Awake

I'm awake, so I may as well post.

Arial and I have been talking about the Blockbuster lawsuit that was just settled. The lawsuit claimed that the "No more late fees" ad campaign was illegal since you can't keep the movies that you rent forever.

Basically, the suit was brought by an idiot too stupid to know that they are proclaiming to the world "I don't understand how business works! I'm dumb!"

The first thing that we did when we heard about the "No more late fees" thing was to grab a pamphlet to see how it worked. If you don't know, it works something like this (I'm working from memory so it might not be exactly right): You get a week grace period after the due date to return the movie. If you don't, they charge your credit card the price of the movie. If you bring it back within a month (or a week or something), they will take the charge off the card but charge you a restocking fee. Otherwise, you now own it.

We were happy about this because we can manage to bring a movie back in a week. Before this whole thing, we would get hit with late fees for returning movies minutes after noon on the due date. But not anymore. It was great.

But then someone had to ruin it for the rest of us.

They are now offering refunds to people who were charged a restocking fee. We think that in order for people to get the money back they should be required to stand on a chair in the middle of the store and yell "My stupidity has become so debilitating that I can't read a pamphlet!"

Just a thought.

mwz
222

Whatever

So I'm going to do a Terri Schiavo post. I'm sorry.

What I find sickening about this whole ordeal is how peoples opinions seem to fall down party lines. If I hear one more liberal say "permanent vegitative state" or one more conservative say that this is a "right to life" issue, well, I'll cringe just like the last hundred times it happened.

To me there are two important issues that drive to the core of this whole thing:

1. Did she really not want to be allowed to live in her present state?
2. Is it morally okay to dehydrate a person to death?

I don't really see how a person could answer those questions based on their political beliefs. Basically, you believe the husband or you don't. I don't see how your stance on the financial policy should affect that.

--STOP READING NOW--

I didn't think I wanted to do this but what the heck. I don't think the husband has her best interests in mind. Apparently, he was able to hire a great lawyer for the court hearing that decided Terri's wishes. He had just recieved $300K from the malpractice lawsuit. Her parents however had to beg an inexperienced lawyer to help them. Given a fair fight who knows what the judge would have ruled her wishes to be.

I am also of the opinion that if you are going to euthanize someone, just do it. It's one thing to shut off a respirator but don't pretend that keeping food and water from someone isn't killing them. Not to mention that some people might think providing food and water to people on death row is an "extraordinary measure". It's not like your actually killing them.

Okay. I'm sorry.

mwz
222

Change in Blogroll

Well, it's time to update my blogroll. I have heard about Oliver Willis from both sides of the 'sphere (note how cool I am for abreviating blogosphere) and decided that I should check him out.

I've been reading his blog "Oliver Willis - Like Kryptonite to Stupid" and have decided it's a keeper, for a little while at least.

Basically, it could be subtitled "Like Kryptonite to Stupid People" because unable to fend off the idiocy, the stupid people will be left weaker (and less informed). I enjoy it because it doesn't take much thought power to discount each post. It's basically just silly partisan banter and pathetic "I told you so"s to straw men. Most importantly, it makes me feel smart.

On another note, I'm dropping two of my conservative blogs, Bob Kohn and The National Debate. Neither have posted in a while. The National Debate came out and said that they were done. Bob Kohn was sort of losing my interest before he lost interest.

This brings the tally to 4 conservative blogs and 3 liberal blogs.

mwz
222

Why does Evee Cry?

Every night, usually just after we go to bed, Evee lets out a series of sad meows. She normally starts on the first floor, although she could start in the basement since I doubt we would be able to hear that. She then meows all the way up to the second floor.

It's like she's looking for something or someone.

It's certainly not us that she's looking for. When I go find her, she acts like she normally acts (moderately interested but a little nervous). She does stop meowing but she doesn't look pleased at my presence.

We got her from the APL (pound) when she was about a year old. The only thing we know about her previous home is they gave her a stupid name ('Diva') and that they were the kind of people who want a kitten but don't want a cat. I often wonder if someone there beat her because she is a nervous kitty and is incredibly afraid of the broom.

