December 14, 2010
Moral Vigilantes
This is what happens when a society succumbs to the pressure of fanatic religious moralism to the point that the ethic of minding your own business is discarded. Granted, Indonesia does not have a profound cultural or political tradition of privacy. But what we see here is a case of a religious majority imposing its ethics on those who do not share their beliefs -- and it is violent, cruel, and harmful to the society's economic and political growth. We should remember that in a free society, moral repugnance is not a good enough reason to outlaw something.
Labels:
International Politics,
News,
Religion
December 13, 2010
Why I Hate Wrong Numbers
The Wife goes to sleep pretty early most nights -- generally before 8:00.
Often, when she or someone else calls me on my cell phone, I can't hear it, so I turn the volume up as loud as it will go. Only The Wife has a special ringtone; everyone else rings in with the Miami Vice theme because I think it's a cool piece of music and it seems to induce smiles in people of my generation.
I try, as hard as I can, to remember to silence the phone at night when I put the it away to charge up. But I'm not perfect and forget to do this sometimes. And of course, only on the nights when I forget to do this does someone misdial the phone and call me at 9:00. So then I have to leap out of my chair and spill the computer dangerously on the floor, go running for the phone, and try to silence it as soon as I can.
Of course I never get there in time to prevent The Wife from waking up and asking me if I hate her. And then I feel guilty the rest of the night. Because someone I don't know dialed a wrong number.
Often, when she or someone else calls me on my cell phone, I can't hear it, so I turn the volume up as loud as it will go. Only The Wife has a special ringtone; everyone else rings in with the Miami Vice theme because I think it's a cool piece of music and it seems to induce smiles in people of my generation.
I try, as hard as I can, to remember to silence the phone at night when I put the it away to charge up. But I'm not perfect and forget to do this sometimes. And of course, only on the nights when I forget to do this does someone misdial the phone and call me at 9:00. So then I have to leap out of my chair and spill the computer dangerously on the floor, go running for the phone, and try to silence it as soon as I can.
Of course I never get there in time to prevent The Wife from waking up and asking me if I hate her. And then I feel guilty the rest of the night. Because someone I don't know dialed a wrong number.
Labels:
Technology,
The Wife
Hudson On Healthcare
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson of the Eastern District of Virginia has found that the "individual mandate" portion of the healthcare reform act is unconstitutional. His is sure to not be the last word on this issue. What makes it interesting is the grounds -- not buying health insurance is not interstate commerce and therefore beyond the ability of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause.
To my knowledge, only two other kinds of human activity have been found to not be interstate commerce in the modern era. Those things are 1) a high school student carrying a concealed pistol while at school, absent specific Congressional findings about the effect on commerce of such activity (United States v. Lopez (1995) 514 U.S. 549) , and 2) a Federal civil lawsuit for nonconsensual sexual contact (United States v. Morrison (2000) 529 U.S. 598). Note that the state court grand jury found insufficient evidence to authorize a charge of rape in Morrison, denying us the ability to describe what sounds like "rape" with that word. More importantly, note how these two kinds of activities are criminal and indeed likely violent in nature.
Compare this to growing and eating wheat rather than selling it under a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation (Wickard v. Filburn (1942) 317 U.S. 111) and smoking marijuana given away for free for medicinal purposes (Gonzales v. Raich (2005) 545 U.S. 1), which the Court has ruled do affect interstate commerce, under the "aggregation theory" -- the idea be being that while an individual transaction has no perceptible economic effect on commerce, if everyone did it, there would be a significant effect on commerce.
As between these four seminal cases, I would have thought that not buying health insurance in the 2010's was most similar to not selling wheat in the 1930's. But Judge Hudson's key reasoning is this:
What's more, footnote 7 in the opinion reads: “The collective effect of an aggregate of such inactivity still falls short of the constitutional mark.” Here, I just can't see where Judge Hudson is coming from. The larger the pool of insured in an insurance market, the more diluted individual risks become and thus the amount of premium per policyholder needed to cover claims decreases. If large numbers of people voluntarily abstain from purchasing a particular kind of insurance, the premium per policyholder rises. This is not a hugely complex concept -- and even if it is ultimately proven incorrect, Congress is clearly within its discretion and authority to be thus incorrect because the idea is not so far out of left field as to be "irrational."
As an alternative, the Government argued that the individual mandate is enforced by a "penalty" that should be considered a "tax," but Judge Hudson looked at the exact meaning of those phrases -- a "penalty" is levied in response to an unlawful act or omission, while a "tax" is a burden imposed to generate revenue for the government -- and concluded from legislative history, legislative text, and political statements of both Congressional leaders and the White House that the claim that this enforcement mechanism is a "tax" is a "transparent afterthought" and therefore not to be credited. It is a penalty, according to the Court, a penalty designed to punish conduct deemed undesirable by Congress, viz., not buying health insurance -- and since the conduct deemed undesirable is not itself something that Congress can regulate, Congress lacks power to impose a penalty for it. This portion of the reasoning seems sound to me.
As I noted above, this is not the end of the road for the individual mandate provision of the healthcare reform act. It does demonstrate that the idea that the law exceeds Federal power is not a crazy one, it is persuasive and serious and should be carefully weighed. To damn modern commerce clause jurisprudence as "unprincipled" is only to say that it is like much other Constitutional jurisprudence, in that much depends on the policy desirability of the law, the political mood at the time of the decision, and the general philosophical cast of the nine Justices who eventually and inevitably will render a final decision.
I don't particularly want the individual mandate to be Constitutional. And I'm pleased that the bench is taking seriously the notion that there are Constitutional limits on Congress' powers. But I have a hard time squaring Judge Hudson's reasoning with the outstanding jurisprudence. Unless there is going to be a new contour in Commerce Clause jurisprudence written in by this case, I would have ruled that this was near the limits of, but still within, Congress' Commerce power.
To my knowledge, only two other kinds of human activity have been found to not be interstate commerce in the modern era. Those things are 1) a high school student carrying a concealed pistol while at school, absent specific Congressional findings about the effect on commerce of such activity (United States v. Lopez (1995) 514 U.S. 549) , and 2) a Federal civil lawsuit for nonconsensual sexual contact (United States v. Morrison (2000) 529 U.S. 598). Note that the state court grand jury found insufficient evidence to authorize a charge of rape in Morrison, denying us the ability to describe what sounds like "rape" with that word. More importantly, note how these two kinds of activities are criminal and indeed likely violent in nature.
Compare this to growing and eating wheat rather than selling it under a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation (Wickard v. Filburn (1942) 317 U.S. 111) and smoking marijuana given away for free for medicinal purposes (Gonzales v. Raich (2005) 545 U.S. 1), which the Court has ruled do affect interstate commerce, under the "aggregation theory" -- the idea be being that while an individual transaction has no perceptible economic effect on commerce, if everyone did it, there would be a significant effect on commerce.
As between these four seminal cases, I would have thought that not buying health insurance in the 2010's was most similar to not selling wheat in the 1930's. But Judge Hudson's key reasoning is this:
The power of Congress to regulate a class of activities that in the aggregate has a substantial and direct effect on interstate commerce is well settled. Gonzales, 545 U.S. at 22, 125 S.Ct. at 2209. This even extends to noneconomic activity closely connected to the intended market. Hoffman v. Hunt, 125 F.3d 575, 587-88 (4th Cir. 1997). But these regulatory powers are triggered by some type of self-initiated action. Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.7 In doing so, enactment of the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I.Slip op. at 23-24. By Judge Hudson's logic, then, noneconomic activity closely connected to the intended market, triggered by some sort of self-initiated action on the part of the person thus regulated, is a valid thing for Congress to regulate -- which would seem to suggest that taking a gun to school ought to be within Congress' powers to regulate. There is little doubt that Lopez "self-initiated" bringing his gun to school and there seems little doubt that if a teacher is thus deterred from going to school for fear of being shot by Lopez, there is an economic effect (the teacher isn't paid) which if repeated and aggregated over a large pool of people, would drag on the economy.
What's more, footnote 7 in the opinion reads: “The collective effect of an aggregate of such inactivity still falls short of the constitutional mark.” Here, I just can't see where Judge Hudson is coming from. The larger the pool of insured in an insurance market, the more diluted individual risks become and thus the amount of premium per policyholder needed to cover claims decreases. If large numbers of people voluntarily abstain from purchasing a particular kind of insurance, the premium per policyholder rises. This is not a hugely complex concept -- and even if it is ultimately proven incorrect, Congress is clearly within its discretion and authority to be thus incorrect because the idea is not so far out of left field as to be "irrational."
