There was a time when we were free men — firm in our resolve, hard to sway from the right path, working diligently during the week to earn our carefree, gay weekends.

That is not America any more.

Now you can be fired from a prominent position of public trust just because you spend your off-hours (well, and some on-hours) pursuing an obsessive campaign to document the sex life of a ten-year-younger college student.

Assistant Michigan Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has been fired by AG Mike Cox. He's been fired for little more than being a diligent, informative blogger. It could happen to you. It could happen to me.

All Andrew Shirvell has done is exercise his right — the right of a free man — to devote a substantial number of his waking hours to informing the public that Chris Armstrong, a student at the University of Michigan recently elected to student government there — is a radical Nazi homosexual reprobate freak who seduces conservatives into life of deviant debauchery and hates minorities. Shirvell is nothing more than a concerned and active member of the community of Michigan alumni. True, most other alumni are concerned about the football team or the school's endowment. Not many others are quite so concerned with the sexual activity of particular Michigan students not related to them by blood. But who are you to tell Shirvell what to blog about? Do you try to come here and tell me what to blog about? You damn well better not.

Yes, some of the things Andrew Shirvell did, and said, make some people uncomfortable. Using his spare time to lengthy, penetrating exposes about the sexual preference of a young student who is a complete stranger to him, speculating endlessly about the particular sexual activities of that young man and young, studious, athletic men like him, discussing the sorts of sexual activities that gay people engage in, imagining what particular young men might look like if they were wearing Nazi regalia during their illicit sexual liaisons, and descanting upon scenarios of young, athletic, persuasive men overcoming the resistance of young conservatives — these subjects are not to everybody's taste. You know why not? Homophobia. People are uncomfortable with all that gay stuff. Uptight people who need to be dragged into this century. I don't care what Leviticus says. This is the 21st century. If a slight, well-dressed, painfully awkward young single man with effeminate mannerisms wants to create the definitive blog about the gay sex life of a single, unrelated, handsome young college student ten years his junior, then this is America, damnit, and he ought to be able to. He ought to be able to whatever he wants, without homophobic universities banning him from campus and issuing unromantic stay-away orders or the straight man's courts confining him with sexually repressed restraining orders. "Cyber-bullying" indeed. Is it bullying to admire someone from afar? Is it bullying to write sad, wistful poetry? Is it bullying to wait, watch, patiently for that perfect clear shining moment when the object of your love doesn't close his blinds? The courts — and three of my exes — might say yes, but Andrew Shirvell and I say no, no, a thousand times no.

I dream. I dream of a day when the convoluted caselaw relating to the First Amendment rights of public employees is clarified. I dream of a time when government officials charged with the public trust forget about stolid, backwards concepts like "credibility" and "appearance of impropriety" and "expense of concerned coworkers asking for police escorts back to their cars in the parking garage", and set free the Andrew Shirvells of this work to have their say and live their lives in the open, free of judgment. I dream of when Andrew Shirvell need not fear the judgment of Cox. I dream of a day when Andrew Shirvell is restored to his position, once again allowed to stand erect in court and intone "my name is Andrew Shirvell, and I represent the People of the State of Michigan, particularly those who are 18-20, athletic, and in need of being told how dirty, dirty, dirty they are." I dream of that day. Don't you dream? I know Andrew Shirvell does.

If I had to utter one rule for adjudicating disputes over bad political behavior — and if "shut the hell up, I'm trying to drink and watch The Walking Dead here" is off the table — then that rule would be "douchebaggery is not a zero-sum game." Or, put in language you can say in front of Grandma, "responsibility is not a zero sum game."

Put another way, "sometimes — maybe usually — there are no good guys in a fight."

We're conditioned by culture, both popular and political, to frame everything as white hats vs. black hats. This leads us into embarrassing contortions, hypocrisies, and violations of previously closely-held principles when we are called upon to defend Our Guy (or gal). He/she was provoked! The other side did much worse! Yes, he/she kicked a puppy, but nobody said anything when the other guy/girl killed a kitten!

And yet we know, on some level, that this is a foolish way to look at life. We know it when we deal with our children — an apt comparison, as politicians and people who care about them are usually childish in a charming-sociopath-with-questionable-personal-hygiene sense. When one of the kids runs howling into my room at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday about what his/her brother/sister did, it is almost always the case that the howler did not have clean hands in the dispute.

But somehow we go about acting as if One Guy Is In The Right, and that ifs, buts, nuances, and shared responsibility are signs of weakness, apostasy, and "concern trolling."

Case in point: former Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge.

