tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38765566891080796302024-02-19T06:06:54.381-05:00Venia LegendiA commonplace book: quotations, reading notes, and occasional disquisitionsAlix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-15891628749442503762009-02-13T14:32:00.003-05:002009-02-13T14:46:39.710-05:00Chemical Interlude<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;">If you have any interest at all in wonderfully strange and absurdly dangerous compounds, peruse this hilarious <a href="http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/">set of articles</a>, entitled "Things I Won't Work With", by the chemist Derek Lowe<br /><br />Among the lovely substances mentioned: chlorine trifluoride (hypergolic with most conventional fuels, virtually all organic compounds, and things like rock and sand); titanium tetraazide; anhydrous dichlorine heptoxide ("a liquid with a boiling point of around 80 C, and I'd like to shake the hand of whoever determined that property, assuming he has one left"); carbon diselenide (so mephitic that, when first synthesized, "the vapors [ . . . ] escaped the laboratory and forced the evacuation of a nearby village"), <span style="font-style: italic;">usw</span>.<br /></div></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-53768264324413819982009-01-27T20:48:00.003-05:002009-01-27T20:50:05.056-05:00The glories of YouTube<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;">The Nixon tapes, 30 April 1973: Nixon, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm5FIs9V0VA&feature=related">clearly drunk</a>, telling Haldeman that he loves him. I'm not making this up.<br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-44668934563929419962009-01-20T11:31:00.002-05:002009-01-20T11:35:51.443-05:00Great news<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Marty Lederman, a very bright man and first-rate lawyer, has <a href="http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/01/marty-lederman-joins-office-of-legal.html">joined OLC</a> under Obama.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-55319374346085920012009-01-09T14:05:00.012-05:002009-01-09T16:34:00.211-05:00What do we talk about when we talk to the CIA?<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;">For all its limitations, the Freedom of Information Act is one of the jewels of the American political system.<br /><br />But I wouldn't want to be the person at the CIA charged with fielding FOIA submissions. The logs of recent requests (<a href="http://www.governmentattic.org/docs/FOIA_Logs_CIA_FY2005-07.pdf">here</a>, <a href="http://www.thememoryhole.org/foi/caselogs/cia_2000.txt">here</a>, and doubtless many other places) make for amusing reading. Alongside serious demands for information, there are dozens of people asking for their own files, the obligatory questions about UFOs, the Kennedy assassination, and mind control, and requests for things that are already public and easily available (the <span style="font-style: italic;">CIA Factbook </span>and the like). But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I pity the poor fellow who has to write responses to the requests summarized as:<br /><br /><blockquote>"impact Visa card holders" (3 Jan. 2000) [<span style="font-style: italic;">recte</span> visa holders?]<br /><br />"assassination of President William McKinley or Leon Czolgosz" (12 Jan. 2000)<br /><br />"clear worms" (19 Jan. 2000)<br /><br />"information in connection with spontaneous human combustion" (29 Feb. 2000)<br /><br />"'a copy of the U.S. and the Louisian [<span style="font-style: italic;">sic</span>] State Constitution'" (16 Mar. 2000)<br /><br />"Noah's Ark" (3 Apr. 2000)<br /><br />"CIA reports from 1972 to the present" (3 May 2000)<br /><br />"any data from any data file" (8 June 2000)<br /><br />"research on sex pheromones" (23 Aug. 2000)<br /><br />"'request a CIA agent to visit him and the complete mailing address of the CIA unit in San Diego, California'" (18 Sept. 2000)<br /><br />"autographed photo of George J. Tenet" (17 Oct. 2000)<br /><br />"pilots in pyjamas" (24 Oct. 2000)<br /><br />"seeking location of biological father" (1 Oct. 2004)<br /><br />"Agency's employment policy for ex-felons" (2 Mar. 2005)<br /><br />"mind reading/control implants and who to contact if NSA intends to murder requester using such implants" (4 Mar. 2005)<br /><br />"children's media showing CIA is looking to alter its public image to younger U.S. consumers under the age of 13" (29 Mar. 2005)<br /><br />"all domestic individuals holding assets exceeding 10 million U.S. dollars" (11 Jan. 2006)<br /><br />"James Bond" (7 Jul. 2006)<br /><br />"www.nowthatsfuckedup.com" (5 Jan. 2007)<br /><br />"how much money we receive back for all taxes" (26 Jan. 2007)</blockquote></div></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-76868346241829695112009-01-05T15:57:00.005-05:002009-01-05T17:44:18.020-05:00That was fast<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Balance-Security-Liberty-Courts/dp/019531025X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231189255&sr=1-1">Eric Posner</a> is wrong about virtually everything involving politics or the law, but the opening sentence of his <a href="http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_04-2009_01_10.shtml#1231166614">analysis</a> of this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05bolton.html?ref=opinion">op-ed</a> by John Bolton and John Yoo in Sunday's <span style="font-style: italic;">New York </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Times</span> expresses my feelings perfectly:<br /><blockquote>It didn’t take long for conservatives to rediscover limits on executive power. You’d think something — if not philosophical consistency, then at least manners — would cause them to hold off until, say, inauguration day.</blockquote></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-33327304911800286402009-01-04T12:32:00.004-05:002009-01-05T17:46:14.625-05:00Iter<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >(Walking in the snowy metropole.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Helvidius: I might just give up and become a wandering iterant.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Alix: Don't you mean itinerant? I think you've been spending too much time programming. ... </span><br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-37013016007085469272009-01-03T11:43:00.002-05:002009-01-03T11:45:47.516-05:00Alix's recipe corner<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The legendary </span><a style="font-family: georgia;" href="http://cuisine.evasions.be/cuisine_1829/cuisind4.htm">Rôti sans pareil</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">:</span><blockquote style="font-family: georgia;">Farcir une belle olive avec des câpres et des anchois ; après l’avoir fait mariner dans l’huile, l’enfermer dans un becfigue, ou tout autre oiseau dont la délicatesse est connue, pour le mettre ensuite dans un plus gros, tel qu’un ortolan ; prendre une mauviette, dont on supprimera les pates et la tête, pour entourer les deux autres, et la recouvrir d’une barde de lard très mince. Mettez la mauviette dans l’intérieur d’une grive, parée et troussée de même, la grive dans la caille, la caille dans un vanneau, celui-ci dans un pluvier, pour l’envelopper d’un perdreau ; enfermez ce perdreau dans une bécasse, celle-ci dans une sarcelle, pour passer dans un pintadeau, ensuite à un jeune canard sauvage, de là dans une poulade, arrivez au faisan que vous recouvrirez avec une oie, après quoi vous mettrez le tout dans une poule-dinde que vous enfermerez dans une outarde. Que si, par hasard, il se trouvait quelque chose de vide à remplir, vous auriez recours aux truffes, marrons et saucisses, dont vous feriez une farce. Placez le tout dans une casserole de suffisante capacité, avec des petits oignons piqués de clous de girofle, des carottes, du jambon coupé en petits morceaux, du céleri, un bouquet garni, mignonnette, quelques bardes de lard, poivre, sel, épices fines, coriandre, une ou deux gousses d’ail ; mettez cuire sur un feu doux continué pendant vingt-quatre heures, ou, mieux encore, dans un four un peu chaud ;dégraissez et servez sur un plat chaud.<br /><br />Abstraction faite d’une complication aussi grande, on peut varier à l’infini, suivant les lieux et les saisons, cette manière de préparer plusieurs objets dans un seul.