As an alternative, the Government argued that the individual mandate is enforced by a "penalty" that should be considered a "tax," but Judge Hudson looked at the exact meaning of those phrases -- a "penalty" is levied in response to an unlawful act or omission, while a "tax" is a burden imposed to generate revenue for the government -- and concluded from legislative history, legislative text, and political statements of both Congressional leaders and the White House that the claim that this enforcement mechanism is a "tax" is a "transparent afterthought" and therefore not to be credited. It is a penalty, according to the Court, a penalty designed to punish conduct deemed undesirable by Congress, viz., not buying health insurance -- and since the conduct deemed undesirable is not itself something that Congress can regulate, Congress lacks power to impose a penalty for it. This portion of the reasoning seems sound to me.
As I noted above, this is not the end of the road for the individual mandate provision of the healthcare reform act. It does demonstrate that the idea that the law exceeds Federal power is not a crazy one, it is persuasive and serious and should be carefully weighed. To damn modern commerce clause jurisprudence as "unprincipled" is only to say that it is like much other Constitutional jurisprudence, in that much depends on the policy desirability of the law, the political mood at the time of the decision, and the general philosophical cast of the nine Justices who eventually and inevitably will render a final decision.
I don't particularly want the individual mandate to be Constitutional. And I'm pleased that the bench is taking seriously the notion that there are Constitutional limits on Congress' powers. But I have a hard time squaring Judge Hudson's reasoning with the outstanding jurisprudence. Unless there is going to be a new contour in Commerce Clause jurisprudence written in by this case, I would have ruled that this was near the limits of, but still within, Congress' Commerce power.
Labels:
Constitutional Law,
Industry and Commerce,
News
One Game Of Pictionary
One game of Pictionary is all it took to remind me that my head is so full of esoteric, strange, random knowledge and/or trivia that it can be difficult at times to communicate with others who have more mainstream sorts of daily activities. I need that sort of grounding from time to time because the critical skill for my work is explaining esoteric, strange, sometimes counter-intuitive concepts to people who think in the mainstream nearly all of the time. Fortunately, this reminder can sometimes be delivered in a safe, humorous environment, by friends and a lovely Wife who mean well. May all of your course corrections come in such a way, Readers!
Labels:
Law
December 9, 2010
Tuition Riots
I suppose in one sense, it's inspiring that people are willing to protest tuition hikes in the UK; it suggests that access to higher education is important to people. I'm not real sure what rioting around Prince Charles' car is going to do that's productive, though. It's also a bit disappointing that Winston Churchill's statue in Parliament Square was vandalized. Neither the Prince nor Sir Winston are in any way at fault for an unpopular vote by Parliament and troubled financial times do call for difficult fiscal measures. Lighting the Christmas tree in Traflagar Square on fire sounds downright dangerous.
I'd had no idea that university tuition in the UK was so low -- according to the BBC article, it's being trebled to an "upper limit of £9,000 a year." At current exchange rates, that's about $14,200 -- which isn't all that much more than public universities charge here in the U.S. Consider resident tuition at UCLA: next year, California residents will pay $12,690 in tuition, fees, and mandatory mandatory enrollment in the UC health plan. No one is rioting about paying the equivalent of just over £8,000 a year here to go to one of the nation's premier public universities.
So does this mean that the rioters are a bunch of yobs, whining about nothing and scaring the thoroughly innocent Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall and Rothesay for something beyond her control? Well, yes to the second half of that, but education is important and providing it at a reasonable cost is important. Violence doesn't seem like a good way to solve the problem, though.
I'd had no idea that university tuition in the UK was so low -- according to the BBC article, it's being trebled to an "upper limit of £9,000 a year." At current exchange rates, that's about $14,200 -- which isn't all that much more than public universities charge here in the U.S. Consider resident tuition at UCLA: next year, California residents will pay $12,690 in tuition, fees, and mandatory mandatory enrollment in the UC health plan. No one is rioting about paying the equivalent of just over £8,000 a year here to go to one of the nation's premier public universities.
So does this mean that the rioters are a bunch of yobs, whining about nothing and scaring the thoroughly innocent Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall and Rothesay for something beyond her control? Well, yes to the second half of that, but education is important and providing it at a reasonable cost is important. Violence doesn't seem like a good way to solve the problem, though.
This Is Why You Got A "C"
Professor Mondo explains it all. Oh, how I wish I could actually be so honest as he.
Labels:
Link Love,
Teaching,
Unimportant but Mildly Amusing
Caesar Salad
When you really want your umami, there's no substitute for this.
2 heads romaine lettuce, limp outer leaves removed
1/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/3 virgin olive oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
1 egg
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 large clove garlic
½ tsp. pepper
4 anchovies
1 tsp. capers
1 tsp. brown mustard seed
a pinch of sea salt
Step 1: Coddle the egg
Bring a small saucepot of water to a rolling boil. Immerse the egg in the water for 45 seconds, holding it in a slotted spoon. Place the egg in the refrigerator until ready for use.
Step 2: Assemble the dry spice base
In mortar and pestle, grind the pepper and mustard. Thoroughly crush the garlic clove under the flat of a knife. Add salt, pepper, and crushed garlic to mustard powder.
Step 3: Prepare the liquid ingredients
Finely dice the anchovies and capers. In mixing bowl, combine the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, diced anchovy, and diced caper. Mix well. Separate the yolk out from the coddled egg. Thoroughly mix all liquid ingredients until smooth using a wire or silicone whisk, then whisk in dry spice base.
Step 4: Whisk!
Very slowly -- about an ounce at a time -- pour in the olive oil. Whisk continuously while the oil is poured in until it combines before adding more oil. Ideally, the pour of oil is very slow and continuous during vigorous whisking. After all the olive oil is added to the dressing, then whisk in grated cheese.
Step 5: Adorn
Chop the lettuce into medium-sized chunks, separating out the cores. Drizzle the dressing on the lettuce and toss. If desired, shave additional cheese or add additional whole anchovies to dressed salad.
Coddling the egg first produces a creamier, better-mixed dressing than a raw egg yolk. You will not use the albumen of the coddled egg but may retain it for use in some other dish (say, a quiche or a pie) if you wish; refrigerate it promptly.
If the idea of eating an anchovy repels you as it does many Americans, my first reaction is, "get over it," because what most people dislike about anchovies is their texture, and you should be chopping these little fishies almost into a paste. But if that is not enough to induce you to deal with the mere presence of the delicious fish, then you can swap out more capers for the anchovies. Doing so renders the salad truly vegetarian. I know of no substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano which would then render the salad vegan -- and I can tell you that tofu won't do it because it's mainly protein and the cheese has a high fat content.
The original Caesar salad was invented by Caesar Cardini, a famous Italian immigrant who became a restaurateur in California during the early days of Hollywood. Cardini moved his restaurants from Los Angeles and San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico during prohibition, and the Cardini's restaurants, featuring Cardini's signature salad, became one of Tijuana's high-end tourist attractions during this time. His waiters would develop an elaborate show of making the dressing while telling jokes or describing their activities, particularly while pouring in the oil into the mixing bowl from a great height with one hand and whisking with the other. When you make the original Caesar salad as I've described here, you're re-creating a bit of Hollywood's golden age in addition to making a much, much better dressing for your salad than anything you could possibly buy in a bottle.
2 heads romaine lettuce, limp outer leaves removed
1/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/3 virgin olive oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
1 egg
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 large clove garlic
½ tsp. pepper
4 anchovies
1 tsp. capers
1 tsp. brown mustard seed
a pinch of sea salt
Step 1: Coddle the egg
Bring a small saucepot of water to a rolling boil. Immerse the egg in the water for 45 seconds, holding it in a slotted spoon. Place the egg in the refrigerator until ready for use.
Step 2: Assemble the dry spice base
In mortar and pestle, grind the pepper and mustard. Thoroughly crush the garlic clove under the flat of a knife. Add salt, pepper, and crushed garlic to mustard powder.
Step 3: Prepare the liquid ingredients
Finely dice the anchovies and capers. In mixing bowl, combine the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, diced anchovy, and diced caper. Mix well. Separate the yolk out from the coddled egg. Thoroughly mix all liquid ingredients until smooth using a wire or silicone whisk, then whisk in dry spice base.
Step 4: Whisk!
Very slowly -- about an ounce at a time -- pour in the olive oil. Whisk continuously while the oil is poured in until it combines before adding more oil. Ideally, the pour of oil is very slow and continuous during vigorous whisking. After all the olive oil is added to the dressing, then whisk in grated cheese.
Step 5: Adorn
Chop the lettuce into medium-sized chunks, separating out the cores. Drizzle the dressing on the lettuce and toss. If desired, shave additional cheese or add additional whole anchovies to dressed salad.
