A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Trucks and Traffic Congestion

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USA Today had a moderately interesting article on highway traffic congestion and semi-trucks. The trucker they interviewed objected to laws restricting semis to the right two lanes or lower speed limits for trucks than for passenger vehicles. I can see some merit to his objections — he says, for example, that when trucks are restricted to the right two lanes, they create a wall of trucks that prevent traffic from merging into or off of the highway. And, I think you’re probably always asking for a bit of trouble when you have vehicles traveling at significantly different rates of speed. But, his efforts to point the finger at drivers of passenger vehicles with cell phones seemed a little convenient. Most likely the problem is simply too many vehicles for the amount of road available. Building more roads never seems to solve the problem for very long.

For my part, I get annoyed with the vehicles that just live in the left lanes, regardless of whether they are traveling faster than the traffic in the right lanes or semis that are passing other semis with minimal speed differentials — meaning it takes a long time to complete the pass, and God forbid a hill get in the way during the middle of the pass. The problem with people living in the left lane seems especially prominent among mini-vans in Ohio for some reason.

Hillary’s experience

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Any Hillary Clinton supporters out there? I’m just wondering — and not disingenuously, I honestly don’t know — what the basis of her claims of superior foreign policy experience might be. I get the sense that I’m supposed to impute to Hillary the foreign policy experience of Bill. Now, I don’t doubt that Hillary Clinton was more active than most First Ladies in the presidency of her husband. However, I don’t think she gets credit for merely being around — I don’t want the surgeon’s wife trying an operation on me. So, if she is claiming foreign policy experience from her stint as First Lady and if she performed foreign policy tasks in the Bill Clinton White House, I’d like to know specifically what those are. Otherwise, I don’t think she gets any particular bonus points for having been First Lady.

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas to everyone out there. Highlights from Christmas morning at the Masson household:

1. Cole coming downstairs to find a drum set waiting for him under the Christmas tree. He was unwavering when anyone would ask him what he wanted from Santa: dinosaurs and drums. Our ears will pay for that moment of extreme joy, but my goodness, there won’t be very many moments like that.

2. A corollary to #1, but Cole saying, “Santa must not know whether I’ve been bad or good.” Clearly Cole is a harsher judge of his conduct than Santa is.

3. Amy’s excitement. I think she was more excited about Christmas morning than the kids.

4. Harper deliberately opening her presents. She’s only two, so it takes a lot of concentration. But, she was up to the task.

5. My disappearing civil liberties coffee mug! (Brought to me by George W. Bush and the Patriot Act.) It’s a mug with the Bill of Rights printed on it, and when you fill it with hot coffee, the text fades. My family has me pegged.

Huckabee: Liar or Idiot? (Part the Second)

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I didn’t really mean for the Huckabee: Liar or Idiot? to become a series, but in the blogging business, you go where opportunity takes you. Ed Brayton has some commentary on Huckabee’s latest bit of idiocy (or round of lies):

“The Ten Commandments form the basis of most of our laws and therefore, you know if you look through them does anybody find anything there that would be all that objectionable? I don’t think most people would if they actually read them,” he said.

Responds Brayton:

Utter nonsense. I can’t see how anyone who has actually read them could possibly think that they are the basis of “most of our laws. Of the ten commandments, only two would even be constitutional in the United States, with a third being constitutional in limited circumstances. The other 7 could not possibly be the basis for any law because they would be clearly unconstitutional.

Ed then goes on to analyze each one. Just as a refresher course, here are the Ten Commandments (more or less – they’re different depending on which Bible you’re watching):
1. Only worship the God of the Jews.
2. No graven images.
3. Don’t use the God of the Jews name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath.
5. Honor your parents.
6. Don’t kill.
7. Don’t commit adultery.
8. Don’t steal.
9. Don’t lie about your neighbor.
10. Don’t covet your neighbor’s stuff or his wife.

Commandments #6 and #8 are legally enforceable, of course, but they’re pretty much part of every legal system ever made, Christian or not, and, therefore, can’t be particularly tied to the Ten Commandments. I think politicians get away with spouting so much nonsense about the Ten Commandments mostly because folks never read them. They should probably be posted above public urinals so people would read them.

Anderson Couple hit with $40,000 in attorney’s fees

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The Indianapolis Star has an article on an Anderson couple who decided to represent themselves in challenging a school’s dress code and ended up owing Anderson’s legal bills in excess of $40,000. I have not been following the story too closely, but my impression is that they alleged some sort of Constitutional violation by the dress code. They chose to represent themselves in pressing the claim. The claim wasn’t likely to succeed in that prior challenges in other jurisdictions. When the realities of trying to litigate in federal court hit them, they couldn’t handle it. I’m not sure where I got this idea — it’s not in the linked article — but I believe that, to some extent, they simply stopped responding to the court’s order.

