Colorado's On Fire

Scalia Agonistes?

I don't really know what that means exactly, but it seemed appropriate and was in my head from a piece on T.S. Eliot I read yesterday.
Anyhoo, so I sent this email to TPM this morning speculating that Roberts had to take control of the court, that if this decision went Scalia's way, he would be effectively the Chief Justice.
Then, an Andrew Sullivan reader threw this into the mix. Wow. Just wow.

There's something quite odd in my view about the Scalia opinion in the back. It's not a Scalia rant by and large; in fact it reads at the outset rather majestically, like he's delivering the opinion of the court. Even more strangely, it refers repeatedly to the "Ginsburg dissent," but Ginsburg is in the majority on most issues. What's all this about? Were the tables turned midway? Did Roberts first sign on to Scalia's opinion and then bail on him? Is that what Ginsburg was ribbing Scalia over in her ACS remarks? I suspect there is an amazing an untold backroom story behind this decision. It may be a while before we learn it. But the sense I have is that Scalia had the votes to take a sledgehammer to ACA, and then lost Roberts. Was it Scalia's overreaching and his overheated rhetoric that did him in? This may make an excellent Supreme Court mystery. But it points in the end to the complicated and rather ornery personality of Nino Scalia as a real burden for the court's conservatives.

I haven't read the opinions and probably won't, I like reading opinions about opinions. But, wow.

House To Try To Repeal ACA. Again

You heard it here first. Politico says the House will take another vote to repeal the ACA on July 9. That's fine. I don't even remember how it went. I think it lost. But I think it's great. I predict it will be a "reverse Wisconsin."
What most voters know is simply that the Supreme Court ruled, case closed, move on. If their House members can't get past it, they'll lose some important seats, maybe the full 25 it takes to reverse the balance. Democratic candidates will wrap the repeal vote around their necks and strangle them. Then drag them over to the bathtub to finish the job, eh Grover?
Of course, that's what I want to believe. I donated a small sum to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee yesterday. Made me feel good.

Headline O' Teh Day

SCOTUS ACA Decision: Take That You Zombies!
TGOP heads exploding across America. What a concept, what execution, coming soon to a voting booth near you. I'm up to my ankles in gore already. Back to you, Walter.

The Auld Sod

(Note to loyalists: I'm sorry I've been so lax. I was afraid for awhile I'd lost interest. But I think it was just indigestion.)
On to Edmond Burke, whose writing I once recommended to a drunken bar manager calling himself a conservative though I, of course, have never read anything by Burke except the occasional apt quote. This part of a piece on Burke just struck home not because of him, but because of the sheer brutality of life in the 18th Century.

On the January day he was born Éamon de Búrca, in the old tongue, in 1729, on Arran Quay on the River Liffey in Dublin, the English penal laws forbade Catholics from holding public office, marrying Protestants, owning weapons, serving in the military or as a lawyer or judge, voting, receiving public education of any sort or redress from arrest without cause by a representative of the king, purchasing land, inheriting land from Protestants, leasing land for more than 31 years, owning a horse worth more than five pounds, speaking their native Irish language, and building churches. (In the few cases where churches were allowed to be built, imperial law forbade the use of stone.) 

Motorcycle Queen Of Miami

Honorary Contrarienne Bessie Stringfield.

During World War II, Bessie worked for the army as a civilian motorcycle dispatch rider. The only woman in her unit, she completed rigorous training maneuvers. She learned how to weave a makeshift bridge from rope and tree limbs to cross swamps, though she never had to do so in the line of duty. With a military crest on the front of her own blue Harley, a "61," she carried documents between domestic bases. 

The People's Economist

Elinor Ostrom has died. She was a contrarienne if ever there was one.

She was at first hired by the university, she said, because the political science department needed someone to teach a 7:30 a.m. class.

Previously.

Femgeeks

A. Radia Perlman
Q. Who was the mother of the internet?
But there was more than one.

Another Remarkable Woman

You've never heard of her because...do I need to ask? Okay, I'll concede, we've never hear of most major scientists.
Ruby Payne-Scott, definitely an Honorary Contrarienne.

During World War II, she was engaged in top secret work investigating radar. She was the expert on the detection of aircraft using PPI (Plan Position Indicator) displays. She was also at the time a member of the Communist Party^[5] and an early advocate for women's rights. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was interested in Payne-Scott and had a substantial file on her activities, with some distortions.^[

MetaFilter has more links.

Dept. of I Didn't Know That Dept.

THE WORLD'S MOST popular game is also its most corrupt, with investigations into match fixing ongoing in more than 25 countries. Here's a mere sampling of events since the beginning of last year: Operation Last Bet rocked the Italian Football Federation, with 22 clubs and 52 players awaiting trial for fixing matches; the Zimbabwe Football Association banned 80 players from its national-team selection due to similar accusations; Lu Jun, the first Chinese referee of a World Cup match, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for taking more than $128,000 in bribes to fix outcomes in the Chinese Super League; prosecutors charged 57 people with match fixing in the South Korean K-League, four of whom later died in suspected suicides; the team director of second-division Hungarian club REAC Budapest jumped off a building after six of his players were arrested for fixing games; and in an under-21 friendly, Turkmenistan reportedly beat Maldives 3-2 in a "ghost match" -- neither country knew about the contest because it never actually happened, yet bookmakers still took action and fixers still profited.

