Posing with parasols.

On Lake Mendota, today.

"On Wisconsin" — the carillon version.

I was idly videoing the waves on Lake Mendota when the carillon started playing...

Computerized projections on the 600-year-old Astronomical Clock on Old Town Square in Prague

Video mapping incorporates the structure of the tower itself into the images (which evoke the history of the years of the clock's existence). It's nearly 10 minutes long — and worth it.

The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.

Let's look closely at what White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today on "Meet the Press" about Don't Ask Don't Tell.

David Gregory did a halfway decent job with the interview, but he moved on before he really nailed down what Gibbs was really saying. Let's read the transcript:

MR. GREGORY: [I]f the president wants the law to go away, if he wants the ban to go away, why is he still supporting the law in the courts?

MR. GIBBS: Well, let's be clear, the president believes the law is discriminatory, unjust and, quite frankly, you have men and women who are willing to lay down their life for this country. They--those people ought to be able to serve. 

Gibbs doesn't say whether Obama thinks the law is unconstitutional.

The law that was struck down that the president opposes, we, we've got a process. One, the House has passed repeal, and we hope the Senate takes up that repeal quickly. They didn't.

Yes, there's a process for repealing statutes, and there's also a process for challenging statutes in court. If the statute is unconstitutional, the courts should declare it a nullity. If the President think the process is repeal by Congress, then he must think the act is constitutional. Right?

MR. GREGORY: ... Is there faith in the Senate that's misplaced? What does the president do if the Senate doesn't act?

MR. GIBBS: Well, we have a process...

a process...

... in place right now to work with the Pentagon for an orderly and disciplined transition from the law that we have now to an era that "don't ask, don't tell" doesn't exist. And I will say this, David, "don't ask, don't tell" will end under this president. The courts have decided, the legislature has, has--is beginning to decide, and the president is firmly in the place of removing "don't ask, don't tell."

MR. GREGORY: But does he believe it's unconstitutional?

Yes! Gregory asks my question!

MR. GIBBS: You know, David, he thinks it's discriminatory and it's unjust and most of all it harms our national security. It's...

In other words: NO, he does not. Say it!

MR. GREGORY: We know his position, though. But if you keep defending...

MR. GIBBS: ...it's time for the law...

MR. GREGORY: ...it in the courts, how does it end? You can pronounce it dead, but how does it end if you keep backing it in the courts?

MR. GIBBS: Yeah, well, it ends with a vote in Congress. 

What?! So, then you mean the court is wrong and that justifies appealing, right?

It's a law, and the most durable solution is to repeal that law. 

Durable? Rights enforced in courts are not sufficiently durable? Is that your position? Or is it that there is no right at all? Maybe the President is being pragmatic and political about rights, and the point is that when courts find rights that Congress isn't ready for, those rights don't hold up too well and therefore it's better to pretend those rights don't exist at all. Or maybe that's all rights are in the President's eyes — whatever the majority — as manifested by Congress — is willing to respect as it goes along doing everything else it wants to do. Come on, Gibbs! Tell us whether the President thinks there are any rights here!

That's what the president asked the House to do and they did, that's what the president--I think there's enough votes to do it in the Senate. 

Oh, really? What makes you think that?

But, again, we have to get through Republican filibuster.

Which is why you obviously don't have the votes. How do you propose to "get through" the filibuster? Clearly, the judicial case is the easy way to end DADT. Why doesn't the President stop fighting against the rights the court found?

It harms our national security. It's discriminatory, it's time for it to end. 

Then stop fighting for it!

And I will say this, David, again, this president will end "don't ask, don't tell," and I think the courts--you're seeing from the courts that their deciding that "don't ask, don't tell," quite frankly, is--has--it's time for it to end, and that time is coming very soon.

Empty, stammering assertions! Exasperating evasions!

David Gregory never forced Gibbs to say whether the President thinks the act is unconstitutional and never forced him to justify fighting for DADT in court. Unlike his predecessor Tim Russert, Gregory lets the guest filibuster until it's time to move on to the next topic. Gregory is sharp, but he's too nice. Too empathetic. He doesn't push on and on with the questions until the obfuscation is painfully embarrassing.

"Create an ‘aura of insufferable tension’ and ‘if they’re interested, they’ll make the first move.'"

The Keith Richards approach to getting women. Aura of insufferable tension. I love that. What does it even mean? Be Keith Richards, and...

Here's where I defend Christian fundamentalists from the charge that they are homophobic bullies.

In case you didn't watch the whole diavlog, you might want to see this 3-minute segment near the end:

What's with powerful women and thick bumpers of bangs?

Drudge is — I think — implicitly asking with this alignment of photographs:



What drives intelligent women to that hairstyle? Are they thinking something like I don't want those feathery bangs...



... or the classic Louise Brooks straight-across look...



... but I can't have my forehead just out there to be gazed at!



What's wrong with foreheads? Is it that the forehead symbolizes the mind, and a woman can't have you looking straight at that? The intelligence must be filtered. There must be a buffer zone of femininity, so there must be some hair veiling the forehead — the theory seems to be. But why the bumper look that we see in the Drudge trio of Angela Merkel, Condoleezza Rice, and Maureen Dowd?

Maureen Dowd on the Sharron Angle/Harry Reid debate.

I smell a whiff of anti-feminism in this focus on laundry and food:

The senator began the debate with a gentle reminiscence about his mother, who took in wash from the brothels in scruffy Searchlight, Nev.