Representing yourself on a federal Constitutional claim is just a Bad Idea. There are so many pitfalls, both procedural and substantive, that it’s difficult to succeed without training. Even beyond that, often times it seems like those representing themselves don’t even bother to read the court orders, let alone the rules of trial procedure, relevant statutes, or prior case law. They just want to get into rambling arguments about how they have been wronged.

That being said, the City of Anderson might want to look into more economical lawyers. I can’t see generating $40,000 in fees on a case where the Plaintiffs are unrepresented and the case law is pretty clearly on my side. Maybe there were special considerations in this case, like I said, I didn’t follow it closely. But $10,000 to $20,000 worth of legal work seems to be more in the ball park. Maybe that’s why I’m still driving a Saturn and not a fancy car. And now the City of Anderson needs a good collection lawyer to try to collect on the assessment of legal fees.

Clinton Impeachment: Nine Years Ago

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From dday at Daily Kos:

In December of 1998, the House of Representatives, through a bill authored by serial adulterer Henry Hyde, during a lame-duck session of Congress where Speaker and serial adulterer Newt Gingrich (who started up with a mistress while his wife was in the hospital with cancer) had to hand over his gavel to Ray LaHood, during a floor debate marred by the resignation of potential House Speaker candidate and serial adulterer Bob Livingston, voted to impeach the President of the United States for only the second time in American history. The count was 228-206 on the perjury charge, and 221-212 on obstruction of justice (two other counts failed).

That episode was fairly instrumental in getting me fed up with the national Republican party. I had been pretty happy about the GOP sweep in 1994, but by the end of 1998, I was livid with them for toying with the very serious business of impeachment. And it wasn’t because I was a devout Clinton supporter — I never voted for the man — it was because the Republicans were making a transparent power play on trumped up charges you knew they didn’t care about. Had a Republican committed the very same acts, there is no way on earth that Gingrich, Hyde, et al. would have lifted a finger in opposition.

Don’t call it a come back

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A new e-mail client based on the ancient (but excellent) e-mail client, Pine, has been released. I have an e-mail account that’s hosted on a Unix server and I use Pine to read that mail. It’s far and away my favorite e-mail client.

The computing and networking group at the University of Washington has released Alpine, an open-source e-mail client for the desktop and the web. It’s based on Pine, the ancient but rock solid text-based e-mail client also developed at UW.

You may remember Pine from your school’s computer lab, your dad’s old Windows 3.1 box or (if you’re like Epicenter’s Dylan Tweney) from when you last checked your mail. Though it’s been the choice of Unix power users for almost two decades, Pine is also remarkably easy to use and simple enough for just about anyone to pick up.

Part of my love has to do with the nature of having an account hosted on a remote server — I can get to it from anywhere, and I can keep it there. Using a pop mail server with the e-mail client on my desktop computer means that, once I’ve downloaded it, I’m going to have trouble if I want the mail when I’m at a different computer. The other part of my love is just the simplicity and speed of Pine. It’s all keyboard based, so I don’t have to reach for my mouse in the middle of typing something.

Edwards: Are we going to negotiate with those people?

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Oliver Willis flagged a pretty strong quote from John Edwards on the subject of the 17 year old girl who was first denied a life saving liver transplant before her insurer, Cygna, changed its mind and approved the transplant. The delay may well have cost the girl her life.

John Edwards tonight cited the case of a 17-year-old California girl who died after her insurance company refused coverage on a liver transplant to save her life as a call to action to change the current system of healthcare in America.

Nataline Sarkysian died last night at UCLA Medical Center after complications arose from a bone marrow transplant to treat her leukemia. Her insurance provider, CIGNA Healthcare, first denied the potentially lifesaving transplant, but relented after a loud public protest and outrage. By that time, though, Sarkysian passed away before the procedure could be performed.

“Are you telling me that we’re gonna sit at a table and negotiate with those people?” asked a visibly angered Edwards, challenging the health care companies. “We’re gonna take their power away and we’re not gonna have this kind of problem again.”

His approach to dealing with the insurers differs from that of Clinton and Obama who would probably prefer a more collaborative approach.

Legislators get bowl tickets

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The Indy Star has an article on legislators accepting bowl game tickets from Indiana and Purdue Universities and questioning whether this might be a conflict of interest. Is it a perk given to legislators that is not given to ordinary citizens? Yes. Is it given to curry favor with legislators who make decisions that affect the universities? Probably. But, somehow I don’t feel any sense of outrage. Maybe I’m jaded. However, it does give me an opportunity to trot out one of my favorite political quotes:

If you can’t take their money, drink their liquor, fuck their women, and then come in here the next day and vote against them, you don’t belong here.
—Jesse Unruh