Coddling the egg first produces a creamier, better-mixed dressing than a raw egg yolk. You will not use the albumen of the coddled egg but may retain it for use in some other dish (say, a quiche or a pie) if you wish; refrigerate it promptly.
If the idea of eating an anchovy repels you as it does many Americans, my first reaction is, "get over it," because what most people dislike about anchovies is their texture, and you should be chopping these little fishies almost into a paste. But if that is not enough to induce you to deal with the mere presence of the delicious fish, then you can swap out more capers for the anchovies. Doing so renders the salad truly vegetarian. I know of no substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano which would then render the salad vegan -- and I can tell you that tofu won't do it because it's mainly protein and the cheese has a high fat content.
The original Caesar salad was invented by Caesar Cardini, a famous Italian immigrant who became a restaurateur in California during the early days of Hollywood. Cardini moved his restaurants from Los Angeles and San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico during prohibition, and the Cardini's restaurants, featuring Cardini's signature salad, became one of Tijuana's high-end tourist attractions during this time. His waiters would develop an elaborate show of making the dressing while telling jokes or describing their activities, particularly while pouring in the oil into the mixing bowl from a great height with one hand and whisking with the other. When you make the original Caesar salad as I've described here, you're re-creating a bit of Hollywood's golden age in addition to making a much, much better dressing for your salad than anything you could possibly buy in a bottle.
Labels:
Food
December 8, 2010
Did You Notice This
Crude oil is going for $90 a barrel. Remember in 2008 when it topped $100 a barrel and 89-octane unleaded cost over four dollars a gallon? Yeah, that looks like it's about to happen again.
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays!
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5
Labels:
Industry and Commerce,
Money
A Better Way Of Life In The World Of Tomorrow
From How To Be A Retronaut, a Disney movie from 1958, The Magic Highway:
It's now more than fifty years since the animated film here. It was broadcast on a television program; I can't find evidence as to whether it was shown at Disney Land in an exhibit at Tommorowland or not.
A couple of things stand out for me. Perhaps the most interesting thing is the style of the art in the movie; the stylized images and the music still retain their distinctive style. I rather enjoy those. I probably wouldn't listen to the jazzy orchestral music for recreation, but in context, it's perfect.
To be sure, some of the ideas in the movie seem silly with the benefit of hindsight; the idea of atomic-powered cars now seems risible in its irresponsibility. But of course the point of the movie was not to say what would happen but rather to generate wide-eyed wonder at what could happen. The movie is about possibilities.
And some of them are still good ideas -- the unified emergency-response vehicle, combining police, paramedic, and vehicular cleanup and repair services would still be a good idea today. Especially if it could fly over traffic, although I'm not going to be the be first or last person to (facetiously) whine that Disney promised us flying cars by the 21st century and we still don't have them.
It's relatively uninteresting to me that most of the movie's fanciful predictions haven't come true. Of course they haven't and I doubt that the producers of the movie would have believed that even a quarter of what they were illustrating would ever become reality even at the time they were making it. Predicting the future is highly speculative.
What is interesting, though, is what the movie reveals about the ethics of its makers, abut the ethics of the late 1950's when they made the movie. The most profound expression of values that comes out of the movie is faith in the ability of technology to endlessly improve the quality of life. Better highways, better cars to travel on them, and perhaps most of all the panacea of television, will make us all richer, give us all more leisure time, and literally lead to world peace.
The second thing that stands out for me is the utter disregard for economic limits and environmental degradation. The idea that preserving the natural beauty of all the canyons, mountains, cliffs, seashores, and open spaces is something that possesses value never even entered the brains of anyone involved in the project. It doesn't matter what the mountain looks like with a tubular highway running across it at improbable angles, since the only time anyone is going to look at the mountain will be from their super-cars within the highway in the first place. And despite the expansion of core cities into "vast urban spaces," there is no thought at all that there is only so much space left over for the agricultural areas that will be needed to generate the food which all these people will eat.
And third, social roles remain totally unchanged from the late 1950's. Notice that Father goes to work and is apparently the sole breadwinner for the family providing all the income necessary for an affluent and comfortable lifestyle. Meanwhile, Mother takes care of the son and goes shopping; her primary jobs are childrearing and homemaking. Notice that Father is the one who "drives," meaning he's the one who programs the car to do what its sophisticated electronics will do. Notice that Father sits up front while Mother and children enjoy the leisure activities available in the remainder of the vehicle, Father joins them except when driving duties take over.
The threshold of 2011 is a very different world than what the producers of this film envisioned in 1958 (of course). But the most important differences between then and now are not the technological ones. The advance of time has changed the way we think, and the gee-whiz factor of the technology we do have -- which would have seemed as miraculous to the residents of 1958 as the miracles in the movie -- is the result of both the real scientific and technological advances between then and now, more importantly the product of the kinds of tools we demand to do the things that are really important to us, and most importantly a function of the kinds of limits and challenges that we actually face.
The naïveté of the movie is not in its gee-whiz vision of super-cars, magic highways, and benevolently omnipresent televisions. While those are charming, the real lesson here is that economics drives innovation, and not just technological innovations but also in the way we think, in our ethics and social arrangements and the areas in which we choose to place effort to innovate further. It is in the assumption that technology would eliminate functionally all the economic limits of life. If that prediction of the movie had come true, its prediction that social roles would freeze to be what they had been in 1958 might also have been accurate.
It's now more than fifty years since the animated film here. It was broadcast on a television program; I can't find evidence as to whether it was shown at Disney Land in an exhibit at Tommorowland or not.
A couple of things stand out for me. Perhaps the most interesting thing is the style of the art in the movie; the stylized images and the music still retain their distinctive style. I rather enjoy those. I probably wouldn't listen to the jazzy orchestral music for recreation, but in context, it's perfect.
To be sure, some of the ideas in the movie seem silly with the benefit of hindsight; the idea of atomic-powered cars now seems risible in its irresponsibility. But of course the point of the movie was not to say what would happen but rather to generate wide-eyed wonder at what could happen. The movie is about possibilities.
And some of them are still good ideas -- the unified emergency-response vehicle, combining police, paramedic, and vehicular cleanup and repair services would still be a good idea today. Especially if it could fly over traffic, although I'm not going to be the be first or last person to (facetiously) whine that Disney promised us flying cars by the 21st century and we still don't have them.
It's relatively uninteresting to me that most of the movie's fanciful predictions haven't come true. Of course they haven't and I doubt that the producers of the movie would have believed that even a quarter of what they were illustrating would ever become reality even at the time they were making it. Predicting the future is highly speculative.
What is interesting, though, is what the movie reveals about the ethics of its makers, abut the ethics of the late 1950's when they made the movie. The most profound expression of values that comes out of the movie is faith in the ability of technology to endlessly improve the quality of life. Better highways, better cars to travel on them, and perhaps most of all the panacea of television, will make us all richer, give us all more leisure time, and literally lead to world peace.
The second thing that stands out for me is the utter disregard for economic limits and environmental degradation. The idea that preserving the natural beauty of all the canyons, mountains, cliffs, seashores, and open spaces is something that possesses value never even entered the brains of anyone involved in the project. It doesn't matter what the mountain looks like with a tubular highway running across it at improbable angles, since the only time anyone is going to look at the mountain will be from their super-cars within the highway in the first place. And despite the expansion of core cities into "vast urban spaces," there is no thought at all that there is only so much space left over for the agricultural areas that will be needed to generate the food which all these people will eat.
And third, social roles remain totally unchanged from the late 1950's. Notice that Father goes to work and is apparently the sole breadwinner for the family providing all the income necessary for an affluent and comfortable lifestyle. Meanwhile, Mother takes care of the son and goes shopping; her primary jobs are childrearing and homemaking. Notice that Father is the one who "drives," meaning he's the one who programs the car to do what its sophisticated electronics will do. Notice that Father sits up front while Mother and children enjoy the leisure activities available in the remainder of the vehicle, Father joins them except when driving duties take over.
The threshold of 2011 is a very different world than what the producers of this film envisioned in 1958 (of course). But the most important differences between then and now are not the technological ones. The advance of time has changed the way we think, and the gee-whiz factor of the technology we do have -- which would have seemed as miraculous to the residents of 1958 as the miracles in the movie -- is the result of both the real scientific and technological advances between then and now, more importantly the product of the kinds of tools we demand to do the things that are really important to us, and most importantly a function of the kinds of limits and challenges that we actually face.
The naïveté of the movie is not in its gee-whiz vision of super-cars, magic highways, and benevolently omnipresent televisions. While those are charming, the real lesson here is that economics drives innovation, and not just technological innovations but also in the way we think, in our ethics and social arrangements and the areas in which we choose to place effort to innovate further. It is in the assumption that technology would eliminate functionally all the economic limits of life. If that prediction of the movie had come true, its prediction that social roles would freeze to be what they had been in 1958 might also have been accurate.
