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9 Jul 2007I was thinking about this recently: Could you make a case that the saved-costs of pollution, congestion, and accidents would make free public transportation an economically good decision?
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6 Jul 2007All of the Democratic candidates' websites except for Hillary's are running on Open Source. Most of the Republicans are running on Windows.
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24 May 2007
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23 Dec 2005
I think I'm in love with Jimmy Carter. I've started reading his most recent book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, and I'm totally taken with how improbable he is. Southern-raised, farmer, born-again evangelical Christian, yet he's a liberal Democrat and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. I yearn for a president like that.
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30 Sep 2005
Did you know that 4 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices now serving were confirmed by unanimous votes? And another 3 had fewer than ten opposing votes each. Only Clarence Thomas's confirmation was even close.
Justice Appointed by Vote John Paul Stevens Ford 98-0 Sandra Day O'Connor Reagan 99-0 Antonin Scalia Reagan 98-0 Anthony Kennedy Reagan 97-0 David Souter G.H.W. Bush 90-9 Clarence Thomas G.H.W. Bush 52-48 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Clinton 97-3 Stephen Breyer Clinton 87-9 John Roberts G. W. Bush 78-22 -
20 Jul 2005
I'm not entirely sure I'd vote to confirm John Roberts, Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court. I definitely disagree strongly with his ideological views. On the Court of Appeals, he upheld secret military tribunals for terror suspects. As an attorney, he argued that Roe v. Wade "was wrongly decided and should be overruled." He's also argued against environmental regulation a number of times.
On the other hand, this might be the wisest thing I've ever heard a judicial nominee say: "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." How strongly should political views influence Congress' decision to confirm a nominee? The Left has only a certain amount of power in the current administration, but if Roberts was denied or filibustered, could a different nominee really be any better? I can't see Bush nominating someone centrist, but there's always the chance he'll nominate someone more activist.
Update: More selected opinions.
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15 Apr 2005
Hooray, Connecticut! It's a great day for equality, because the CT legislature has passed a bill allowing gay civil unions! Granted, it needed to have a provision attached saying "those people definitely don't get to marry", but this is a massive step in the right direction. The state has become the first state to allow civil unions that didn't have to be forced into it by the courts.
Update 21 Apr: The Senate approved the bill, and Republican Governor Jodi Rell signed it yesterday. Simply amazing. I can almost (almost) forgive her give-him-the-chair tirade. Also, this story illustrates perfectly the difference between blue states and red states. As glassdog says:
The Texas Republican Party has decided that it's better to take a kid away from Steve and Chip, who love them and take them to school every morning, and were saving up to go to Disneyland this Summer, and put them in a state-run orphanage.
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21 Jan 2005
Inauguration protest photos. Quite excellent.
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14 Dec 2004
Final 2004 election tally: George Bush, 286 electoral votes; John Kerry, 251 electoral votes; John Edwards, 1 electoral vote?
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9 Nov 2004
More on America's non-existant red/blue divide: a fascinating analysis of Election result maps and cartograms.