Not so much an infamous day as a regretable failure to pay attention to Emily Post's doctrines of war.
He (John Yoo) would reduce the power to "declare War" to a mere formality, a courtesy to the enemy;
New York Review of Books
There you go. Roosevelt was just being a hypocrite when he declared that December 7th, 1941 a date which will live in infamy. As it turns out the Japanese were just doing what he had the power to do as well - go to war without the quaint courtesy of a note on monogrammed writing paper letting the other side know what was coming.
I have learnt a couple of things in the last few weeks. The many cries that "Clinton did it as well" in reference to, variously, detention camps in Guantanamo Bay or domestic espionage have taught me that there is a wide-held belief that an Executive stretching out to grab the crown of unfettered power - even if it means breaking the law - is fine so long as it is bipartisan. If anyone calls shenanigans,
they are just being fake
.
Oh no, hang on, I think I may have learnt the wrong lesson. I think I might have learnt that there are very few conservatives and liberals, just op-ed pages and a blogosphere chock full of partisan whores. The conservatives, the Red Devils, carry water for executives who seem hell-bent on reducing the contents of constitution of Australia and the US to questions in some soon to be released edition of Trivial Pursuit. No, I don't think it is an overstatement to say that the Howard's use of the Corporations powers for IR legislation is going the same way as the Commerce clause in the US, a macguffin for unlimited powers. Meanwhile, the left is quite happy when the Federal government uses its power to ban firearms, but cry civil liberties when gay marriage is banned. They're happy to see the Hawke government prevent the Franklin River Dam using dodgy readings of the Constitution, but revile Howard for his own dodgy readings.
Wait, there's still more. I just remembered, I didn't just realise these things, I knew them all along. I just tried to pretend that I was a centralist when all along I knew in the back of my head that there is no such thing as centralism; there is governance, and then there is bipartisanship. There is politics, and then there is Left and Right. There really is a date that will live in infamy. On September 11th, 2001 everything really did change, it marked the point where a spotlight was shone on partisan warriors everywhere, and their hypocrisy was there for everyone to see, like luminol reacting with the blood of liberty on their very chops.
There's no such thing as a Centrist as they define themselves, eschewing the extremes of Left and Right, holding a moderate position. Centrism is like atheism; a Centrist still stakes out a position and moderation still informs where they will stand on any issue that comes along. Left, Right, Centrist; why don't they all just go to Church Street, Parramatta and buy themselves a team guernsey.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
