For Eric

Music for Eric:

One of my favorite discussions we ever had here was on the subject of music: where are our Wagners? Eric pointed to film music, and one of the choices widely endorsed was Ennio Morricone.

A rare piece, not well known, was his score for "Guns For Saint Sebastian." It is beautiful all the way through.



The love theme is also exceptional, though I have not found it online as yet.

Aces

Aces:

This guy has hands.

Woah

Woah:

This article claims that Georgia voters are waiting up to eight hours to participate in early voting.

I've voted in Georgia most of my life -- and early-voted myself a couple of weeks ago. Even before the advent of early voting, I've never waited so much as five minutes to vote. This year, my wife and I went and there were plenty of machines available for us to walk in and out. There was no waiting at all.

Now, the story suggests that there were some problems with the electronic voting system -- but why not just come back tomorrow, then? People lining up at 4 AM to vote? Democrats warning that 'there may not be time' for all the voters who want to vote to be able to do so?

Didn't we used to do this on just one day, and not that long ago? What could possibly explain this nonsense, given that you now have a month and a half instead of 12-18 hours?

NRA Day

NRA Day:

The National Rifle Association has a great ad out.



Meanwhile, US News and World Reports has an interview with Governor Palin and her husband that reminds me (again) of what I like about the lady.

From my interview with Palin and hubby Todd yesterday, they explained how they size people up on outdoor expeditions in Alaska: "It's like Plato said, 'You learn more about someone in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.' We've had people that Todd has ended up hiring [for his commercial fishing business] based on how they did out on a hunt or a snow machine ride with us to see if they are going to complain. Are they going to buck up and realize that you have to make the best of the circumstances you're in? It's a good kind of testing ground for people," says Palin.

That's absolutely the truth. It also turns out that she's a Life NRA member, and hunts with a .243 when she's out for caribou.

Sheepherder

"A Sheepherder Came and Put Up a Fence..."

"...I saw him one time, but I ain't seen him since..."

25 Million

Twenty-Five Million Dead:

So planned the Weathermen under the leadership of Bill Ayers, according to the FBI agent who investigated them.

Did they mean it? It's worth remembering another Communist group of the same period, which assassinated a US Congressmen, and then committed the largest mass suicide in human history.

Our friend Noel of Sharp Knife writes:

Obama let these sociopaths babysit his children. Does that give you confidence that he'll protect your children?

All that is in the past, though. As Noel points out, those radical Communist groups linked to Obama haven't killed anyone since, well, February or so.

About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000. ...

By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians. ...

Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies.

Odd we haven't read more about that. I'd like to hear the rest of the story.

Our friend Baldilocks has a few things to say about it, though. Her opinion matters here, because her family is rooted in the same area; her father is an important journalist in Kenya.

Hiring Ravens

Hiring Ravens:

The London Spectator's Philips writes:

As I have said before, I do not trust McCain; I think his judgment is erratic and impetuous, and sometimes wrong. But on the big picture, he gets it. He will defend America and the free world whereas Obama will undermine them and aid their enemies.

Here’s why. McCain believes in protecting and defending America as it is. Obama tells the world he is ashamed of America and wants to change it into something else. McCain stands for American exceptionalism, the belief that American values are superior to tyrannies. Obama stands for the expiation of America’s original sin in oppressing black people, the third world and the poor.

Obama thinks world conflicts are basically the west’s fault, and so it must right the injustices it has inflicted. That’s why he believes in ‘soft power’ — diplomacy, aid, rectifying ‘grievances’ (thus legitimising them, encouraging terror and promoting injustice) and resolving conflict by talking. As a result, he will take an axe to America’s defences at the very time when they need to be built up. He has said he will ‘cut investments in unproven missile defense systems’; he will ‘not weaponize space’; he will ‘slow our development of future combat systems’; and he will also ‘not develop nuclear weapons,’ pledging to seek ‘deep cuts’ in America’s arsenal, thus unilaterally disabling its nuclear deterrent as Russia and China engage in massive military buildups.

There are two great insights there. The first one -- that McCain will defend America, while Obama will try to change it into something else -- is obvious enough, yet seems to have escaped a great many people.

