Why I hope Utah doesn't get hit by a giant meteorite and turned into a radioctive pit of space dust.

Because the 256 or so sane people who live there would accompany the other 2,316,000 who are obviously totally and completely fucking batshit insane.

Fatigue

I'm beginning to think that I'm suffering from outrage fatigue. I haven't been overwhelmed with work of late, but I can't seem to find the time to write anything for the blog. The New York Times tells me that politicals at EPA have delayed the release of this year's fuel economy report so it doesn't coincide with the passage of the free corporate blowjob called our "Energy Policy". The Post tells me that the sniveling sawbones who purports to run our Senate has delayed a vote on the defense spending bill to permit a vote on a liability shield for gun manufacturers and did so claiming that it was to protect our national security. Both papers report that House Republicans kept voting open for an additional 45 minutes (something Dick Cheney once called the "greatest abuse of democracy") so that CAFTA could be passed 217-215. The Times tells that to ensure the passage of this "free trade agreement", Dennis Hastert promised Robin Hayes (R-NC) that he would do whatever he could to "restrict imports" of Chinese textiles.

I read all these things and yet I'm unable to find anything to say about them. Yeah, they piss me off. Yeah, they're hallmarks of the sort of craven, feckless lying and cheating we now associate with the Republican party. Yeah, they make me wonder whether things will fall apart and whether the center of this democracy will be able to hold. These sorts of stories do all those things, and yet I can't bring myself to write about them. Why? It's got to be the outrage fatigue.

I can't, it appears, sustain the feelings of outrage the modern Republican party so easily evoke in me. I have to stop writing and start reading. And, in those instances, I read Driftglass who gives us blog posts with obscene eloquence such as this passage regarding the Republican "base":

The reliable base who happily sit like baby chicks and believes every little thing that the traitors in their party regurgitate into their mouths. The have no critical thinking facilities. No higher brain function. The GOP has carefully cultivated these Christopaths as their loyal orc army. Pig-ignorant, Creationist-ranting fucktards bred for loyalty and their ability to vote Republican as automatically and mindlessly as a meth whore raising nickel-bag money one $2 handjob at a time.

Anyway, no doubt you've noticed that my posting has slacked off of late. Mostly, it's because I'm too pissed off to care anymore. Another few days of reading Driftglass, though, and I might find my muse again.

Finger that hairline crack please.

I may have to re-read my old Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. I had NO idea.

Brain-dead or cave-dwelling, you decide

It's been a slow couple of weeks on ye olde blogge. Work has been busy, I've been taking my evenings to put some extra miles on the bike, and my sense of outrage has waned as I focus more on the peanuts impending arrival (query the logic of that last assertion). Anyway, I was trolling about today, trying to find something to write about for your reading and my ranting pleasure. I could write more about John G. Roberts (he'll get confirmed), Karl Rove (he's a big, fat fruit with a gimp in his basement), or Joe Barton's role in the new "energy policy" (if ever a swinier swine ever commingled such abject hackitude with utter feckless sleaziness, his name would have to be Tom Delay), but you've heard it all before and probably more eloquently. So what to write?

While checking my mail, Yahoo showed me this headline Court nominee does well in poll; Rove does not. I followed the link and read the article, which revealed the unsurprising fact that John Roberts, essentially a handsome cipher with a nice resume, is well-regarded in polls and that Karl Rove, a degenerate machiavellian, is poorly-regarded by a plurality of respondents. The amazing (and I mean AMAZING) thing about the poll is that 25% of the respondents have never heard of Karl Rove.

Never heard of Karl Rove?!?! Now, I may be a Beltway insider with scarcely a clue for what "real Americans" think about politics, but can it be that a full quarter of Americans don't know about the man who made George W. Bush? That's just flabbergasting. The President's closest advisor, axe-man, truffle-hunter, and all-round henchman, and they've never heard of him? Wow.

The ignorance is astounding. But I shouldn't be surprised I suppose. I toured the Supreme Court with some friends yesterday. After the obligatory 20 minute talk in the Court's chambers by the tour guide, she took questions. One person asked, "How do they pick the Chief Justice? Is it just the next oldest person in line?"

Oh I wish.

But not so busy I can't post about the Tour.

As most of you probably know, the Tour de France is still being raced and Lance Armstong seems to be on track to win his 7th in a row. This year, I've had the luxury of being able to watch the Tour on OLN. For the first time since Greg Lemond was racing in the late 80s, I've watched a LOT of bike racing. And I've loved it. I'm a bike junky, and watching the Tour for free is like stumbling across a dime bag in a parking garage.