Angle could have told the poignant story of her German immigrant great-grandmother who died trying to save laundry hanging on the clothesline in a South Dakota prairie fire, which Angle wrote about in her self-published book, “Prairie Fire.” But instead the former teacher and assemblywoman began hurling cafeteria insults. “I live in a middle-class neighborhood in Reno, Nevada,” she said. “Senator Reid lives in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C.”

I thought "Prairie Fire" was William Ayers's "forgotten communist manifesto." Lefties are poetic — "A single spark can start a prairie fire" — but apparently Sharron Angle wrote a book about an actual prairie fire. Literal. Righties are so concrete. Dumb as a block.

But, so... Dowd's point is that Sharron Angle is a high-school "mean girl." Hey, I wonder if she read my October 8th piece answering Slate's question "Who gets to be a feminist?" I wrote:

So what am I supposed to care about here? You don't get any special rights or privileges for being a feminist, so what difference does it make? "Who gets to be a feminist?" Is it some high-school clique with mean girls deciding who gets in? Are there guardians at the entrance? The entrance of what? Nothing hinges on it. One woman says, "I am a feminist" and another says, "No, you're not." This is political polemic of a very dull sort.

I see the liberal women as having the exclusionary "mean girl" attitude, but Dowd is trying to pin that stereotype on Angle. How does Angle's failure —  in a political debate — to rhapsodize about an ancestor exclude anyone? I can see that Reid might wish things had stayed sweet and gentle, but how is a political debate a time for hugs? If women are to be in politics, we need to rise above the socialization toward niceness and not hurting anyone's feelings.

And how is it "hurling cafeteria insults" to question Reid about how he got so rich when he's spent nearly his whole career in politics? It certainly wasn't saying my neighborhood is better than yours — which might be mean-girlish. He lives in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington!

Dowd is hot to flip everything around. If you want to talk about mean girls, she's the mean girl! But look at how she portrays herself:

... I was getting jittery....

As the politicians droned on and my Irish skin turned toasty brown, I worried that Governor Brewer might make a citizen’s arrest and I would have to run for my life across the desert. She has, after all, declared open season on anyone with a suspicious skin tone in her state....

After the debate was over, Angle scurried away and so did I — in a different direction. I was feeling jittery again. If she saw me, she might take away my health insurance and spray-paint my locker.

Dowd is my age — nearly 60. Isn't there something really awful about presenting your emotional life in adolescent terms when you are that old? Especially when you're cozily situated on the op-ed page of the New York Times. Here's Dowd's description of Sharron Angle:

Even sober and smiling beneath her girlish bangs, the 61-year-old Angle had the slightly threatening air of the inebriated lady in a country club bar...

Now, click over to Dowd's column and see how she looks: sober and smiling beneath her girlish side-swept bangs, the 58-year-old Dowd has a slightly threatening air. Which is just fine! Don't get me wrong. A columnist should feel threatening. But she's not a timorous girl. Or maybe she is when she gets out in the world, out of her comfort zone. If so, that's not fine. And it's not Sharron Angle's flaw.

"If Brett Favre's penis could talk, what would it say?"... well, Bill Maher made it say something about Sarah Palin.

I laughed and yelled at Bill Maher when I heard this:



I'm sure that, being a political comedian, Maher is perfectly happy that he was capable of generating, alternately, anger and mirth. And good for him for making himself relevant again. I actually love comedy riffs that go to weird stream-of-consciousness places and connect things outrageously, especially when the comedian is hitting the hot buttons of people who don't have an easygoing and big sense of humor. Maher does all that. Of course, he falls way short of the ultimate comedy hero — Lenny Bruce* — because he's not challenging people in his own audience. In fact, he's stroking those people and encouraging a desire they already have: to laugh at someone they want to marginalize.

And by "someone" there, I mean Sarah Palin, not Brett Favre. No one needs much help laughing at Favre at this point. Just tell us what he did and stop and wait for the laughs. Maher's main comedy idea was to connect Favre's sext to Sarah Palin:

To me this story really isn't about sports or sex or how necessary caller ID is. It's about how pathetic and clueless white American males have become because the kind of guy who thinks there are women out there who just cold want to see your cock is the same kind of guy who thinks Sarah Palin is swell and tax cuts pay for themselves....

And if Brett Favre's penis could talk, what would it say? Well, other than no photos please, I think it would say, I'm not a witch. I'm you. Because for hundreds of years, white penises were America. White penises found America. They made the rules and they called the shots, in the workplace, in the home and at the ballot box. But now the unthinkable is happening. White penises are becoming the minority. 2010 was the first year in which more minority babies were born than white babies. This is what conservatives are really upset about. 

And this is what lefties are really upset about: American history is the story of greedy white pricks who need to be cut down.

That the president is black, and the Secretary of State is a woman, and every shortstop is Latino, and every daytime talk show host is a lesbian. And suddenly this country is way off track and needs some serious restoring. 

He's working the old meme about the Tea Party that distracted liberals in 2009. But it's 2010, the election is breathing down your neck, and tarring the Tea Party as angry racists did not work.

If penises could cry, and I believe they can...

That made me laugh, even though he'd lost me with the trite evil white man stuff.

... then white penises are crying all over America. And that's where this crew comes in. The lovely MILFs of the new rank. And their little secret is that their popularity comes exclusively from white men. Look at the polling. Minorities hate them. Women hate them. Only white men like them. 

