Happy Valentines Day

I'm celebrating by going to the dentist. My safe word is "bwaarghahum!"

A friend of mine asked me to write some Valentines Day poetry for her to share with her favorite baristas. Since I'm no poet, I wrote bastardized haiku. Here's one:

Coffee like love needs
A little bit of sugar
A whole lot of cream.

Addendum:

Be mine barista
Coffee consumates
Our gluttinous lonely lust

Sloganeering for '08

Here's one I will provide free to the Obama campaign:

"It takes Obama to get Osama"

Yep.

What's wrong with this argument?

Spencer Ackerman reports that, while drunk, he found no effective response to the following justification for the coming war with Iran:

It's not us declaring war on them. They have declared war on us. They attack our troops. Your position amounts to requiring soldiers in a firefight to check the nationalities of their assailants before returning fire; and so you have reached absurdity.

While blogging and, presumably, sober Ackerman notes that the argument is disingenuous. That is, the real reason for war with Iran has less to do with Iran's supposed machinations in Iraq than with the Bush Administration's broader strategic, uh, vision.

Be that as it may, it's still worth figuring out how to answer the argument above. Here are a couple of points:

• Although the idea of declaring war may by now have become a quaint anachronism, there does seem to be a difference between beligerant acts and declarations of war.
  
• As beligerant acts go, supplying an armed insurgency is less beligerant than, say, the attacking Pearl Harbor or assassinating a spare duke.
  
• It's far from obvious that these beligerant acts justify an escalation to wholesale war. Which is to say that there's a difference between returning fire in a firefight and bombing the bejesus out of a large nation.
  
• Wars are really outrageously bad, and are worth avoiding even when justified. Or, as Jesus and Woody Guthrie^[1] put it, there's a better world awaiting for the meek.

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1 Though I hasten to add that my own acquaintance with this chestnut derives, sadly, from Kenny Rogers.

Crazy moderates

By this point it's probably uncontroversial to say that Bush is the worst president in memory, and yet his approval rating is holding steady in the low thirties. Relatedly, pick the nuttiest wingnut proposition you like (e.g., 'Bush has been anointed by God to lead the West in a clash of civilizations against the Islamofascists') and you can bet that 15-20% of the electorate is going to agree with it.

Obviously, though, the right doesn't have a monopoly on crazy thinking. I love my lefty brothers and sisters, but some of us are a little bit irrational some of the time. Let me just point to aromatherapy and leave it at that.

But here's a more controversial claim that came to me in a dream about Cokie Roberts:

Resolved: Ten to fifteen percent of self-described moderates will believe the nuttiest proposition you pick so long as it is delivered in a carefully measured tone.

Discuss.

Definitely unusual

Tennessee's procedure manual for executing prisoners is a jumble of conflicting instructions that mixes new lethal injection instructions with those for the old electric chair, an Associated Press review found.

Before a lethal injection, the 100-page "Manual of Execution" instructs prison officials to begin by shaving the condemned prisoner's head -- as if preparing him for electrocution. They would also need a fire extinguisher nearby, it says.

...

The manual's minute-by-minute guidelines for lethal injections includes the instruction: "The Executioner will engage the automatic rheostat." A rheostat controls the voltage flowing to an electric chair.

The guidelines also tell the facility manager to disconnect the electrical cables in the rear of the chair before a doctor checks whether the lethal injection was successful.

Bredesen said Tennessee's execution teams have relied on an "oral tradition" and routine drills have ensured that lethal injections have been given properly. |CNN|

Where the hell is the bathroom, Pedro?

I feel bad making fun of John Derbyshire, as he tries very hard (and usually fails) to keep The Corner anchored in something resembling reality, but this is too funny.

My son starts Middle School in September.  We just got a flyer from the school board asking him to choose a foreign language class.  The choices are:  French, Italian, Spanish.

My advice to him (which of course he will ignore) is just to be hard-headed about it & pick the language most likely to give him an "edge" in future employment. 

That rules out Spanish, since the USA is choc-a-bloc with Spanish-speakers, so the market value of this skill must be low. 

I don't know where Derbyshire lives, but in my neck of the woods it would be very helpful to speak Spanish if one wants to do anything at all in the community... for example, if one wants to open a small business.

Or to put it another way: The USA is already "choc-a-bloc" with English speakers, and the market value of that skill is commensurately very high.

See marriage don't change, nothing but your name

I'm taking a few minutes to read through the Michigan Appeals Court's recent decision interpreting the marriage amendment and this jumped out:

Finally, we note that our interpretation of the language of the marriage amendment is one of first impression, insofar as it concerns a relatively unique phraseology. Thus, while other states have adopted constitutional amendments and/or statutes that place limitations on governmental recognition of same-sex relationships, no court in any of these states has had the occasion to interpret language approximating the “similar union” language found in Michigan’s marriage amendment. Consequently, guidance from the decisions of other jurisdictions is unavailing.

Insofar as other states use similar language, and the Michigan Appeals Court notes that Kentucky and Wisconsin do, this decision could end up providing guidance in interpretation, so it's pretty significant. The text of the Michigan amendment, for the record, is, "To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."

I may post again later after I've had time to think about the court's reasoning. In the meantime, curious lawyers and fellow travellers are welcome to follow the link and offer their thoughts.