</blockquote><br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-41282634497563573302008-12-30T14:51:00.021-05:002009-01-05T17:39:23.529-05:00Idiosyncratic annoyance #542: Ad hoc spelling alphabets<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Which I will not refer to as a ‘pet peeve’, because </span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> the phrase ‘pet peeve’ is one of my idiosyncratic annoyances.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><i>Monologue dramatique, d'après d'innumerables conversations téléphoniques que j’ai eu la malchance d’écouter:</i><blockquote>Yes. The licence plate? It’s B T P 4 5 2. B as in Boy. T as in Top. P as in Paul. Four. Five. Two. Yes. No ... no, B. B as in Boy. Yes. Yes, that’s what I said. No ... wait ... did you say Boy or Toy? No, oh, okay, sorry, I said B as in Boy, not T as in Toy. Make it B as in Ball. You<span><span style="font-family:georgia;">’ve got it.</span></span> Yes. No, no, not P as in Paul, B as in Ball. Right. Then T as in Top. What? No. Top, not Pop. T as in Top. ... </blockquote>Public service announcement: we have fixed spelling alphabets that were specifically designed by linguists in order to avoid this kind of ridiculousness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Is it really so hard to remember — to use the best-known Anglophone example, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet">NATO spelling alphabet</a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> — </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">the words Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu? </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">(There are plenty of <a href="http://www.bckelk.ukfsn.org/phon.full.html">other</a> well-designed ones if you feel that the aeronautical connotations of that alphabet are a bit much for customer service.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"> Misspelling alphabets, of course, are an art in themselves. My best effort thus far (drawing on the work of others, including examples <a href="http://www.btinternet.com/%7Eknutty.knights/alphabet.txt">here</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4685028.stm">here</a>): Aye, Bdellium, Cue, Dzo, Ewe, Felindre, Gneiss, Hour, Ian, Juan, Knight, </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">Lladró, Mneme, Nxuba, Oestrogen, Ptyxis, Quay, Rzeszów</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">, Sea, Tchotchke, Uakare, Vates, Wring, Xylem, Yves, Zollverein.<br /><br />Suggestions for improvements are welcomed.</span><br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-18946116588498052512008-12-29T14:37:00.006-05:002008-12-29T14:53:51.974-05:00My first trackback<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><a href="http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/">Obama Conspiracy Theories</a>, a site devoted to looking at "alternate views of reality and fringe ideas regarding Barack Hussein Obama II"--and very carefully critiquing them--was kind enough to <a href="http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2008/12/the-assassination-of-chester-a-arthur/">link</a> to my post about Chester Arthur (which it calls "delightful") and to "recommend it heartily".<br /><br />I reciprocate the compliment unreservedly.<br /><br />OCT is definitely the first place to go if you want to see just how strange some of the anti-Obama arguments get. I must also say that I admire the author's extraordinary patience and civility in trying to reason with the "truthers"--qualities which I'm not sure I'd be able to muster were I keeping up with this stuff on a daily basis.<br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-61882817190189626442008-12-29T14:04:00.002-05:002008-12-29T14:13:24.072-05:00Niemeyer<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I am again struck by how little I know about things I profess to love. Until today, I had never seen (or had seen and somehow forgotten) photographs of the incomparable <a href="http://cidadecopan.zip.net/">Edificio Copan </a>in São Paulo. </span>My only experience with <span style="font-family:georgia;">São Paulo, sadly, was a long layover in its ugly airport fifteen years ago. But now I want to return, if only to for a brief encounter with the late-modernist architectural sublime. </span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-22457295583644197882008-12-25T21:18:00.003-05:002008-12-25T21:23:51.057-05:00Query<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of late this blog's diet has involved a lot of mockery directed at cranks purveying bad law and bad history in the service of xenophobia and political opportunism. Perhaps a worthwhile endeavour, perhaps not, but it's time to return to our usual, and far more pleasant, fare of academic, philosophical, literary, and bibliographical trivia. </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Somewhere, I read or heard the following smackdown: "A logician is a mathematician who knows the difference between use and mention." I cannot remember where, and I cannot find it on the internet. Can anyone help me? </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-18935170521337450082008-12-18T09:41:00.014-05:002008-12-18T12:29:55.146-05:00The strange case of Chester Alan Arthur<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;">I don't really wish to return to the ludicrous Obama birth lawsuit that I blogged about earlier, because it's all become tiring, but I thought I should post here for permanent reference a <a href="http://volokh.com/posts/1228153366.shtml#494147">comment</a> that I made on a <a href="http://volokh.com/posts/1228153366.shtml">thread</a> at the Volokh Conspiracy on the 1st of December (which, like most threads even incidentally related to this subject, quickly filled up with cranks) relating a little historical <span style="font-style: italic;">trouvaille </span>that I found:<blockquote>A long time ago, I wrote about this frivolous lawsuit on my <a rel="nofollow" href="http://venialegendi.blogspot.com/2008/08/it-seems-that-you-dont-need-to-know.html">blog</a>, because I thought it symptomatic of a very depressing, and pervasive, kind of constitutional illiteracy among certain self-anointed "defenders of the Constitution".<br /><br />But even a frivolous lawsuit can lead to interesting discoveries, and I later found an amusing little bit of historical trivia.<br /><br />There once was a man who became President after having had dual nationality at birth through his father, which he apparently lost years before taking office. However, he was the victim of a smear campaign by some of his opponents, alleging that he had lied about his birthplace and was ineligble under the natural born citizen clause. That man's name? Chester Alan Arthur.<br /><br />(1) Dual Nationality: Arthur was, as far as I've been able to find, the only President <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html">before Obama</a> who ever held dual nationality (excluding those who lived through the Revolution). Arthur's father was born in 1796 in Dreen, Co. Antrim, Ireland, and moved to the United States in the early nineteenth century. Presumably Arthur's father was formally naturalized in the United States, but that was irrelevant as a matter of British law: until 1870, the allegiance of a subject was considered inalienable, with the exception of people residing in British territory at the time of a change in sovereignty. (*) (Those familiar with the issue of impressment before the 1812 war will remember the force of <i>nemo potest exuere patriam</i> in British law.) By the statutes of 4 Geo. II, c. 21, and 13 Geo. III, c. 21, this made Chester Alan Arthur, born 1829 or 1830 in Vermont, a British subject at birth according to British law.<br /><br />However, in 1870, the Naturalization Act, 33 & 34 Vict. c. 14 was passed, allowing (for the first time) voluntary expatriation by British subjects (and also naturalization of foreigners without case-by-case legislation). Under s. 6 of that act, "Any British subject who has at any time before, or may at any time after the passing of this Act, when in any foreign state and not under any disability voluntarily become naturalized in such state, shall from and after the time of his so having become naturalized in such foreign state, be deemed to have ceased to be a British subject and to be regarded as an alien."<br /><br />I believe that this means that, as of 1870, Arthur's father would have been deemed retroactively to have expatriated himself on becoming a naturalized American subject (before Arthur's birth), thus taking Arthur himself out of the scope of the 1730 and 1772 Nationality Acts. Thus he would have lost his status as a British subject some eleven years before becoming President.