The second one, though, is something that should be written in great iron letters where every college student can see them. The move to "rectify grievances" has the effect of offering legitimacy to the charges raised against you. Sometimes, that is the worst thing that could be done.

The Crack

The Veneer Cracks:

Human Rights Watch was recently reporting from Venezuela:

On September 18, we released a report in Caracas that shows how President Hugo Chávez has undermined human rights guarantees in Venezuela. That night, we returned to our hotel and found around twenty Venezuelan security agents, some armed and in military uniform, awaiting us outside our rooms. They were accompanied by a man who announced—with no apparent sense of irony—that he was a government "human rights" official and that we were being expelled from the country.

With government cameramen filming over his shoulder, the official did his best to act as if he were merely upholding the law. When we said we needed to gather our belongings, he calmly told us not to worry, his men had already entered our rooms and "packed" our bags.

But when we tried to use our cell phones to get word to our families, our colleagues, and the press, the veneer of protocol quickly gave way. Security agents surrounded us, pried the phones from our hands, and removed and pocketed the batteries. When we then insisted on contacting our embassies, they shoved us into a service elevator, took us to the basement, and forced us into the back seat of an SUV with tinted windows. When we asked where we were headed, they told us only that we were going to the airport.

Three security agents sat behind us, at least two with weapons drawn. One used a cell phone to receive and relay orders as we raced through the streets of Caracas and out onto a highway. At one point an order came to turn on the SUV's radio so we could listen as the state news agency announced our expulsion. The announcers told their captive audience—which also included every other Venezuelan listening to the radio, since all stations are required to broadcast such messages—that our organization was funded by the US government and that we were part of a campaign of aggression against Venezuela.

Probably news to President Bush, who has been annoyed by HRW in the past. Of course, in the United States they are free to operate without being expelled by gunpoint, and their belongings -- as their offices and papers -- are secured by the 4th Amendment.

Bugler

"Bugler, Sound Recall!"

We were up in Dahlonega yesterday, a small town in the North Georgia mountains that was home to America's first gold rush. It is currently home to North Georgia College and State University, the military college of Georgia. As we finished our business and began to drive home, the sound of the bugler drifted across the town, playing "Retreat" and then "To the Colors."

It inspired me to see if there was a good repository on the internet of military bugle calls. The Army has one. Unsurprisingly, the Federation of American Scientists also has a collection. You may enjoy listening to these, whether you are occasionally on Army installations and wonder after the calls used, or if you like old cavalry Westerns and wonder what the bugle calls mean, or simply have a love for history and military traditions.

When I was last in Iraq, every morning at 0600, the loudspeaker at the headquarters of the Third Infantry Division in Iraq sounded the charge. That hour would normally be used for "Reveille," but that call is to be used when raising the colors. As the US flag was not to be flown on Iraq territory, out of respect for the sovereign status of our host nation, the charge was used instead.

Good Job, ATF

Good Job, ATF:

One rarely hears praise for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms around here, but today they earned it. Well done.

Yep

Yep, Saw That Coming:

Just yesterday we were talking about punishing the guilty:

One expects that, in Obama's America, justice will be done in this case: the citizen whose experiment proved that the campaign had manually disabled all credit-card safeguards will be arrested and prosecuted for making the fake donations. Once he's safely in prison, just as Joe is now safely out of work, we can all stop worrying about the matter.

Today, Megan McArdle notes a plan for prosecution:

If a wingnut uses the Internet to give the Obama campaign a donation in a fake name, with the intent of fooling the website into accepting an invalid contribution, isn't that using interstate communications facilities to defraud under 18 USC 1343?

Here's part of the definition of "fraud" from Black's Law Dictionary:

a false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his legal injury

Seems like a pretty good fit to me.

Ms. McArdle is a remakably generous woman, who chooses to believe the best about the Obama campaign:

The Obama campaign screwed up massively; it should not be possible to charge something to a credit card without matching the name to the name on the credit card. Most responsible web processors also require that you provide a fair amount of other information, to ensure that people aren't using stolen cards. And beyond that, last time I looked it was mandatory to get correct names to ensure that people aren't violating the campaign finance laws. I don't support those laws, to be sure. But as long as they are the law, all the campaigns have to abide by them.

