January 30th, 2009
My prediction for the 2009 Superbowl: Pittsburgh 31, Arizona 20. I keep hearing that the Steelers haven’t faced an offense like the Cardinals will put on the field. Well, the Cardinals haven’t played a defense as good as the Steelers (no, the Eagles don’t count). Pittsburgh is also more balanced and experienced than Arizona, and it’ll show in the second half of Sunday’s game.
MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a fantastic production. It’s fast-paced, appealing to look at, and it covers enough offbeat stories to truly serve as an alternative to other news programs. So how come Nancy Grace, who can spend an hour arguing about a fuzzy video where Casey Anthony may be gyrating while singing “where’s my baby!” has drawn more viewers in the adults between 25-54 demo the past two months?
In fact, Grace and Olbermann have been neck and neck in the ratings for a while now. How can this be? Nancy Grace is a fine host, but like most legal shows, her program tends to whistle a single note for months, only to abruptly switch to another monotonous note for another chunk of the year. Perhaps that’s because Countdown isn’t different in that regard. Aside from his oddball segments, Keith Olbermann has belted out the same anti-conservative album for years. The host of Countdown has proven to be just as predictable as Nancy Grace’s borderline tabloid subject matter (there’s only so many ways to say “faux news”). Considering how impressive the rest of MSNBC’s flagship program is, this is a shame.
After a Spanish judge threatened to investigate seven Israeli officials for a 2002 attack on Hamas that had nothing to do with Spain, the country reversed itself, and has now decided to put a leash on their legal system to prevent abuse of “universal jurisdiction.” This is a welcome development for the shrinking minority of those who cherish liberty more than unbridled “justice.”
The concept of universal jurisdiction is simple: it posits that courts in one nation have the legitimate power to prosecute anyone who commits something as severe as a war crime, even if the alleged crime occurred outside that nation’s borders and involved no one tied to that nation in any way.
Amnesty International defends universal jurisdiction by arguing that some crimes (such as torture) are so heinous that anyone who commits them should not be able to find safe haven anywhere (I’ll let the readers comment on how this principle relates to amnesty). Yet the concept of boundless jurisdiction ignores the plain fact that some legal systems are much fairer than others, and lectures by international bodies don’t cause corrupt judiciaries to reform. Even in the same country, the makeup of court cases (including, but not limited to: differences in judges, juries, lawyers, and media coverage) can produce unpredictable results. Under universal jurisdiction, anyone frivolously accused of certain grievous acts has a chance of being tried under a wide array of variously imperfect legal systems.
Also, an untempered desire to make the world a better place will eventually compel someone to argue, “Why limit ourselves to such a narrow band of crimes? Hate crimes are crimes against humanity. Racism is a crime against humanity. These should be under universal jurisdiction.” Few things are more certain than the fact that if universal jurisdiction is ever fully implemented, one day some American conservative will be imprisoned overseas for joking about the ears on his local DMV’s bejeweled Barack Obama statue, possibly years after the fact.
Spain demonstrated a remarkable respect for sovereignty by promising to scale back its legislative ambition. The rest of the western world would be wise to follow suit.
Cross-posted at Modern Conservative