<br /><br />(A quick look at an old nationality text available online seems to confirm this. 1 Sir Francis Piggott, Nationality: Including Naturalization and English Law on the High Seas and Beyond the Realm (1907) 65, 152ff. But I admit that I'm not an expert, and the Naturalization Act 1870 is anything but clearly written. So it's possible that Arthur might still have been a dual national at the time of his Presidency.)<br /><br />(2) The Conspiracy Theory: In the 1880s, a man named Arthur Hinman launched a campaign to discredit Arthur, claiming that he had in fact fraudulently concealed his Canadian birth. In 1884, Hinman wrote a book, entitled <i>How a British Subject Became President of the United States </i>. I haven't seen the book, but here's the rough story, as provided by <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.genealogue.com/2005/06/our-canadian-president.html">this</a> website:<blockquote>Hinman, a New York lawyer, brought the issue to the attention of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in a letter early in August, 1880, while Arthur was yet a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Arthur evidently had flip-flopped on the issue in the past. One article, dated August 13, quotes a leading Republican in a way reminiscent of more recent campaigns: "Why in —— don't the General come out and say where he was born, and put an end to all this mystery." [ ... ] The following story appeared in the New York Times of Dec. 22, 1880:<br /><br />MATERIAL FOR A DEMOCRATIC LIE<br /><br />ST. ALBANS, Vt., Dec. 21.—A stranger arrived here a few days ago, and registered at the American House as A. P. Hinman, of New-York. Since then he has been very busy in the adjoining town of Fairfield, ostensibly collecting materials for a biography of Vice-President-elect Arthur. He has privately stated to leading Democratic citizens, however, that he is employed by the Democratic National Committee to obtain evidence to show that Gen. Arthur is an unnaturalized foreigner. He claims to have discovered that Gen. Arthur was born in Canada, instead of Fairfield; that his name is Chester Allen instead of Chester Abell [sic]; that he was 50 years old in July instead of October, as has been stated, and generally that he is an alien and ineligible to the office of Vice-President.<br /><br />[ ... ]<br /><br />[Arthur biographer Thomas C.] Reeves dismisses Hinman's theory, while admitting that President Arthur lied about his age. He cites the Arthur family Bible, held at the Library of Congress, which gives the President's year of birth as 1829, and makes no mention of a child named "Chester Abell."<br /></blockquote>So what can we learn from this trip through the realm of historical minutiae? Three things, I think:<br /><br />(1) The present day has no monopoly on political cranks and conspiracy theorists.<br /><br />(2) Having been a dual national doesn't disbar one from being President. This should be completely obvious, but when people claim otherwise, advancing facially absurd readings of the "natural born citizen" clause, it's nice to have a precedent as well as a textual argument to throw back at them.<br /><br />(3) We really should get amend the Constitution to rid of the "natural born citizen" provision, not only because it's stupid, but because it attracts deluded partisans like moths to a flame.<br /><br />(*) This exception was established in the case of <i>Doe d. Thomas v. Acklam,</i> Barn. & Cress. 779, 795, 107 Eng. Rep. 572, 578 (K.B., 1824). It explains why James Buchanan did not hold dual nationality at birth despite his British-born father: Buchanan <i>père</i> emigrated to the U.S. -- just barely -- before 3 September 1783, the date of the Paris Peace Treaty, which (in British law) marks the transfer of sovereignty.</blockquote>It seems that I'm not the only one to have noticed this. The filer of one of the frivolous lawsuits not only wants Obama thrown out on the grounds of dual nationality, but has filed a supplemental <a href="http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/wrotnowski-application-referred-to-full-court-by-justice-scalia-distributed-for-conference-on-dec-12-supplemental-brief-to-be-submitted-tomorrow/">brief</a> claiming<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>both that Arthur case isn't a precedent because he "concealed" the facts of his birth (the source for this seems to be the same as for the Hinman allegations) and also that, because Arthur appointed Justice Horace Gray, who wrote the majority opinion in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Wong Kim Ark </span>case in 1898 (twelve years after Arthur's death), the Supreme Court should revisit that precedent. (Warning: clicking on the link in the previous sentence leads one into a world occupied by--well, the kind of people who make arguments like that.)<br /><br />I have to say this anti-Obama argument seems like a pretty good case for <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule11.htm">rule 11</a>. (Although, on the question of what --if anything--actually constitutes a frivolous argument, see a hilarious essay by Stanford Levinson, 'Frivolous Cases: Do Lawyers Really Know Anything at All?', 24 <span style="font-style: italic;">Osgoode Hall Law Journal </span>353 (1986).)<br /><br />(Incidentally, lots of people on the right, particularly anti-immigration advocates, hate <span style="font-style: italic;">Wong Kim Ark</span>, because it definitively stated that citizenship in the United States is governed by <span style="font-style: italic;">jus soli</span> (as constitutionalized in the Fourteenth Amendment). <span style="font-style: italic;">United States v. Wong Kim Ark</span>, 169 U.S. 649 (1898); for the best judicial discussion of the common-law <span style="font-style: italic;">jus soli </span>principle as it stood in the America before the Fourteenth Amendment, see <span style="font-style: italic;">Lynch v. Clarke</span>, 1 Sand. Ch. 583 (N.Y. Ch., 1844). I have no intention of going into the argument here, but (as I once mentioned in yet <a href="http://volokh.com/posts/1221688182.shtml#441262">another</a> Volokh comment thread) I think Justice Gray's majority opinion an exemplary instance of sound, learned judicial craftsmanship: for a short summary of the speciousness of the pseudo-originalist anti-<span style="font-style: italic;">jus soli </span>arguments, see James C. Ho's <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ilw.com/articles/2007,0212-ho.pdf">"Defining 'American': Birthright Citizenship and the Original Understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment"</a>, 9 Green Bag 2nd 367 (2006).)<br /><br />I have nothing substantive to add to my earlier posting, except for the text of the relevant statutes under which Arthur was born a British subject, which I left out for reasons of space:<br /><br />The background to the two statutes is <span style="font-style: italic;">De natis ultra mare</span> 1351, 25 Edw. I stat. 1, 1 Stat. Realm 310, which provided<blockquote>[ . . . ] q[ue] touz les enfantz heritiers, qi s[er]ront neez desore dehors la ligeance le Roi, des queux enfantz les piere & miere au temps du nestre sont et s[er]ront a la foi & de la ligeance du Roi Denglet[er]re, eient & enjoient meismes les b[ene]fice & avantage dav[er] & porter heritage deinz la dite ligeance, come les aut[ers] heritiers avantditz, en temps avenir; l[ai]ssint totes foitz q[ue] les mieres de tieux enfantz passent la meer p[ar] conge & volunte de lour barons.<br /><br />[ . . . ] that all Children Inheritors, which from henceforth shall be born without the Ligeance of the King, whose Fathers and Mothers at the Time of their Birth be and shall be at the Faith and Ligeance of the King of England, shall have and enjoy the same Benefits and Advantages, to have and bear the Inheritance within the same Ligeance, as the other Inheritors aforesaid [the children of the King and some named individuals, born outside the realm, to whom the earlier parts of the statute guaranteed their inheritance on the same terms as native-born subjects] in Time to come; so always, that the Mothers of such Children do pass the Sea by the Licence and Wills of their Husbands. [Record Commission trans. at 1 Stat. Realm. 