Monthly Archives: May 2009

Socioculture

Posted by jdewitte on

“In a sense, petitioners’ and the Attorney General’s complaint is that it is just too easy to amend the California Constitution through the initiative process. But it is not a proper function of this court to curtail that process; we are constitutionally bound to uphold it.“

There’s the problem. As long as the people of California continue to support ballot initiatives over representation, there ain’t much the courts are going to be able to do about the results either way.

A particularly nasty Twitter message gave me pause:
“So if a majority of Californians vote to legalize the hunting of gays for sport, will the Supreme Court uphold that, too?”

These days, if they actually got it on a ballot, I wouldn’t bet against it.

Politics

Posted by jdewitte on

Let’s all just admit yes, it was torture, and we don’t do that anymore. This endless debate on whether it might have been effective is pointless. David Brooks wrote a great column in the NY Times explaining that Cheney and his ilk fell out of favor four years ago. The fact that he keeps spouting this mouthbreathing bully nonsense only matters if you take the bait – ‘gee, I think it’s torture, and useless, but maybe he’s got a point…’ – Nooooooo!!

“When Cheney lambastes the change in security policy, he’s not really attacking the Obama administration. He’s attacking the Bush administration. In his speech on Thursday, he repeated in public a lot of the same arguments he had been making within the Bush White House as the policy decisions went more and more the other way.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/opinion/22brooks.html?em

Crime & Punishment

Posted by jdewitte on

What to do with sex offenders who have served their full sentence? Gee, Florida’s got an idea…

“State prison officials and probation officers are not happy about the situation under the bridge. They believe it is leading sex offenders to stop registering with the state and go underground.”

“How is it that an army of angry homeless sex offenders who are roaming our streets [makes] us safer?” – State Sen. David Aronberg

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104150499

Thanks to Jim.

Politics

Posted by jdewitte on

Meg Whitman is going to run for Governor of California. I’m not the world’s biggest Arnold fan, but we could’ve done worse. Term limits are still a good idea? Let the circus begin!

“Meg Whitman has already committed four million dollars of her own money to making herself governor, and the only person who’s talking about her is me, and I ran out of things to say days ago.

“She’s hinted that she’ll spend another $40 million, and that’s good. Let’s get that money back in circulation. Don’t think of her as a malevolent cipher on a midlife ego trip. Think of her as a stimulus package. For the advertising and consulting industries.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/25-random-things-about-me_b_167161.html

Socioculture / Politics

Posted by jdewitte on

Wayne Kramer of MC5 fame has written a great essay about a concert he put together at Sing Sing to call attention to the failure of The War On Drugs. Hopefully some of it will be featured on an upcoming PBS documentary he’s scoring.

“You would have to be living on the moon to not know what a disaster the “War On Drugs” has been. Twenty billion dollars a year for the last 30 years, two million Americans in prison — 60% of them non-violent drug offenders — and you can go out on any American street corner and buy cheaper, higher quality heroin and cocaine than you could anywhere in America 30 years ago.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-kramer/my-return-to-prison-views_b_204077.html