The only truth I'm hearing ring in that — and I haven't looked at the polling — is that liberals (quite rightly) loathe the strong, attractive women who have emerged on the right. And minorities and women have for many years tended to go for the Democrats. So those minorities and women, polled, will say they oppose Palin. But some minorities and plenty of women lean toward conservatism. If they feel repelled by conservative women like Sarah Palin, wouldn't that be evidence of sexism? By contrast, the white males who love Palin should for being open to women stepping up to political power. If these men only saw the women as sexual beings, they would tear down the political aspirations. They would scoff at and mock them... the way Bill Maher does. I think Maher was aware of that flaw in his comic rant. Here's how he tries to flip it the way he wants to go:

I'm no psychiatrist but I do own a couch. 

This is a concession that he thinks women exist for sexual purposes.

And my theory is that these women represent something those men miss dearly: the traditional idiot housewife.

Maybe you have that theory because that's what you want in a woman. The housewife is a woman who stays home, and conceptualizing women as idiots is something men do when they want to block their aspirations outside of the home. This is what Maher is trying to do to Palin and the other conservative women. How can he pin that mindset on the men who support the women's ascension to power? No one wants an idiot to represent them in government.

Yes, we vote for idiots all the time, but it's because we project our hopes onto them and imagine them to be, in fact, brilliant:



________

*Here's Dustin Hoffman acting out the most striking example of Bruce challenging his own audience. Very offensive language.

The German muticultural ideal — "multikulti" — has "utterly failed," says Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As Germans slip further into the belief that the country is "overrun by foreigners."

How difficult — liberating? — it must feel for Germans to admit that they feel this way. Merkel is attempting to moderate: "We should not be a country either which gives the impression to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here."

Impression. But what is the truth?

"Japan used to be so flashy and upbeat, but now everyone must live in a dark and subdued way."

Japan in decline.

Madtown revelry — after the victory.

Guys exiting the stadium after the Badgers crush the erstwhile #1 team:



Female fans exult:



They try to congratulate every passerby...



... for the delightful victory.

Out and around in Madison, Wisconsin on the day of the big football game...

... which maybe you're watching right now.

It was a perfect day for biking, clear, low 60s. We biked around the Capital City Trail and turned right instead of left as we came across Monona Bay, under Monona Terrace, where we locked up our bikes so we could scarf down some burgers and frites at Sardine:



Well-fed and well-rested, we pedaled over to the square and then down State Street and over to the Memorial Union Terrace, where we got some Babcock Hall ice cream and went to sit outside and soak up the pre-game atmosphere:



It was a bit of a wreck. I blame the Buckeyes!



What the hell! Did they bring their own beer — in bottles! — Miller Lite and Coors Lite?! Come on! It's pitchers and plastic cups on the Terrace. And what's this?



Look closely! They drink beer and guzzle 5-Hour Energy in berry and grape flavors. Run yourself down with alcohol and then pep yourself up again with that awful glop?

That was more than an hour before game time. I hope whatever energy is left is on the Badger side. So far, it looks good, but we're not there yet.

UPDATE: YAY!!!!!!!!!!! We won!

"They're All Bullies and Whores!"

Ha! Emily Bazelon and I talk about the election, the gay rights cases, the gender card, what you can say about women, Christian fundamentalism and anti-gay harassment, and all the complexity that doesn't fit into your ideological templates. Feast your eyes and ears on 28 minutes of bullies and whores:

"Great Expectations, the Miss Havisham Cake" — banned from the Melbourne Cake Show.

In bad taste?



But it's literary!

A reading, from Charles Dickens:

The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.

"This," said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, "is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here."

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

"What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?"

"I can't guess what it is, ma'am."

"It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!"

"Barbara Billingsley, TV’s June Cleaver, Dies at 94."

Ah!

I was 6 years old when the show "Leave It to Beaver" began in 1957 and 12 when it ended in 1963. I watched an unbelievable amount of television in those years, but, without question, the TV family that impressed me most deeply was the Cleavers. June and Ward were, for me, the perfect parents. From this long distance, it now seems that were not really that different from June and Ward, but back then, how I longed for a family like the Cleavers. I can still make the theme music play in my head and open a flood of memories of childhood feelings of what a family should be. How profoundly affecting were the gender differences between the 2 parents! Ward and June were a beautiful team, and they were not even all that dissimilar. Both were tough and principled and at the same time caring and sensitive. But I can hear June in my head, echoing for all the ages, urging Ward not to be too severe with the boys. And Ward always listened and hesitated before he proceeded with his fatherly role.

Here's some video.

At the Bright Orange Café...

... you're here with the folks who choose not to plunge into the orange that blazes everywhere out there in the 3-dimensional world.

"One never truly knows what a lousy job the blogosphere is capable of until one is at the center of a story."

"NPR experienced the dark side of the blogosphere this week after management sent a memo to staff reminding them that journalists may not participate in political activities of any kind... NPR is not restricting its staff’s freedom. It’s protecting its credibility as a news organization that tries to give its audience fair, non-partisan coverage."

Carl Paladino's "Cuomo Land" ads.

There's this spoof of the children's game:



What is he accusing Cuomo of there? The Daily News says:

Paladino, who staunchly opposes gay nuptials, accused Cuomo of being a hypocrite for touting his support for same-sex weddings now - but being "all but invisible" when the issue was before the Legislature last year.