Anyway, I was watching the Tour this weekend with some friends. I found myself trying to explain why the race was exciting to watch, how the tactics worked, and why Lance didn't really care if the 10-man breakaway was 4.5 minutes ahead of him on the stage that day. The hardest thing to explain, it turned out, was the tactics. Why draft so closely? Why wait so late in the stage to sprint? Who decides who leads the peloton or the break away? Etc. If only I had had this article. It doesn't fully explain bicycle racing tactics, but it does give great insight into the tactics and protocols observed in the Tour. I recommend it, if only as a bit of sociological trivia.

Still busy

Work is kind of crazy, so I won't have time to post anything of substance today. However, take a minute and go look at the VolcanoCam for Mount St. Helens. The picture with a 10:40 AM timestamp seems to be showing some sort of ash or steam cloud venting. Cool.

Stealth nominees

Back in February, Bruce Ackerman wrote an article outlining the history of stealth nominees to the Supreme Court and warning of the dangers of new neo-conservative stealth nominees from GWB. I highly recommend the article, if only to get a sense of what is at stake with this nomination.

I don't know whether Ackerman would consider Roberts a stealth nominee. Roberts' track record doesn't really seem to be easily categorized as mainline conservative or neoconservative. However, as Lono points out in my comments, it's obvious that he holds environmental regulations in low regard and would likely side with those on the Court who seek to shrink Congress' commerce clause powers. Moreover, this Nation article suggests that Roberts has bought into the concept of the unitary executive and would support continued efforts to shift power into the hands of an increasingly monarchical executive branch. These facts, alone, should give any concerned progressive pause and certainly suggest that Roberts would shift the Supreme Court even further to the right.

Reading back over my intial post this morning, I seem to suggest that the Senate should defer to the President and vote for Roberts. I did not mean to suggest this. Rather, I was trying (and pretty much failing) to argue that citizens and Senators alike should hear a full vetting of Roberts' record and views before deciding whether he should be our next Justice. I don't know how to articulate it, but I still don't feel that his profound conservatism alone is enough to disqualify him. The real question is whether he will not only uphold the Constitution, but also support the values and beliefs that make our pluralistic democracy strong (i.e. separation of powers, right to privacy, etc.).

Thoughtful posts on Roberts

Publius, over at Legal Fiction, has a really excellent post on the Roberts nomination. I suggest reading it, as I think his take on the matter is basically right.

Over at Balkinization, there's another great post that uses the french fry case to explain how Roberts will differ from O'Connor and what it means for the future of the Court.

If you want a sample of other opinions written by Roberts, try this post at SCOTUSBlog.

John Rodgers is not a hack.

But that doesn't mean I automatically support his nomination. I, for one, am going to wait for his nomination hearings before I come to any decision on his fitness for the bench. I suspect over the next few weeks we're going to hear a lot out of the liberal advocacy groups about how we should oppose his nomination. Some will argue he's an activist, some will argue he's too conservative, others will argue that we should oppose him because he signed a brief during his stint as a deputy solicitor general which stated that Roe should be overruled. They may be right, they may not.

Roberts, as far as I can tell, isn't a lunatic like Janice Roberts Brown, he isn't an apologist hack like the Attorney General, and he isn't a budding theocrat like J. Harvey Wilkinson or Michael Luttig. Sure, he's written some ridiculous opinions such as the DC french fry case, but that opinion, for example, was based squarely on Supreme Court precedent. Basically, Roberts is a very conservative, very bright guy. No doubt his judicial and political philosophy differ greatly from mine, but I'm not sure that alone is sufficient reason to militate against his nomination.

The fact is George Bush - even if he is a sniveling, cheating, lying, cowardly, bastard son of Dick Nixon and Elmer Gantry - did win the election in November. It might not have been a mandate, but it did give him the Constitutional perogrative of choosing a nominee. The Senate's power of advice and consent only reaches so far, and the President should be given some deference in his choice. I might not like who he chooses, but I'll wait until the hearings to find out whether he's truly unfit to serve on the Surpeme Court.

On a final note, is anybody really surprised that Bush announced his decision yesterday? After a week of getting the bungo reamed, he obviously sped up his timeline so as to take attention off Karl Rove. The White House, of course, claims that "the president's timing had nothing to do with Mr. Rove and everything to do with giving the Senate adequate time before its recess next week to meet Judge Roberts and deal with the enormous amount of paperwork and logistics such a nomination requires." Sure, and I've got a lovely bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

Busy Today

But no so busy that I can't give you this link. I implore those of you who might have opportunity to write my obituary to strive for this sort of tone...