Labels:
Link Love,
Technology
December 7, 2010
The Tax Compromise
Greg Sargent has an interesting observation about yesterday and today's political developments:
Wow. He compared the Republicans to hostage takers but was even more mad with the Democrats? If I really believed that Obama were the lone adult in a town full of squabbling children in both camps, I might like him more. But part of being an adult means demonstrating leadership. The compromise was made for the sake of compromise, for the sake of resolving a dispute that was raised strictly for the purposes of raising a dispute.
After all, the part of the deal that Obama got in return was a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits. We can argue about whether that was a good idea or not. But the result is lower taxes and more spending, which is just what both parties really wanted all along. All the angst about Obama betraying his base, about the Republicans putting one over on him, is silly -- this is what everyone in the Statist Party really wanted.
Remember, it's spending, not revenue, that is driving the deficit. The lower taxes aggravate the situation, but the deal delays entitlement reform for more than a year, and without looking at entitlement reform, no substantive deal can be made about spending. The reality of what we get with this deal is more of the same from big-government budget-busting Democrats compromising with big-government budget-busting Republicans about how the big government is going to bust its budget.
So while I like the face of the strategy of Obama being the adult who understands that compromise is a part of governance (yes, it is) the compromise this deal represents isn't much of a compromise at all. I'm unimpressed with everyone involved. This is pretty much what Congress would have done left to its own devices anyway.
Which makes sense -- we don't have a President providing leadership through this fiscal crisis, we have a Prime Minister.
Obama's strategy going forward will be to position himself as Washington's lone resident adult in a town full of squabbling children on right and left ... Obama was as visibly frustrated and angry as he's perhaps ever been in public, and some folks are pointing out on Twitter that he seems more angry with the left than he is with Republicans. In fairness to Obama, though, he directed harsher rhetoric at Republicans, implicitly comparing them to hostage takers at one point ...
Wow. He compared the Republicans to hostage takers but was even more mad with the Democrats? If I really believed that Obama were the lone adult in a town full of squabbling children in both camps, I might like him more. But part of being an adult means demonstrating leadership. The compromise was made for the sake of compromise, for the sake of resolving a dispute that was raised strictly for the purposes of raising a dispute.
After all, the part of the deal that Obama got in return was a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits. We can argue about whether that was a good idea or not. But the result is lower taxes and more spending, which is just what both parties really wanted all along. All the angst about Obama betraying his base, about the Republicans putting one over on him, is silly -- this is what everyone in the Statist Party really wanted.
Remember, it's spending, not revenue, that is driving the deficit. The lower taxes aggravate the situation, but the deal delays entitlement reform for more than a year, and without looking at entitlement reform, no substantive deal can be made about spending. The reality of what we get with this deal is more of the same from big-government budget-busting Democrats compromising with big-government budget-busting Republicans about how the big government is going to bust its budget.
So while I like the face of the strategy of Obama being the adult who understands that compromise is a part of governance (yes, it is) the compromise this deal represents isn't much of a compromise at all. I'm unimpressed with everyone involved. This is pretty much what Congress would have done left to its own devices anyway.
Which makes sense -- we don't have a President providing leadership through this fiscal crisis, we have a Prime Minister.
Julian Assange, Beta-Male Writ Large
In law, we make an exception to he hearsay rule for "dying declarations." The idea is that when someone is conscious of their own impending death, they attach special importance to the things they say, so that we may rely upon the truth of what is said.
One of the authors working today whom I admire the most is Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens is dying of esophogeal cancer. It sounds icky and awful. Hitch looks worse than he ever did even when on a bender.
But the thing about Hitch is that he will not go quietly into his good night. He is writing, speaking, communicating, at the same furious pace he did before he fell ill, and is not only candid about the effects of the disease which will inevitably fell him, but candid about the world around him. His legacy will be that he is The Man Who Told Us The Truth. And here is a particularly vicious yet satisfying truth from Hitch.
Assange is no hero. He is something very close to an anarchist, someone who believes that the U.S. government is a force for unmitigated evil in the world and which requires secrecy to operate effectively. Assange is wrong on both counts. The U.S. government is a force for great good.
Yes, it is periodically guided by imperfect people who lose sight of their objectives, and it employs imperfect people who sometimes are willing to cut moral corners to achieve their objectives. It is too often corrupted by money, it is periodically steered by stupid policies motivated by cynical political gain, and it is an evolved mishmash of those bad policies and periodic attempts to reform them. But at the end of the day, it is a government that follows the direction and the will of a large, empowered citizenry made up of fundamentally decent and good people, people who want to work hard and be left alone, a people who want to see the world around them become peaceful, wealthy, and democratic not only because that is in their own best economic interests but because it's the best way to be.
Assange can't see that, for some reason, perhaps because he's too busy reading the mythology he's written about himself. His attitude towards Western governments, particularly but not exclusively the U.S. government, is kind of like seeing a very pretty girl who has a small flaw (say, a gap between her front teeth). Because she isn't perfect, he turns up his nose at her and treats her with scorn, classic Beta behavior.
What's more, the U.S. government is one of leakiest in world history and becoming more so every day. It's operated in an atmosphere of very spotty secrecy for most of its existence because of our First Amendment, the same fundamental part of our government which would protect Assange even as he sneers at it; a protection we would extend to him not because of any love for the man but rather because it is a part of our own morals and ideals. That First Amendment has created a healthy and free press, it has created a culture of openness and disclosure and truth, it forces our government to do what it does out in the full light of day for everyone to see. Wikileaks is a flashlight shone in the eyes of someone trying to operate in broad daylight. The recent diplomatic leaks are no different -- they disclose nothing of interest that was not known already. From a macro-perspective, it is an inconvenience, nothing more.
Assange's delicate ego is seen in a question-and-answer session he did with The Guardian. He responded to a bunch of questions that described him as a heroic figure and Wikileaks as a noble cause, but when someone raised an issue of potential harm that might come about because of its activities, he simply dismissed and did not answer the question:
Which is why his recent arrest and imminent deportation to Sweden is probably causing him to have an existential crisis which will be reconciled in his mind by the idea that he is really being prosecuted for his Wikileaks activity by the vindictive U.S. government using Sweden as a puppet. It couldn't possibly be that he did something wrong (albeit something that seems rather petty to most of the world) or that the reason he has been singled out for prosecution is the very notoriety he has so carefully cultivated about himself.
Point is, Assange isn't telling the truth for the sake of the truth. He is something close to an anarchist; he wants to see western governments destroyed because they sometimes do bad things and has blinded himself to both the good that they also do and to the inevitably worse consequences that would follow if his agenda were successful. He is not the man who is telling us the truth; he is the man who is exposing ugliness for the sake of making the world an uglier place, because he is so enraged and threatened by its mere imperfection.
Give me Christopher Hitchens over Julian Assange any day of the week.
One of the authors working today whom I admire the most is Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens is dying of esophogeal cancer. It sounds icky and awful. Hitch looks worse than he ever did even when on a bender.
But the thing about Hitch is that he will not go quietly into his good night. He is writing, speaking, communicating, at the same furious pace he did before he fell ill, and is not only candid about the effects of the disease which will inevitably fell him, but candid about the world around him. His legacy will be that he is The Man Who Told Us The Truth. And here is a particularly vicious yet satisfying truth from Hitch.
All you need to know about Assange is contained in the profile of him by the great John F. Burns and in his shockingly thuggish response to it. The man is plainly a micro-megalomaniac with few if any scruples and an undisguised agenda. As I wrote before, when he says that his aim is "to end two wars," one knows at once what he means by the "ending." In his fantasies he is probably some kind of guerrilla warrior, but in the real world he is a middle man and peddler who resents the civilization that nurtured him.
Assange is no hero. He is something very close to an anarchist, someone who believes that the U.S. government is a force for unmitigated evil in the world and which requires secrecy to operate effectively. Assange is wrong on both counts. The U.S. government is a force for great good.
Yes, it is periodically guided by imperfect people who lose sight of their objectives, and it employs imperfect people who sometimes are willing to cut moral corners to achieve their objectives. It is too often corrupted by money, it is periodically steered by stupid policies motivated by cynical political gain, and it is an evolved mishmash of those bad policies and periodic attempts to reform them. But at the end of the day, it is a government that follows the direction and the will of a large, empowered citizenry made up of fundamentally decent and good people, people who want to work hard and be left alone, a people who want to see the world around them become peaceful, wealthy, and democratic not only because that is in their own best economic interests but because it's the best way to be.