Dumb game blogging: A Triangle Adventure

Check it out. It's an oldschool Choose Your Own Adventure type of adventure. Give it a try, and try not to blow up the world. Also, look out for Manticores. Here it is

Though I may roam, I'll come back to my home

Silohomes are definitely cool, but at $1.8 million for a fixer-upper, a missile silo is way out of my price range. The real deals are on hardened communications bunkers:

Orleans, Indiana, Hardened Underground Communications Vault on 3.21 acres, 1960’s vintage nuclear war-proof communications center with 9,589 sq. ft. usable floor space. Hardened 24” thick walls and ceilings with 2’ to 4’ of earth over with metal shielding around entire structure, heavy blast doors, air vents with filters and blast valve closure mechanisms. 3 phase grid power to site, plus a large 225-230 KW generator in place. 20’ by 20’ above-ground entry with man doors and a push-button commercial over-head door with electric hoist to move equipment in and out. Lots of original equipment in place and functional. Asbestos has been removed. Tower has been removed. Dry and relatively clean.


Price: $227,000.00

Surprisingly affordable.

(via)

GM management = a bunch of clueless idiots

For football fans, the drama will be over the second the clock runs out on Super Bowl XLI. But for General Motors Corp. (GM ), the moment of truth will come the following day. That's when consumers and the media will weigh in on the latest crop of Super Bowl ads, among them GM's spot about an anthropomorphic robot. This isn't just a one-off spot: GM wants the robot to star in its ongoing effort to convince drivers it's as obsessed about quality as Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) If the $5.2 million ad fizzles, it's back to the storyboard. |Business Week|

Many pastors felt that -- as Christians -- they had no choice but to cancel their parties

Today I learned why superbowl parties are illegal:

The intent of the law, which dates to the 1960s, is to protect the NFL's television ratings by preventing large crowds from gathering to watch games in public places — where their viewing habits aren't measured by the Nielsen ratings. (The ratings only measure viewership at home.) Sports bars and other businesses that rely on televised sports to draw patrons are exempt. |LA Times via Drum|

So the reason that it's illegal to have a superbowl party is that such parties make it more difficult for television executives to track viewer behavior. One can only hope that improvements in surveillance technology will someday make it possible to relax these lamentable restrictions on the scope of our liberties.

protologism

[coined by Mikhail Epstein from Greek 'protos', first + Greek 'logos', word]

n.
A newly coined word or phrase defined in the hope that it will become accepted into the language.

Notes

• In a roman candle fight, having more roman candles than your opponents confers a significant tactical advantage.
  
  
• From now on they should always play the superbowl in the rain.
  
  
• Grad unionists will be interested to know that the word on the street is that the kids in corn country reached a tentative agreement on Friday.
  
  
• Memo to GM: When you've spent the last several years buying out and laying off actual real human workers, it's bad form to put together a superbowl commercial that features a robot arm daydreaming about all of the shit jobs it will be consigned to if it loses its position on the GM assembly line. Having the robot arm dream of committing suicide is a particularly nasty touch.
  
  
• Guitar Hero is a really fun game.

He's got brass ones

Gotta love FOXNews. Bush is on right now talking about the huge tax increases that would be necessary to meet the "Democrat's appetite for spending." He also says that next year he's going to submit a budget that will "balance the budget in five years."

He won't be prez anymore, but dammit, he's got a plan to fix this mess!

Foreshadowing

Winning, losing

Resolution passed by the AFT Executive Board this week:

Whereas, the American Federation of Teachers has stated, "as trade unionists, we believe that our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters unequivocally deserve the same protections and beneits as their brothers and sisters"; and

Whereas, the American Federation of Teachers "calls for programs to increase access to quality healthcare for all Americans, while pledging to fight programs that would decrease or deny such access based on age, sex, race, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression":

RESOLVED, that the AFT call on its members to fight existing barriers and discriminatory practices and ensure access to healthcare services, including fighting for transgender-inclusive healthcare and insurance policies covering all medically necessary transgender transition services and procedures.

Newspaper article from today:

Public universities and state and local governments can't provide health insurance to the partners of gay employees without violating the state constitution, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel said a 2004 voter-approved ban on gay marriage also applies to same-sex domestic partner benefits.

``The marriage amendment's plain language prohibits public employers from recognizing same-sex unions for any purpose,'' the court wrote.

The decision reverses a 2005 ruling from a county judge who said universities and government agencies could provide the benefits. |Associated Press|

Addendum: The bright side of the Court of Appeals ruling, such as it is, is that this result will probably tend to worsen the outlook for anti-gay marriage amendments in other states, since the policy mix supported by the majority of Americans would ban gay marriage but allow gay couples access to marriage-like legal protections. This ruling shows that you can't split the baby.

Usability complaint Friday

You know what chaps my hide? Aggressively bad design.

I'm renting a Chevy Aveo this weekend, and I honestly think that it's the worst car I've ever driven. It's loud. It's small. It's underpowered. The seat is uncomfortable. Visibility is bad. The car doesn't even get particularly good mileage.

But what I really want to talk about are the cupholders. Take a look at the photo to the left and ask yourself, "where does scalding hot coffee go?"

If your answer is, "Behind the emergency brake, under the armrest" then you've had the misfortune of driving this disaster of a car.

Everything about this car seems intended to communicate to the prospective buyer or renter that they'd be better off spending a little more. Which, you know, goes a long way toward explaining why it's downright idiotic to buy American^[1] if you're in the market for an economy car.

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1 Note that the Aveo, despite being a Chevy, is actually built in South Korea by Daiwoo.