Month: December 2010

Radley Balko says that the true purpose of red light cameras is to raise money, not stop accidents:

[O]verall collisions are up at the intersections where Clarksville has installed red light cameras (a result we've seen nearly everywhere they've been installed). The city just chooses to ignore rear-impact collisions when evaluating the cameras. Those collisions increased from 138 in 2008, to 173 in 2009, to 169 through October of this year. It's true that side-impact collisions are generally more dangerous than rear-impact collisions. But even taking that into consideration, it's a bit of a stretch to say that a decrease of eight side-impact collisions coupled with an increase of 25 rear-impact collisions shows that the cameras are preventing accidents.

His alternative:

The best approach doesn't bring in any revenue, for camera makers or city governments: Lengthening the duration yellow lights has proven to be much more effective at preventing accidents than cameras. Which of course is why several cities have been caught making intersections more dangerous by shortening yellow lights in order to generate more tickets.

P.S. Ruckman provides context:

682 days into his presidency, Barack Obama, the slowest Democratic president in history to exercise the pardon power, has finally discovered the dark corners of Article II of the Constitution and, you know, the whole "checks and balances" thing. Yes, the President has now granted 9 pardons. Why, even William Henry Harrison, who only served 32 days before having the poor taste to die, found a way to grant 3 pardons!

We expected at least a little action from Mr. Obama just about now, since 1 out of every 2 pardons granted over the last 39 years has been granted in the month of December. The offenses addressed in the 9 most recent pardons are distributed across decades as follows:

1960s (2)       1970s (1)       1980s (3)       1990s (3)    

As a result, the average distance between each sentence and the subsequent presidential pardon is a whopping 28.3 years! Even the smallest distance is over 11 years.

From Ezra Klein:

Chait underlines one fact:

There are more Americans with only a high school diploma than Americans with a college degree. But in the 2010 electorate, the latter outnumbered the former by more than 3-to-1.

Clay Shirky has mixed feelings:

I think the current laws, which criminalize the leaking of secrets but not the publishing of leaks, strike the right balance. However, as a citizen of a democracy, I’m willing to be voted down, and I’m willing to see other democratically proposed restrictions on Wikileaks put in place….The key, though, is that democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. …

Over the long haul, we will need new checks and balances for newly increased transparency — Wikileaks shouldn’t be able to operate as a law unto itself anymore than the US should be able to. In the short haul, though, Wikileaks is our Amsterdam. Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow.

Kevin Drum adds a few thoughts about our inability to fight Wikileaks.

Ackerman updates us.

Greg Sargent asks:

We've just seen the release of a massive, painstaking, thoroughly professional report from the Pentagon finding clear support for repeal among our service members. The Defense Secretary continues to insist in a high-profile and very compelling way that Congress must repeal the policy right now for the good of our military.

Can anyone imagine a more politically opportune time to repeal DADT presenting itself in the near future?

Gates isn't optimistic:

Gates seems to think that the Senate will not find the time in the lame duck session to hit President Obama's goal of ending DADT by the end of 2010. Supporters of repeal say they have the votes to get the job done, but worry that the legislative calendar the way it's currently written won't allow a vote to take place.  

Today on the Dish, Andrew countered Brendan Tapley on the future of manly love in a post-DADT world. We tracked the Prop 8 oral arguments, and Adam Bink summarized Olson's points. David Link exposed a McCain clinging to prejudice, Brian Beutler killed the GOP defense canard to stall a DADT vote, and Andrew urged them to extend the calendar. James Harkin wasn't impressed with Iran's Twitter revolution, and Peter Beinart exploded the Arabs versus Iran argument on democracy in the Middle East. The Russians almost waged nuclear war on the Chinese (in 1969), Goldblog got accused of anti-Israel leftism, Scott McConnell calculated the real cost of our relationship with Israel, and a no-knock drug raid gone wrong turned a corner on the road to justice.

Andrew weighed the problems of debt vs unemployment, and compared Sarah Palin (who has been killing it lately) to a zombie. Andrew saw cold-blooded pragmatism in Obama's tax cuts compromise, Weigel saw disappointment brewing on the left, and Dan Bartlett relished the tax-cut trap he and Bush set for the future. Democrats were willing to bargain, Felix Salmon offered historical perspective on why federal taxes are the lowest they've been in 60 years, and millionares are now people who earn a million dollars a year. The left trumped the GOP on fiscal conservatism, Don Taylor watched for Obama's next move on the debt, and Ross praised progress made by a failed Simpson Bowles. Allahpundit propped up Mike Pence for 2012, and bloggers agreed that the dickishness of the GOP was out of control.

Racial profiling at the airport doesn't work, the Washington Monument will never be secure from terror, and we trust people more when we're holding a warm cup. Cablegate Roulette is Chatroulette without the penises, Umberto Eco compared Wikileaks to Orwell, and on the anniversary of prohibition's repeal, cigarettes got burned. Michael Lind defended big biz, Stephen Bainbridge tracked the church's moral evolution and readers debated whether religion is inherently sexist. Al-Qaeda could poke you, Cory Doctorow likened newspapers to vinyl, and Mark Halperin kept hackery alive. American hunters comprised the world's largest unofficial militia and the internet pounced on Mel Gibson's The Beaver. Portland and Wisconsin hoarded all of America's pubs, New York lured a lot of college graduates, and Colorado didn't want you to order a beer that wasn't strong enough. New Kids On The Block sang one for the children, Turks had to take it from behind and smile to prove they unfit for service, and Nicole Kidman moved her face.

VFYW here, quote for the day here, dissent of the day here, chart of the day here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

–Z.P.

Spencer Ackerman reads a new study:

[P]rimarily, [the Department of Homeland Security] finds, al-Qaeda uses Facebook to launder its message through an outlet that the kids think is cool. Extremists quoted in the study talk about disguising their involvement in the group for maximum appeal. Partially, that’s to keep “the idolator dogs” of U.S. intelligence off their scent — they recommend takfiris sign up for Facebook using identity-masking tools like Tor — but it’s also for propaganda purposes.

Adam Bink's hurried thoughts:

Ted Olson hammered home repeatedly, and without interruption that the US Supreme Court has never said marriage is just between man and woman when ruling in the context of prisoners, contraception, divorce, other cases that marriage is (a) liberty (b) privacy (c) association (d) identity. He noted the Supreme Court said this 14 different times. That, along with Olson’s discussion points that (a) even if raising children in same-sex households were a problem, the remedy is not to deny the freedom to marry to same-sex couples, and (b) as Brian put it, you can’t wall off a right because children shouldn’t be exposed to sexuality… it just doesn’t stand up to even the lowest level of rational basis- seemed to be the most poignant in the entire day.

The Texas GOP wants a "Christian" Speaker of the state house. It's useful to see an explicit religous test now in operation in the GOP. The Republican party is, at its core, a religious organization, especially in states such as Texas. Why shouldn't explicitly sectarian tests be used for high office?