310]</blockquote> This is, of course, anything but pellucid; it was long debated (and to some degree still is) whether it was declaratory or amendatory of the common law, whether it applied only to the first generation or "to all generations", as Francis Bacon argued as Attorney-General in the case of the <span style="font-style: italic;">post-nati</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">Calvin's Case</span>, 2 How. St. Tr. 559, 585 (Ex. Ch., 1608)); and whether both parents would have to be English, or only one (and if so, whether the parent had to be the father). For a very lengthy discussion, see Clive Parry, <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.uniset.ca/naty/parry.htm">British Nationality Law and the History of Naturalization</a> </span>(Milan, 1954).<br /><br />The next important statute was the Foreign and Protestants Naturalization Act 1708, 7 Anne, c. 5, 9 Stat. Realm 63, which provided (§1) that all Protestants "born out of the Ligeance of Her Majesty Her Heires and Successors" might be naturalized by taking the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and meeting a few other conditions and, (§3)<br /><br />That the Children of all natural born Subjects born out of the Ligeance of Her Majesty Her Heires and Successors shall be deemed adjudged and taken to be natural born Subjects of this Kingdom to all Intents Constructions and Purposes whatsoever<br /><br />In 1711, §1 was repealed, but §3 remained in force (10 Anne, c. 9 [c. 5 in other editions], 9 Stat. Realm 557).<br /><br />(In <span style="font-style: italic;">British Nationality Law</span>, p. 77, Clive Parry notes an interesting sidenote: by expressing allegiance as the status of one who is a<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>subject of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Kingdom</span>, rather than a subject of the <span style="font-style: italic;">King</span>, the 1711 act seems to deny the doctrine of <span style="font-style: italic;">Calvin's Case </span>that allegiance is due to the King in his natural rather than politic capacity. For more on this distinction, see--it more or less goes without saying--Kantorowicz's magisterial <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Two-Bodies-Ernst-Kantorowicz/dp/0691017042/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229619897&sr=1-1"><span style="font-style: italic;">The King's Two Bodies</span></a>.) <span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><br /><br />The act relevant in Arthur's case, the British Nationality Act 1730, 4 Geo. II, c. 21, did not profess to be setting down new law, but instead styled itself "An Act to explain a Clause in an Act made in the seventh Year of the Reign of her late Majesty Queen Anne, For Naturalizing foreign Protestants, which relates to the Children of the natural-born Subjects of the Crown of England, or of Great Britain". The first section provides:<br /><blockquote>Whereas by an Act of Parliament made in the seventh Year of the Reign of her late Majesty Queen Anne, intituled, <span style="font-style: italic;">An Act for naturalizing of foreign Protestants</span>, it is, amongst other Things, enacted, That the Children of all natural-born Subjects, born out of the Ligeance of her said late Majesty, her Heirs and Successors, should be deemed, adjudged and taken to be natural-born Subjects of this Kingdom to all Intents, Constructions and Purposes whatsoever: And whereas in the tenth year of her said late Majesty's reign another Act was made and passed to repeal the said Act (except what related to the Children of her Majesty's natural-born Subjects, born out of her Majesty's Allegiance): And whereas some Doubts have arisen upon the Construction of the said recited Clause in the said Act of the seventh Year of her late Majesty's Reign: Now for the explaining the said recited Clause in the said Act, relating to Children of natural-born Subjects, and to prevent any Disputes touching the true Intent and Meaning thereof, May it please your most Excellent Majesty that it may be declared and enacted, and be it declared and enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That all Children born out of the Ligeance of the Crown of <span style="font-style: italic;">England</span>, or of <span style="font-style: italic;">Great Britain</span>, or which shall hereafter be born out of such Ligeance, whose Fathers were or shall be natural-born Subjects of the Crown of <span style="font-style: italic;">England</span>, or of <span style="font-style: italic;">Great Britain</span>, at the Time of the Birth of such Children respectively, shall and may, by virtue of the said recited Clause in the said Act of the seventh Year of the Reign of her said late Majesty, and of this present Act, be adjuged and taken to be, and all such Children are hereby declared to be natural-born Subjects of the Crown of <span style="font-style: italic;">Great Britain</span>, to all Intents, Constructions and Purposes whatsoever.</blockquote>5 Stat. at Large (Ruffhead and Runnington's edn.) 573.<br /><br />It might still be thought unclear whether this clause applied only to the first generation, or <span style="font-style: italic;">ad infinitum</span>, but a negative answer by implication was given with the British Nationality Act 1773, 13 Geo. III, c. 21, §1 ("An Act to extend the Provisions of [4 Geo. II, c. 21] [ . . . ] which relates to the Children of the natural-born Subjects of the Crown of <span style="font-style: italic;">England</span>, or of <span style="font-style: italic;">Great Britain</span>, to the Children of such Children"):<br /><br /><blockquote>Whereas [ . . . ] no Provision hath hitherto been made to extend farther than to the Children born out of the Ligeance of His Majesty [ . . . ] be it enacted [ . . . ] That all Persons born, or who hereafter shall be born, out of the ligeance of the Crown of <span style="font-style: italic;">England</span>, or of <span style="font-style: italic;">Great Britain</span>, whose Fathers were or shall be, by virtue of [4 Geo. II, c. 21] [ . . . ], shall and may be adjudged and taken to be, and are hereby declared and enacted to be, natural-born subjects of the Crown of <span style="font-style: italic;">Great Britain</span>, to all Intents, Constructions, and Purposes whatsoever, as if he and they had been and were born in this Kingdom [ . . . ]<br /></blockquote>In <span style="font-style: italic;">Doe d. Duroure v. Jones</span>, 4 T.R. 300, 100 Eng. Rep. 1031 (K.B., 1791), the Court, without ruling explicitly on <span style="font-style: italic;">De natis ultra mare</span>, held that if <span style="font-style: italic;">jus sanguinis</span> citizenship for the children born abroad of English mothers and foreign fathers had ever existed, it was extinguished by the 1730 and 1773 Acts. A similar result with respect to the 'infinite generations' problem was reached in <span style="font-style: italic;">De Geer v. Stone</span>, 22 Ch.D. 243 (1882).</div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-69991107878232480942008-12-16T17:32:00.002-05:002008-12-16T17:42:15.321-05:00Everything I know about the endgame I learned from Reuben Fine<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Caveant lectores: </span>I don't know much about the endgame. But, for what it's worth, here are "Fifteen Rules for the Endgame" from Reuben Fine, <span style="font-style: italic;">Basic Chess Endings </span>(New York: McKay, 1941), p. 573:<blockquote>1. Doubled, isolated and blockaded Pawns are weak: Avoid them!<br /><br />2. Passed Pawns should be advanced as rapidly as possible.<br /><br />3. If you are one or two Pawns ahead, exchange pieces but not Pawns.<br /><br />4. If you are one or two Pawns behind, exchange Pawns but not pieces.<br /><br />5. If you have an advantage do not leave all the Pawns on one side.<br /><br />6. If you are one Pawn ahead, in 99 cases out of 100 the game is drawn if there are Pawns on only one side of the board.<br /><br />7. The easiest endings to win are pure Pawn endings.<br /><br />8. The easiest endings to draw are those with Bishops of opposite colors.<br /><br />9. The King is a strong piece: Use it!<br /><br />10. Do not place your Pawns on the color of your Bishop.<br /><br />11. Bishops are better than Knights in all except blocked Pawn positions.<br /><br />12. Two Bishops vs. Bishop and Knight constitute a tangible advantage.<br /><br />13. Passed Pawns should be blockaded by the King; the only piece which is not harmed by watching a Pawn is the Knight.<br /><br />14. A Rook on the seventh rank is sufficient compensation for a Pawn.<br /><br />15. Rooks belong behind passed Pawns.