Wondering if we can't prosecute the person who exposed the campaign's error smacks of police state tactics. Yes, I still support Obama, and I have no reason to think that the error was deliberate.

"Error"? She is aware that the campaign has disabled all the normal safeguards that "responsible web processors... require," and is ignoring the "mandatory" requirement to collect correct names "to ensure that people aren't violating the campaign finance laws."

It seems to me a stretch to believe this was a "massive screw up," given the extraordinary benefits that such an "error" brings to the Obama campaign. That would be somewhat suspicious even from a campaign that had behaved reasonably well up until now. This one has been accused of massive fraud from Iowa forward, as regards their abuses in the caucus states, with ACORN, and so on and so forth. Surely there's a threshhold beyond which we no longer assume these are innocent mistakes.

By the same token, this isn't the first time Obama supporters have wanted to destroy someone critical of the campaign. Ask Joe the Former Plumber.

UK OK

UK now OK:

Well, we can stop worrying about the economic crisis now -- at least, England can.

FOUR extra ravens are being drafted into the Tower of London because of the financial crisis — to prevent a 350-year-old curse coming true.

King Charles II decreed there must be at least six ravens otherwise a disaster would strike the nation and the Royal Family.

And up to now, bosses have kept just one spare bird in residence to act as a “super sub”.

But with the UK facing credit crunch meltdown, they ruled an extra four must now be acquired.

This strikes me as a totally reasonable and correct course of action: it's good not to mess with curses from ancient kings. Yet it is interesting that the English are interpreting the current crisis as so bad that they need reinforcements in the Tower of London: and not just to think of it, but to order it done and pay for it. There's a lot of end-times language going on here, too, as we've discussed from time to time, especially around the Obama candidacy and its messiah-like images. Interesting days.

1/3 on Welfare

Long-Term Thinking:

So we have this interview with then-State Senator Obama from 2001:



There are three take-aways for me.

1) He's spent a great deal of his life thinking about how best to effect what he himself calls "redistributive change" in America. The comment about 'spreading the wealth around' was not a slip of the tongue, but the core of his plan for America.

2) He would like to see the Constitution understood less in terms of what he calls "negative liberty" -- what we would call "actual liberty," that is, the freedom from government influence in your life. His goals have to do with creating a system whereby the Federal and state governments have to provide every citizen with certain goods.

The terms "negative liberty" and "positive liberty" come from Sir Isaiah Berlin.

Berlin contended that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers often equated liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when notions of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, self-determination and the Communist idea of collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism.

"Negative liberty" is actual liberty. It's freedom from constraint, freedom to do what you can do, to be what you can be. Positive liberty is not the assurance that you'll have the chance to try for something, but assurance that you'll have that thing. The government will give it to you -- which means, the government will force other citizens to provide you with the means.

That is a fundamental alteration of our concept of the relationship between government and citizen. It is a radical mode, and one that Berlin rightly warned has often led to totalitarian modes.

3) Obama views this as an outgrowth of the "Civil Rights Movement." The video maker interprets this racially -- that Obama intends this redistribution to be about blacks and whites.

That's a plausible reading, since the Civil Rights Movement was chiefly about black and white issues. Nevertheless, I don't know that I believe that is what he meant to say.

Rather, I think that now-Senator Obama intends a vision that isn't race-based. Below I described his tax plan as "putting a third of America on welfare," as it would give people "tax cuts" beyond what they pay in taxes -- money for nothing. I think that really is the plan here: not to make payments to minorities, but to make payments to everyone below a certain threshhold.

The idea is that government should provide everyone with a basic standard of living. The Bible says: "If any would not work, neither should they eat." This is the opposite plan: whether you work or not, you shall eat, and have health care, and you shall vote, and be provided with a basic standard of living, and sufficient income to maintain it.

Those who want more than that common standard may work for it. However, because the money to provide that common standard to everyone else doesn't come from nowhere, these people who want more have to understand that they will be the ones bearing the brunt of the taxes. If, after they have paid those taxes they can still buy something better for themselves, that's fine.