Blame it on pirates!

If you do nothing else today, please read this letter to the Kansas State School Board, in which Bobby Henderson explains his theory of Intelligent Design AND identifies the root cause of global warming. So much edification in such a short epistle hardly seems possible and yet the brilliant Mr. Henderson packs it in tight. I predict that this short note will soon join other paradigm-shifting articles (e.g. On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies) that occupy the highest ranks in the scientific canon. You should feel honored to be able to read it now...

Protecting transit

Last week, Anne Applebaum had an op-ed in the Post in which she basically argued that we shouldn't spend homeland security dollars on transit because you can't really protect de-centralized, open access systems like trains. I thought she made a pretty good point. I mean, if there's 110 miles of Metro rail in DC and 86 stations, there's a lot of points of entry for a dedicated terrorist.

Mike the Mad Biolgist points out the folly of this argument. Namely, it's a mistake to think that homeland security money is going to be spent to prevent a terrorist attack. That's highly unlikely. However, you can spend a lot of money, very effectively, to reduce the impact of a terrorist event. He points out a fact I was unaware of: the London subway has backup ventilation and communications. No doubt, these proved valuable in clearing out smoke and allowing coordinated rescue efforts. Do American transit systems have these backups in place? If not, wouldn't that be a good way to spend homeland security money? Likewise, are there other structural or management changes that could be made to American transit that would mitigate the possible effects of a terrorist attack?

I don't know the answer to these questions, but I'm having second thoughts about Applebaum's conclusion. I know homeland security dollars include vast quantities of pork, but maybe just maybe our transit systems could use a little bit of that wisely.

Long live Borf!!!

The Post reported on Thursday that the DC police had arrested the artist known as Borf. I've posted about Borf in the past and hearing that he's been nabbed made me a little sad. I like Borf. His graffiti was a welcome change to the usual DC graffiti, which consists mostly of unimaginative "tagging" and a laundry list of predictable obscenity. Borf's graffiti, which was basically good-natured, lacked this sort of posturing. He mixed whimsy, absurdity, politics and some pretty decent artistry to make graffiti that I found interesting and entertaining. And now he's gone.

The Sewage Lagoon

Click here and you, too, can share in the glory that is the RNC's talking points on Karl Rove. It's a rich and rewarding experience reading through these. I especially like point number one:

"Once again Democrats are engaging in blatant political attacks."

Oh those mean and nasty Democrats! Whatever shall we do? Those big bullies are being...gasp!... political.

If cognitive dissonance had actual physical manifestations, heads would be exploding all over DC right now. Consider this choice quote from none other Karl Rove himself:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition."

Oh wait. This isn't a political attack. No sir. This is merely a statement of objective truth.

Swine. All of them.

Karl Rove

The Post reports today that the Republican Party is about to turn on the slime machine and start hosing us down with a sewage lagoon's worth of filth, lies and over-the-top rhetoric (and I know it when I see it!) about the hate-filled Democrat's mission to destroy the pure-as-the-driven-snow Karl Rove. I'm surprised it took this long. I'd have expected them to start lobbing their execrations the second that Matt Cooper took the stand. Perhaps, for once, they got caught with their pants down?

Whatever the case, I kind of wonder whether it even matters if the odious Mr. Rove does get fired from his position as Deputy Chief of Staff. I mean, does anybody really think his role, much less his influence, will change? Hell no. Barring a criminal conviction, Rove will continue to befoul White House policy, and hence our democracy, until the day Bush leaves office. The White House might take a little political hit from this, but don't expect much else to happen.

The subjective nature of asparagus pee.

Yes, I am actually going to post something about asparagus pee. But only in the interest of pursuing objective truth. I stumbled across this short, but informative article about the excretor/non-excretor, perceiver/non-perceiver dichotomies in studies into the nature of stinky pee that results from asparagus consumption...

Yessir, nothing but good times on this blog.

Whither the puppet master?

Over at TPM Cafe, Marshal Whitman suggests that Democrats probably shouldn't get too worked up about Karl Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame affair. He predicts that barring a criminal dindictment, it will be business as usual at the "accountability-oriented" White House. In the midst of a very incisive analysis of Rove's role in the Republican Party, Whitman gives us this fantastic quote:

"[F]or Bush to get rid of Rove, would be like Charlie McCarthy firing Edgar Bergen."

