The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Inspiring, hopeful salmon?

NPR put listener comments about the State of the Union address through a word-cloud generator and came up with this:

They explain:

Why is "salmon" so big? As The Two-Way explains, NPR's Facebook followers were referring to one of the night's humorous moments — when the president joked about the complicated and convoluted way the government regulates salmon.

"The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater," Obama said. "I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked." That last line drew big laughs from lawmakers in the Capitol.

Mmmm. Smoked salmon. Inspiring.

Emanuel on the ballot...?

After yesterday's appellate court ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to take the case immediately, but enjoined the Chicago Board of Elections from printing ballots without Emanuel's name on them:

"The Court is taking the case on the briefs filed by the parties in the appellate court," the order said. "No additional briefs will be filed in the Supreme Court. Oral argument will not be entertained."

Chicago election officials said about 300,000 ballots without Emanuel's name on them had been printed before the Supreme Court order. Those ballots will be quarantined and printing was to resume this afternoon with Emanuel's name on the ballot.

Did you hear a fat lady singing yesterday? Neither did I. Rahm Emanuel knows Malone's advice to Ness, after all.

Emanuel off the ballot...?

An Illinois Appellate Court has reversed the Chicago Board of Elections ruling allowing Rahm Emanuel to stay on our mayoral ballot next month:

Burt Odelson has argued Emanuel doesn't qualify to be on the ballot because the former White House chief of staff doesn't meet a requirement that the mayor of Chicago live in the city for one year before taking the office. "You can't mentally just have a residence," Odelson said last week after arguing before the appeals court. "You have to have a residence. You have to go somewhere."

Emanuel's attorneys have argued their client never abandoned his North Side home when he went to work in Washington, D.C. Both sides say they are prepared to take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.

In the 24-page ruling, Justices Thomas Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Hall found that Emanuel didn't meet the one-year residency period required of municipal candidates, and that his service as President Obama's chief of staff didn't land him an exception for being away from home "on the business of the United States:"

Section 3-2's "business of the United States" exception is housed not only in the Election Code, but in a portion of the Election Code dealing exclusively with voter qualification, in fact in an Article titled "Qualification of Voters." See 10 ILCS 5/3-1 through 3-5 (West 2008).

As explained above, the Municipal Code sets forth two qualifications for candidates: they must meet the Election Code’s standards for a "qualified voter," and they must have "resided in" the municipality for one year preceding the election. The location of section 3-2's "business of the United States" exception—in the Election Code, and in an article of the Election Code dedicated exclusively to voter qualification—supports the conclusion that the exception applies only to the Election Code’s "qualified voter" standard, and not to any supplemental candidate qualifications located outside the Election Code.

Justice Bertita Lampkin dissented:

The majority failed ... to move past the issue of establishing residency to the relevant analysis, which turns on whether the candidate’s residency, which he had indisputably held, was abandoned when he worked in Washington, D.C., and leased his Chicago home.

The Board’s ruling—that the candidate in 2009 and 2010 did not abandon his status as a resident of Chicago and, thus, remained a resident of Chicago even though he was largely absent from this city from January 2009 until October 1, 2010—was not clearly erroneous. Intent is an issue of fact (Delk, 112 Ill. App. 3d at 738), and the majority acknowledges that the Board’s fact findings were not against the manifest weight of the evidence. This acknowledgment should have ended this case, and resulted in this court affirming the circuit court’s judgment, which confirmed the Board’s ruling that the preponderance of the evidence established that the candidate never formed an intent to either change or terminate his residence in Chicago, or establish his residence in Washington, D.C., or any place other than Chicago.

Because the candidate had established his Chicago residency, it is presumed to continue until the contrary is shown, and the burden of proof is on the person who claims that there has been a change.

Justice Lampkin further noted:

Finally, the majority’s decision certainly “involves a question of such importance that it should be decided by the Supreme Court.” Supreme Court Rule 316 (Official Reports Advance Sheet No. 26 (Dec. 20, 2006), R. 316, eff. Dec. 6, 2006. Consequently, I believe this panel should certify this case under Supreme Court Rule 316, which would permit review of the majority’s decision in the most expeditious manner possible. The majority, however, has refused to certify this case under Rule 316. As of the writing of this dissent, there is less than one month before the election and even less time for absentee ballots to be mailed out and returned. An opinion of such wide-ranging import and not based on established law but, rather, on the whims of two judges, should not be allowed to stand.

That means the Supreme Court may not hear the case in time for the start of early voting next week.

It's a good thing for Rahmbo that "Emanuel" is easier to spell than "Murkowski."