<br /></blockquote></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-44593151526361205792008-12-15T10:52:00.005-05:002008-12-16T16:16:27.054-05:00Hat tip<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><br />It seems that I'm not the only one left who takes inordinate pleasure from perverse retroversion: <a href="http://www.volokh.com/sasha/">Sasha Volokh</a> at the Volokh Conspiracy has written and posted two Latin versions of <a href="http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_14-2008_12_20.shtml#1229349916">"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"</a>. I'm so jealous.<br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-28073051208768046262008-12-15T05:30:00.032-05:002008-12-16T17:42:55.656-05:00Thomas Tamm and the TSP, Part I: Why the TSP was illegal<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><br />This week, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/174601/page/1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Newsweek</span></a> features an interview with Thomas Tamm, a former Bush Department of Justice official who now confesses to being the leaker responsible for informing the <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span>’ James Risen and Eric Lichtblau about the so-called <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?_r=1">“Terrorist Surveillance Program”</a> (TSP).<br /><br />Tamm will doubtless be pilloried by right-wing editorialists, but in my view, his actions were courageous and highly commendable. Not only do I think that the TSP was illegal, I think it was <span style="font-style: italic;">obviously </span>illegal--indeed, I think that its legality simply cannot be defended on any reasonable view of the American constitutional structure. My reasons for holding this opinion, however, are somewhat different from those usually propounded, and I’ve been meaning to blog about them for a long time, so I shall use this recent development as an excuse to address the issue. I’ve broken my discussion into three posts: this one sets out the basic argument for FISA’s illegality, the second responds to the two objections that might initially seem serious, and the third explains how this relates to Tamm’s actions.<br /><br />To my mind, The only way in which the illegality of the programme can be made to seem at all questionable is by misconceiving the fundamental issues involved. I think that the best-known arguments against the legality of the TSP, set out in three letters sent to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in 2006 by a group of eminent constitutional law scholars (<a href="http://www.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/pdf/first_letter.pdf">here</a>, <a href="http://www.cdt.org/security/nsa/20060202scholars.pdf">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/pdf/lettertocongress7-14.pdf">here</a>), fall into this trap to some degree: although the letters make a number of good points, by framing the problem incorrectly they give the impression that the constitutional questions involved are much more complicated and contestable than is truly the case. The letters focus primarily on the allocation of war powers between Congress and the President; but there is really no need to enter into this question at all to show that the TSP was illegal. The war power, in fact, has practically nothing to do with the issue.<br /><br />The crucial point to understand is that legislative regulation of telecommunications has been undertaken for more than a century in virtue of Congress’s power to regulate commerce, and it has been sustained at every juncture by the Supreme Court. It is settled law that that the means of telecommunication are <span style="font-style: italic;">instruments of commerce</span>--a term which, as John Marshall remarked in the famous case of <span style="font-style: italic;">Gibbons v. Ogden</span>, 9 Wheat. 1, 189-90 (1824), bears its full sense of “intercourse”, extending well beyond the mere exchange of goods. This principle underlies all the later cases concerning the channels of telegraph, telephone, and radio communication: <span style="font-style: italic;">Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co.</span>, 96 U.S. 1, 9 (1878); <span style="font-style: italic;">Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Texas</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>105 U.S. 460, 464 (1881) (“A telegraph company occupies the same relation to commerce as a carrier of messages that a railroad company does as a carrier of goods. Both companies are instruments of commerce, and their business is commerce itself.”); <span style="font-style: italic;">Federal Radio Comm’n v. Nelson Bros. Bond & Mortgage Co</span>., 289 U.S. 266, 279 (1933); <span style="font-style: italic;">Fisher’s Blend Station v. State Tax Comm’n</span>, 297 U.S. 650, 654-5 (1936) (citing <span style="font-style: italic;">Gibbons </span>explicitly) (“Whether the transmission is effected by the aid of wires or through a perhaps less well understood medium, ‘the ether,’ is immaterial in the light of those practical considerations which have dictated the conclusion that the transmission of information interstate is a form of ‘intercourse,’ which is commerce.”); <span style="font-style: italic;">United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass’n</span>, 322 U.S. 533, 549-50 (1944) (“transactions may be commerce [ . . . ] though they do not use common carriers or concern the flow of anything more tangible than electrons and information”). To reject the doctrine of these cases would require striking down as unconstitutional a vast swath of regulation: not only FISA, but the Federal Communications Act, the Communications Satellite Act, the Interstate Wire Act, and so on--a position which neither the Bush White House nor any of its apologists advanced.<br /><br />But if telecommunications is commerce, then FISA--which, as it stood at the time of the TSP, protected the privacy of international telecommunications against the executive branch unless the executive complied with certain procedures--is in its essence <span style="font-style: italic;">a regulation of foreign commerce.</span><br /><br />And the Constitution is quite explicit about the separation of powers as it affects the regulation of foreign commerce: <span style="font-style: italic;">here Congress has all the power,</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> and the executive has none.</span> Article I, §8, cl. 3, allots the authority in express terms. In the case of the war power, article II, §2, cl. 1’s designation of the President as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” might be thought to give him some independent authority; here, however, the President does not even have a vague implication to raise against Congress's explicit grant of power. The executive branch cannot levy a tariff or prohibit any type of import or export on his sole authority. (In some of these cases, a treaty made by the President with the consent of the Senate can serve as well as a statute, but this is because treaties are themselves part of “the supreme Law of the Land”, art. VI, cl. 2; acting alone, however, the President cannot make law; as Justice Black remarked in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Steel Seizure Case</span>, 343 U.S. 579, 587 (1952), “<span class="headertext">In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute.</span>”) It is easy to forget this fact, because in the twentieth century Congress has, for pragmatic reasons, delegated heavily to the executive in the spheres of trade policy, particularly when military goods are involved: but all these delegations exist at the suffrance of Congress, and cannot prevail over an express statutory command on a particular issue falling under the foreign commerce power.