Later On

Maybe Megs will return in the morning.

Thanks to Constant Reader for this:

I can’t find Megs anywhere. She was here last night, and I feel sure that I didn’t let her out—but she’s nowhere in the apartment that I can find. I’ve been around the apartment building and into the garage, rattling kibble in her food dish. Nothing. As it cools down and gets near dusk, I’ll walk around again. I can’t imagine where she is.

I finally did get my router up and running, but the little netbook seems to have a flakey connection. I’ll work on it.

Marci Hamilton at FindLaw:

Based on an unscientific survey of everyone with whom I have spoken in recent months, I have come to the conclusion that there is an untold story that would shock the vast majority of Americans. Pieces of it have appeared in various publications, but never the whole story. It is the story of the New York Catholic Conference’s outrageous measures to stop the reform of New York’s laws that govern child sex abuse.

The bottom line is that the Catholic bishops have committed both themselves and their copious resources to becoming the political enemies of all child sex abuse victims and thus the political allies of all child predators (whether they be priests, teachers, or uncles).

The Child Victims Act and the New York Conference’s Aggressive Opposition

The proposed Child Victims Act (CVA) is currently being considered in the New York State legislature, which is expected to hold several special sessions this fall in the wake of its recent, circus-like sessions in May and June. The CVA would modestly extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse – by five years for both civil and criminal claims – as well as open a "window" for all past victims to be able to go to court for one year despite the currently expired statutes of limitations on their claims.

As I have discussed in previous columns such as this one, this kind of window legislation has already been enacted in other states, where it has led to the public identification of previously unknown child predators.

The CVA’s most active opponent is the New York Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm for the Roman Catholic bishops. (Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups have tagged onto the Conference, but the vast majority of Orthodox and other Jewish groups have chosen to side with the victims, as has the National Black Church Initiative.) While other state Catholic Conferences have fought such legislation, the New York group has let no ethical or humane interest stand in its way, hiring numerous top-dollar, seasoned lobbyists to try to kill the CVA through one devious approach after another. Also new in New York is the willingness of the bishops themselves to publicly rail against statute of limitations reform as though it were the equivalent of mandatory abortion.

The Hardball Political Tactics the Conference Has Used to Oppose the CVA

Last fall, as the New York Post has reported, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio personally threatened legislators that he would close parishes and schools in their district if they voted in favor of the CVA – in other words, if they simply took the side of child sex abuse victims on a statute of limitations bill that would publicly identify child perpetrators.

In addition, …

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Sounds like an interesting book:

When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage
by M V Badgett

A review by Sal Renshaw

Amid the intense controversy still surrounding same-sex marriage in the U.S., M.V. Lee Badgett speaks in a refreshingly tempered voice. Drawing on European precedents, particularly in the Netherlands and Denmark, her research tells us what many of us already knew: The skies don’t fall when gay couples attain the right to marry, and heterosexual marriage doesn’t lose its luster. Since the first wave of the marriage equality movement in Europe, which began in 1989 with the Danish acceptance of civil unions and saw the Dutch allow same-sex couples to marry in 2001, there has been no appreciable difference in wedding rates among heterosexuals. Badgett discovered that same-sex couples define marriage the same way as do heterosexuals, and they marry for similar reasons: public affirmation and recognition of their commitment, economic security and considerations about children. Given the choice between marriage and registered partnership, they choose the former. Using European examples as a template, Badgett offers a way of thinking more rationally about same-sex equality in the U.S.

If rationality and truth were what the debate here is actually about, there might be more hope for her work’s impact — which is not to be taken as a criticism of the book itself. It’s a fine piece of social-science research, painstakingly detailed and compelling in its findings. But the debate in the U.S., thus far, has proven remarkably resistant to the cool voice of reason. Americans’ opposition to same-sex marriage is founded on religious ideology and faith, as was also the case with the Europeans. The vital difference, however, lies in the much closer ties between religion and politics in the U.S…

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Did you know that 16% of the population of the US can elect 68 Senators? That is a majority large enough to override a presidential veto? That’s because the 34 smallest states have 68 Senators but only 31.69% of the population—so 16% of the population (a large voting majority of those states, since the total population includes many ineligible to vote—children, for example—and many who don’t bother to vote; indeed, if only 50% of voters bother to vote (which is about right), then 9% of the population could elect those 68 Senators.

Another way to look at it: the 23 smallest states have 13.59% of the US population—and 46 Senators. Coincidentally, African Americans are 13.5% of the population. If the Senate had 46 African American Senators, what would you think if someone said, "That seems about right: they’re 13.5% of the population"?

I’ve blogged about this before, and today in the Washington Post Alec MacGillis has a column on the topic:

Wonder why President Obama is having a hard time enacting his agenda after sweeping to victory and with large congressional majorities on his side?

Look to the Senate, the chamber designed to thwart popular will.