Assange can't see that, for some reason, perhaps because he's too busy reading the mythology he's written about himself. His attitude towards Western governments, particularly but not exclusively the U.S. government, is kind of like seeing a very pretty girl who has a small flaw (say, a gap between her front teeth). Because she isn't perfect, he turns up his nose at her and treats her with scorn, classic Beta behavior.
What's more, the U.S. government is one of leakiest in world history and becoming more so every day. It's operated in an atmosphere of very spotty secrecy for most of its existence because of our First Amendment, the same fundamental part of our government which would protect Assange even as he sneers at it; a protection we would extend to him not because of any love for the man but rather because it is a part of our own morals and ideals. That First Amendment has created a healthy and free press, it has created a culture of openness and disclosure and truth, it forces our government to do what it does out in the full light of day for everyone to see. Wikileaks is a flashlight shone in the eyes of someone trying to operate in broad daylight. The recent diplomatic leaks are no different -- they disclose nothing of interest that was not known already. From a macro-perspective, it is an inconvenience, nothing more.
Assange's delicate ego is seen in a question-and-answer session he did with The Guardian. He responded to a bunch of questions that described him as a heroic figure and Wikileaks as a noble cause, but when someone raised an issue of potential harm that might come about because of its activities, he simply dismissed and did not answer the question:
JAnthonyContrast this question, which is critical in tone of Assange, to the rest of the questions in the published session, and you may get an idea of why Assange didn't want to answer it. JAnthony asked a legitimate question. Yes, he was a bit verbose about it, but Assange claimed the ability to have understood "the singular question actually asked" but nevertheless failed to answer it. He can dish it out, but he can't handle criticism at all. The exchange could have been phrased thus:
Julian, I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer dvice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.
In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.
My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.
Julian Assange:
If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.
Q: Although you point to things that diplomats have done that are bad, diplomats also do good things like preventing wars, facilitating change in bad governments, and encouraging economic development. Diplomats need secrecy in which to operate effectively, whether for good or for ill. By taking that secrecy away, aren't you really destroying all diplomacy, not just the bad stuff?
A: I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it tends to make me look bad.
Which is why his recent arrest and imminent deportation to Sweden is probably causing him to have an existential crisis which will be reconciled in his mind by the idea that he is really being prosecuted for his Wikileaks activity by the vindictive U.S. government using Sweden as a puppet. It couldn't possibly be that he did something wrong (albeit something that seems rather petty to most of the world) or that the reason he has been singled out for prosecution is the very notoriety he has so carefully cultivated about himself.
Point is, Assange isn't telling the truth for the sake of the truth. He is something close to an anarchist; he wants to see western governments destroyed because they sometimes do bad things and has blinded himself to both the good that they also do and to the inevitably worse consequences that would follow if his agenda were successful. He is not the man who is telling us the truth; he is the man who is exposing ugliness for the sake of making the world an uglier place, because he is so enraged and threatened by its mere imperfection.
Give me Christopher Hitchens over Julian Assange any day of the week.
Labels:
International Politics,
News,
Scandal,
Sex,
Writing
December 6, 2010
The War On The War On Christmas 2010 Heats Up
Battleground: Tulsa, Oklahoma! The political football: a holiday parade! The culture warrior: James Inhofe, United States Senator from the great state of Oklahoma! It seems Senator Inhofe is upset that "Tulsa’s Christmas Parade of Lights" has been renamed "Tulsa’s Holiday Parade of Lights" and Senator Inhofe is withdrawing his participation until it goes back to its original name.
Right. Because Christmas isn't a holiday. The Baby Jeebus will be upset if the trucks wired with LED lights and high school marching bands parade for tens of interested onlookers for not just Christmas but all the holidays going on this time of year too. Because God cares about whether there is a parade in Oklahoma to honor Him. Seriously, it's because the city isn't giving Christmas special, favorable treatment. To which I say:
First, read the Constitution, Senator. The government doesn't get to treat any one religion as special, it doesn't get to favor any one religion over any other religion. So get off your high horse, Senator (or in this case, that might mean "get back on it") and figure out how to get your constituents some jobs without playing Santa Claus with taxpayer dollars. That's what the voters would really like from you.
Second, it's not an insult or a slight to Christians to wish someone "Happy Holidays." We non-Christians get wished a Merry Christmas all the time and we take it well and in the spirit in which it was intended. Please have the good manners to reciprocate in kind, should you get a holiday greeting that may not exactly conform to your world view but is still intended as a friendly and pleasant statement. There's nothing wrong with a "Holiday" parade instead of a "Christmas" parade.
Finally, dude, lighten up. There's a 45% chance that Julian Assange is looking at a photograph of your bum, right now. Hopefully you were smiling when the picture got taken.
Right. Because Christmas isn't a holiday. The Baby Jeebus will be upset if the trucks wired with LED lights and high school marching bands parade for tens of interested onlookers for not just Christmas but all the holidays going on this time of year too. Because God cares about whether there is a parade in Oklahoma to honor Him. Seriously, it's because the city isn't giving Christmas special, favorable treatment. To which I say:
Second, it's not an insult or a slight to Christians to wish someone "Happy Holidays." We non-Christians get wished a Merry Christmas all the time and we take it well and in the spirit in which it was intended. Please have the good manners to reciprocate in kind, should you get a holiday greeting that may not exactly conform to your world view but is still intended as a friendly and pleasant statement. There's nothing wrong with a "Holiday" parade instead of a "Christmas" parade.
Finally, dude, lighten up. There's a 45% chance that Julian Assange is looking at a photograph of your bum, right now. Hopefully you were smiling when the picture got taken.
Labels:
'Tis The Season,
Domestic Politics,
Religion
The Oral Argument
I've tried, something like twelve times tonight, to load up and watch the oral arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. I've been mostly frustrated.
I half-listened to the arguments about standing at work, and they affirmed what I already thought -- there is something fishy about the elected officials of the state refusing to defend the law, and it leaves a hole in the format of adversarial proceedings that needs to be filled before a decision can be fully legitimated. The voters passed a law, and someone has to speak for the voters. The whole reason there are ballot initiatives is so that the voters can go around the public officials who may not like a law for whatever reason, so again, someone has to be able to speak for the voters. I thought that the proponents were reasonably strong on the standing issue, although I was singularly unimpressed with the argument by Imperial County -- why the Supervisors of Imperial County couldn't get the actual county clerk to stand as an intervenor is a good question, which was left unanswered. The opponents were strongest pointing out that Article III standing requires a particularized, personal injury by a litigant, which had not been articulated by anyone -- but they didn't address the fundamental question of who speaks for the voters in defense of what the voters decided to do.
On the substantive merits, I only got through about two-thirds of the proponents' argument. Their attorney did as well as anyone could under the circumstances but here he seemed much less convincing than he did arguing for standing. Essentially, he relied on the procreative argument as a rational basis for Prop. 8 after having begun by admitting that marriage is a fundamental right, if not the most fundamental right of all. This is no way to get into the world of rational basis review -- fundamental rights, as all first-year con law students know, are analyzed for strict scrutiny.
Worse (for the proponents), they seemed to encounter skepticism from Randy Smith, the most conservative of the three judges assigned to the panel, about whether Prop. 8 had even a rational basis justification. Judge Smith appeared to be moved by the presence of a broad, close-to-marriage in substantive rights, institution of domestic partnership which was unchallenged by Prop. 8, and he essentially asked the proponents, "So doesn't that leave us with just the name?" The proponents' attorney responded that "The word essentially is the institution; you cannot separate the two." So even if there is a thing, "X," that is functionally identical to marriage, the different taxonomy created a substantive difference. Judge Smith looked like he had been served a turd on a hoagie roll when he was asked to swallow that one. Maybe I'm reading his facial expression wrong.
The rest of the emphasis I could get from the proponents' argument rested on Baker v. Nelson (1972) 409 U.S. 810, a one-line opinion by the Supreme Court declining to grant review to a decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court that denied marriage to a same-sex couple in the early 1970's for want of a "substantial Federal question." Because under the rules of the Court then in existence, a decision to not grant appellate review to a state supreme court case counted as a substantive ruling, the argument is that Baker is binding Supreme Court precedent that there is no Federally-protected right that would compel a state to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple. Today, the Baker decision would have been decided to the same result and using the same reasoning as a procedural matter, denying certiorari. So it's not exactly clear whether Baker remains a substantive, on-the-merits decision or not, but the proponents certainly argued that it was binding precedent.