You remember Bob. Last summer Bob lost his shit and physically confronted two snot-nosed kids who asked him questions on camera. "I have a right to know who you are," he said, displaying the sort of entitlement that is typical of members of Congress. Breitbart and friends near soiled themselves with glee. Dems were outraged that callow youths are disrespecting our elderly North Carolinians, hence promoting the Vast Right Wing Agenda.

Last week, the other shoe dropped. Etheridge lost his seat, in part because advertisements featuring him losing his shit were very helpful to his opponent. Now some on the Left are outraged, OUTRAGED, that the two snot-nosed kids turned out to be Republican operatives after all.

To which I say . . . .

So what?

Look, there are crawling hordes of annoying kids from every bit of the political spectrum out there. Part of being a grown-up — let alone part of being a successful politician — has to be keeping your wits about you when one of them tries to punk you on video. If Etheridge had such a tenuous grasp on his ego and his temper that he got all red-faced and pawed a mouthy kid even when he knew he was being videotaped, then he is simply too stupid and/or unbalanced even for government. That's the Gary Hart rule. This rule is true even if the kids provoking you and the people who sent them are mendacious assholes, and recognizing the rule does not change one iota the character of the people successfully provoking you. There's plenty of asshole to go around; we're not using it all up by pointing out that you're an asshole to let Hewlington Fipps D'Inbred III from the Campus Republicans For A More Conservative Jesus agitate you on camera. There's still an infinite supply left to apply to Hewlington and his pals.

Political discourse would improve if everybody recognized this. It might even serve to diminish our dull, feckless Coke vs. Pepsi political dialogue. Yes, it is possible for both Sarah Palin (who is complaining about her privacy whilst starring in her own reality show) and Joe McGinnis (who is complaining about his privacy after moving in next door to Palin in order to write about her) to be assholes at the same time. It is possible for a curb-stomper to be a brutal ignorant thug and for a curb-stompee to be a shrill aggressive provocateuse. It's possible for the Tea Party to have racists and idiots and for the media covering the Tea Party to be arrogant, clueless snobs both at the same time. "My candidate, right or wrong" is not an approach entitled to any respect. Spinning every dumb comment, every character flaw, every hypocrisy of your favored candidate or party as merely a trick by the other side is a piss-poor way to run a country.

So good riddance to Bob Etheridge. Some people are too stupid, or mean, or arrogant to win. George Allen didn't deserve our sympathy when he lost, even though Democratic operatives outrageously provoked him by sending a visibly brown person to his rally. Harry Reid deserved to lose for being so easily provoked into saying things that would make even Joe Biden blush, and he would have lost, had he not had the blind-stupid luck to be up against Sharon "girls raped by their Dads have an opportunity to make lemonade, you Asian kids!" Angle.

If everyone stopped issuing apologias for idiocy, just because it's our idiocy, the world would be a marginally less annoying place.

So it's time for the periodic cleanup of the draft folder, the posts I started but didn't finish, either due to time, lack of interest, the realization I was writing about something silly (a stopped clock is right twice a day), or because someone else had struck the target harder than I'd ever hit it.

These are their titles.  I leave it to you to guess what I actually meant to write about:

We Hold The #6 Spot On A Google Images Search For “Dora The Explorer”

Comrade Ogilvy Is Alive And Well And Real And Working Under An Assumed Name At The Associated Press

Why Do We Still Call It A Recession?

Fifty Years Ago Today… (I'll go ahead and say what this was about, since you don't know the day: It was criticism of Roger Ebert, the movie critic who best embodies the sensibilities of the baby boom generation at its narcissistic worst.)

At Least They Didn’t Die Of Autism

How They Manipulate You

The University Of California Embraces Fascism AND Communism

And As My Latest Work, I Would Like To Present A Sculpture I Call “Shotgun Trap.”

They’re Coming To Get You, Barbara

In Memoriam: Dr. Keats Sparrow

Manipulation could be a generic placeholder for anything I write.  My thinking is polluted with distrust.  And I'm sorry I didn't write about Doctor Sparrow.  He was a great man.

I love basketball. Most of all, I love good smart team basketball. It's why I loved the 80s Celtics (and grudgingly the 80s Lakers), the recent Suns teams, and many others. Basketball is a sport that has been destroyed by a superstar mentality, where one person is greater than the team. It's the reason I will never like Michael Jordan (although I certainly acknowledge his dominance). The new idea of basketball is perhaps typified by this quote from Orlando Magic Center Dwight Howard:

“They told me to grab them, but sometimes blocking a shot and sending it out of bounds shows a team it’s not going to be easy to come in the paint,” Howard said. “Grabbing it, that’s like being a showoff or something like that, even though it is kind of cool.”