<br /><br />It does not matter in the least whether (as defenders of the President maintened during the TSP controversy) following the dictates of FISA might interfere with the President’s military goals--even if those goals are appropriate ones, and even if, under Article II, the President can do some things <span style="font-style: italic;">not involving the regulation of foreign commerce</span> in furtherance of those goals regardless of Congress’s objections. For where Congress has an exclusive power, it is under absolutely no obligation to exercise that power in the manner most convenient for the President’s goals or most likely to support him in the exercise of his own powers. It is as gross a constitutional error to say that Congress must regulate foreign commerce in such a way as not to impede the purposes of the President, <span style="font-style: italic;">qua </span>supreme general, as it is to say that the President must use his pardoning power in such a way as not to impede the purposes of Congress, <span style="font-style: italic;">qua </span>definer of federal crimes. It might not be wise for the President to pardon everyone convicted under a criminal statute, even if he thinks the statute iniquitous, but there is no legal question as to his authority to do so. Similarly, it might not be wise for Congress to regulate foreign commerce in a way that makes it difficult for him to effectively fight a war, even if it thinks other goals more important; but there is no legal question as to its authority to do so. <br /><br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-20180475499419400132008-11-11T20:51:00.009-05:002008-12-16T16:16:13.178-05:00I spoke too soon ...<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><br />Perhaps my last comment was a bit too flush with optimism for "the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" and for the progress of the American South.<br /><br />At least, I'm tempted to think so upon reading the <a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRxZox4GFoIweckPDP1oRhKBlHOwD94CCDU00">comments</a> of Paul Broun, Republican Congressman from Georgia's 10th district, just reelected with 60.7% of the vote:<blockquote>"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."<br /><br />Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.<br /><br />"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."<br /><br />[ . . . ]<br /><br />"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."</blockquote>If an increase of a few percentage points in the top tax rate is "radical socialism or Marxism" and some sort of neo-Peace Corps is the functional equivalent of the <i>Sturmabteilung</i>, what in God's name would the Honourable Mr Broun have made of FDR?</div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-54052797754285197412008-11-05T22:04:00.005-05:002008-11-12T00:49:07.350-05:00A post on Obama<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;">I strongly supported Barack Obama for President, although he was not originally my first choice for the Democratic nomination (John Edwards was), and I am very pleased about his victory. His concrete policy suggestions seem to me sounder and more practical than those of any recent candidate; he numbers among <a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Mark%20Nickolas/blog/&blogId=5260">his advisors</a> several people for whom I have immense respect (Samantha Power, Cass Sunstein, and Bill Richardson, among others); and his academic credentials are a refreshing change from the dominant anti-intellectualism of American politics.<br /><br />During the election, however, I was so focused on the policy differences between him and Senator McCain -- and the importance of drawing a line under the Bush administration's war on the Constitution -- that the sociological importance of his election didn't really sink in until I read a post written by an Obama opponent, David Bernstein, at the Volokh Conspiracy: "<a href="http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_02-2008_11_08.shtml#1225859887"><span class="title">The End of White Supremacy</span></a>":<blockquote>What was unique about American post-slavery prejudice against African Americans, as opposed to the prejudice against other groups, was that it manifested itself in a system of white supremacy that dictated that blacks always be placed in an inferior position to whites. In the South, this was formalized under the law by Jim Crow statutes, and also enforced by lynchings and "whitecapping" against "uppity" black business owners and others who "didn't know their place."<br /><br />Obama's victory tells us that in case anyone had any doubt, the ideology of white supremacy is over and done with, kaput. Again, while blacks still face a fair amount of prejudice, there's a big difference between prejudice and a widespread ideology among the majority population that members of a particular group must be kept in "their place," by custom, law, and violence. "Their place," in effect, is now all the same positions whites occupy, up to and including the most powerful office in the land.</blockquote>I should not want to say, as Bernstein does, that "the ideology of white supremacy is over and done with". I am by no means that sanguine about the state of organized racism in America.<br /><br />But, after reading his article, and after Obama's triumph in Virginia and narrow victory in North Carolina, I keep thinking about a fact so obvious that it never even occurred to me to remark upon it explicitly during the campaign: that it would have been simply <i>inconceivable</i> for a black man to carry any statewide presidential ballot in the South I grew up in, in the 1980s. That was the South of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond -- living monuments to Jim Crow who survived the end of segregation with trivial ease simply by exchanging overt racial demagoguery for coded attacks so obvious that any child could figure them out.<br /><br />No, Obama's victory certainly does not signal the end of racism, nor even the end of <span style="font-style: italic;">explicit </span>racism (if you don't believe me, you need only google "Philip Berg" -- a nutcase whom I mentioned in an <a href="http://venialegendi.blogspot.com/2008/08/it-seems-that-you-dont-need-to-know.html">earlier post</a> -- and have a look at the sort of venomous nativism and Bull Connor fantasies on offer on a few thousand comment boards).<br /><br />But it is still an extraordinary moment, one I should not have believed possible even fifteen years ago, and it makes me, <i>malgré tout</i>, hopeful for the future of the country.</div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-13557112382744226972008-09-20T14:01:00.003-04:002008-09-20T14:07:50.476-04:00Addendum on presidential eligibility<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />Somehow, until yesterday, I had never come across the wonderful, hilarious article "Taking Text and Structure <span style="font-style: italic;">Really </span>Seriously: Constitutional Interpretation and the Crisis of Presidential Eligibility" by Jordan Steiker, Sanford Levinson, and Jack Balkin (<a href="http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/takingtextandstructurereallyseriously.pdf">74 <span style="font-style: italic;">Texas Law Review </span>237</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>(1995)). In addition to explaining why the U.S. hasn't had a legitimate President since Zachary Taylor, it works in references to <span style="font-style: italic;">Naming and Necessity</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Studies in the Way of Words</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Hustler </span>magazine.<br /></span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-354586344445389612008-09-14T02:25:00.006-04:002008-09-17T23:27:45.445-04:001. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" ><br />(Helvidius scowls.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Alix: I'm not trying to draw, really. I have genuine affection for the Petroff.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Helvidius: That's impossible. No one can have genuine affection for the Petroff.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Alix: I do.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Helvidius: Why?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Alix: Because I lose with everything else.</span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-15319292172666754592008-08-28T22:13:00.017-04:002008-08-28T23:55:34.814-04:00It seems that you don’t need to know much about the law to be a Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania.<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A 9/11 conspiracy theorist named Philip J. Berg has <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/22/205730/221/491/573107">filed suit</a> in federal court in Philadelphia, seeking an injunction to prevent Barack Obama from continuing his candidacy on grounds of Constitutional ineligibility. In itself, this isn’t very surprising: cranks file frivolous lawsuits all the time. What is remarkable is that Berg <span style="font-style: italic;">was apparently a Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania for five years</span>. If one keeps that fact in mind, the <a href="http://obamacrimes.com/attachments/001_ObamaComplaint.pdf">complaint</a> that he submitted makes for rather astounding reading. That the factual claims are crazy is to be expected; but that anyone who graduated from law school, let alone served as a former deputy state attorney general, could seriously advance the legal arguments that Berg makes in this text—couched in syntax that is barbaric even by the standards of Internet mountebanks—is shocking. The complaint does not make reference to a single relevant court case, and blandly asserts straightforwardly false propositions of law without any argument at all. Here are a few of the most egregious examples (the grammatical errors stand as printed in the original):<br /><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br /><blockquote>Obama is a representative of the Democratic People. However, the Obama must meet the Qualifications specified for the United States Office of the President, which is he must be a “natural born” citizen. Unfortunately, Obama is not a “natural born” citizen. Just to name one of the problems, Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen and relocated herself and Obama to Indonesia wherein Obama’s mother naturalized in Indonesia and Obama followed her naturalization, as he was a minor and in the custody of his mother. Obama failed to take the oath of allegiance when he turned eighteen (18) years to regain his United States Citizenship status. [¶3]</blockquote><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p><blockquote>The Nationality Act of 1940 provided for the loss of citizenship when the person became naturalized upon the naturalization of his or her parent having custody of such person. Obama’s mother expatriated her U.S. Citizenship when she married Lolo Soetoro, a citizen of Indonesia and relocated her and her son (Obama) to Indonesia. [¶27]</blockquote><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>An native-born American citizen cannot lose his citizenship except by explicit voluntary renunciation, as the Supreme Court decided in <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=387&page=253"><span style="font-style: italic;">Afroyim v. Rusk</span></a>, 387 U.S. 253 (1967). The provisions of the Nationality Act of 1940 that say otherwise are simply unconstitutional; this has been settled law for forty years.<o:p><br /></o:p></span></p><div face="georgia" style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></p><blockquote style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Since the beginning of the United States Constitution, in order to run for Office of President, you must be a “natural born citizen” and you may not hold dual citizenship or multiple citizenships with foreign countries. U. S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1. </span><span style="font-size:100%;">[¶14]<o:p><br /></o:p></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div face="georgia" style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The “since the beginning” construction was apparently inserted just for rhetorical effect, but even there Berg gets his facts wrong. At the “beginning of the United States Constitution”, it was not necessary to be a natural-born citizen: as Article II, §1, cl. 5 states, <o:p></o:p></span></p><div face="georgia" style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div face="georgia" style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p><blockquote>No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been Fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.<span style=""> </span></blockquote><span style=""></span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><div face="georgia" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Presumably the last person able to profit from the alternative ground for eligibility died in the 1880s or 1890s.<o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As far as the claim that one may not become President if one is a dual national, this is simple fantasy. Article II, §1, cl. 5 means just what it says: the only eligibility requirement for the Presidency, other than age and residency, is being a natural-born citizen. <o:p><br /></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A dual national is not, as is occasionally assumed, a half-citizen of each of two nations. Rather, someone who, in common parlance, has ‘dual citizenship of states A and B’ is just a person who, according to the legal system of state A, is a citizen of A and who, according to the legal system of state B, is a citizen of B.<span style=""> </span>If Barack Obama is a Kenyan, Indonesian, or Ruritanian citizen according to Kenyan, Indonesian, or Ruritanian law, that is a matter of utter irrelevance to his status under the American Constitution; as long as he is a citizen of the United States according to American law, and as long as his citizenship was acquired as of right at birth, then he is patently a “natural born Citizen” under the only criteria that count with respect to his eligibility for the Presidency. If he was born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”—that is to say, not the child of foreign ambassadors or invading enemies—then, according to the Fourteenth Amendment, then he is indeed a citizen and did acquire that citizenship as of right at birth. Nothing else matters.<o:p><br /></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In fact, it seems that Berg <span style="font-style: italic;">doesn’t </span>think that Obama was genuinely born in Hawaii. He thinks that his birth certificate is a forgery, and that “[t]here are questions as to where Obama was actually born” (¶15). His evidence for these propositions? “Upon investigation into the birth of Barack Hussein Obama in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama’s birth is reported as occurring at two (2) separate hospitals, Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital. Wikipedia English Version under the subject 'Barack Obama' states Obama was born at Kapiolani Hospital. Wikipedia Italian Version under the subject 'Queens Hospital' states Barack Obama was born in Queens Hospital” (¶18); “There are further references circulating on the internet claiming examination of the hospital’s records in Hawaii show no birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham (Obama) [ . . . ] ” (¶19); “After many attempts of the public to obtain Obama’s Certificate of Birth, a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) was placed on Obama’s campaign website. However, <span style="font-style: italic;">as posted all over the</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">internet</span>, three (3) independent Document Forensic Experts performed extensive Forensic testing on the Certificate of Live Birth posted on Obama’s campaign website” (¶35, emphasis added). However, perhaps realizing what might charitably be called the tenuous status of these speculations, Berg is quite willing to argue in the alternative: <span style="font-style: italic;">even if Obama was born in the United States</span>, the complaint argues, he is still ineligible to be President—and it is in formulating this claim that Berg's legal lunacy reaches full stride.<o:p><br /></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Berg’s errors are not terribly interesting in themselves; I have written about them for two reasons. First of all, they offer the chance to offer a few brief notes about the notion of ‘natural-born citizenship’ and its legal history. This is an interesting topic, and one on which a number of people seem to be profoundly confused. This appendix is not quite finished, so I shall add it as a supplementary post. Second, they afford a striking new example of a phenomenon which I have always found particularly dismaying: spectacular ignorance of constitutional law on the part of many of those who most vociferously define themselves politically as ‘defenders of the Constitution’. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Trawling by search engine through political blogs (a tedious habit to which I return again and again, like Svevo’s Zeno enkindling <span style="font-style: italic;">la sua ultima sigaretta</span>—always promising myself, in semi-demi-conscious bad faith, to quit after just one more) makes me worry that this phenomenon is growing. In fact, a Google search of blogs for ‘Obama’ and ‘dual citizenship’ yields more than <span style="font-style: italic;">1,300</span> results. The story has even been picked up by (using the term loosely) a <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/28/lawsuit-questions-obamas-eligibility-for-office/">national newspaper</a>.