How I Spent My Morning

Connecticut In The News

According to the Globe, the Connecticut Supreme Court has "legalized gay marriage", although I feel as though the wording there might be a bit strong. Haven't they simply "illegalized" the state's failure to allow gay marriage? Maybe those things are the same, I don't know. I wish I knew a lawyer.

In any case, what jumped out at me was the following quote from Justice Peter T. Zarella's dissent:

If the state no longer has an interest in the regulation of procreation, then that is a decision for the legislature or the people of the state and not this court.

So in his view, regulation of marriage is equivalent to regulation of procreation? Is there any part of marriage law that actually deals with procreation? It seems to me as though it's all about property rights and taxes and whatnot. There has certainly been government regulation of procreation (albeit largely unenforced), but I didn't think it was tied to marriage laws.

[Update 11/21] See Terk's smart-assed reply.

Anti-Elite?

I've spent a fair bit of time recently ranting about the anti-elite tone that the Republicans take, as embodied by the choice of Palin. David Brooks' column in the Times today is a good read on the subject. This section, which is admittedly without citation, surprised me:

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Todays Thoughts

1) Hurricanes...Galveston is apparently asking for $2.2 billion to clean up after hurricane Ike. I'm all for the government coming to the aid of those in need, but it seems as though each year brings more and more big storms. At what point does it become pointless? Do we enter a continuous loop of rebuilding and evacuating? Will people simply move away from the region if things continue like this for another decade? How often can the cable news stations use the phrase "storm of the century" before you start to believe in global climate change?

2) The Electorate...It's hard for me to grasp why this election is so close, but I felt the same way about the 2004 election, and we see how that turned out. Is it a simple matter of the declining size of the blue-collar middle class, based on our rapidly disappearing manufacturing sector?

3) Morality...Today's On Point had a discussion of the book Moral Clarity that I encourage you to listen to regardless of your political views. It brought to the surface a sense of outrage that lives inside me, and probably a lot of progressives, and stems from the right's claim to sole possession of issues related to morality. Maureen Dowd and Aaron Sorkin express a similar outrage in an imagined discussion between Obama and Jed Bartlet:

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America.

I have some very concrete ideas about right and wrong, and I surely love my country. I am more than willing to believe that 99% of Americans feel the same way about themselves, and though our specific ideas of right and wrong may vary, we're probably not that far apart, so ... what the fuck?

How I Feel About That

It's the Economy, Stupid

The New York Times quotes Henry Paulson as saying that despite recent events, Americans can “remain confident in the soundness and the resilience of our financial system.”

On the one hand, I think that he's factually correct in the long run: our financial system isn't likely to completely fail us, and there will be better days ahead.

On the other hand, he's trying to manage consumer confidence, and it strikes me as a hard sell to tell the average American that despite the declining value of his or her home, stock portfolio and retirement savings, declining real income, and increasing unemployment, they should be confident and go spend those greenbacks, since that's the cure to the problem.

Lil' Sis

Is now, without a doubt, all growed up.

Why, Microsoft? Why?

While flipping through a new set of MSDN DVDs that arrived in the mail today, I came across one labeled Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Workgroup. Having absolutely no idea what any of those words meant when used in conjunction with one another, I looked up the product. Here's what Microsoft has to say:

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 is an integrated Application Life-cycle Management (ALM) solution comprising tools, processes, and guidance to help everyone on the team improve their skills and work more effectively together.

Wow, sounds nice, doesn't it? I want to improve my skills, and there's nothing wrong with working more effectively together. However, on a practical level, I STILL HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT THIS PRODUCT IS OR DOES.

What's In a Name - Part III

Jason and I were discussing one of my favorite books last weekend, and this article in the Times reminded me of it:

“My wife thinks I’m nuts,” said Jason Captain, 32, of Fort Worth who left the Navy last November, walking away from $75,000-a-year lieutenant’s pay for flying military brass in and out of Guantánamo Bay.

If only he'd waited until his next promotion to retire from the service! I bet I'm the first person to ever make that joke.

The Omnivore's News

I'm in the middle of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I know I'm a little behind in my reading, but I'm trying to catch up, so here we are. One of the things I find particularly interesting is how the material I read in the book one night tends to show up in the news the next day. Here are two pieces from the Times that I came across in the last few days.

As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation
Grains Gone Wild

Here's another good one: Bring on the Right Biofuels

Should we stay or should we go?

The New York Times quotes John McCain:

“We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq. It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal.”

I think this touches on how I feel about Iraq right now. I can't choose a side in the "stay or go" debate, but I'm quite sure that it's nowhere as clear-cut as either side makes it out to be. McCain's usual win-at-all-costs rhetoric bothers me, but so do people who say that our time is done, and the Iraqis must choose for themselves whether they want war or peace. I would argue that we relieved them of that responsibility when we invaded their nation and systematically dismantled their government. Like it or not, we caused their current situation, and to blame them for not pulling themselves out of it seems two-faced.

