Critical Exponent

To get a change in policy, one must shift the window of what is feasible politically:

Since commonly held ideas, attitudes and presumptions frame what is politically possible and create the “window,” a change in the opinions held by politicians and the people in general will shift it. Move the window of what is politically possible and those policies previously impractical can become the next great popular and legislative rage.

Sen. Kennedy, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, shows how the judicial confirmation process has been badly damaged in the Bush administration, with candidates’ opaqueness and promises of fair-mindedness being no more than empty promises abandoned for partisan agendas once on the bench:

[T]he careful, bipartisan [judicial confirmation] process of years past — like so many checks and balances rooted in our Constitution — has been badly broken by the current Bush administration. The result has been the confirmation of two justices, John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., whose voting record on the court reflects not the neutral, modest judicial philosophy they promised the Judiciary Committee, but an activist’s embrace of the administration’s political and ideological agenda.

Now that the votes are in from their first term, we can see plainly the agenda that Roberts and Alito sought to conceal from the committee. Our new justices consistently voted to erode civil liberties, decrease the rights of minorities and limit environmental protections. At the same time, they voted to expand the power of the president, reduce restrictions on abusive police tactics and approve federal intrusion into issues traditionally governed by state law.

He goes on to discuss how the nomination process should be reformed:

The discussion should start with a few truths. First, any qualified nominee to the Supreme Court will have spent many years thinking about legal issues. We should require that nominees share that thinking with the Judiciary Committee, and not pretend that such candor is tantamount to prejudging specific cases. In particular, the Senate should have the same access to the nominee’s writings as the administration.

Apparently, justices in Washington State are elected, which brings in an interesting factor into an analysis of the decision. How much of it was election-year pandering?

Dan Savage had much earlier scheduled an interview with the Chief Justice for the The Stranger’s endorsement issue. It just so happened that the decision was handed down the day before. You can hear the Stranger Election Control Board grilling Chief Justice Alexander here.

I propose we lobby Congress to submit the Equal Marriage Amendment for consideration by the states:

Section 1. The right of two individuals to enter into or dissolve a civil marriage, with all its attendant rights and responsibilites, shall not be denied or abridged on account of either participant’s sex.

Section 2. This article shall not be construed as obliging private institutions or faiths to recognize any marriages.

Section 3. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Here’s the story from Seattle P-I

Among other things, the majority denies equal protection claims and finds that the legislature may have rational grounds for DOMA– such as procreation. What a bunch of BS.

Sigh.

Here’s Justice Bridge’s dissent:

What we are called upon to do here is address the availability of the civil contract of marriage—the only characterization of the issue presented that permits governmental intrusion into what is otherwise a personal, private relationship between two people. The State’s intrusion is governed by the articles of our constitution. What we ought not to address is marriage as the sacrament or religious rite—an area into which the State is not entitled to intrude at all and which is governed by articles of faith. What we have not done is engage in the kind of critical analysis the makers of our constitution contemplated when interpreting the limits on governmental intrusion into private civil affairs; what we have done is permit the religious and moral strains of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to justify the State’s intrusion. As succinctly put by amici the Libertarian Party of Washington State and the Log Cabin Republicans of Washington: “To ban gay civil marriage because some, but not all, religions disfavor it, reflects an impermissible State religious establishment.” Amicus Curiae Br. of the Libertarian Party of Washington State et al. at 11. After all, we permit civil divorce though many religions prohibit it—why such fierce protection of marriage at its beginning but not its end?

He goes on to state:

Whatever bases the plurality and Justice J.M. Johnson’s concurrence assert to support the DOMA, the legislative history of the law reveals that it stems, in substantial part, from thinly-veiled animosity against a minority group, animosity that is rooted in moral and religious objections to same-sex relationships. Its very title asserts as much—“defense” of marriage—“defense” from what? Against whom? The DOMA ought to be recognized for the discriminatory enactment that it is, and rejected as such.

To many, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages are contrary to religious teachings. But none of the plaintiffs in the cases before us today seek acceptance of same-sex marriage within a particular religious community. They seek access to civil marriage. Some churches and religious organizations may refuse to solemnize same-sex unions, and that is their right in the free exercise of religion under our constitution. A religious or moral objection to same-sex marriage is not, however, a legitimate state interest that can support the DOMA…

However, religious restrictions on the institution of marriage have never governed civil marriage in this country, nor would it be constitutionally permissible for them to do so. For example, historically many religions have strictly forbidden marriage outside of the denomination, but these churches could not prevent interdenominational civil marriages because “marriage was [ultimately] a state matter, not subject to . . . religious restrictions.” CHAUNCEY, supra, at 80-81 (citing The Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law (1918) and statements issued by protestant denominations forbidding marriage to Catholics). This court cannot endorse the use of state law to impose religious sensibilities or religiously-based moral codes on others’ most intimate life decisions. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 571; see also CHAUNCEY, supra, at 85-86. The DOMA reflects a religious viewpoint; religious doctrine should not govern state regulation of civil marriage.