<span style=""> </span></span></p>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-51890513156316644722008-08-28T18:13:00.005-04:002008-08-28T22:42:52.658-04:00A canting translation of Villon<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;">Watching a video of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441785/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Ricky Jay and his Fifty-two Assistants</span></a> (directed by David Mamet), I came across this extraordinary translation of Villon's ballad "De bonne doctrine à ceux de mauvaise vie" into nineteenth-century canting slang. The original (text from the <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/244/37.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Oxford Book of French Verse</span></a>):<o:p><br /></o:p></p><div style="font-family: georgia;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><blockquote style="font-family:georgia;"><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="" lang="FR">Car ou soies porteur de bulles,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Pipeur ou hasardeur de dez,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Tailleur de faulx coings, tu te brusles,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Comme ceulx qui sont eschaudez,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Traistres parjurs, de foy vuydez;<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Soies larron, ravis ou pilles:<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Où en va l’acquest, que cuidez?<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="" lang="FR">Ryme, raille, cymballe, luttes,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Comme fol, fainctif, eshontez;<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Farce, broulle, joue des fleustes;<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Fais, es villes et es citez,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Farces, jeux et moralitez;<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Gaigne au berlanc, au glic, aux quilles.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Aussi bien va—or escoutez—<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.<span style=""> <br /></span><o:p></o:p><br />De telz ordures te reculles;<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Laboure, fauche champs et prez;<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Sers et pense chevaulx et mulles;<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />S’aucunement tu n’es lettrez;<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Assez auras, se prens en grez.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Mais se chanvre broyes ou tilles,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Ne tens ton labour qu’as ouvrez<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="" lang="FR">ENVOI<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="" lang="FR"><o:p></o:p>Chausses, pourpoins esguilletez,<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Robes, et toutes voz drappilles,<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Ains que vous fassiez pis, portez<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />Tout aux tavernes et aux filles.</span></p></blockquote></div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" face="georgia" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><span style="" lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> </div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><span style="" lang="FR"><o:p></o:p>The translation, by William Ernest Henley, the minor poet and slang lexicographer:</span></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><blockquote face="georgia"> I<br /> <br /> Suppose you screeve, or go cheap-jack?<br /> Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?<br /> Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?<br /> Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?<br /> Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?<br /> Or get the straight, and land your pot?<br /> How do you melt the multy swag?<br /> Booze and the blowens cop the lot.<br /> <br /> II<br /> <br /> Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;<br /> Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;<br /> Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;<br /> Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;<br /> Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;<br /> Rattle the tats, or mark the spot<br /> You cannot bank a single stag:<br /> Booze and the blowens cop the lot.<br /> <br /> III<br /> <br /> Suppose you try a different tack,<br /> And on the square you flash your flag?<br /> At penny-a-lining make your whack,<br /> Or with the mummers mug and gag?<br /> For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag<br /> At any graft, no matter what!<br /> Your merry goblins soon stravag:<br /> Booze and the blowens cop the lot.<br /> <br /> <i>The Moral.</i><br /> <br /> It’s up-the-spout and Charley-Wag<br /> With wipes and tickers and what not!<br /> Until the squeezer nips your scrag,<br /> Booze and the blowens cop the lot.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"> (See <a href="http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Farmer-MusaPedestris/villons-straight-tip-to-all-cross-coves.html">this link </a>for annotations.)</div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-55431477751139075102008-07-15T18:31:00.002-04:002008-07-15T18:35:08.551-04:00Pierre Menard does Berlitz<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><blockquote>"The best method of acquiring the Spanish language is to establish oneself in a good <span style="font-style: italic;">casa de pupilos,<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></span>to avoid English society and conversation, to read Don Quixote through and aloud before a master of a morning, and to be schooled by female tongues of an evening."</blockquote>-- Richard Ford, <span style="font-style: italic;">A Handbook for Travellers in Spain</span>, 3rd edn. (1855), part 1, p. 67.<br /></span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-19961695145750332472008-07-13T00:50:00.002-04:002008-07-13T00:51:06.786-04:00Counterpossibles in popular culture<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jimi Hendrix's "If 6 Was 9" comes to mind. Any others?</span><br /></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-47090394197152558902008-06-05T05:39:00.002-04:002008-06-05T05:42:59.075-04:00A very sharp, and funny, review<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Norman Kretzmann on Alexander Broadie's </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;">Introduction to Medieval Logic </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;">Journal of Symbolic Logic</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> 55 [1990]: 1320-22):</span><br /><blockquote style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The sort of thing Broadie does in these chapters could have been very valuable, I think, as an exercise for advanced students who had learned some medieval and some contemporary logic and were set the task of assimilating some bits of the former to corresponding bits of the latter; but it cannot count as "a sketch of logic during the fourteenth century", or as an introduction to medieval logic. A better title for the book might be <span style="font-style: italic;">Fantasia and Variations on Familiar Themes Drawn From Medieval and Post-Medieval Scholastic Logic. </span></blockquote></div><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;"></span>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876556689108079630.post-64213957160206852542008-05-19T02:58:00.005-04:002008-05-19T03:04:02.463-04:00Gettier cases<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Blindingly obvious once it's pointed out, but I never thought of it until I found this <a href="http://tar.weatherson.org/2006/09/22/gettier-cases-in-literature/">comment</a> </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">on a blog: </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >The Importance of Being Earnest </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">is a Gettier case.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div>Alix Cavanaughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946666224962859050noreply@blogger.com2