My Thoughts Exactly

They sent me a gratitude poem yesterday. It's a good one.

Spring Reign by Dean Young Posted: 22 May 2012 11:00 PM PDT Thank you whoever tuned the radio to rain, thank you who spilled the strong-willed wine for not being me so I’m not to blame. I’m glad I’m not that broken tree although it looks sublime. And glad I’m not taking a test and running out of time. What’s a tetrahedron anyway? What’s the sublime, 3,483 divided by 9, the tenth amendment, the ferryman’s name on the River Styx? We’re all missing more and more tricks, losing our grips, guilty of crimes we didn’t commit. The horse rears and races then moves no more, the sports coupe grinds to a stop, beginning a new life as rot, beaten to shit, Whitman grass stain, consciousness swamp gas, the bones and brain, protoplasm and liver, ground down like stones in a river. Or does the heart’s cinder wash up as delta froth out of which hops frog spawn, dog song, the next rhyming grind, next kid literati? Maybe the world’s just a bubble, all philosophy ants in a muddle, an engine inside an elk’s skull on a pole. Maybe an angel’s long overdue and we’re all in trouble. Meanwhile thanks whoever for the dial turned to green downpour, thanks for feathery conniptions at the seashore and moth-minded, match-flash breath. Thank you for whatever’s left. Source: Poetry (February 2012).

Dept. of Burning Bridges

Apparently you cannot even come back for a visit if the government decides you renounced your citizenship for tax purposes. Also, apparently, that option isn't enforced. On the other hand, in 2010, about 200 people renounced citizenship like the Facebook guy. Last year, nearly 1,800. It's getting to be A Thing for rich people.

Election Update

Andrew Sullivan and Talking Points Memo told me three interesting things today, which deserve to be linked.
1. The Obama SuperPac, which has had trouble raising money, has released a pretty tough ad in selected states focussing on Romney and Bain. The Obama campaign has another ready to go.



2. Romney is not answering questions today, trying to keep reporters away from him, possibly related to anticipated questions about the Bain ad.
3. It's way too early in the election season to make any judgements. In fact, it's likened to pre-season baseball.

Riding with a couple friends yesterday, one of them went into a rant about the birthers. I said who's raising that issue these days, and she couldn't actually think of anything. Then I read this today.

Poetry Phrase O' Teh Day

Jane Kenyon's  "strong  

unforgettable attar of mouse."

Pale Blue Dot

Can't see it? Well, see that brownish band on the far right? It's about half way down, looks like a speck of dust, really.
Voyager I took that picture at Carl Sagan's request just before it left the solar system.
What he had to say about it was pretty good. Thanks, MetaFilter.

Helluva Poem Today

They don't come along all that often, so it's worth noting when one does.

Oh, body, be held now by whom you love. Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars, when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you & touch you with its mouth.

The Dowager

Someone has Photoshopped a wonderful picture of the Dowager Countess to accompany a pretty fun — and short — piece on how Battlestar Galactica is like Downton Abbey. And, by extension, all stories are the same stories, a concept I first acquired when I read Robert Graves' The White Goddess and a principle I hold to this day, one of the reasons I'm really sick of fiction.
Anyway, I'm sorry they locked up that picture so I can't steal it. You will have to click the link.


“First electricity. And then telephones. I feel as if I were living in an H G Wells novel.”
The Dowager Countess Violet Crawley

One Of Those Moods

A Facebook friend alerts me to this charming analysis of Barack Obama's youthful literary efforts. It seemed to set off some sort of red alert in my brain, no telling why, so here's my rantful reply:

First the girlfriend, but it wasn't juicy enough and didn't stick. Now, a couple of old grafs on T.S. Eliot. I used to be in the news business, and I've done some scraping of the barrel myself, but this is just hilarious. I couldn't help putting myself in the place of the poor hapless reporter having to fill some white space. Just a few quick calls, give me 15 inches, honey. Feeding the beast, it's called. Of course the winners in all this are the poetry profs, who probably haven't seen themselves quoted outside an obscure academic journal for, oh, like never. I bet they each saved a clip. And poor Bill Kristol, he wasn't fast enough on his feet there. A huge opportunity to bash Obama for signs of early socialism and what happens, some lit prof from Podunk U. scores the goal. Jeebus. You can't make this stuff up. Thanks, Jean. Six more months of this kind of thing. Bring 'er on! (I'm also thinking Wag the Dog and Primary Colors, the satire just writes itself.)

Should I Have Breakfast For Dinner?

I have decided that I should. Pity it can't be this breakfast, though, prepared and served by the chap who writes of it. I have never written the word "chap" before, and I am 68 years old.

1981. I Remember It Well.

No job, no prospects. Hanging on by my fingernails, a series of roommates. Bleak. Disastrous. It got worse. But the jobs report is not about me this time, and for that I'm grateful. I can just wonder at a week of so much rain that there is not just a puddle in the front yard, but a pond. Shallow, but still a pond.