"He was asked by those pushing for the measure to call three wavering senators," the Paladino campaign said in the first of what it promises will be daily "Cuomo Land" attacks.

Political pros were puzzled that Paladino would attack Cuomo on gays, given that the Tea Party darling's campaign unraveled this week after he delivered an anti-gay diatribe.

Veteran Democratic operative Hank Sheinkopf called it a "bad choice of a first issue" for the "Cuomo Land" attacks.

Well, look at the illustration. The whole "Cuomo Land" idea seems to be some crazy fantasy about luring children into homosexuality.

Christine O'Donnell drives the liberals nuts.

Bill Maher has put together a video montage — intended, of course, as an attack...



1. Does this really work as an attack? I mean, as an attack on O'Donnell? Is it not instead or also an attack on the gaggle of liberals who gang up on and mock her? Maher brings on one woman — undoubtedly partly because she's pretty — and makes a punching bag out of her. They are so cocksure of themselves — both of their politics and of their funniness. It's really rather creepy and embarrassing for them.

2. O'Donnell is charming and game and she's stirring them up, that is, doing what she was brought on the show to do.  She holds up bravely, while they have each other, and they knew when they went on that they'd have each other to make things easy for them. They'd even have the fun of bashing a pretty woman. Look at all these guys — ugly guys — getting ugly on her. That was the entertainment model, a turnaround from normal social life. She had her reasons for doing the show, but I want to give her credit for doing it bravely and well. The courage of the comedian-liberals was not tested. And the show was structured to guarantee that.

3. We should take note of who drives people on the other side nuts. That person has a special power. It's not witchcraft, but it is power that they are afraid of. The more they deride her, the more those who agree with her politics should notice how desperately they want you to reject her. Think about what that means. (As Rush Limbaugh loves to say: They will tell you who they are afraid of.)

4. Remember when it was oh-so-terrible to take a person's statements out of context? In particular, in the montage, we hear the author Clive Barker say "You have to tell me about the ex-homosexuals." But what does she say? Obviously, the notion of curing homosexuals is highly inflammatory, but why are we hearing Barker's words and not hers? Did she say sexual orientation can be changed by some sort of therapy or did she refer to the religious belief that homosexual behavior is sinful and say that it is possible to refrain from conduct? (I'm not suggesting that the idea that gay people should refrain from engaging in sexual activities isn't also a problem, but it is a belief widely shared by many people, especially religious people, and if they are not hypocrites, they will also reject all sexual conduct outside of a marriage.)

5. As Bill Maher admits, introducing this montage, he has no more clips that will be "earthshaking." He's reached the end of the treasure trove archive he bragged about a few weeks ago. So, he got a lot of publicity for himself, but in the end, pretty much all he had was her assertion that she "dabbled into" witchcraft when she was a kid. Ha. He made us look.

How the downward spiral begins.

"I was too timid to buy a 'DiGiorno for One' at the store because I didn't want the cashier to think I was a dork so I bought full sized one and now I'm stuffing my face."

ADDED: Here's what to do next time. Chat up the cashier, saying: "These things are great, but you know, they say 'for one' and it's actually plenty for me and my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend." And if the cashier is attractive to you, say: "They say 'for one,' but which 'one' are they talking about? I only want to eat like half of this." If she/he smiles, say: "You want half?" Etc. etc.

"Her Majesty. Brenda."

How Keith Richards referred to Mick Jagger, who, he writes, became "unbearable," beginning in the early 80s.

In other celebrity tidbits... Richards was in the presence of Johnny Depp — a friend of his son's — for 2 years before he recognized that the guy was Johnny Depp. One night, he looked across the dinner table and suddenly thought "Whoa! Scissorhands!"

Fall color...

... reflected in the devil's lake.

(Enlarge for better color.)

Talk about whatever you wan in the comments.

UPDATE: Woke up Saturday morning and saw the typo. Was going to correct it but it seems like a pun in a post about color.

"The modern life is a danger that we feel is against the siesta."

"When you sleep la siesta everyone has the image that your life is calm, you have a good life. And then, the modern life is a direct attack."

"What will the web do to content, in terms of high-cost, expensive, time-consuming content?"

Charlie Rose descends into an existential void...



ADDED: Judging from most of the comments to this post the answer to the question above is that time-consuming content will be ignored or assumed to be whatever it appears to be at first glance. In case you're using a device that won't play embedded video: here's the link to the YouTube page. Now, please. Take the time to watch.

This evening on the lake...

"Attorney General Eric Holder... said that legalizing recreational marijuana in California would be a 'significant impediment' to the government's joint efforts with state and local law enforcement..."

I'm picturing the Washington Post editors high and dorkily giggling.

"She is a Harvard-trained lawyer who broke the law."

Oh, come on. Why would someone who went to Harvard Law School know what all the piddling little statutes and ordinances are? Elite law schools are for teaching high level concepts. Specific rules are for the little people.

Remember, Obama said: "I do have an obligation to make sure that I’m following some of the rules." Some of the rules. He went to Harvard Law too. Don't you see? You pick some rules that it will serve your interests to follow, follow those, and then preen about your amusing law-abidiness.

(Thanks to Insty for the first link.)

"Environmental Variation Prompts More Sex."

I'll let you people make the jokes.

What happens when females start doing bike tricks?

They end up doing stuff like this.