Now, here's one of two great flaws with this plan: what if those people choose to work less, and have more time off? Their basic standard of living is guaranteed, and there's increasingly small reward for each hour of additional work.

Here's the other: The government is already in dire condition with underfunded pensions, Social Security, and Medicare. The government is already telling us that it will cancel or cut those programs as necessary, as they are "not true liabilities."

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

...

Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.

The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.

Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.

Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities.

So why don't we change to the corporate-style accounting method?

The White House and the Congressional Budget Office oppose the change, arguing that the programs are not true liabilities because government can cancel or cut them.
Right.

They're already telling you that they have no intention of making these payments. They are "not true liabilities." The government can "cancel or cut them."

So now we're going to undertake to provide a vast array of basic, communal standards of living to everyone? We can't pay for the promises we've made already. And that's if people don't stop trying so hard, as each hour of their working life returns less reward to them.

The New Socialist Age will be short lived, if it arrives. When the government finishes showing us how it keeps the promises it made on Social Security and Federal pensions, we'll all be like the Russians Doc mentioned below. None of us will ever trust them again.

Nor should you, now. Keep that in mind as you vote, but more particularly, as you prepare for the coming economic troubles. Don't depend on any government promise when preparing for your retirement, or for any other reason. Take care of yourself. Take care of your own: your family, your neighbors, those whom you love.

Cass' Cold Blood

Cassandra's Blood Runs Cold:

So she says, at this:

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.
Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business....

I'm sure it was a complete coincidence... just like the queries on his outstanding liens, the information on his ex-wife, his plumbing license, etc.

His business has been shut down, and his life plundered by the media in an effort to discredit him. That'll show you to ask a tough question to a candidate who stops by your house and ask for questions.

Well, Mark Steyn has a couple of questions about the funding of the Obama campaign:

As many Obama supporters wrote to point out, simply because you get a message saying "Thank you for contributing to the Obama landslide, Mr S Hussein of 47 Spider-Hole Gardens (basement flat), Tikrit!" is no reason to believe any real money is actually leaving real accounts.

The gentleman who started the ball rolling made four donations under the names "John Galt", "Saddam Hussein", "Osama bin Laden", and "William Ayers", all using the same credit card number. He wrote this morning to say that all four donations have been charged to his card and the money has now left his account. Again, it's worth pointing out: in order to enable the most basic card fraud of all - multiple names using a single credit card number - the Obama campaign had to manually disable all the default security checks provided by their merchant processor.

One expects that, in Obama's America, justice will be done in this case: the citizen whose experiment proved that the campaign had manually disabled all credit-card safeguards will be arrested and prosecuted for making the fake donations. Once he's safely in prison, just as Joe is now safely out of work, we can all stop worrying about the matter.

These guys are dangerous. Or so a fellow at Southern Appeal suggested, before he was duly chastened. I quote the exchange:

5. cg Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
“The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision,” Sowell explains. “This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians.”

Just wanted you boobs to read it again (you know who you are). And why not do something really revolutionary afterward–think about it.

6. John in Nashville Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
“And why not do something really revolutionary afterward”? In that that exhortation was preceded by commentary on how dangerous a presidential candidate is, I would be careful about that kind of ambiguity, cg. It could draw unwanted attention from the Secret Service.

It's pretty clear that the revolutionary act being suggested here was to "think about it." Still, the reflex is to threaten and to bully.

Ask WGN Radio.

Russians For McCain

Another Supermajority for McCain:

First it was the US military; now, former Marine Doc Russia points us to another group that strongly favors John McCain. Russian immigrants are polling strongly in support of the anticommunist warrior.

Why? Doc says:

Those that have escaped from communism, or it's near-beer equivalent, socialism, have, without exception in my personal experience, understood that electing a man who espouses socialist programs is a socialist, communist, or any degree thereof. In other words, these guys from Poland, Russia, and the like damned sure know who Obama is, and what is likely to impose.

Doc's wife, who is Russian, is apparently on the same page about this.