HA! We liberals have a tendency to assume Dick Cheney is the brains in the White House. I think Whitman is right to suggest that that just ain't so. Cheney's more like the one-eyed, snarling pitbull tied up outside the front door. Rove is the man inside the double-wide, directing bidness from the naugahyde La-Z-Boy.

Abandon hope

LGM has an interesting bit of insight into the Administration's drug policy which, I think, speaks volumes about their general approach to policy-making. Summary: we must defund meth enforcement programs because to increase funds would suggest that meth use is at epidemic levels. If we accept there is an epidemic, we would be forced to acknowledge that there is no hope of ever solving the meth problem. However, by cutting meth enforcement dollars, we deny the existence of an epidemic and make clear our willingness to "stay the course" and fight the non-epidemic of meth use. In other words, to spend money is to admit defeat, so we must continue the valiant fight against crystal meth by cutting funding.

Ah, no wonder we're doing so poorly in Iraq.

Bob Roll

For all you TdF fans, you might appreciate the weirdness of this video. Bob Roll, naked, on a trainer. The point? I really don't know. But it's kind of funny.

Love of power

A couple of years ago I was paging through my wife's copy of "How to Read a Book" by Charles Van Doren. I didn't actually read the book, but I did find a suggested reading list in the back. According to Mr. Van Doren, this list constituted the necessary basis upon which any educated person might properly assert their literacy. Overtaken by a sudden, reckless desire to be truly literate, I bought the first few books on the list and read them. Among those books was "The Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides.

Having never really read any of the "classics", I expected Thucydides to be turgid, dry, and unsatisfying (insert Fighting 101st Keyboarders joke here). As it turns out, though, Thucydides actually earned his place in the pantheon. The book is a fascinating study of war and politics in ancient history, and it is full of sharp observations and pithy quotes. What is truly amazing, though, is the timeliness of Thucydides' observations. I know it's trite to say so, but much of what he wrote in 427 BC holds true today. I suppose this is primarily a testament to the abiding flaws of human nature, but I'll argue that is also due to the quality of his writing and analysis.

In any case, I was reading the Post this morning and had cause to think back to Thucydides. As you may be aware by now, the prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case managed to elicit testimony from Time reporter Matthew Cooper that implicates Karl Rove in the affair. According to the Post story, "Rove apparently told Cooper that it was 'Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency.'" This is an important revelation because at issue is a federal law that forbids the knowing identification of undercover agents by people with access to classified materials. Now, to you and me, it no doubt sounds like Rove has met atleast one part of that test: identication. If I say, "it was my father", you know damn well who I'm referring to and I've pretty much identified the person I'm talking about. Even if you don't know my father, the relationship is so obvious as to make it possible to easily learn the identification of the referent.

Karl Rove and his lawyer, however, would apparently disagree. According to the Post article, Rove's lawyer "said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm." No sir. We know that Rove wasn't identifying Valerie Plame to Cooper or anyone else because, "Rove did not mention her name to Cooper."

And so I come back to Thucydides. In Book III, he describes a conflict between the oligarchs and the democrats who comprised the Hellenic states. As the conflict spread from city to city, the Greek language began to lose meaning as the two parties sought every means possible of gaining power over the other. Thucydides tells us that, "To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings."

That's a nice quote. It certainly seems to capture what Rove's lawyer is trying to achieve. However, read the next few paragraphs and suddenly Thucydides is painting a very familiar and very scary picture. In this day and age, most of us expect to hear politicians trying to change, manipulate and otherwise molest the English language. (What is the meaning of is?) When that trend shifts from one man or a few men to encompass the whole population, that is when we should be afraid. To continue on with Thucydides quote:

"What used to described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man...Parties were not formed to enjoy the benefits of the established laws, but to acquire power by overthrowing the existing regime...If an opponent made a reasonable speech, the party in power, so far from giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to see that it had no practical effect."

Now that sounds familiar, doesn't it? And you can see it in action. Consider what folks have to say about Valerie Plame at Free Republic, Powerline, or Little Green Footballs. Search those sites for articles on Iraq, the Supreme Court, et cetera and you're sure to find more of the same. Love of power and violent fanaticism it appears, are not phenomenon isolated in ancient history.

East coast elites

The New Republic has a revealing article in its online edition today. One of their reporters decided to poll conservative trend-setters about their views on evolution. Turns out they almost universally accept evolution as an explanatory theory. In fact, most of them seem quite capable of differentiating between scientific hypothesis and theological assertion. Moreover, more than a few parse their answers to suggest that we live in a universe in which evolution and religion can peacefully co-exist.