The lameness of Obama's stance on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Here he is at the MTV "townhall" yesterday:

A Conversation with President Obama on MTV

First, I can't believe he said "you look like a student" to a woman who identified herself as a member of a university faculty. That is an irrelevant and, I would say, sexist remark. Not only is it equivalent to saying "gee, you're pretty," but it's revealing that you have a picture of what professors are supposed to look like and you don't mind derailing the conversation to say she doesn't look like one. I know it's supposed to be a compliment, but it's really clueless. Believe me, I've had people say "you don't look like a law professor" or some such thing to me thousands of times over the last quarter century, and I remain superficially polite, but I can tell you it is not appropriate in a professional setting. Unless we are in a social context where it would be welcome for you to say "you look beautiful," then you should not say "you look like a student." Okay?

Now, to the substance: The woman, Bridget Todd, asks the President:

I know that you’ve mentioned that you want the Senate to repeal it before you do it yourself.

My question is — you as the President can sort of have an executive order that ends it once and for all as Harry Truman did for integration of the military in in '48. So I wonder, why don’t you do that if this is a policy that you are committed to ending?

Obama responds with a lot of words:

First of all, I haven’t “mentioned” that I’m against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. 

Oh, lord, he begins by getting all pedantic about words. I'll get pedantic back. She didn't say he mentioned that he was against DADT. She said he mentioned that he wanted the Senate to repeal it instead of doing something that he might be able to do on his own.

I have said very clearly, including in a State of the Union Address, that I am against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and that we’re going to end this policy. 

Fine, so he's repeating the promise that some people feel very bad that he has not kept.

That’s point number one. Point number two, the difference between my position right now and Harry Truman’s, is that Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally. So this is not a situation in which, with the stroke of a pen, I can simply end the policy.

Now having said that, what I have been able to do is for the first time get the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff, Mike Mullen, to say he thinks the policy should end. The Secretary of Defense has said he recognizes that the policy needs to change. And we, I believe, have enough votes in the Senate to remove to go ahead and remove this constraint on me as the House has already done so that I can go ahead and end it.

But, as the linked blog post (by Jane Hamsher) indicates, he doesn't have the votes in the Senate and he hasn't put the weight of the presidency behind getting Senators to vote for repeal. He seems like he's using the statute as an excuse, so that he can play both sides on this issue. I understand the political motivation for that, but it amounts to breaking his promise to end DADT.

Now we recently had a Supreme Court — a district court case — that said DADT is unconstitutional. I agree with the basic principle that anybody who wants to serve in our armed forces, and make sacrifices on our behalf, on behalf of our national security, anybody should be able to serve. And they shouldn’t have to lie about who they are in order to serve.

So don't appeal the case! Say you think the court got it right! Or say that you think DADT isn't unconstitutional. It's just bad policy, and you object to the judiciary taking over in this area.

And so we are moving in the direction of ending this policy. It has to be done in a way that is orderly because we are involved in a war right now. 

That's pretty much a cloaked statement that he thinks the court was wrong and that the policy is constitutional. It's not "orderly" for the court to strike it down. The judiciary shouldn't be supervising the military. I'm going to assert with confidence that that is his opinion.

But this is not a question of whether the policy will end. This policy will end, and it will end on my watch.

The arc of history is long! Keep waiting, oh captive voters. Who else are you going to vote for?

But I do have an obligation to make sure that I’m following some of the rules.

Some of the rules?! Man, if you are only following some of the rules, why not give gay people a break?

I can’t simply ignore laws that are out there. I have to work to make sure they are changed.

Pssst. The Constitution is law.

The right to carry a concealed weapon: "It’s not a left or right type of thing quite frankly. It’s a liberty thing."

Says the lawyer who won a motion to dismiss — on 2d Amendment grounds — a case against a man who was carrying a knife in his waistband.

Via Instapundit.

Another Wisconsin case.

"They tried like hell to squeeze some drama out of the last few moments of competition."

"Instead we got 'I learned that I'm strong'-style monologues that only made us feel embarrassed for the people forced to utter them."

[Spoiler alert if you haven't watched and care about the new episode of "Project Runway."]

"I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of Snooki this year."

What's your Halloween costume? Surely, you're not going as Snooki. So lazy!

"Sean Hannity in my back pocket, and I can go on his show and raise money by attacking you guys."

Bragging and threatening, Christine O'Donnell-style. Wait. Did she really say that? Howard Fineman, in HuffPo, says that 2 "top GOP insiders" told him she said that. I'm skeptical, especially about the verbatim quote. What sort of top insiders hurt their party's candidate so badly?

If there really are such people and O'Donnell has to deal with them, maybe it's good that she has the balls to push them back like that. Who are they? What was the whole context of the discussion? Hey, remember when it was oh-so-horrible to take quotes out of context?

And isn't it funny, now that the Democrats are over-the-top desperate, that the GOP is desperate too? Could somebody please remain calm and sane? We're going to need some folks left with enough mental stability to govern. It can't be the tea partiers, can it? They've always been so crazy and angry. I read it in HuffPo.

"It's not that I want to prevent someone from having a beverage, but there were mugs, Super-Slurpee kind of things with straws coming out."

The judge will have order.