There is much grousing on the left about the filibuster, the threat of which has taken such hold that routine bills now need 60 votes. Getting less attention is the undemocratic character of the Senate itself.

Why, for example, have even Democratic senators been resistant on health-care reform? It might be because so many of the key players represent so few of the voters who carried Obama to victory — and so few of the nation’s uninsured. The Senate Finance Committee’s "Gang of Six" that is drafting health-care legislation that may shape the final deal — without a public insurance option — represents six states that are among the least populous in the country: Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Maine, New Mexico and Iowa.

Between them, those six states hold 8.4 million people — less than New Jersey — and represent 3 percent of the U.S. population. North Dakota and Wyoming each have fewer than 80,000 uninsured people, in a country where about 47 million lack insurance. In the House, those six states have 13 seats out of 435, 3 percent of the whole. In the Senate, those six members are crafting what may well be the blueprint for reform.

Climate change legislation, which passed in the House, also faces daunting odds. Why? Because agriculture, coal and oil interests hold far more sway in the Senate. In the House, the big coal state of Wyoming has a single vote to New York’s 29 and California’s 53. In the Senate, each state has two. The two Dakotas (total population: 1.4 million) together have twice as much say in the Senate as does Florida (18.3 million) or Texas (24.3 million) or Illinois (12.9 million).

Was this really what the founders had in mind? One popular story tells of Thomas Jefferson asking George Washington what the Senate’s purpose is. "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" Washington asked in return. "To cool it," Jefferson replied. To which Washington said, "Even so, we pour legislation in the senatorial saucer to cool it." A nice tale. But what if the coffee gets so cold that no one bothers to drink it? Or if the Senate takes its coffee black in a country that opted overwhelmingly for sugar and cream?

Kent Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota (pop. 641,481, third smallest), chairman of the Budget Committee and one of the Gang of Six, does not see any problem. Asked whether it is appropriate that his vote counts as much as those of senators from states 20 times as large, he was flummoxed. "One would hope that people would support the Constitution of the United States," said Conrad, who was reelected with 150,000 votes in 2006, when Virginia’s Jim Webb needed 1.2 million votes to win. "This was the grand bargain that was struck when the Founding Fathers determined the structure and form of the United States Congress." He added: "Are you proposing changing the Constitution?"

Well, maybe. Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with taking a closer look at how things came to be the way they are…

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I’ve already posted my theory about a world government arising following global war and environmental catastrophe caused by climate change, peak oil, water shortages, and crop failures. And the military seems to have thoughts about that as well. John Broder in the NY Times:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

An exercise last December at the National Defense University, an educational institute that is overseen by the military, explored the potential impact of a destructive flood in Bangladesh that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring India, touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure. “It gets real complicated real quickly,” said Amanda J. Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, who is working with a Pentagon group assigned to incorporate climate change into national security strategy planning.

Much of the public and political debate on global warming has focused on finding substitutes for fossil fuels, reducing emissions that contribute to greenhouse gases and furthering negotiations toward an international climate treaty — not potential security challenges.

But a growing number of policy makers say that the world’s rising temperatures, surging seas and melting glaciers are a direct threat to the national interest.

If the United States does not lead the world in reducing fossil-fuel consumption and thus emissions of global warming gases, proponents of this view say, a series of global environmental, social, political and possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to address…

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Guess we still have the spectacle of a President deciding which laws he will obey and which he will ignore. I sure thought we were done with that. Congress needs to pass a law outlawing signing statements given that they are being so misused. If Obama thinks the law is bad, he should veto it, not just unilaterally decide that he won’t obey it.

Charlie Savage in the NY Times :

President Obama has issued signing statements claiming the authority to bypass dozens of provisions of bills enacted into law since he took office, provoking mounting criticism by lawmakers from both parties.

President George W. Bush, citing expansive theories about his constitutional powers, set off a national debate in 2006 over the propriety of signing statements — instructions to executive officials about how to interpret and put in place new laws — after he used them to assert that he could authorize officials to bypass laws like a torture ban and oversight provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

In the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama called Mr. Bush’s use of signing statements an “abuse,” and said he would issue them with greater restraint. The Obama administration says the signing statements the president has signed so far, challenging portions of five bills, have been based on mainstream interpretations of the Constitution and echo reservations routinely expressed by presidents of both parties.

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I must clean up the kitchen, a task I’ve learned to approach with respect: get my MP3 player, put on the headphones, don’t rush, and plug away at it. But before I depart, I thought I’d blog some stuff that caught my eye.

Part of the late start is that I’m reading (on my Kindle) the fascinating book The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright, who traces how the idea of God has evolved as human society has developed. Well worth reading.

The gravlax is looking good. At 4:00 p.m., I turn it over, add a little more dill, and press it for 12 more hours (at least). So I can have it for breakfast tomorrow. I probably should run out and get a bagel, cream cheese, and more tomato—I do have red onion and capers.