Now, none of this should be especially surprising. All of these people are highly educated, intelligent folk. And, if you're highly educated and intelligent, you're probably going to understand that Darwinian evolution is a) not a satanic plot to subvert religion, b) the best explanation so far for speciation that comports with the scientific method, and c) integral to a rigorous biology curriculum. What's surprising to me is that these people willingly align themselves with and apologize for the mouth-breathing neanderthals who make up the theocratic Christian right. Why? To win elections?

That's a bullshit answer. You can let loose the dogs of war, but it's a hell of a job getting them back in the kennel. Now that the fundies run the show, you can bet your ass that they're not going to give East Coast conservative elites any more deference than they do we East Coast liberal elites.

Blogging job hunters (or is it jogging blob hunters?)

In the past, I've had a post or two worrying whether potential employers would be turned off by the fact that I have a blog. I've generally concluded that unless they are vetting my partisan proclivities, probably not. I don't tend to rant and rave here, and most of my writing is, I think, generally civil in tone and language. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a recent article, however, suggesting that perhaps my optimism is unfounded. Judging from the article, academic hiring committees are reading blogs as a way to, as we used to say at Philmont, weed out the scronies. The author states towards the end that virtually every blog was considered a negative on their respective candidate's application. That, my friends, certainly gives me pause. I'm sincerely hoping that this blog doesn't constitute a blot on my hitherto pristine curriculum vitae...

P.S. I found the original link to the CHE article here at LGM.

Intelligent Litigation?

The Post has an article today, noting that a group of plaintiffs have dropped a law suit against the District's water utility for it's failure to address lead levels in our drinking water. For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, about two years ago it was revealed that DC water had extremely high levels of lead which exceeded EPA's drinking water standards. It turned out that our utility, DCWASA, knew this and had done little to address the issue. After this was revealed the plaintiffs in this case sued, and the utility began efforts to reduce lead levels.

As an environmentalist and a lawyer, I wonder whether the lawsuit had any effect in goading the utility into action. At the time, there was much hue and cry in the press, from Congress, from EPA, etc. With or without the litigation, I suspect that DCWASA would have responded to these political and regulatory pressures and begun reducing lead levels. If that is true, then why file the suit? Conservatives love to moan about litigation abuse, and this might seem to be a case of litigants piling on to a problem already heading towards resolution. However, if it were truly an abuse of the court system, would the litigants have dropped the case seeing evidence of DCWASA successfully remediating the lead problem? Likely not. Damages ARE damages. What, then, was the point of the litigation?

I'd like to suggest that it is a method by which citizens can ensure their voices are heard in a system which can seem unresponsive at best. Given that DCWASA had failed to address the lead problem for years, given that the DC government has a history of (less so recently) of failing to provide effective services, given that the Bush Administration has shown no great zeal in regulating environmental problems, and given that the Congress could give a flying fuck about DC residents, it isn't entirely irrational for concerned citizens in DC to want to keep their finger in the pie, so to speak. In fact, I would argue that it's perfectly rational to have expected each of the players named above to fail to uphold the public trust. The fact that they didn't does not suggest that the litigation was pointless; it merely suggests that the system may be working. Bringing the litigation was just insurance in case it didn't. So, kudos to the folks who brought the case, and kudos to them for dropping it once it became obvious that it was redundant.

London Bombing

All the war-mongering and police-stating in the world, it appears, aren't very effective at ending terrorist attacks. My heart goes out to the people of London who are suffering from these most recent bomb attacks.

Huh?

How can a quadriplegic trapeze artist tape vacuum cleaner hose to a tailpipe?

Why did 36 new readers suddenly visit my blog today, when my daily average is usually around 6?

Who is The Chaos Gerbil? Is he any relation to the Platypus of Doom or the Aardvark of Despair?

Under God?

The Post had an article this past weekend about an interesting guy in Virginia this weekend. He's a Mennonite (currently practicing at a Catholic Church) who has taken it upon himself to challenge the State of Virginia and Loudon County practices which either act to "establish" religion or which place undue influence on icons such as the American flag. I thoroughly enjoyed the article and wouldn't mind hearing more from the guy himself on what motivates him. What really caught my eye, however, was this one throw away quote concerning his litigation over the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance:

"Government lawyers have argued that the recitation of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has become so routine that it holds a historical and not a religious meaning."