What? He likes giving the other team possession? Sheesh. Has he never talked to Bill Russell. Blocking the ball out of bounds is a silly and wasteful move that doesn't really help your team that much. It's also selfish.

On a side note, the Orlando press have a really silly habit of being way too easy on Howard. The fawning is annoying. This is a bad incidence, but not nearly as bad as the ridiculous MVP votes they give him. Until Howard gets a legitimate post move, he will never be the player he should be. And the above quote shows that his attitude is following his game. Too bad really.

Because I am genuinely distressed that Google is paying Gary Mason, of Mason LLP, and Michael Ram, of Ram & Olson LLP, over two million dollars to represent me and thousands of people like me for the Google Buzz class action, a case in which Mason and Ram themselves concede none of us was injured.

Oh but I'm injured now.  I'm not quite literally sick to my stomach at the terms of the settlement:

Google will pay a total of $8,500,000 into an interest-bearing account. This $8,500,000, plus interest, will constitute the “Common Fund.” Because few, if any, Class Members suffered compensable actual damages and because a pro rata distribution of the fund to the Class would not be feasible due to the size of the Class, the Common Fund amounts in excess of fees, costs, expenses, and incentive awards will be distributed to organizations that advance the privacy interests of internet users such as the Class Members.

"Oh but Google would have injured thousands of people, but for these brave lawyers who put their time and money into a case no one wanted to bring!" you say.

Balderdash.

Google didn't modify its Buzz program because of these leeches.  It did it because of reporting by Molly Wood at CNet, whose complaints about the service one day after it rolled out were regurgitated by the rest of the techie media.

Ms. Wood deserves the money more than Mason and Ram.  If there's any justice, and there isn't, the Northern District of California will award Mason and Ram a dollar for every consumer who was injured by Google Buzz.

That and five hundred more dollars will cover their airfare home.

It's as close to an established truth as you'll find in economics that there is a "sweet spot" for taxation, at which government revenues are maximized.  That point is the apex of the Laffer Curve.  Tax above the apex, and government revenues decline as earners hide their money, channel it into unproductive tax shelters, or flee overseas.  Tax below the apex, and you're just not taxing efficiently.  The rich spend their money on solar powered dog polishers, or breeding new Kennedys, while government starves.

Then there's Brunei, where one family owns everything and pays no taxes.  The ruling Sultan provides a generous welfare state from his own pocket, and his family, well…

What do they do with all that money, and no jobs?

Continue Reading »

Your mission, if you choose to accept it: in the comments, post a link to the most overwrought, unhinged post-election temper tantrum of November 2010. Extra points are given for blatant racism, classism, hubris, entitlement, and rank stupidity.

My nomination comes from Kos. Now, you might say, that's cheating — going to Kos is too easy. Au contraire, as they almost certainly say at Kos. When the well is already drown-Samara deep, its that much harder to pick out one drop of water that distinguishes itself.

I give you tim wise pissing himself. Reprinted from his blog.

Money shot:

For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.

And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor.

I like how it recycles the "angry white man" bit from 16 years ago. Maybe Tim is nostalgic.

(Hat tip on that link: Aaron Worthing..)

Anyway, give me nominations in the post.

It's time for the Road to Popehat, that feature in which we throw open the hood, look at the site's traffic logs for search engine hits, marvel at the sort of questions people pose via Google, and wonder if there's some way to get paid for answering them.

describe the motivational change in mountain dew: I think you're not getting the blue ribbon at the science fair, Scooter.

do women like human flesh? Well, according to a new hit AMC series . . .

where can I find old folks on oxygen photo Try Googling "Rule 34."

How much does a Congressman make in China? That's a trick question. China now sends our Congressman checks so they don't have to travel. They're hoping for direct deposit.

does government know what's best for us? Oh, sweetums, did you come to the right place.

would I be a good Marine recruit The few. The proud. The Googlers.

Why are people so annoying on Facebook: That's the way people are ALL THE TIME. You just notice it on Facebook.

how do you know when a quadrapalegic is dying: I hope to God that's someone looking for a tasteless punchline and not some home health care aide someplace.

how to deal with friggin annoying grandma with dementia: This is exactly why I plan to abandon my family and live in a suite in Vegas when I hit 80.

does sarcasm work on the internet No.

And finally, someone who has not gotten the answers he wanted:

fuck you, kiss my ass computer Someone has been waiting a bit too long for Geek Squad.

I enjoy cooking, on the rare occasions that I have time for it. My wife complains, justly, that I landed her by cooking and then, after a certain point, began cooking only on high holidays and occasions when I had an excuse to expose huge slabs of meat to direct fire. She's too kind to point out that when I landed her I also had hair and didn't have my own detectable gravitational field.