[Judge Gene Gasiorkiewicz] bought two big boxes of custom-printed plastic travel mugs. The silver mugs have the scales of justice in black on two sides, with the words "RACINE CIRCUIT COURT BRANCH 2" printed

[He] paid about $300 for the roughly 100 mugs - all "made in the U.S. of A." - and said he will give every lawyer who comes before him their first mug free. If it gets lost, he said, the attorney's on the hook for the replacement.

"They can put whatever they want inside it," he said. "When it sits on the counsel table, it's
uniform."

It's good that a judge has a strong feeling for uniformity. It has something to do with being consistent and treating people as equals... doesn't it? In any case, people look totally unprofessional drinking from straws. In fact, I hate to see any adult drinking from a straw, and I loathe when a restaurant serves your water or other drink with a straw already stuck into it. Do you just go ahead and drink from the straw when that happens? Do you realize that the person you'rewith may see you as looking childish — as if you'd worn shorts out to dinner? When there's a straw in my drink, I have to take it out and put it on the table, not that I'm trying to punish the bus boy. But it's really those fat plastic straws that I hate. If a drink came with with 2 paper-wrapped paper straws, I'd be tempted to use them and perhaps drift off into all sorts of straw-prompted nostalgia. Oh... sorry. I'm ranting. But then, I never portrayed myself as a person with judicial temperament.

Asked to name a Supreme Court Justice he admires, Harry Reid says Antonin Scalia.

At the big debate tonight:

"He is a masterful, masterful mind. He does good things."

Sunset cranes.

This evening on the prairie.

Cake.

Cake!!!!!!!!!!

Federal district judge rules that the states' lawsuit challenging health care reform can go forward.

The claims that survive are based on Congress lacked power under the Commerce Clause and that the act commandeers the states.

ADDED: I'm reading the opinion. Judge Roger Vinson rejects the argument that the individual mandate is actually a tax and therefore that the Anti-Injunction Act is an obstacle to the lawsuit. Key point:

[I]t is inarguably clear that Congress did not intend for the exaction to be regarded as a tax...

Congress didn't call it a tax and "the defendants are wrong to contend that what Congress called it 'doesn’t matter.'"

Congress did not state that it was acting under its taxing authority, and, in fact, it treated the penalty differently than traditional taxes.

The failure to call it a tax was especially important because the act was so controversial:

One could reasonably infer that Congress proceeded as it did specifically because it did not want the penalty to be “scrutinized” as a $4 billion annual tax increase, and it did not want at that time to be “held accountable for taxes that they imposed.” In other words, to the extent that the defendants are correct and the penalty was intended to be a tax, it seems likely that the members of Congress merely called it a penalty and did not describe it as revenue-generating to try and insulate themselves from the potential electoral ramifications of their votes.

Because it is a penalty and not a tax, the act cannot be upheld with the taxing power. The question must be the scope of the Commerce Power.

AND: Judge Vinson upheld the standing of the individual plaintiffs and the state plaintiffs, and he held that the claims were ripe. Even though the mandate doesn't go into effect until 2014, it is "certainly impending" and "responsible individuals, businesses, and states will have to start making plans now or very shortly to comply with the Act’s various mandates."

Finally, the judge considered the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. He dismissed some of the claims relating to state sovereignty, and I won't bore you by attempting to paraphrase this part. If you don't know the law in this area, you'd be better off trying to read pages 41-58 of the opinion. So let me confine myself to the individual mandate. Judge Vinson rejects the due process argument, because the scrutiny in this area is minimal and Congress had a rational basis for the mandate. But the Commerce Clause challenge survived.

At this stage in the litigation, this is not even a close call. I have read and am familiar with all the pertinent Commerce Clause cases... This case law is instructive, but ultimately inconclusive because the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause have never been applied in such a manner before.... There are several obvious ways in which Heart of Atlanta and Wickard differ markedly from this case...  Those cases... involved activities in which the plaintiffs had chosen to engage. All Congress was doing was saying that if you choose to engage in the activity of operating a motel or growing wheat, you are engaging in interstate commerce and subject to federal authority....

... The individual mandate applies across the board. People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it. Those who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized. It is not based on an activity that they make the choice to undertake. Rather, it is based solely on citizenship and on being alive....

"Rich Whitey" — a misspelling that just happened to get onto the electronic voting machines in 23 wards in Chicago.

"I don't want to be identified as 'Whitey.' If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that's an even bigger concern. I don't know if this is machine politics at play or why this happened."

Rich Whitney is the Green Party candidate for governor in Illinois (where the race between the Democratic and Republican candidates is close). And the problem is not going to be corrected!

Patti Smith nominated for a National Book Award.

For her memoir "Just Kids" about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

The boy I had met was shy and inarticulate. He liked to be led, to be taken by the hand and enter wholeheartedly another world. He was masculine and protective, even as he was feminine and submissive.

And  Franzen's frozen out! 

What should we make of this surprising refusal to shower acclaim on Freedom, the most acclaimed novel of the millennium? Is it a snub, an injustice, a petty backlash? Or is it a brave act of rebellion against the PR-driven literary-industrial complex that wants us all to bow down to King Franzen?

Valerie Jarrett has to apologize for the heresy of calling homosexuality a "lifestyle choice."

Oh, life is so unfair!

“I meant no disrespect to the LGBT community, and I apologize to any who have taken offense at my poor choice of words,” Jarrett said. “Sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice, and anyone who knows me and my work over the years knows that I am a firm believer and supporter in the rights of LGBT Americans.”