But maybe there was someone there that she loved and now she calls for that person or cat every night.

It makes me sad.

mwz
221

Misc.

I don't know how to spell misc. without abreviating it, so I don't try. Of course I could use google to find out but I'm also lazy.

If the word "papa" was sounded out by a series of clicks and smacking sounds, I would swear that Frances was saying it.

The NCAA tournanemt has made me realize why I don't watch basketball during the regular season. It's so boring until the final minute. It's not like football or baseball where the game can drasticly change in one play. It's just back and forth, back and forth. I realize that there is a lot going on in each exchange but who cares. Basketball is much more fun to play than to watch.

We just signed up for the blockbuster movie pass again. This time it's cheaper ($15) but we only get one movie out at a time. We've gotten to the point that renting movies what we do when we want to "do something". I guess that's was parenthood is like.

mwz
217

Judicial Term Limits

Okay, so this guy, Gary Becker wrote an article on his blog that argues for term limits. I probably wouldn't have taken note but I saw commentary on two different blogs; Powerline and a guest blogger, Brad Plummer, at Washington Monthly. Mr. Plummers argument was weird, so I decided I wanted to point out why I thought so.

Mr. Becker's original article is not very long, so I would encourage you to read the whole thing. The following is the meat of the article:

There is no perfect system for handling these responsibilities of the judiciary, and the lifetime approach worked well enough during earlier times when far fewer issues came before the court, and Justices did not stay on for so long. But the average tenure of a Supreme Court Justice has increased from about 16 years to almost 26 years, and the average age at retirement grew from about 70 years old to 80. The nine present Justices of the Supreme Court have served together for the longest time in America’s history, some 10 years, with the last appointment made in 1994.

Given their desire to influence future Court decisions, presidents are appointing younger Justices who will be able to affect judicial decisions for 40 years or more. Moreover, the prestige and power of a Justice is so great, and the workload so low- a typical Justice writes about one opinion per month, and much of that is usually done by outstanding clerks- that they have little work incentive to retire before death or severe incapacity.

Do we really want 80 year olds, who have been removed from active involvement in other work or activities for decades, and who receive enormous deference, in large measure because of their great power, to be greatly influencing some of the most crucial social, economic, and political issues? My answer is no, and Posner seems to agree, at least for Supreme Court Justices.

There are three main points that I can pick out:

1. Supreme Court Justices used to serve 16 years on average. Now they serve nearly 26 years on average.
2. Presidents want to affect decisions long into the future, so they are appointing younger people to the court.
3. Since they have a lifetime tenure and are serving longer, they can become distanced from the people who are affected by their decisions. Plus, there is no recourse for when they start inflicting their will on the country.

He then backs a proposal for 18 year limit for a justice (although he presents some other permutations).

To me this idea sounds reasonable. By limiting their service, there won't be any pressure to nominate younger, less experienced candidates. I'm assuming that there are more than 9 great judges in the country at any given time, so it really shouldn't matter from a competency standpoint.

So what does our friend Mr. Plumer think is wrong with this plan. (I'll take them point by point.)

The first thing that catches my eye is that, with 18-year terms, any two-term president would have the chance to nominate four Supreme Court judges. (Clinton, by contrast, only got two picks, and Reagan only three.)

To this I say that I'm sorry that they got cheated out of nominating chances. His argument is that possibly getting to nominate four justices is too much power.

I've got to call him on that. When the average length of stay was 16 years, then some presidents must have gotten to name four right? What about before there were term limits on presidents? They would have had the chance to nominate a bunch. Not to mention there is always the chance that ALL the justices decide to retire or die during a single term president's time. Then that single term president would nominate them all and they would serve for a long, long time before anyone else could get to them.

He really seems to prefer the luck of the draw approach that it is now, rather than the steady distribution of choices among different presidents.