Gentler economics

Duke's Dan Ariely suggests accepting irrationality in designing economic policies:

When it comes to designing things in our physical world, we all understand how flawed we are and design the physical world around us accordingly. We realize that we can’t run very fast or far, so we invent cars and design public transportation. We understand our physical limitations, and we design steps, electric lights, heating, cooling, etc., to overcome these deficiencies. ...

What I find amazing is that when it comes to designing the mental and cognitive realm, we somehow assume that human beings are without bounds. We cling to the idea that we are fully rational beings, and that, like mental Supermen, we can figure out anything. ...

Don’t misunderstand me, I value standard economics and I think it provides important and useful insights into human endeavors. But I also think that it is incomplete, and that accepting all economic principles on faith is ill-advised and even dangerous. If we’re going to try to understand human behavior and use this knowledge to design the world around us—including institutions such as taxes, education systems, and financial markets—we need to use additional tools and other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and philosophy.

President Johnson makes a phone call

Via Sullivan (of course), a phone conversation between LBJ and his tailor, bringing class and decorum from Texas to the Oval Office. The animator explains:

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson needed pants, so he called the Haggar clothing company and asked for some. The call was recorded (like all White House calls at the time), and has since become the stuff of legend. Johnson’s anatomically specific directions to Mr. Haggar are some of the most intimate words we’ve ever heard from the mouth of a President.

We at Put This On took the historic original audio and gave it to animator Tawd Dorenfeld, who created this majestic fantasia of bungholiana.

Put This On: LBJ Buys Pants from Put This On on Vimeo.

The right of the people peaceably to assemble

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords reads the First Amendment last week:

Andrew Sullivan:

When you put a politician in literal cross-hairs, when you call her a target, when you celebrate how many targets you have hit, when you go on national television and shoot guns, when you use the language of "lock and load" to describe disagreements over healthcare provision ... you are part of the problem.

My thoughts are with Giffords, her family, and the families of the people killed and wounded yesterday in Tuscon.

Bike trail paved with good intentions

When I visit Half Moon Bay, Calif. (which I do about three times a year), I get up several hours before the family because (a) I stay on Chicago time and (b) they sleep later than I do anyway. I usually then walk down California Route 1 for about 1.5 km from the house to the Peet's Coffee so I can work without disturbing anyone.

Since my last visit the city has built a bike trail along the highway, making the trip immeasurably safer and less muddy:

Excellent. They even spent several hundred thousand dollars building this bridge over a drainage ditch:

Astute readers will notice something about this photo: either I took it standing in the drainage ditch or on some other bridge over the same ditch. Three guesses which one is true. In fact, the bike trail parallels the frontage road for about 400 m until it gets to this very expensive bridge, prompting even the most-boosterish citizens to ask why the trail doesn't just dump onto the frontage road before getting to the bridge.

Now the punchline: the trail ends 50 m farther up:

It's a pretty bridge, though. And I suppose it allowed the city to use up the state and Federal grants more completely, and it employed a few dozen Californians for part of the summer. So it's not completely stupid, right?

Yes, actually, it's in the Constitution

It turns out that yesterday's swearing-in failure really annoyed some people. Possibly the irony of having the GOP recite (most of) the Constitution and then allow people who had not been properly seated in Congress to vote on things was a bigger deal than the Speaker thought:

Rules committee Democrats are criticizing Drier's scheme, which they say needs to be addressed by the full House, not just the Rules committee. They propose a delay in the repeal hearings so the House can meet and figure out what to do. But in the new reality of Republican control, it's unlikely the Democratic concerns will move from political rhetoric to legislative action.

It's worth noting that Fitzpatrick and Sessions weren't the only ones to miss the swearing-in ceremony Wednesday. Rep. Peter DeFaizio (D-OR) skipped the ceremony to meet with veterans in his home district. He was sworn in on Thursday and his absence, and his absence on Wednesday caused none of the issues Fitzpatrick's and Sessions' did because he cast no votes before becoming a Constitutionally-recognized member of the 112th Congress.

Late Update: The process by which the mess Sessions and Fitzpatrick made will be cleaned up is coming into better focus. The full House will vote twice -- once on the rules for repealing the health care law, and once on "a resolution relating to the status of certain actions taken by Members-elect."

You know, it's not like we have the level of formality they have in the UK. When I toured Westminster Palace during the summer recess in 2009, the tour guide made a point that we could not actually sit down on the benches because that would be, you see, taking a seat in the House.

Update: The House GOP passed an "oops!" bill to fix the error, but now there's a question about whether the two guys were hosting an illegal fundraiser in the Capitol building.