I could not get Ted Olsen's argument to play at all despite several attempts to run the C-SPAN video. Just wouldn't do it. I had to skip ahead to Therese Stewart's argument, which nearly ended soon after I started it, so I really don't have a good sense of what the opponents of Prop. 8 said. This summation of the argument suggests that the proponents' citation of Crawford v. Los Angeles Board of Education made some headway. In Crawford, the voters reversed, by initiative, some court-mandated busing of students to remediate racial discrimination. Because the busing was only one way that the race discrimination problem could have been addressed, the voters were free to tell the school system, and the state itself, "No, go find another way to deal with this." Because that, by itself, did not violate the Constitution, the will of the voters was upheld against a 14th amendment challenge and the initiative stood. I'm not sure that I buy this as a point for the proponents, though. The opening of the proponents' argument was a structured concession that the voters cannot pass initiatives that defy the Constitution -- so the question is whether there is a right to marry in the Fourteenth Amendment that includes the right to marry someone of the same sex. If I were arguing for the proponents, I'd have stuck with Baker as the centerpiece of that argument, too.
Anyway, I did get to a significant portion of Therese Stewart's analysis. (I could swear that I had Therese Stewart as an adjunct professor in law school, that she taught my State Constitutional Law class. But I can't find any record of that at all one way or the other. She sure sounded like the woman who taught that class, smart, strong, and direct.) She pointed the Court back to the second substantive issue on the merits, which was whether Prop. 8 crossed the line into classifying citizens for the sake of having a classification, singling them out for special invidious treatment by popular initiative -- clearly aiming directly at the holding in Romer v. Evans. Romer is still one of the most controversial decisions from the Court in the past generation, but its author, Anthony Kennedy, remains on the bench of the Supreme Court and is in all likelihood the swing vote if and when this case ever gets there. So this strikes me as laying the foundation for the real battle, and Stewart was laying clam to the terrain upon which she wants to fight. That's smart advocacy.
The impression I was left with is that Imperial County for sure is unlikely to have standing. The Ninth Circuit Panel may well certify the question of the proponents' standing back to the California Supreme Court. Frankly, I think that's a good idea -- it will establish whether California state law does or does not convey a right to speak on behalf of the voters when elected officials will not do so for whatever reason. If the Court chooses to find standing by the proponents, there is no doubt that the proponents here gave Prop. 8 a vigorous defense. And the system only really works when both sides present their cases with zeal and urgency instead of proceeding by default.
Now, here's the thing. If, as I predict, the panel certifies the question of standing to the California Supreme Court for an advisory opinion, that will take several months. Then it will take several more months for an opinion to be crafted, which will in all likelihood affirm the trial court ruling in some way. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the panel ducks the merits altogether and rules only on the basis of standing. But if it does address the merits, it will do so in a full-throated way, and likely find that Prop. 8 fails the rational basis test. That decision will then go on to review en banc, before an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. From there, whoever loses will petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court in, probably, early 2012.
Which of course will grant it, and guarantee that the issue is front and center during the 2012 Presidential election. A friend thinks that the Supremes will want to duck the issue, but I say, all Nine of the Justices worked very hard to get on the Supreme Court, and the whole, entire reason that anyone would angle to be on the Supreme Court is to be able to decide this very case. So we'll still be talking and arguing about this issue in two years. Maybe longer than that.
I half-listened to the arguments about standing at work, and they affirmed what I already thought -- there is something fishy about the elected officials of the state refusing to defend the law, and it leaves a hole in the format of adversarial proceedings that needs to be filled before a decision can be fully legitimated. The voters passed a law, and someone has to speak for the voters. The whole reason there are ballot initiatives is so that the voters can go around the public officials who may not like a law for whatever reason, so again, someone has to be able to speak for the voters. I thought that the proponents were reasonably strong on the standing issue, although I was singularly unimpressed with the argument by Imperial County -- why the Supervisors of Imperial County couldn't get the actual county clerk to stand as an intervenor is a good question, which was left unanswered. The opponents were strongest pointing out that Article III standing requires a particularized, personal injury by a litigant, which had not been articulated by anyone -- but they didn't address the fundamental question of who speaks for the voters in defense of what the voters decided to do.
On the substantive merits, I only got through about two-thirds of the proponents' argument. Their attorney did as well as anyone could under the circumstances but here he seemed much less convincing than he did arguing for standing. Essentially, he relied on the procreative argument as a rational basis for Prop. 8 after having begun by admitting that marriage is a fundamental right, if not the most fundamental right of all. This is no way to get into the world of rational basis review -- fundamental rights, as all first-year con law students know, are analyzed for strict scrutiny.
Worse (for the proponents), they seemed to encounter skepticism from Randy Smith, the most conservative of the three judges assigned to the panel, about whether Prop. 8 had even a rational basis justification. Judge Smith appeared to be moved by the presence of a broad, close-to-marriage in substantive rights, institution of domestic partnership which was unchallenged by Prop. 8, and he essentially asked the proponents, "So doesn't that leave us with just the name?" The proponents' attorney responded that "The word essentially is the institution; you cannot separate the two." So even if there is a thing, "X," that is functionally identical to marriage, the different taxonomy created a substantive difference. Judge Smith looked like he had been served a turd on a hoagie roll when he was asked to swallow that one. Maybe I'm reading his facial expression wrong.
The rest of the emphasis I could get from the proponents' argument rested on Baker v. Nelson (1972) 409 U.S. 810, a one-line opinion by the Supreme Court declining to grant review to a decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court that denied marriage to a same-sex couple in the early 1970's for want of a "substantial Federal question." Because under the rules of the Court then in existence, a decision to not grant appellate review to a state supreme court case counted as a substantive ruling, the argument is that Baker is binding Supreme Court precedent that there is no Federally-protected right that would compel a state to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple. Today, the Baker decision would have been decided to the same result and using the same reasoning as a procedural matter, denying certiorari. So it's not exactly clear whether Baker remains a substantive, on-the-merits decision or not, but the proponents certainly argued that it was binding precedent.
I could not get Ted Olsen's argument to play at all despite several attempts to run the C-SPAN video. Just wouldn't do it. I had to skip ahead to Therese Stewart's argument, which nearly ended soon after I started it, so I really don't have a good sense of what the opponents of Prop. 8 said. This summation of the argument suggests that the proponents' citation of Crawford v. Los Angeles Board of Education made some headway. In Crawford, the voters reversed, by initiative, some court-mandated busing of students to remediate racial discrimination. Because the busing was only one way that the race discrimination problem could have been addressed, the voters were free to tell the school system, and the state itself, "No, go find another way to deal with this." Because that, by itself, did not violate the Constitution, the will of the voters was upheld against a 14th amendment challenge and the initiative stood. I'm not sure that I buy this as a point for the proponents, though. The opening of the proponents' argument was a structured concession that the voters cannot pass initiatives that defy the Constitution -- so the question is whether there is a right to marry in the Fourteenth Amendment that includes the right to marry someone of the same sex. If I were arguing for the proponents, I'd have stuck with Baker as the centerpiece of that argument, too.
Anyway, I did get to a significant portion of Therese Stewart's analysis. (I could swear that I had Therese Stewart as an adjunct professor in law school, that she taught my State Constitutional Law class. But I can't find any record of that at all one way or the other. She sure sounded like the woman who taught that class, smart, strong, and direct.) She pointed the Court back to the second substantive issue on the merits, which was whether Prop. 8 crossed the line into classifying citizens for the sake of having a classification, singling them out for special invidious treatment by popular initiative -- clearly aiming directly at the holding in Romer v. Evans. Romer is still one of the most controversial decisions from the Court in the past generation, but its author, Anthony Kennedy, remains on the bench of the Supreme Court and is in all likelihood the swing vote if and when this case ever gets there. So this strikes me as laying the foundation for the real battle, and Stewart was laying clam to the terrain upon which she wants to fight. That's smart advocacy.
The impression I was left with is that Imperial County for sure is unlikely to have standing. The Ninth Circuit Panel may well certify the question of the proponents' standing back to the California Supreme Court. Frankly, I think that's a good idea -- it will establish whether California state law does or does not convey a right to speak on behalf of the voters when elected officials will not do so for whatever reason. If the Court chooses to find standing by the proponents, there is no doubt that the proponents here gave Prop. 8 a vigorous defense. And the system only really works when both sides present their cases with zeal and urgency instead of proceeding by default.
Now, here's the thing. If, as I predict, the panel certifies the question of standing to the California Supreme Court for an advisory opinion, that will take several months. Then it will take several more months for an opinion to be crafted, which will in all likelihood affirm the trial court ruling in some way. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the panel ducks the merits altogether and rules only on the basis of standing. But if it does address the merits, it will do so in a full-throated way, and likely find that Prop. 8 fails the rational basis test. That decision will then go on to review en banc, before an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. From there, whoever loses will petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court in, probably, early 2012.