[T]he presidential election is way too crude a process to represent the "will of the people". After all, it's the only time the entire nation can get together and vote, collectively, on a national representative, as opposed to a local one. And yet we're voting for a person who a) conducts foreign policy, b) essentially sets the domestic agenda, and c) picks judges. Now there's no way majority preferences can manifest themselves coherently in one single person. Just because the voting public selects three Republican presidents in a row, for instance, doesn't always mean the majority "wants" six conservative judges on the court, which Becker's proposal would entail.

Umm... that is how our system works. The people get together and elect our president and some congresspeople. Then the president nominates justices and the congresspeople give them the ye or nay. That's how it works.

I don't understand his position. If electing three Republican presidents in a row gives them six judicial nominees, then maybe the Dems could win them back by winning three other presidential elections. It would be more like a pendulum.

As it is, we have to live with the "will of the people" from a long time ago.

Baby power

Last night, Arial informed me that Frances can roll a ball back to you. So we tried it. Frances and I sat across from each other and we rolled the ball to each other. Her rolls weren't the greatest (but she's only 8 months old). It was really cool to be able to play with her (in a way that didn't involve holding things for her to look at or touch).

On a similar note, I have been very greatful that she isn't terribly strong. I think that if babies were stronger, there would be a lot more parents missing eyes and lower lips.

mwz
214

Middle East

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Baths

The first bath we gave Frances, she liked. Ever since then, baths have fluxuated between barely tolerable to excruciating horror. But now that she has outgrown the baby bathtub and is in the regular tub, she has started to actually enjoy baths. It is nice to be able to clean our baby and not feel like we are torturing her.

mwz
213

Crazy Thought

Okay, (I like to start posts off with "Okay", it gets me in the mood to write) so I have this idea. It's not a great idea and it has some flaws. It's the kind of idea that will keep me from ever getting elected to public office anywhere but maybe in Texas. Fortunately, I don't ever plan to run for office.

I was thinking about the irony of making sure that people on death row don't commit suicide. It's the whole thing where the state doesn't want to be deprived of killing them, or something.

So here's the idea: we let people on death row or have life sentences kill themselves if they want to. Only people who are going to spend the rest of their lives in prison would be eligible. They could go to the prison doctor and get OD'd with morphine or some other drug. This would save a quite a bit of money from not having to hear appeals or housing these people and it would save some the prisoners the suffering of living long lives in prison. Arguably, it is cruel and unusual punishment to make someone live when they don't want to.

Obviously, there are problems with this. Three in particular.

1. I believe (as many other people do) that if you commit suicide, you go to hell. So by allowing these people to kill themselves, you are letting them go to hell, which is a moral sticking point. This could be countered by saying that these people are making the choice on their own and it isn't the governments job to make sure that people go to heaven.

2. This could be abused by guards and wardens just to kill prisoners. There would have to be forms to fill out and signatures to be collected. It would probably be best if there was a third party that would be required to be present (like the prisoners lawyer) to make sure that the prisoner wasn't forced to do this.

3. The prisoner could be pressured into doing it by the people in charge. Since it would be beneficial to the state to have one less prisoner, careful monitoring would have to take place. You would want the prisoner in question to go through some sort of counseling to talk about the risks (dieing or maybe not dieing) and maybe even the spiritual risks (going to hell) that the person is taking. There would have to be a whole process.

Well, that's my imperfect idea.

mwz
213

City Annexing

Okay, I don't live in the Omaha area but I used to. So when I heard about this story, it caught my interest. So I thought I would write about it.

Omaha is trying to annex Elkhorn, a small city that has essentially become a suburb. Their city council just voted 7-0 to annex Elkhorn. This might not be a problem, except that the people of Elkhorn don't want to be annexed. I can understand that. As a citizen, I wouldn't want to give my money to a government in exchange for less representation. It just seems wrong that a city can invade a neighboring city.

To research this, I took a peak at the Omaha World Herald. They get my appreciation and respect for having their newspaper on line, available without registering or a subscription. They have had great coverage of this issue (and it seems to have been pretty balanced coverage as well).

My first question was "Why does Omaha want to annex Elkhorn?" I assumed the answer was to get their money and get more power for the Omaha government. With that answer, I asked "What reasons are they using to justify the land grab?" This opinion piece answered that question nicely.

