratification convention until threatened with economic sanctions by the new government, and ratification passed only narrowly, 34-32. More information can be found here.

10. B. Franklin’s speech is often cited as evidence of America’s Christian heritage, but in truth it dealt only with the matter of whether sessions of the Convention should begin with prayer. The Convention appears not to have adopted the resolution providing for daily prayer that the speech meant to support.