Which of course will grant it, and guarantee that the issue is front and center during the 2012 Presidential election. A friend thinks that the Supremes will want to duck the issue, but I say, all Nine of the Justices worked very hard to get on the Supreme Court, and the whole, entire reason that anyone would angle to be on the Supreme Court is to be able to decide this very case. So we'll still be talking and arguing about this issue in two years. Maybe longer than that.
Labels:
2012 Election,
Constitutional Law,
Courts,
Law,
Same-Sex Marriage
Bad Attorney Advertisements, Part 2
Now, Messrs. "Beeblebrox" and "Prefect" (names changed) paid probably more than any other single advertiser in the book, in the hopes that people would peel the magnets off the back of the yellow pages and put them on their refrigerators, just in case they ever needed someone to represent them in a personal injury suit.
I give them credit for one thing. The ad has focus. You look at the ad and you know what this firm does -- personal injury work. They represent people who have been hurt.
What I really don't like here, though, is that the print on the ad is so damned small you have no idea what is going on. For some reason, the ad is cluttered will all sorts of verbiage, so that nary a single square millimeter of the expensive ad space lacks information. You can't read very clearly in my scan of the ad, and in fact you can't read very clearly in the original thing, that "Zaphod Beeblebrox" is a former instructor at two Universities You May Have Heard Of, that he is a "Senior Partner" in this law firm, that he is a member of the Consumer Attorneys of California and the American Trial Lawyers Association. What you see is itty bitty tiny thin letters that say something, which may or may not be about the man pictured in the upper-left corner of the ad, and if you squint at them they sound sort of lawyer-like.
The typical layperson probably doesn't appreciate the fact that attorneys who teach do so typically either for extra money or because it is something fun and different than litigation (both of which are true for me). If you want someone who is all-litigation, all the time, someone who teaches classes isn't that. If you know something about how law is taught in a law school, you may not necessarily think that the Socratic method is a particularly good way to prepare for presenting a case to a jury or, more important, working a case up to prepare for settlement. The Socratic method is useful to train new attorneys in figuring out important abstract concepts. But it isn't going to help your discovery disputes very much and is only of marginal utility in a courtroom setting -- because in a good examination, the examiner is providing the bulk of the information, not the examinee.
It is my belief that a layperson will have no idea what the phrase "Senior Partner" means, but the idea that a guy whose name is on the door would be something other than a key decision-maker for the firm is alien. Of course this guy is the one who calls the shots. It doesn't matter what he calls himself.
Then, why is he advertising his membership in ATLA and CAC? These are vaguely lawyer-like things that may sound impressive but don't convey much information to the layperson about what they mean. If you do know what it means to be in ATLA and CAC, you aren't surprised that a guy advertising for personal injury work is in them, because for the most part, ATLA and CAC are organizations of personal injury attorneys. In fact, there are some benefits to membership in these groups, but they are technical, behind-the-scenes sorts of things, which will not be obvious to the layperson and in fact most clients would be uncomfortable learning about ("You mean you let someone else write your pleadings for you?" referring to the pleading banks available to ATLA/CAC members).
So when you peer through the micro-print, what you find isn't of much substantive help to the consumer looking for an attorney. It's just... stuff.
Then there's the rest of it. "95% success rate since 1984." I sort of like the "since 1984" part of that, because it tells me that there are very experienced attorneys at this firm. The "95% success rate," though, is deceptive -- this rate looks an awful lot to my eye like the number of cases upon which the firm has collected money, mainly through settlements. But it sounds like they take 95% of their cases to trial and win. If they had actually done that, they wouldn't have had time to recover over $100 million for their thousands of satisfied clients.
I've never known why there are long laundry lists of different ways one can be personally injured, but there are always these sorts of things in P.I. advertisements. I guess it's because someone, somewhere, thinks that an attorney who will take an auto accident case won't take a motorcycle accident case. (Motorcycle cases work just like auto cases, except the motorcyclist tends to be much more severely injured.) The six categories of cases listed really only compromise two kinds of work -- personal injury and workers' compensation cases.
The most important parts of the advertisement come below this laundry list -- they will come to you, 24/7, they will not charge you any out-of-pocket fees, they will arrange for free towing for your vehicle and financial help for medical care and other needs of the injured. (This looks like they will help pay you while your case is pending, which I know not to be true; they're talking about doing medical care and other getting other services on liens. But that's a bit deceptive.) If I were an injured person, these would be the things I cared about most. What can these attorneys do for me, and can they do it right now? This is buried towards the bottom of the ad and in smaller print, indicating that it is of lesser importance to the author of the ad than the other, more prominent things.
The most prominent thing on the ad is the photograph of the attorney. Valuable space was taken up describing the attorney's credentials, which look good on the surface but turn out to have little substance. After that, the next most prominent part of the ad is the description of the attorneys as "INJURY ATTORNEYS" followed by a big box describing how much money they've made. Who is the real target of this advertisement here -- the potential clients of the attorney, or his ego?
I'm being too unkind. The ad is focused, it does guide and encourage the right kinds of clients to the attorney, it provides useful information about what the attorney can do. But I think it hasn't been thought through from the audience's point of view. If the target is injured people looking for a lawyer, the lawyer has to offer something to that audience, front and center. I don't care where the attorney teaches, I care whether he is going to get my medical bills paid. I don't care if he's a good-looking man, I care that he's going to make sure I don't have an interruption in my income flow so I can provide for my family. I don't care what fraternal societies he has joined, I care whether I am going to have to pay him before or after I get back to work and have money in my bank account again.
This is there, but it's not prominent enough. I give the ad an "A" for focus, a "C" for content, and a "D" for poor organization and cluttered visual appeal. For the amount of money that went in to circulating a fridge-magnet ad, I'm sure that Beeblebrox & Prefect could have done better than this.
Labels:
Bad Ads,
Industry and Commerce,
Law,
Money
Why Google Maps Are Easy To Read
When I saw an episode of 60 Minutes pointing out the arrow embedded into the Federal Express logo, the subtlety of the design blew me away. Now, I can't stop seeing the arrow. I suspect that after reading this article, Google Maps will never again look the same to me.
Labels:
Interesting Reading,
Technology
December 4, 2010
Atheism Can't Win
I'm not so sure that in the long run, all of these assumptions are correct, but let's just assume the author is right and due to intractable cultural, biological, and emotional factors, atheists will always be a minority in Western society.
As a member of such a permanent atheist minority, I would be willing to have the same sort of status that Jewish folks enjoy -- tolerated, respected, and integrated into society without needed to be closeted, with only the Helen Thomases of the world doubling down on bigoted nonsense about us, and being roundly condemned from all quarters for doing it. In nearly all segments of polite American society, anti-Semitism is socially unacceptable; it cost Ms. Thomas her job and will likely cost her some public respect and speaking engagements she otherwise would have enjoyed. You don't have to be Jewish to find this sort of thing objectionable. If atheism gets at least that much respect, that would be okay with me.
But as it is, when atheists dare to raise their voices and publicly identify themselves as such, they are met with nonsense like this -- people refusing to ride busses carrying advertisements saying "Millions Of Americans Are Good Without God." Note that the advertisement says nothing negative about Christians or Christianity at all, yet the ministers in the linked video act as though the advertisement were an existential threat. I suppose the Coalition of Reason ought to thank the ministers for reacting this way and magnifying the impact of buying advertisements on four busses -- there's no press more powerful than free press, and had these guys just kept their mouths shut and not sent out indignant press releases, it's likely that literally dozens of people in Ft. Worth would have noticed the advertisements. It's not like the advertisement was at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel or anything like that.
I don't see Christian leaders encouraging boycotts of busses advertising Jewish temples trying to attract parishioners for Hanukkah services. Perhaps more to the point, you don't see atheists boycotting busses carrying advertisements for Christian churches. What I do see, though, is that when I get together with my local nonbelievers' group in a public place to discuss philosophy, officious intermeddlers become so enraged out our mere existence that they interrupt our meeting to say that we "shouldn't be saying things like that in public" because it's "rude." (While remaining silent about the Christian prayer group loudly overstaying its reserved time in the room next to us.)
Still, I have some hope that encouraging people to think critically, embrace science, and consciously analyze their morality can, one person at a time and over the course of a long period of time, spread apathy to religion and thus free up economic and social resources for more productive kinds of efforts -- scientific and medical research, building hospitals instead of houses of worship, distributing textbooks* instead of holy books, and holding faithfully to the Constitution -- than the sometimes-beneficial, sometimes-not sorts of social activism coming out of religious institutions these days.
This doesn't mean I want everyone to abandon their religious beliefs; it means they should be free to believe as they wish, or not, as they choose, without significant social stigma. If in such an environment, atheists remain a small minority, so be it. If people make social policy and economic decisions without relying on millennia-old tracts of facially ridiculous mythology like the Torah, the Koran, or the Bible, that would make a better world than what we've got now.