Reasons to invade a neighboring city (as parsed from the opinion piece in the Omaha World Herald):

1. Not being able to grow, limits the resources that it can use to "sustain its core". "A sprouting tree cannot maintain its health if the trunk is allowed to rot."
2. The main city is the only reason that people want to live in the 'burb, so you owe us the money that you make on those people.
3. Maintaining the "core" city is in everyone's interest.
4. The suburb my annex other smaller 'burbs and take those away from the main city, too.

So, maybe 1 and 3 are the same but I think that those are the most persuasive of the arguments. If you bind a city, what happens to it. Does it die, as the article I've sited suggests? Yep. That's why Chicago is just an empty wasteland. I would give more counter examples but I don't know that much about cities other than Cleveland which is dieing because it hasn't yet moved out of the industrial revolution economy. The underlying idea behind reasons 1 and 3 is that they are unable to effectively use what they have, so they need to go get more.

Reason number 2 is basically envy. If Omaha could provide suitable housing and decent schools, those new people would move into the city rather than in the suburbs. It just seems like the Omaha government wants to have all the benefits of running a major city without any of the drawbacks.

Finally, reason number 4 is almost laughable. What I have gathered (which could be wrong), is that Elkhorn is only trying to annex smaller towns BECAUSE Omaha is trying to annex it. If they can get their population up to 10,000 people (currently ~8,000), then any annexing would have to go to a popular vote in their city. In essence allowing the people the right to choose which government they want without Omaha strong arming them.

I've seen a couple places where it was pointed out that Elkhorn is trying to annex other communities, trying to point out the hypocrisy. Here is a nice cartoon. But it is sort of like attacking a pacifist and crying foul when they fight to defend themselves.

It's not over though. Two law suits have been filed to stop the annexation (described in this article). The arguments of the suit brought by the city of Elkhorn are as follows (cribbed from the article above):

1. The city council meeting where the vote took place was illegal since not enough notice was given.
2. (This is my favorite.) The cities don't have a common border. They are 1.4 miles apart.
3. Elkhorn started their annexing first (a defensive move to try to block the announced plans to annex Elkhorn), so those should be resolved first before Omaha's annex attempt takes effect.

The other law suit, brought on behalf of two citizens, is basically a procedural issue that causes the people of Elkhorn not to be able to vote in the Omaha spring elections (even though they would be a part of Omaha). That one bores me. But the city of Elkhorn suit is much more fun.

I love that the cities don't touch. 1.4 miles is a good stretch of land. I don't know who controls that land but maybe Omaha should have gone about their power grab in a reasonable order.

I just think the whole thing stinks. Apparently, in Nebraska it is lawful for a large city to take control of all the little cities they want (as long as they are in the same county, of course).

Let's take a moment and move this issue on to a grander scale. Let's say this was the European Union. Would it be okay if Belgium to annex Luxemburg without the people's consent just because Luxemburg is so small? What about if Belgium was growing stagnant and the only reason people live in Luxemburg is to be near Belgium? No, that would basically be an act of war. But it is somehow okay for cities to eat other cities.

That's basically it but I wanted to add this little tidbit. The reason I heard about this was a friend in the area mentioned it to me. He said that he learned about it by listening to the local liberal radio. I don't know why this would be a liberal vs conservative issue. I'm just reporting the facts... er... the hearsay.

The radio people have been making fun of the Elkhorn people because the radio guys think that the reason they don't want to be a part of Omaha is because their racist and don't want black people moving into their town. First off, I don't understand how race is even an issue in this but it doesn't surprise me that liberals are bringing it up. Second, I don't see how being part of Omaha on paper changes the demographics of who lives in Elkhorn. Let's say they are racist bastards, why would they think that annexation cause ethnic people to move in? It doesn't make sense. I think this is just a case of trying to smear people on the other side of an issue. (On a side note, have you ever noted that both conservatives and liberals think that the other side is anti-Semitic?)