Is that right? Strangely enough, I seem to recall hearing any number of conservative Christians moaning that the 9th Circuit's decision that "under God" is unconstitutional is a direct assault on Christianity. The State, however, seems to be arguing that removing "under God" would instead be an assault on history. So which is it? Or is it both? Regardless, I'm glad to see a devout Christian arguing that "under God" should be removed. His religious beliefs probably won't prevent the theofascists from attacking his motives, but it might just take a little wind out of their rhetorical sails.

Flim-flam

The guys over at LGM linked to two "tests" to determine your political and personal temperament. As always, these tests capture as much about the author's temperament as your own, but in the interest of blogging trivia I give you the links and my results below. Turns out, I'm a left-wing libertarian and all-round good guy. Ahhhhh.... So nice to see someone finally recognize the truth.

Political Temperament

My results:
Economic Left/Right: -5.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.90

Analysis: Apparently, I share the same small quadrant of the four-dimensional political spectrum with none other than Mahatma Ghandi. This alone should give you pause as to the accuracy of this test.

Personal Temperament

My results:

EXTRAVERSION................58 (average)
Friendliness.............82
Gregariousness...........61
Assertiveness............61
Activity Level...........40
Excitement-Seeking.......7
Cheerfulness.............81

AGREEABLENESS...............99 (high)
Trust....................82
Morality.................97
Altruism.................86
Cooperation..............94
Modesty..................81
Sympathy.................95

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS..........78 (high)
Self-Efficacy............64
Orderliness..............83
Dutifulness..............80
Achievement-Striving.....59
Self-Discipline..........73
Cautiousness.............62

NEUROTICISM................24 (low)
Anxiety..................26
Anger....................24
Depression...............26
Self-Consciousness.......28
Immoderation.............44
Vulnerability............32

OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE.....69 (high)
Imagination..............44
Artistic Interests.......73
Emotionality.............63
Adventurousness..........40
Intellect................55
Liberalism...............86

Analysis: What can I say. This test must be right because I agree with it in a most agreeable and conscientious fashion...

Mark Souder and his gimp

Once again, House Republicans have shown their utter disregard for the democratic process and taken steps to vitiate the duly-enacted, popularly-supported firearms restrictions that are currently included in the D.C. Code. Once again, Mark Souder from Indiana, has sponsored a bill that ignores the wishes of the vast majority of DC residents and imposes his insular, conservative worldview on our city. Unlike last year, though, Souder has stepped back from repealing the city's gun laws entirely. Now he just wants to prevent the city from spending any money enforcing its gun restrictions. The effect? Basically the same.

Now, as you all know, I'm a big fan of guns. I'd love to have one of these in my closet, one of these in my living room, one of these in my bedside stand, and one of these by the bedroom door. That said, I'm an even bigger fan of democracy and representative government. If the people of D.C. resoundingly pass a law to prevent me from owning such guns, I can accept that. They've clearly stated their desire to live in a relatively gun-free environment and if I really thought living under those conditions were such a huge burden, I could move to Virginia and begin rebuilding my arsenal.

Clearly, Mr. Souder disagrees. Or, even if he doesn't disagree, we're just so easy to mess with that he can't help himself. Like so many in his party, I'm sure he views DC as his own little, quadrapalegic fuck toy. Whenever he feels a little tense, he just comes down into the basement, unstraps us from the wheelchair and jam his conservative ideas straight up our collective ass. Not only can he get his rocks off, but we can't fight back and it doesn't cost him anything at home. Do the fine people of Indiana give a flying fuck about DC? I doubt it. Chances are, they can't even find us on the map...

It pisses me off to no end to see ignoramuses like Souder messing with this city. If he were truly concerned with our safety, he'd be addressing issues like street crime, poverty, child care costs, fair wages, and other such topics that directly affect the people of DC. Solve those problems and most of the crime in DC would likely disappear. As it is, letting me carry a locked and loaded Gold Tiger Stripe Desert Eagle .50 calibre semi-auto around my house isn't going to make me any safer, and it sure as hell isn't going to improve the quality of life in the District.

O'Connor Retires

I just got word that Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement this afternoon. It comes as some surprise, as I was sure Rehnquist would go first. The next few weeks and months should be quite interesting for those who enjoy the spectacle of Supreme Court nominations. I think there will be much emphasis on spectacle. Personally, I'm just curious to see whether Bush promotes an idealogue like Luttig from the 4th, a craven henchman like Gonzales from Justice, or a well-repected albeit profoundly conservative like Michael McConnell from the 10th. I'm not making any bets, but given Bush's proclivity for radicalism and embrace of theocratic ideals, I'll give 3:1 odds that he's going to nominate someone like Luttig.