* I've a thought about this subject, too, which I need to think through and may write about later today. That thought will not address issues of religion or atheism, however.
As a member of such a permanent atheist minority, I would be willing to have the same sort of status that Jewish folks enjoy -- tolerated, respected, and integrated into society without needed to be closeted, with only the Helen Thomases of the world doubling down on bigoted nonsense about us, and being roundly condemned from all quarters for doing it. In nearly all segments of polite American society, anti-Semitism is socially unacceptable; it cost Ms. Thomas her job and will likely cost her some public respect and speaking engagements she otherwise would have enjoyed. You don't have to be Jewish to find this sort of thing objectionable. If atheism gets at least that much respect, that would be okay with me.
But as it is, when atheists dare to raise their voices and publicly identify themselves as such, they are met with nonsense like this -- people refusing to ride busses carrying advertisements saying "Millions Of Americans Are Good Without God." Note that the advertisement says nothing negative about Christians or Christianity at all, yet the ministers in the linked video act as though the advertisement were an existential threat. I suppose the Coalition of Reason ought to thank the ministers for reacting this way and magnifying the impact of buying advertisements on four busses -- there's no press more powerful than free press, and had these guys just kept their mouths shut and not sent out indignant press releases, it's likely that literally dozens of people in Ft. Worth would have noticed the advertisements. It's not like the advertisement was at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel or anything like that.
I don't see Christian leaders encouraging boycotts of busses advertising Jewish temples trying to attract parishioners for Hanukkah services. Perhaps more to the point, you don't see atheists boycotting busses carrying advertisements for Christian churches. What I do see, though, is that when I get together with my local nonbelievers' group in a public place to discuss philosophy, officious intermeddlers become so enraged out our mere existence that they interrupt our meeting to say that we "shouldn't be saying things like that in public" because it's "rude." (While remaining silent about the Christian prayer group loudly overstaying its reserved time in the room next to us.)
Still, I have some hope that encouraging people to think critically, embrace science, and consciously analyze their morality can, one person at a time and over the course of a long period of time, spread apathy to religion and thus free up economic and social resources for more productive kinds of efforts -- scientific and medical research, building hospitals instead of houses of worship, distributing textbooks* instead of holy books, and holding faithfully to the Constitution -- than the sometimes-beneficial, sometimes-not sorts of social activism coming out of religious institutions these days.
This doesn't mean I want everyone to abandon their religious beliefs; it means they should be free to believe as they wish, or not, as they choose, without significant social stigma. If in such an environment, atheists remain a small minority, so be it. If people make social policy and economic decisions without relying on millennia-old tracts of facially ridiculous mythology like the Torah, the Koran, or the Bible, that would make a better world than what we've got now.
* I've a thought about this subject, too, which I need to think through and may write about later today. That thought will not address issues of religion or atheism, however.
Labels:
'Tis The Season,
Atheism,
Link Love,
News,
Religion
December 3, 2010
Following Up On A Pledge Case
About two months ago I wrote about a judge in Mississippi who imprisoned an attorney for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. As I predicted, the judge received a public reprimand and has acknowledged his error. The attorney who was on the receiving end of the order claims to not hold a grudge and has made public statements of respect for the judge; if his private feelings are any different, he is keeping them to himself. This seems to me to be the right resolution.
The wheels of justice grind slow, but often enough they come to rest in the right position.
The wheels of justice grind slow, but often enough they come to rest in the right position.
Labels:
Constitutional Law,
Courts,
Law
December 2, 2010
WikiLeaks - An Apparently Dissenting Perspective
Nothing in the leaked documents is substantively surprising. We all knew, or should have known, that Arab nations are very nervous about a nuclear Iran, and also very nervous about saying so publicly. We all knew, or should have known, that Russia's democracy is woefully corrupt and that some of its officials are in bed with organized crime. We all knew, or should have known, that some "diplomatic staff," of all nations, are really there to gather intelligence.
We also all knew, or should have known, that diplomats and other people working in government have opinions and make jokes to one another.
It's a great shame that many of these people will now have to be transferred, have their careers interrupted or put along different paths, and that there is a degree of embarrassment particularly but not exclusively about U.S. diplomacy. But it's not like diplomacy is going to stop, either by the U.S. or anyone else. It's not like intelligence gathering is going to stop, either by the U.S. or anyone else. There's more sunshine on the process now.
The likely result of all this is going to be greater use of "top secret" designations for documents that probably don't really need to be treated that way.
Whoever leaked the documents has committed a crime. WikiLeaks itself, however, is a media outlet and does not seem to have committed a crime. I take the claims that peoples' lives are in danger with a grain of salt -- the ones whose lives really are in danger because of the exposure can be moved and protected.
I don't pretend to know whether Sweden is right to pursue a rape indictment against Julian Assange. But that's an entirely separate matter than leaking these documents and as I recall, rumors of that indictment pre-dated anything relating to the diplomatic documents release. If Sweden is, either on its own or bowing to pressure from another nation, going after this prosecution because of the WikiLeaks thing, that's pretty scummy.
Overall, I'm not pleased that the whole thing happened, but the media, the blogosphere, and the pundits are assigning more importance to it than seems warranted.
We also all knew, or should have known, that diplomats and other people working in government have opinions and make jokes to one another.
It's a great shame that many of these people will now have to be transferred, have their careers interrupted or put along different paths, and that there is a degree of embarrassment particularly but not exclusively about U.S. diplomacy. But it's not like diplomacy is going to stop, either by the U.S. or anyone else. It's not like intelligence gathering is going to stop, either by the U.S. or anyone else. There's more sunshine on the process now.
The likely result of all this is going to be greater use of "top secret" designations for documents that probably don't really need to be treated that way.
Whoever leaked the documents has committed a crime. WikiLeaks itself, however, is a media outlet and does not seem to have committed a crime. I take the claims that peoples' lives are in danger with a grain of salt -- the ones whose lives really are in danger because of the exposure can be moved and protected.
I don't pretend to know whether Sweden is right to pursue a rape indictment against Julian Assange. But that's an entirely separate matter than leaking these documents and as I recall, rumors of that indictment pre-dated anything relating to the diplomatic documents release. If Sweden is, either on its own or bowing to pressure from another nation, going after this prosecution because of the WikiLeaks thing, that's pretty scummy.
Overall, I'm not pleased that the whole thing happened, but the media, the blogosphere, and the pundits are assigning more importance to it than seems warranted.
Labels:
Crime and Punishment,
International Politics,
News
The CTS Cast
I strongly suspect I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm.
This ought to be no great surprise. An entire lifetime spent using computers and in particular mouses could not help but have produced repetitive motions. And like a lot of people, I have posture that is not so good, especially while sitting.
About a year ago when the pain first started being noticeable, I didn't do much of anything about it. No pain, no pain. I tried to take it easy, tried to revive my experiment with voice-control for my computer at work, tried to rearrange my keyboard and mouse to hold my arm in different postures. None of it worked and probably some of it made the problem worse.
When it got to the point that I felt like I was losing strength in the arm, or at least that picking up things like bags of groceries was too painful to endure, I got a cast to wear while sleeping. It's comfortable enough but it seems to produce better effects in the morning only when I strap it on very tightly. This can make sleeping a bit uncomfortable, and it's off-putting, to say the least, to reduce my right arm to a nearly-useless club right before going to bed. It also doesn't do much for the pain below the cast line, down towards my elbow.
A bleg -- what other kinds of self-treatments can I do, relatively affordably and easily, that will alleviate the shooting jolts of pain and the sensation of weakness in my arm and hand?
This ought to be no great surprise. An entire lifetime spent using computers and in particular mouses could not help but have produced repetitive motions. And like a lot of people, I have posture that is not so good, especially while sitting.
About a year ago when the pain first started being noticeable, I didn't do much of anything about it. No pain, no pain. I tried to take it easy, tried to revive my experiment with voice-control for my computer at work, tried to rearrange my keyboard and mouse to hold my arm in different postures. None of it worked and probably some of it made the problem worse.
When it got to the point that I felt like I was losing strength in the arm, or at least that picking up things like bags of groceries was too painful to endure, I got a cast to wear while sleeping. It's comfortable enough but it seems to produce better effects in the morning only when I strap it on very tightly. This can make sleeping a bit uncomfortable, and it's off-putting, to say the least, to reduce my right arm to a nearly-useless club right before going to bed. It also doesn't do much for the pain below the cast line, down towards my elbow.
A bleg -- what other kinds of self-treatments can I do, relatively affordably and easily, that will alleviate the shooting jolts of pain and the sensation of weakness in my arm and hand?
Labels:
Sickness and Health
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