Oh, I almost forgot. If you feel strongly about this issue, you can contact the mayor of Omaha, Mayor Fahey with the following contact information. I already have.

mfahey@ci.omaha.ne.us
1819 Farnam St
Suite 300
Omaha NE 68183

Please post comments if you have something to add... either side of the debate.

mwz
216

Bababadadadada

My baby has a new consenent. It is "D". Oh, it's very exciting because it means that she says, "dada". This as we all know, means that I won the time honored tradition of rooting for the baby to make sounds that indicate the parent of your gender. Moms are supposed to root for "mama" and fathers root for "dada".

This would be even more exciting if I weren't trying to get her to call me "Papa".

We went to a baby sign language class tonight. It was free and at the library. There we found out that babies are not born knowing how to do America Sign. It turns out that BOTH the baby and the parents need to learn to sign.

Oddly enough, that reminds me. My girl is shaping up to be a great wrestler. Hopefully by the time she is in high school girls will be common place because she has some moves right now.

When I'm changing her diaper she is a master at escaping. I start her on her back and before you know it she has flipped herself over, avoiding the pin.

mwz
216

My Baby

Just a little baby blogging. Francis can now say "Babababababa". She seems to enjoy saying it and I enjoy hearing consonants.

She also made a mad dash to one of our cats and managed to touch her before the cat ran away. By mad dash, I mean relatively quick crawl while the kitty was distracted.

The last time we played the drums together, Francis held both sticks the whole time and didn't try to chew on them. She hit the drum on her own several times and only hit my face a few times.

mwz
217

Law of Unintended Consequences

Note: I tried to post this using email but it has been 12 hours since I sent it and it hasn't posted. So, I'm sorry if it double posts.

The Washington Monthly has a nice, little, well-rounded article about the "Cedar Revolution" (ie. Lebanon) and other middle East shifts and whether or not the Bush administration had anything to do with it. It is a nice piece but I only want to pick on a little piece because I have seen the same sentiment elsewhere.

"For starters, despite a fair amount of breast beating in the conservative blogosphere, the Bush administration itself didn't consider democratization a primary reason for the Iraq invasion."

The theory is that since the administration didn't 'call it', they shouldn't get credit for any involvement that they had in bringing democracy to the middle east. Now, I'm a big fan of the Law of Unintended Consequences (well not so much a fan but a believer). QandO was where I first had the Idea placed in my head. They like to bring it up.

The gist is that when you take some action (such as regulation), there are bound to be unintended consequences. Now if the those consequences are bad, everyone (including me) blames the action taker for messing things up. For instance, when it looked like the Iraqi invasion was going to bread more hate towards America (which it might still do, who knows), the Dems were quick to blame Bush.

But now that there are good, unforseen things coming out of it, I think you have to place the praise in the same place you would place the blame. This is government not pool. You don't have to call all the balls that will fall, you just do what you think is right and hope for the best.

On a completely different note, FOX News has taught me that all the important events that the rest of the world has to offer can be covered in 80 seconds.

mwz
217

New Liberal Blog

Okay, it's not new but it is new to me. Well, that's not entirely true. I was directed to it about a month ago but couldn't find the RSS feed. Now, I've found it.

What is this new miracle blog? Okay, it's not a miracle blog but it is a liberal blog that is well written and civil and not completely about one topic. It is The Washington Monthly (aka Political Animal but I think that name is stupid). It's written by Kevin Drum who seems like a nice guy.

Anyway, I like it a lot, to the point that I look forward to reading it. I don't agree with what he thinks a lot of the time but he is at least interesting. I have given it about a week before adding it here because I didn't want to go through what I did with Talking Points Memo (not related to Bill O'reilly) where I liked it initially then got really bored by it.

On a side note, Right Wing Duck has started posting on IMAO, so I don't have to read his blog specifically anymore.

On another side note, I occationally look at the site meter results to see who is looking at the page and I saw one reference was from Yahoo. Apparently, if you search for "nudity in GTA", a post of mine is the top spot. I thought that was pretty interesting.

mwz