politics

There’s a good interview with Howard Dean over at LiberalOasis. Dean continues to talk a very good line — I only hope that if elected, he follows through. So far, I’ve yet to see anything to convince me he wouldn’t, but it’s quite hard to tell at this point.

While I quite honestly didn’t realize that this was much of an issue right now, I liked his response to a question about the legalization of medical marijuana:

LO: In Vermont, you opposed a bill that would have given terminally ill patients access to medicinal marijuana.

What was your rationale? As President, would you direct the FDA to objectively address this issue?

HD: My opposition to medical marijuana is based on science, not based on ideology.

More specifically, I don’t think we should single out a particular drug for approval through political means when we approve other drugs through scientific means.

When I’m President, I will require the FDA to evaluate marijuana with a double blind study with the same kinds of scientific protocols that every other drug goes through.

I’m certainly willing to abide by what the FDA says.

(via Kevin Drum)

This week’s Stranger has a good article on Howard Dean. I haven’t been following things as closely lately (I got a bit OD’d on political stuff for a bit), but he’s still the front runner for me for 2004.

The rescue of Jessica Lynch is making the rounds again, only this time with more details — according to one of the doctors at the hospital, the troops entering the hospital were firing blanks.

The doctors told us that the day before the special forces swooped on the hospital the Iraqi military had fled. Hassam Hamoud, a waiter at a local restaurant, said he saw the American advance party land in the town. He said the team’s Arabic interpreter asked him where the hospital was. “He asked: ‘Are there any Fedayeen over there?’ and I said, ‘No’.” All the same, the next day “America’s finest warriors” descended on the building.

“We heard the noise of helicopters,” says Dr Anmar Uday. He says that they must have known there would be no resistance. \”We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital.

“It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, ‘Go, go, go’, with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show – an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors.” All the time with the camera rolling.

Admittedly, this is one man’s unconfirmed word — but given that real bullets would leave holes that blanks wouldn’t, the claim could be disproved easily enough that I’m not sure he’d make it up. We’ll probably never know for sure, though.

(via Tom Tomorrow)

I’m having problems diving back into political areas at the moment, but this chart is well worth looking at.

(via Bob Harris)

One of the things that really bugs me about our current governmental system is the Electoral College. When I was growing up, democracy (and, thus, the U.S. Government) was always explained to me as one vote per citizen, majority rule. This makes sense to me.

What I’ve never understood is the Electoral College (and, therefore, I may have the following summary somewhat incorrect — please correct me if so). Rather than tallying the votes cast by the American public in a presidential election, the EC votes are used to elect the President. The number of possible EC votes is finite, determined by assigning a certain number of EC votes to each state, based roughly on its population. Furthermore, when it comes to actually casting the votes, each state puts all of its votes behind one candidate, depending on what the majority of voters in that state voted for.

For instance, Alaska has a population of roughly 500,000, and gets three electoral votes. If just over half of Alaska’s voting population votes Republican, then as far as the Electoral College is concerned, all of Alaska votes Republican, as all three EC ballots are cast for the Republican candidate.

To the right you can see a map of the United States, with each state distorted as to how many EC votes it gets. (The graphic was taken from an excellent interactive electoral map that allows you to click on each state, seeing how many EC votes it gets and switching them from Democrat to Republican to play with election possibilities.)

I have never understood why the Electoral College system was considered a good idea when it was implemented, nor why it continues to be used. The Bush/Gore upset of 2000, when Gore won the popular vote but Bush took the Electoral College (and therefore the presidency), just made it more clear to me that this is a highly imperfect system for a “democracy” to use as its voting system. My grumbling isn’t going to get the system changed, but I’d sure like to see it changed — preferably to the very simple, easy to figure out, doesn’t cause problems, one voice equals one vote.

An excellent rumination of the state of our country and our rights as individuals today, from Amy at Spiffariffic:

I hated my 8th grade Social Studies teacher with a passion, but she certainly did make one point very well: we are all supposed to be ‘Constitutional watchdogs’ (her exact choice of words). I wonder what she’s telling her mortified students now, about enemy combatants, the refusal to grant a marching permit for the peace protests in NYC, the Supreme Court upholding the ridiculous extension on copyright terms, the searching of cars at airports and the delivery of sensitive passenger data, roaming wiretaps and Carnivore, secret military tribunals for so-called ‘enemy combatants,’ the FBI investigation of people who ask for “something other than the flag” stamps at the post office and college kids who have anti-Bush posters in their dorms. Certainly the Constitution has never been followed to the letter, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating much when I say that our Constitutional rights are being removed or reduced, drastically, at an unprecended pace even, every time we turn around.

Last weekend, when Miranda was visiting, she asked me, “what’s up with all the political stuff on your site lately?” Well, Amy sums it up quite well — when this is the situation, I find it reprehensible for people not to care. To shrug their shoulders and turn away. To deem it “somebody else’s problem.” It’s in times like these that we must pay attention, and do what we can to prevent things from getting any worse, and to right the wrongs already in practice.

This may be somewhat new in my life — but it’s hardly a new idea…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

(via Damien Barrett)

You know, until just a few minutes ago, I had no idea that the ERA, giving constitutionally-protected equal rights to women, was never ratified. This completely blew my mind. Passed by the House of Representatives and by Congress in 1972, there was then a seven year deadline to get 38 states to ratify the amendment. Unfortunately, only 35 states ever did, even after Congress extended the deadline for an additional five years, until 1982.

After the deadline passed, the ERA was re-introduced to Congress in 1982, and has languished there ever since.

Currently there is a move to keep the original 35 states that ratified the amendment legally attached to the current bill, should it ever make it though Congress and the House of Representatives and go back into the state ratification phase, thanks to the “Madison Amendment” becoming the 27^th^ amendment to the Constitution, 202 years after being passed by Congress. Should that happen, though, we still need at least three more states to admit that women are equal members of society, and should be legally protected from discrimination.

So — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia — what do you say we move into the 21^st^ century and get the ERA passed?

(via Bob Harris, mentioning the death of Martha Griffiths, who spent most of her life championing equal rights for women)