The U.S. is certainly a different place today than it was yesterday. The commentary I’ve seen that sums up best just how different things are is this Tom Toles cartoon of Obama walking into the White House beneath these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
Yesterday, America proved that we really believe this.
I got in line a little over 30 minutes after the polls opened. According to the poll worker who came out to see how everyone is doing, the line was out the door by 6 am (1 hour before the polls officially opened).
My first clue as to how long this would take was the amount of cars parked everywhere. Every spot that isn’t marked handicapped is full. Every curb is full. People are double-parked. The loading dock on the side of the school even has cars and SUVs in it.
Update: Around 90 minutes after I got in line, I finally got to vote. The line was still outside of the school when I left.
Barack Obama spoke at length yesterday on the issue of race in general and his former pastor in particular. If you haven’t already seen and heard the speech, or read the transcript, I encourage you to do so. There is no soundbite that can do justice to the importance and brilliance of his message. If there was ever a politician who could legitimately argue that he’s a uniter and not a divider, it is Barack Obama. I only hope it helps him win in Pennsylvania.
I came across this opinion on software patents via the programming reddit. It makes a great for why software patents are a problem without even mentioning Microsoft’s foray into patent trolling.
Stallman makes an interesting proposal for a new software-only form of intellectual property (IP) at the end of the piece. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would survive the gauntlet of legislators (and lobbyists) to become law.
The entire list is here. It includes how much he gave and when.
Trying to find some information about Bush’s latest appointee to the Supreme Court, I found two comments especially troubling:
“The reaction of many conservatives today will be that the president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas who had been the president’s lawyer. The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisers that the White House gathered around it. However, the president deserves the benefit of a doubt, the nominee deserves the benefit of hearings, and every nominee deserves an up or down vote.”
— Manuel Miranda, chairman of the conservative Third Branch Conference
“This is a smart move. You try to pick a nominee that Democrats won’t be able to criticize as much because they are a woman or minority. This is a classic Clarence Thomas strategy.”
— Artemus Ward, Northern Illinois University political science professor.
For other reactions, see the full version of the article (free registration required).
They are minority opinions to be sure, the bulk of the comments so far range from polite to unalloyed praise for Harriet Miers. Still, I shudder at the mention of Clarence Thomas in connection to anything at all. Few things in politics have made me more angry than his nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall’s record as a lawyer, his tenure as judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (none of his 98 majority decisions was ever reversed), and his record as solicitor general of the United States (winning 14 of 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court), stand in stark contrast to Thomas’ brief and unremarkable tenure as an appeals court judge. Thomas was notable only for being a black conservative (and his alleged conduct while head of the EEOC). To replace a lion of civil rights like Thurgood Marshall with someone so opposed to what he’d fought his whole life for was has always disappointed me.
What’s sad is that Artemus Ward is probably correct. Miers won’t have enough of a paper trail for anyone to effectively oppose her–unless a significant amount of conservative reaction falls along the lines of Mr. Miranda’s commentary.
I was listening to C-SPAN on the way into work and one of the callers had an interesting question: why are the people suffering in New Orleans being called “refugees” in the press when people in Florida suffering from hurricane damage aren’t?
I checked out the Wall Street Journal this morning and sure enough, there was that word. Checked the Washington Post, same thing. Was the caller being overly sensitive? Maybe. Was he reading some racial connotation into the use of the word? Probably. But it may also be that the press has been sloppy in how it uses words. Usually you see the word “refugee” in the context of someone fleeing another country from religious or political persecution. The people in New Orleans aren’t running from some dictator, they’re from here. They’re just unfortunate enough to be too poor or too ill to get out of the way of the storm in time.
I came across this story late, but it has to be one of the most bizarre and sad stories I’ve read in awhile. It’s worth subscribing to the LA Times website to read the whole thing, but in summary, this is what’s happening:
2002: 17 POWs from the 1991 Gulf War filed a lawsuit against Iraq for the torture they endured from Iraq troops at the now infamous Abu Ghraib. They’re allowed to do this by the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996.
2003: Judge Richard W. Roberts awards them $653 million in compensatory damages and $306 million in punitive damages.
Soon after this, the Bush administration argues the case should be thrown out. Why? Reasons include:
–President Bush had voided such claims against Iraq because of the current occupation
–This Scott McClellan quote: “These resources are required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq.”When the case goes to the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit, the 3 judges ruled unanimously for the Bush administration and throw out the lawsuit. The case is now before the Supreme Court.
For their sakes, I only hope that the Supreme Court has far more sense than the government on this case.
You can read Charles Krauthammer’s whole commentary to get the context, but he essential begins his column by using the elections that happened during the US Civil War and its immediate aftermath to defend elections in Iraq that may leave out parts of the country.
To call this an “apples and oranges” comparison would be putting it mildly. If England or France had over 100,000 troops in this country and was fighting on the side of the North or the South, Krauthammer might have an argument. But since that isn’t what happened, it’s merely a bad excuse for the disenfranchisement of “barely 20 percent” of Iraqi citizens.
The one point he makes in his column that I agree with is that a civil war is already happening in Iraq. Which is why it seems senseless to me for him to say this:
If Iraq’s Sunni Arabs–barely 20 percent of the population–decide they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, ending with 30 years of Saddam Hussein’s atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and participate in the new Iraq.
This idea that Iraq will go on without the Sunnis if they don’t lay down their arms and vote completely ignores the nature of the violence that has been taking place. In the same section of the newspaper is an article about candidates for this election in Iraq being murdered. We shouldn’t forget how quickly the violence spread to other parts of Iraq after the Fallujah offensive either.
What seems to be shaping up is another Beirut situation–US troops in the middle of a civil war. It won’t turn out any better now than it did then.