Of course, I also don't support keeping 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq for 10,000 years, either. That's the problem: there is no simple answer, and maybe not even a very good complicated answer.

Happy Anniversary

It has now been 5 years since the day that I sat in my sad cubicle at Vignette and read, on the front page of Boston.com, "This will be the front page story if and when we go to war with Iraq. This will be the front page story if and when we go to war with Iraq." To commemorate the occasion, the Times has published an excellent set of reflections on the war. Be sure to read this one.

Can Someone Please Close the Retard Window?

Papelobon speaks about his current contract status:

At the same time, I feel a certain obligation to not only to myself and my family to make the money that I deserve, but for the game of baseball.

Man, if he doesn't get that big contract...it could spell doom for the 'ol national pastime.

One in NINE?!

According to a Times article on a recent Pew report (PDF), more than 1% of US adults are incarcerated. That's disturbing, but 1 is a small number, so it's easy to shrug off. This, however, is harder:

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

More than 10% of black male young adults in the US are in jail?! Good lord, what does that say about race in our society? It certainly seems to help explain all of those fatherless black children that Bill Cosby likes to talk about. I think we have larger problems than the war in Iraq or the mortgage crisis...

I'll Take the Incandescent, Thank You Very Much

There's been a lot of hoopla about Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs recently, first about how they're going to save the world, then a reaction about how their mercury content may be a problem, and then a reaction to the reaction, downplaying the risks of the mercury. Of course, most of the "don't worry about the mercury" arguments assume that we'll all be good eco-citizens and recycle our dead CFLs instead of throwing them in the trash. Good luck with that. Once again, we find that as much as the government and media want one, there's simply no magic solution to most of our problems.

Personally, I'm going to stick with the technology whose broken-bulb cleanup procedures have fewer than 5 steps. My favorite part is this one:

"As a precaution, consider discarding throw rugs or the area of carpet where the breakage occurred"

Secure? You bet!

Last weekend, Erica and I flew from Boston to Newport News, Virginia on AirTran. We left on a Friday night, and after a busy week of work and wedding planning, I was dreading the air travel circus. I had a small roller bag with me, and rather than carry a second bag through security and onto the 717, which has tiny overhead bins, I decided to just toss my laptop into my suitcase. Originally, I intended to carry the bag onto the airplane, but after checking out the security line and realizing that I had no 1-quart Zip-locks with me, I decided to check the bag. The flight was direct, and my plan for the 90 minutes we'd be on board was to sleep. Besides, Erica was checking a bag, so there would be no extra delay at the other end. You know what happened next, of course. When I retrieved my bag in Newport News, it was a little lighter than expected. Open it up, and ... no laptop! Insert sinking feeling here.

I spent the weekend trying to figure out how to go about reporting my loss. AirTran's employees were very pleasant, both in person and on the phone, but they had no idea what should be done in the case of theft. By the end of the average conversation, I had to remind the person that I was talking to that no, I had not lost a bag, the bag had just lost some of its contents. Eventually, an AirTran customer service representative in Boston told me that I needed to fill out a pilferage report. It took the AirTran folks in Newport News a while to locate the required form, but eventually it was filed, with assurances that a thorough investigation would be performed. For good measure, I filed a police report with the Newport News police.

Upon returning to Boston, I stopped by the AirTran counter and met the customer service representative who had spoken to me on the phone. He was nice, but offered little hope that the laptop would show up. He did, however, tell me that after an investigation to rule out fraudulent reports, the airline usually compensates passengers for lost items. The next day, I spoke with a supervisor from Newport News who told me in no uncertain terms that, although my report had been filed, little action could be expected, and that the airline never pays for lost or damaged electronics, no matter what.

As you can guess, my employer wasn't super happy with me for losing the machine. Not only was it an expensive piece of company property, it also contained the source code for some of our software, and most of the email that I've sent and received in my 4+ years here. It turns out that our previous CEO's brother had a similar experience at Logan, which I read about in 2006 and, apparently, promptly forgot to take a lesson from. So now I'm doing software development on my 4 year old Dell desktop, trying to piece together what was lost, and calling every AirTran and TSA number that I can find.

What's really scary about all of this, loss of company secrets and person information notwithstanding, is that the person who took my laptop was working inside of the secure area at one of our nations' busiest airports (let's just assume that the theft happened at Logan, and not Newport News). If a TSA screener or AirTran baggage handler can open a bag, remove an item and take it out of the facility, what's to stop them from smuggling something dangerous into the airport? Neither AirTran nor TSA seem very concerned about the theft of electronics, which is apparently commonplace, so I guess it's OK with them that there are felons screening and handling luggage. I guess with security, as with everything else, you get what you pay for.