About the most patriotic American citizen I ever knew was a professor at Georgia State University named Dr. An. ("An means 'peace,'" he would tell students, drawing the character: one woman under one roof. Then he would draw the character again, but this time with three women under one roof. "This character means, 'calamity.'")

Dr. An was Korean -- not "South Korean" or "North Korean," but a man born in Korea when it was under Japanese occupation. He spoke of how the Japanese treated him and his people as a child. He was liberated by the Americans, and then fought alongside the American army against the Communists in the Korean war. Following the war, he emigrated to the United States and became a citizen.

You never met a man with a greater love of this country. Unfortunately, he died a few years ago, because Doc's post makes me wish I could ask him how he felt about the current choices. I think his perspective would have been worthy.

Bowie update

Bowie Update:

It was suggested tonight that I ought to test the blade before heading out with it. It's always a good idea to test your kit.



I set up an old paperback atop a stool, and gave it a good stab. With no trouble at all, it sank through about two hundred pages of pulp, and deep enough into the stool that I could firmly lift the thing off the floor -- and hold it suspended -- without loosening the blade.

That'll do.

UPDATE: If you're looking for a good Bowie yourself, let me recommend my favorite custom smith's latest blade.

Wow

Wow:

Get some, Ma'am.

The Sack of Beziers

The Sack of Beziers:

From the Martin Best Consort's A Medieval Banquet, "Music from the Age of Chivalry."

Beziers has fallen!
They're dead.
Clerks, women, children:
No quarter.

They killed Christians too.
I rode out,
I couldn't see nor hear a living creature.
I saw Simon de Montefort.
His beard glistened in the sun.

They killed seven thousand people!
Seven thousand souls who sought sanctuary
In St. Madeline's.
The steps of the altar were wet with blood.
The church echoed with their cries.

Afterwards, they slaughtered the monks
who tolled the bell.
The used the silver cross
As a block
On which to behead them.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

We have life to resist!
Don't you feel it?
Let's sing for our futures!
All our futures!

This is followed by "Rassa, Tan Creis." The piece was composed by Guiraut Riquier, a troubadour of the first water. Yet that is half the story: the poem that is not included, for which the music was written, was by Bertran de Born, not only a troubadour poet but a baron and knight of France.

Investigations

Investigations:

Whose job is it to make sure a potential President is on the level? We've talked briefly about the Berg lawsuit, and how it is likely to be dismissed on standing grounds -- yes, you're an American citizen who has a Kenyan birth certificate for Obama, and yes he has not produced a birth certificate in Hawaii; but forgeries are common in Africa, Hawaii says it's good enough, and anyway you're just some guy. What right do you have to challenge him in court to produce the documents?

Well, actually, that's a very good question. It turns out that there is no one with the duty to require that a given candidate for President prove he meets the Constitutional requirements. These can both be met by a birth certificate, but oddly there just isn't a national office in charge of demanding that certificate. If you want a job as an FBI agent, you'll need to produce your birth certificate, any college transcripts, and a huge host of financial and personal documents to prove you are entitled to the TOP SECRET clearance associated with the position; but there is no similar requirement for elected office. Congressmen get a SECRET clearance just because they are elected; and the President gets everything, whether or not he could qualify for such a clearance through the normal channels. (Sen. McCain could, and probably has held one in his decades-long military career; Gov. Palin actually has. Sen. Obama could not possibly qualify for a security clearance according to this article, which accords with my own experience.)

Yet we don't insist on security clerances for elected officials, and for a very good reason: that would be giving the bureaucracy a greater power than the Constitution imagines for it. If the FBI or the DOD has the power to define who is allowed to run for an office, they and not the People are the real decision makers about who will lead this nation's Executive branch. Yet they are meant to be subordinate to the Executive appointed by the People, not the commanders.

So whose job is it? Ours, the People: but, as we began with, a given PERSON doesn't have standing to challenge a candidate in court.

That's unsustainable. If you have the duty, you must also have the powers and tools to pursue that duty. Yet this isn't the only power we lack: we lack resources, and many of us don't have the investigative background.

As a work-around, we have normally conceeded this duty to the media.

How is that working out this time?

