Travel notes: Edinburgh

Not a good hotel experience in Edinburgh today. Place booked at the Bank hotel, sight unseen through Expedia, but they bumped me to a ‘sister’ hotel called the Three Sisters. Sister hotel as in ugly sister. Stuck down on Cowgate, in the lee of Castle Mound, the outside area is a huge courtyard with a giant screen showing (today) Channel 4 racing. No room service either (noooooo).

The room was small and heavily overlooked, with cheap accountant’s-office blinds that moved in the slightest breeze. Oh, and there was an aircon unit outside the window that sounded like the Saturn V taking off.

I am now in the bland and corporate Radisson SAS on the corner of South Bridge, a much nicer spot, and handy for this evening’s do at the Scottish Parliament.

John Roberts’ philosophy

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the legal philosophy of aspiring Chief Justice Roberts. Roberts, it says, is devoted to legal process – not legislating from the bench, in other words. Now, I say this as a European liberal in a Parliamentary system, but that attitude does have a lot to recommend it.

For all the iconic status now placed on Roe v. Wade, it can be argued from a democratic point of view that judges creating rights out of – essentially – thin air is undesirable, particularly in such a contentious area. I speak as a supporter of abortion availability (alongside measures to reduce its incidence), but would it not have been better for states (or the Feds) to have introduced something like Britain’s 1967 Abortion Act.

Then there would have been a debate, a democratic agreement, and (as in the 1967 Act) provision could have been made for people with a conscientious objection not to participate in the process. To apparate a right to an abortion, however hedged around, and however supported by the public as a whole, is always going to be undemocratic in the eyes of its opponents. What is more, as Katha Pollitt mentions in a recent issue of The Nation, it can make supporters of abortion rights lazy, and over-reliant on the existence of a constitutional right rather than winning hearts and minds.

Nemo iudex in causa sua

This story gave me a huge laugh – George W Bush, the President of the US, has taken it on himself to lead the inquiry into what went wrong with the handling of Katrina. Quick summary of the results, courtesy of my friend Nostradamus:

  • (Democrat party) officials in NO and Louisiana – guilty as hell;
  • Federal Government (prop. George W Bush) – pure as the driven snow, honest public servants doing hard work in difficult circumstances, etc. etc.

“No-one should be judge of his own cause” indeed.

The BBC report: Link.