I remember back in the 1980s, in the radical enclaves of the University of Wisconsin Law School and similar places, when it was heresy to say that sexual orientation was inborn. I remember getting snapped at by a very prominent left-wing lawprof for referring without scorn to research that showed some evidence that sexual orientation was innate. It was all about choice back then, and the choice model was deemed to be the framework upon which gay rights would be built.

(If it was inborn, I was told, then it will be perceived as a disease that might be cured, and therefore there can be no talk among decent people about the possibility that it is inborn. But what about science? What about discovering what is true? The official left-wing answer to that question, I learned, is: shut up.)

By the way, are you aware that Justice Kennedy spoke of the "homosexual lifestyle" in his opinion for the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas?

The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle.

Oops!

Watch Christine O'Donnell dominate debate, even as Wolf Blitzer tries to control her.

She is not susceptible to pushback by people who imagine themselves her superiors. Extremely well done.

More on the debate here.

ADDED: I think this clip — I haven't watched the rest of the debate — will resonate with women. A lot of us have had experiences with men trying to control us like this, and we instinctively root for the woman in this situation. I was reminded of the famous Hillary Clinton-Rick Lazio debate, in which the male, Lazio, invaded the zone of personal privacy of the female, Clinton.

AND: You can really feel the disrespect for O'Donnell in that clip. Whether it's because she's a woman or not, I think it stirs something instinctive in many women. It's dangerous for men even to seem to give off the vibe that they're really saying: You don't really belong here, little lady. Hillary has often tried to get us to feel that vibe, and it's worked for her quite few times.

Obama met with black bloggers, who "essentially told the White House that we are not willing to be 'pimped.'"

"Oh, we used better articulation, but it was direct and could not be taken out of context, misunderstood or ignored."

What it was really like in that Chilean mine.

Surprisingly different from what I'd pictured:

The men... were not confined to the “rescue chamber,” the size of a Manhattan studio apartment...

“They had the run of the mine,” said Jeffery H. Kravitz, acting director for technical support at the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration. With half a mile of tunnels open, he said, “they had places to exercise and to use for waste.” One miner ran several miles a day.

“They even had a sort of waterfall they could take a shower under,” Mr. Kravitz said. “They requested shampoo, and shaved for their families.”

Also, fresh air was pumped in, so asphyxiation was never a danger.... The air was nearly 90 degrees and humid, but it contained about 20 percent oxygen, like outside air. The men dug three wells, and had potable water....

Eventually, all sorts of comfort goods were going down three narrow tubes: dismantled camp beds, clean clothes, letters, movies, dominoes, tiny Bibles, toothbrushes, skin creams. The smokers were first allowed only gum and nicotine patches, but doctors eventually relented and let 40 cigarettes a day go down.

The tubes also accommodated fiber optic cables and, by the end, each miner was getting a daily video consultation with a doctor. They also had jobs to do, including reinforcing walls and clearing debris from the rescue drills.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews is an idiot:

If the trapped Chilean miners had subscribed to the tea party’s “every-man-for-himself” philosophy, “they would have been killing each other after about two days,” MSNBC host Chris Matthews said on his “Hardball” show Wednesday night....

"You know these people, if they were every man for himself down in that mine, they wouldn't have gotten out.... They would have been killing each other after about two days.”

What that shows is that Matthews — in stereotypical liberal fashion — has forgotten the way private individuals cooperate and help each other. The government and only the government must be the source of all beneficence. If you don't want the government to solve all your problems, you must think you and everyone else can be 100% self-reliant.

ADDED: I've seen some people defending Chris Matthews. First, they ignore the part where he predicts the miners would just start killing each other. Then, they assert with smug confidence that the government saved the miners. They are wrong: The rescue took place the way it did because of the Center Rock drill bit — "a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit."

Michelle Obama: "It means all the world to us to know that there are prayer circles out there and people who are keeping the spirits clean around us"

Keeping the spirits clean?

She's out doing politics. Fine. She drags in prayer. I don't like that, but I'm used to the political appropriation of religion in America. But what is this notion of "keeping the spirits clean"? The "spirits... around us"? Does she think we all have spirits around us, spirits that can be unclean?

What religion is that? Is she dabbling in... New Age? Is she a witch?

Now, she does pause and chuckle/scoff between the words "keeping" and "spirits," and that might suggest an ironic distance from the common folk who believe in such things. Or — listen and judge — it might mean that she's aware that it's a bit daring to let it slip that she believes we are surrounded by clean and unclean spirits that influence our fate.

"I had sex with [the] girl once . . . maybe twice."

How do you lose count between 1 and 2?

Fall flowers.

"I’ve been near God, but I’ve also been near the devil."

"God won."

"As election day approaches, Wisconsin is beginning to wonder what life would be like under its two choices for governor: Democrat Tom Barrett and Republican Scott Walker."

"A set of ads offers a clue."

In Barrett’s Wisconsin, there's sunshine and acoustic guitar softly strumming. In Walker's Wisconsin, there crackling fire, sirens, and annoying buzzers.

A long way from San Francisco/Nancy Pelosi.

A Democratic candidate's anti-hippie/anti-Pelosi ad:



Ha. I hadn't seen scary hippies — outside of Halloween — in quite some time.

"I was in the middle of eating a kosher pastrami sandwich."

"While I was eating it, they come running and they say, 'Paladino became gay!' I said, 'What?' And then they showed me the statement. I almost choked on the kosher salami."