Obama has released just one brief document detailing his personal health. McCain, on the other hands, released what he said was his complete medical file totaling more than 1500 pages. After criticism on the matter, last week the Obama campaign also released some routine lab-test results and electrocardiograms for Obama. All test results appeared normal, but many details about his health remain a mystery.

Obama has refused to offer his official papers as a state legislator in Illinois, and has been unable to produce correspondence, such as letters from lobbyists and other correspondence from his days in the Illinois state senate. There are also no appointment calendars available of his official activities. “It could have been thrown out,” Obama said while on the campaign trail during the Democratic primary. “I haven’t been in the state Senate now for quite some time.”

Obama has not released his client list as an attorney or his billing records. Obama has maintained that he only performed a few hours of legal work for a nonprofit organization with ties to Tony Rezko, the Chicago businessman convicted of fraud in June. But he has not released billing records that would prove this assertion.

Obama won’t release his college records from Occidental College where he studied for two years before transferring to Columbia.

Obama’s campaign refuses to give Columbia University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political science, permission to release his transcripts. Such transcripts would list the courses Obama took, and his grades. President George W. Bush, and presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry, all released their college transcripts. (McCain has refused to release his Naval Academy transcript.)

Obama’s college dissertation has simply disappeared from Columbia Universities archives. In July, in response to a flurry of requests to review Obama’s senior thesis at the Ivy League school, reportedly titled “Soviet Nuclear Disarmament,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told NBC News “We do not have a copy of the course paper you requested and neither does Columbia University.”

The senator has not agreed to the release of his application to the Illinois state bar, which would clear up intermittent allegations that his application to the bar may have been inaccurate.

Jim Geraghty of the National Review has written extensively about Obama’s unwillingness to release records related to clients he represented while he was an attorney with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill, and Gallard. Obama was required to list his clients during his years in the Illinois senate. “Obama listed every client of the firm,” Geraghty reported, making it impossible to discern which clients he represented.

Obama has never released records from his time at Harvard Law School.

Obama also has not disclosed the names of small donors giving $200 or less to his campaign. An exception to the finance-reporting laws exempts the campaign from reporting those who donate less than $200, but that law never envisioned the more than $300 million that has been raised by Obama in small amounts. The Republican National Committee has released its small donors, as well as McCain’s, on a public database.

This guy has a bit to say on the subject. The market has a little bit more to say about it.

Yet it remains an unanswered question. Who has the right? Who has the duty? Who has the tools?

UPDATE: I see tonight that the Berg lawsuit was dismissed, as expected, on the grounds that he doesn't have the standing to demand Obama's records. OK: but who does?

The answer may not be "Any citizen." Yet, by the same token, neither can it be "Nobody."

Norm, over at Normblog, has this quiz about books, which I'm going to answer. Anybody else is free to join in.

What was the last book you bought?
The Culture of War, by Martin van Creveld.
Name a book you have read more than once.
Guadacanal, by Richard Frank.
Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? If yes, what was it?
That's a good one. And yes. The Enchiridion, by Epictetus.
How do you choose a book? e.g., by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews.
Usually by Title and summary, occasionally by reviews. Very seldom by recommendation.
Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?
Always non-fiction.
What's more important in a novel - beautiful writing or a gripping plot?
Plot.
Most loved/memorable character.
I honestly can't think of one. Really. Oh wait. Ebenezer Scrooge. He's memorable.
Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at the moment?
Let's see:
On Hunting by Xenophon
Escapism by Yi-Fu Tuan
Sexual Culture in Ancient Greece by Daniel Garrison
The Boy Mechanic by the Editors of Popular Mechanics
The Tale of the Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte
The Flintlock: Its Origin, Development, and Use by Torsten Lenk
The Chinese on the Art of Painting by Osvald Siren
The Ancient World at War edited by Philip de Souza
The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden
Syarcuse 415-413 BC: Destruction of the Athenian Imperial Fleet by Nic Fields
(I really have to get that stack down....)
What was the last book you've read, and when was it?
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer
Have you ever given up on a book half way in?
Earlier than that. I think I got through maybe the first chapter of Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy before tossing it out.

Well, that was interesting.