metaphorge- the Archbishop of Balogna!!!

I understand that there are countless Monty Python fans around the U.S., but I am very disappointed in John McCain's choice as a Vice Presidential candidate.

I mean, Michael Palin isn't even an American!

Edit: On the bright side, Palin looks GREAT in drag, much better than Joe Biden would, and I suppose McCain deserves credit for trying to appeal to the comedic transvestite set, though I would have gone with Izzard on this count. Also Palin is an accomplished author.

Further edit: I found a photo.

This project excites me tremendously:

$100 laptop project eyes launch

The first batch of computers built for the One Laptop Per Child project could reach users by July this year.

The scheme is hoping to put low-cost computers into the hands of people in developing countries.

Ultimately the project's backers hope the machines could sell for as little as $100 (£55).

The first countries to sign up to buying the machine include Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.

The so-called XO machine is being pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte, who launched the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab in 2004.

Test machines are expected to reach children in February as the project builds towards a more formal launch.

( Read more... )

source

In 1999, William Scheuerman wrote that "[t]he ghost of Carl Schmitt haunts political and legal debates... in the contemporary United States." (Carl Schmitt: The End of Law, p. 1). He made an interesting case for Schmitt's influence, acknowledging that it is "subterranean," and identifying in Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich August von Hayek and Hans Morgenthau important intermediaries for Schmittian concepts received in the United States. But since September 11, 2001, the case has grown ever stronger and more direct. The MCA, for instance, is filled with echos of Weimar. It bears an uncanny similarity to the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Law) of March 23, 1933. Both seize upon terrorist threats and deeds as an emergency circumstance justifying a delegation of powers to the Executive, though the transfer of powers in the Enabling Law is vast in scope - dwarfing that of the MCA. On the other hand, the Enabling Law was also seen as a temporary measure, and thus incorporated a sunset provision (art. 7, providing for expiration of the act on April 1, 1937) which the MCA does not have. But both pieces of legislation have at their core the Schmittian notion of a state of exception, and in each case the exception appears to be exploited to drive a more generic change.

It is characteristic of Schmitt that he sees sovereignty not in terms of a monopoly of state power, indeed the right to use violence (the twin aspects of Gewalt) like Hegel or Max Weber, but rather in control over decisions. His understanding is fundamentally hierarchical and sharply distrustful of Anglo-American notions of checks and balances. On this point more than any other rests Schmitt's central thesis that much of modern political theory is essentially secularized theology. So for Schmitt the key for modifying the liberal-democratic Weimar Constitution rests in the state of exception, and indeed, the state of exception is ultimately no exception at all.
-Scott Horton

I'll say it one more time: the reason that the Military Commissions Act is so troubling is that it both allows the Executive to designate (and hold indefinitely) whomever it sees fit as an "unlawful enemy combatant" (including American citizens), a rather significant enlargement of the defintion of the term. It also exempts the Judiciary from being able to review such designations.

Not good.

Incidentally, balkinization has become my favorite new legal blog. Tons of good analysis of the MCA and its potential impact.

I've also determined that the safest course of action in dissidence is to be remain somewhat visible.

Here's an idea I like a lot: a plan to correct the disproprtionate representation of less populous states in presidential elections by legally circumventing the Electoral College:

"Koza's scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn't require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed."

If this is a go, then all that has to be done is to figure a way to counteract the disproportional representation of less populous states in the Senate. If we're going to claim that the United States is for "one man, one vote" then that should be what happens in practice.