Anyway, this dissent is worth reading carefully.

International feuds explained.

Middle East quarrels clarified.

From The Boston Globe:

He was a fin-de-siècle Lance Armstrong, celebrated in the streets of Paris for his blinding speed and his unflinching endurance. He was a black world champion, a decade before legendary heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson. He was an athletic prodigy akin to Tiger Woods, a quietly defiant racial pacesetter almost a half-century before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line.

His name was Major Taylor , one of the world’s greatest cyclists during the sport’s heyday at the beginning of the 20th century, when people would flock to velodromes by the thousands to see the “Worcester Whirlwind” outpedal white competitors for lucrative purses.

Remember Jim Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies? He was the one that the Bush administration tried to silence after he gave a public warning that the current rate of fossil fuel use will make the earth into “a different planet.”

Hansen’s work is the subject of an article in Technology Review that explains how danegrously close we are to the point of no return. Look at this graph. It appears that every 100,000 years, small oscillations in the earth’s orbit cause minute changes in the amount of, and larger changes in the distribution of, sunlight on the earth. These changes caused natural fluctuactions in carbon dioxide levels, which in turn led to temperature fluctuations on the order of 5°C, enough to change ocean levels by 100 meters. It appears we are in the middle of such a natural fluctuation right now.

Now look at the very right edge of the graph. Carbon dioxide levels have skyrocketed since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This is clearly not part of any natural cycle– and is a harbinger of dire consequences:

Owing to greenhouse changes we have already incurred, Hansen told his audience in San Francisco, Earth’s temperature will rise about 0.5 ºC in the next 50 years even if we stop burning fossil fuels today. We’re on a slippery slope: we could cross a threshold that leads to a drastically different planet, half a century before knowing that we’ve done so. Hansen believes we are horrifyingly close to such a threshold, and that we will cross it if we don’t change our greenhouse ways within the next few years.

Earth is now passing upward through the highest temperatures of the past 12,000 years, and the half a degree that is already in the pipeline will bring temperatures within half a degree of the high points they have reached only a few times in the past two million years. During a warm period about 120,000 years ago, for example, sea levels were probably five or six meters higher than they are today.

Running future emissions scenarios on a GISS computer model, Hansen finds that if we remain on the path he calls “business as usual,” temperatures will rise between two and three degrees this century, making Earth as warm as it was about three million years ago, when the seas were between 15 and 35 meters higher than they are today. There go many major cities and the dwellings of about half a billion people.

The current issue of Technology Review is dedicated to the climate crisis and how the technologies exist to slow down human-induced climate change: time is running out, but it’s not too late yet.

Finally, to the skeptics who refuse to accept these conclusions and are happy to proceed with business as usual, I offer this: No one debates that modern technological advances, and in particular industrialization, change the environment (think strip mining, deforestation) and pollute the atmosphere (think smokestacks) and the oceans (think chemical effluvia). Surely all those byproducts will have some sort of effect, don’t you think? It’s not impossible that the scientists who have spent countless careers studying these phenomena could be wrong, but are you willing to take the chance that maybe, just maybe, they’re right? If we as a species clean up after ourselves and leave the natural world no worse than we found it, then, and only then, can we rest assured that climate fluctuations are not due to our activities.

It’s hot in Boston. I wish we could set up a beach on the Charles, just like Paris did on the Seine.

The House just voted to bar federal courts from hearing Pledge of Allegiance cases. Aside from the sheer inanity of grandstanding for God and country instead of solving pressing issues that affect people’s lives (say, oh, the Iraq war, health care, minimum wage), this is a frontal assault on the Constitutional separation of powers.

Contrary to conservatives’ propaganda, the courts do not exist to rubberstamp the legislature or referenda. They exist to interpret cases in view of the law, and the law in view of Constitutional principles. This is Civics 101, which apparently many a member of Congress slept through. Seeking to limit matters that may be brought before the courts is the beginning of a slippery slope towards theocracy. (Side note: isn’t it funny how the conservatives uttered not one peep about the “activist judges” who ruled against gay marriage in New York and Georgia?)

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. Matthew 6:5