But I'm straying from my point. I like to cook. And I'm old enough to remember when, if you wanted new and interesting recipes, you had to clip them from the newspaper — like, a physical newspaper, which got your hands dirty — or go buy a book, or ask your friends. Plus, if you wanted a particular recipe for a particular type of dish, you had to work at it. Now, of course, Google will lead you to recipes for anything you can imagine (is there a food-based analogue to Rule 34? There ought to be) and the only challenge in it is separating the bad recipes from the good ones — which was a problem with newsprint as well. The web is awash in cooking ideas.

It's tempting to assume that the world of online cooking is somehow different than the world of online games, or online politics, or online gossip — that the culinary arts have made the transition to the internet without running afoul of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. But of course they haven't. Case in point: Cooks Source.

The bullet: Monica Gaudio wrote an entertaining and informative piece about how apple pie recipes changed over the ages. Then Cooks Source simply stole it: they ran it in their printed magazine without asking her permission or paying her. "Mistakes happen," you might say. "Someone screwed up." Think so? Then consider the response of Cooks Source's editor when Monica complained. Monica asked for an apology and a modest donation to the Columbia School of Journalism (a nice touch). The editor displays a breathtaking combination of abject legal ignorance, swollen entitlement, hubris, and general Internet Fuckwittery:

Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.
But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!"

Find that irritating? Maybe you could let them know. Here is their contact information:

Call us at (413) 397-3338
Drop us a note at P.O. Box 273,
Sunderland, MA 01375
or email us at
info@cookssource.com or
cookssource@gmail.com

Monica is too polite to name the editor. I'm not. It's Judith Griggs. Judith Griggs is such an AWESOME editor that she feels that being a thief is justified because, in the course of her thievery, she improves the quality of what she has stolen. There's a point at which someone's sense of self-worth and entitlement becomes so freakish that it's almost charming. Judith Griggs is well on her way.

Judith has, by the way, essentially admitted the elements of copyright infringement. Monica Gaudio could easily, and justifiably, sue Cooks Source. Perhaps some lawyer with a sense of justice would like her do so for free — it would be trivially easy to draft the complaint and a tree-killing set of discovery demands. Though the damages at the end of the suit would be tiny, the legal fees associated with the endeavor would very probably crush a small operation like Cooks Source like a bug. That's the way our system works — usually I would say "unfortunately".

But my sense of Monica Gaudio is that she's too kind, with too reasonable a set of priorities, to do that.

Still, it might be prudent of Judith Griggs and Cooks Source to issue a grovelling apology clarifying that their theft of the copyrighted work of others is not justified by their subsequent editing of it. That might seal the deal with Monica Gaudio. And it might help repair their reputation.

VIa John Scalzi.

Edit: there's a Twitter Feed purporting to be by Cook Source. Exercise skepticism — it seems too clueless to be real. A parody? Edit: yeah, 99.5% sure a parody. Though it is difficult to tell the difference these days. Edit: OK, 100%. It's funny. Edit: If you are wondering about Scott Jacob's North Korea reference in the comments, let me remind you of my co-blogger Patrick's Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Another edit: Multiple sources report that Cooks Source has stolen a whole lot of content.

I frequently advise clients who are the subjects of criminal investigations. They expect to be the subjects of search warrants or arrest warrants at any time.

I give them all four key pieces of advice:

1. Shut up.
2. No, really. SHUT UP.
3. Because police may come to your house any day to arrest you or search your house, this would be a good time to send any dogs to a kennel or a friend or neighbor's house.
4. Gather all communications with me and with any other lawyer and put them in one big physical or electronic folder. Now label that folder "ATTORNEY CLIENT COMMUNICATIONS PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS." And put that inside ANOTHER container labeled the same way.

The first three are fairly self-explanatory.

You might think that the fourth is calculated to prevent police and prosecutors from invading the attorney-client privilege by reading my communications with my client. You'd be wrong. Nothing will prevent them from doing that if they feel like it. The labels are calculated to (1) deter those principled cops and prosecutors who see them, and (2) make it marginally more likely that I can get some sort of remedy when dishonest cops and prosecutors look at the labels, shrug, and read the communications anyway.

The ugly truth is that, in my experience, cops and prosecutors routinely, deliberately, and without any apparent regret invade the attorney-client privilege and read communications that are obviously between attorney and client. My clients describe sitting in handcuffs during a search while cops pick up my letters on my letterhead and casually page through them, smirking at the client. And I will not soon forget the Deputy District Attorney who soberly informed me that the attorney-client privilege had been "burst, as a matter of law" when the police seized his papers. (Later, after losing a motion regarding the privilege against self-incrimination, this DA said that "he would have to read up on this Fifth Amendment thing." Yes, of course he's a judge now.)

