Monthly Archives: January 2008

Voting Today

Haven't voted yet, but this is how I'm leaning:

Presidential beauty contest: John Edwards.

Several times I've thought of voting tactically for Obama since he's my favorite of the two leading candidates. But he has done just enough progressive-bashing, and his health plan has a big enough hole that I think I'm sticking with voting for Edwards.

State Amendment 1 (starve localities, decimate services, and discriminate against young people and immigrants from out of state by further limiting property tax increase on housing appreciation): NO!

County proposition 1 (technical change on election rules to save millions of dollars): Yes

County proposition 2 (elect the county property assessor): No?

This is the one vote I'm least certain about — I don't know who is behind it, or what they hope to achieve. Nor does this seem the sort of post all that well suited to election, even if other counties do it.

Country proposition 3 (2nd try at legalizing slot machine gambling at dog races & frontons): NO!

On balance I think we don't need to feed gambling addictions; the claims of jobs and revenue from out-of-state tourists are bogus; the claim that revenue will help schools is also belied by experience of lottery money being offset by decreased spending. And it's been sad to see teachers and cops pressed into service arguing for dog track gambling.

Posted in Florida | 2 Comments

Good Lottery Numbers

The lottery is a tax on stupidity, since the expected value of a ticket is so low. So I don't imagine many readers of this blog buy lottery tickets.

But if you are betting, may I suggest these numbers: 84, 60, 53, 51, 43, 36 and 32.

Those would be Bush's poll ratings around the time of each State of the Union address.

Posted in Politics: US | 4 Comments

What He Said (Greenwald on FISA Dept.)

Glenn Greenwald,

Of all the creepy post-9/11 phrases to which we've been subjected (“The Patriot Act” – “Protecting the Homeland” – “enhanced interrogation techniques” – “Department of Homeland Security”), I think the creepiest and most Orwellian is the phrase “good patriotic corporate citizen,” used to describe companies which broke our laws because the President told them to. It's now apparently a Patriotic Duty to obey the President even if he tells you to violate the law.

The accompanying claim that companies should never “second-guess” the “judgment of the President regarding what's legal” — which I just heard from John Cornyn and Saxby Chambliss — is equally creepy, and is the crux of the authoritarian case for telecom immunity.

The cloture vote failed, so there will actually be debate on the current (evil) draft of FISA.

But don't get too excited,

In one sense, this is an extremely mild victory, to put that generously. All this really means is that they will now proceed to debate and vote on the pending amendemnts to the bill, almost certainly defeat all of the meaningfully good ones, approve a couple of amendments which improve the bill in the most marginal ways, and then end up ultimately voting for a bill that contains both telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping. Moreover, it seems clear that Senate Republicans deliberately provoked this outcome and were hoping for it, by sabotaging what looked to be imminent Democratic capitulation so that Bush could accuse Democrats tonight of failing to pass a new FISA bill, thus helping their friend Osama.

Lots more chances for spines to vanish.

Meanwhile, however, things have got weird,

The vote on the Motion for Cloture on the 30-day extension (i.e., to proceed to a vote on it) just failed — 48-45 (again, 60 votes are needed). All Democrats (including Clinton and Obama) voted in favor of the Motion, but no Republicans did — not a single one. Thus, at least as of today, there will be no 30-day extension of the PAA and it will expire on Friday.

Reid, however, indicated that it was certain that the House will vote in favor of an extension tomorrow, which means it will be sent to the Senate for another vote. It's possible, then, that the Senate will vote again later in the week on an extension, but it's hard to imagine any Republicans ever voting in favor of an extension since Bush has vowed to veto it.

By blocking an extension, Republicans just basically assured that the PAA — which they spent the last seven months shrilly insisting was crucial if we are going to be Saved from The Terrorists — will expire on Friday without any new bill in place.

Even milquetoast Jay Rockefeller accused Bush of committing Political terrorism. Of course there's still time for a vote on an emergency extension originating in the House…

Posted in Civil Liberties | 1 Comment

French Summary of Yesterday’s Talk

Great online summary of my talk from yesterday — translated into French — by Belgian reporter and blogger Mehmet Koksal at Election reporter: Introduction au système électoral américain.

I loved the conclusion: “Cela a l'air compliqué mais, croyez-moi, c'est assez facile à suivre pour n'importe quelle personne ayant grandi dans le fédéralisme belge.” (That may look complicated, but believe me, it's fairly easy to follow for anyone who has grown up under Belgian federalism.)

I hated the picture of me, but I also loved the fact that the event which a francophone Belgian blogger finds worthy of an embedded movie…is the food at the reception.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on French Summary of Yesterday’s Talk

Blackwater’s Ideal Employee

Norbert Wiener Award winner Bruce Schneier points us to a new 117-page paper by Ronald C. Arkin on Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture.

Looks like a must read – after I get caught up…

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | Comments Off on Blackwater’s Ideal Employee

Bush Scandals: 300 and Counting

Hugh's List of Bush Scandals — 300 strong.

And, a printout of Hugh's list displayed in an mall

Enjoy the State of the Union tonight. I'm taking a pass on it – like much of the rest of the country I'm pretty tired of that voice and that face.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 3 Comments