Chip Ahoy photoshops the details out of the shadows...

Here's the original from the "What are you doing down there?" post:



And here's what Chip discovered after a few adjustments:

In the email: "From: Barack Obama Subject: I want to meet Ann."

Kind of creepy, no? It gets creepier:

Ann --

Two years ago, I met 10 of you.

10 of me? An army of Althouses — is that really what you want?

Actually, as his "10 of you" locution suggests, his view of me is completely generic. He wants me to give $3 and be entered in a raffle be one of 3 winners of trips to Las Vegas (of all places) to meet him. That's not what I call "want[ing] to meet Ann."

"I want to meet three supporters like you backstage at a rally in Las Vegas." I don't think you even what to meet "supporters like [me]." That would be sad.

Click to read the whole email.

At the Smooth Café...

... mix it up.

"I know Arianna doesn’t like it. But I like taupe."

Obama stands up to his critics in the press.

"'I go around and I talk about abstinence and then I'm here in my underwear doing a dance about sex and stuff, so hopefully it goes well -- hopefully I can pull it off."

Oh, Bristol.

By week four, we can pretty much say that Bristol has never looked happy to be here and we're beginning to suspect that somebody else talked her into doing this gig to serve, well, somebody else's ambitions. Bristol keeps bringing up the Big Contradiction in the Room, and she does it again tonight, in a rerun clip from Monday: "I go around and I talk about abstinence and then I'm here in my underwear doing a dance about sex and stuff, so hopefully it goes well -- hopefully I can pull it off," she's heard to say as we see her, wearing only a large white shirt and opaque stockings, preparing for Monday's dance. We can see her future speaking engagements: "Don't be like me girls. Don't get pregnant -- and don't go on celebrity dance competitions!"

I'm here in my underwear...  hopefully I can pull it off...

By the way, I really wish I'd titled this post "Let's take a closer look at that fleshy display."

"As a policy matter, the President has made clear that he believes DOMA is discriminatory and should be repealed" — but his Administration must continue the fight against gay rights.

The Obama administration will appeal the decision from a district court in Massachusetts that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

The appeal comes at a tough time for Obama, who has been trying to shore up his liberal base ahead of the contentious congressional elections when his fellow Democrats are expected to lose many seats to Republicans. Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives.

A key concern has been whether those who have supported Obama in the past will show up to vote in the November 2 midterm elections. He has opposed same-sex marriages but supported civil unions and extended some benefits to gay partners of federal employees.

To be fair, in his 2008 campaign, Obama said he was opposed to same-sex marriage. But, of course, people who wanted to believe he embodied the hope that they wanted to hope believed that he really, secretly, supported same-sex marriage. And he opposed DOMA:

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate

If you brightened at that February 2008 statement, did you perceive that if a court said the same thing — that DOMA is antithetical to federalism principles and to equality — that Obama would fight against that court decision? Obama only supports Congress repealing DOMA — did you notice that at the time? — and if Congress — the new Democratic Congress — applies its first burst of power in 2009 to other matters...  well, too bad. Vote for them again in 2010 and maybe they'll do something for you some day. The arc of history is long!

But heaven forbid that the courts rouse themselves to the point where they strike down the statute. Did Obama ever give you the impression that he believed that courts should be in the forefront, protecting the rights of the oppressed and downtrodden — that courts ought to have "the empathy to recognize what it's like to be ... gay"? Did you take that empathy remark the wrong way? To say a judge should "recognize what it's like" is not to say the judge should perceive that you have rights and actually enforce them. You silly voter!

Remember how it felt in '08 when Obama won? Remember stuff like "Barack Obama: America's First Gay President"?

Because if Barack Obama follows through with even half of the promises he made to the LGBT community during his campaign, he'll have done more to advance gay rights in this country than any President before him – combined.

Remember how it felt in 2009, in the first spring of Obama's power? The NYT had an article titled "As Gay Issues Arise, Obama Is Pressed to Engage." My reaction was:

How can he rake in votes just by seeming to care about the rights and interests of gay people? Not even seeming all that much — he's against same-sex marriage! — but just by stirring hopeful feelings and looking like somebody who cares. Well, he's already done it once. Why shouldn't he believe that what worked once will work again?

That was written in May 2009 — Springtime for Obama — and now it's Fall 2010. Things aren't so warm and sunny anymore, and now is when he needs to maximize the votes. Most Americans oppose gay marriage, and he can't alienate them, so won't you gay people (and you people who support them) continue to do what you're supposed to do and vote for those Democratic candidates? You know the Republicans won't help you. That's the grubby argument.

***

A reading from the word of Obama:

I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.

A "CSI effect" in the Supreme Court?

From an oral argument about the right to counsel:

"If someone were moved from the bed, taken to the living room couch, you would have expected to see a trail of blood from the bed, and there wasn't that," said Justice Ruth Ginsburg.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked whether "he could have dragged him from the pool to the couch because there were drops along the way."

"Let's say there really was a gun fight, and Klein [the victim] fell someplace else," speculated Justice Samuel Alito. "Why is it so valuable to him to move Klein's body?"

Justice Sonia Sotomayor posed a hypothetical in which "one of those blood spots absolutely had to be Klein's near the bedroom."

"Why wouldn't he wipe up the blood?" Justice Antonin Scalia wanted to know. "I mean, what good is it to simply put him on the couch when you leave a pool of blood showing that that's where he was shot?"