Why do they do it? Because they can. Because judges are indifferent or hostile to defendant rights or mere chickenshits who rarely recognize prosecutorial or police misconduct and even more rarely impose any sort of sanction when they do recognize it. Prosecutorial misconduct happens all the time with little consequence for the government.

So, naturally, it's thrilling when judges actually impose consequences.

Today A Public Defender is over the moon over a great state Supreme Court ruling. Patrick Lenarz was a karate instructor acquitted of eight counts of molestation and convicted of one. In addition to appealing on the basis that the trial court refused to let him call an expert on how bad interrogation taints the testimony of child witnesses, Lenarz complained that the trial court acknowledged that prosecutor Christopher Parakilas wrongfully read his attorney-client communications, but refused to do anything about it. In a stunner, one day after oral argument, the justices ordered Lenarz released immediately. That bodes well for Lenarz and poorly for Parakilas.

A Public Defender is right to be jazzed over this. But it's the exception that proves the rule, I'm afraid.

Republicans say they want smaller government and lower spending. I think that at least some of them do, sincerely, want smaller government and lower spending in certain limited areas (excluding, of course, the military, anything having to do with being scared of terrorism, and the Great War on Drugs).

There's even a chance that, all history and human nature and Washington culture aside, the new Republican House majority will, despite a hostile President and a badly divided Senate, try to reduce government.

Where would they start?

Well, they ought to look at, and consider, Reason's suggestions on "How to Slash the State." That article suggests some steps that could result in material changes, as opposed to cosmetic changes, in federal and state spending.

But they won't. Most of that stuff is still too "extreme" — or will be painted as too extreme. It threatens too many well-feathered nests.

I work 3 blocks away from Market Street, the route of the Giants World Series Victory Parade. I have been a Giants fan since I was aware of baseball. I am thrilled that my team won it all, and excited that they have a great young nucleus. I am not excited by the idea of standing in a massive crowd (they are suggesting more than 100,000 people might line Market today) with no chance of seeing the team. I think that means I suck. At least it sort of feels that way.

So, Giants, please do not take my non-attendance at today's parade as a dip in our relationship. My love is as strong now as it was when I was watching Johnnie LeMaster butcher the shortstop position. I just don't need to stand in a crowd of 100,000 to show it.

Bob Fletcher, Sheriff of Ramsey County, Minnesota, was rejected last night by a deluded populace, evidently driven out of their minds by bleeding heart sympathizers for inscrutable orientals, and the terrorists who would destroy America with their filthy anarchist urine.

It isn't widely known, but Fletcher was America's leading cop in the fight against pissants, a fact the Republican National Committee trumpeted in the 2008 election.

Fletcher was in the national spotlight during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The weekend before, Fletcher deployed armed agents to raid several houses known to be occupied by protesters, arresting the residents on charges of "conspiracy to riot." Fletcher pointed to three buckets of urine as evidence that anarchists were indeed plotting destruction in St. Paul, but the containers were later revealed to hold discolored water.Yet Fletcher remains unfazed, even defiant.

As well he should.  Some call Fletcher a thug.  Some say the Minneapolis Gang Strike Force, of which Fletcher was a guiding light, shot "allegedly" innocent people for no good reason. But I think every American should thank Bob Fletcher for his service in the war against Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos, and for saving John McCain and Sarah Palin from the threat of buckets of mass destruction. And pee.

And shame on the filthy hippies who brought him down.

I know that everyone is waiting breathlessly for my reaction to the elections, so without further ado, here it is, Roman-Emperor-At-The-Arena style.

Big Picture:

Republicans Take the House: Thumbs Up. Divided government generally means smaller and less powerful government. Time spent squabbling generally means less time spent finding inventive ways to spend our money or micromanage our lives. The strong Republican victory in the House means that the the growth of government and government spending of the last two years (and, for that matter, the last 10 years) will slow. Good.

Republicans Fail To Take the Senate: Meh. Taking the House was enough to derail the current administration's agenda. Giving them the Senate as well would probably have just encouraged Republicans to wallow in power rather than work to cut back government.

Chances of the Republicans "Getting It" About Small Economic-Sector Government: Thumbs Up. The conventional wisdom everyone is spouting is that Republicans understand this is not a mandate but a "second chance", a message about voters wanting smaller government. I'm not sure voters can be said to want that, or anything other than spleen-venting. But there's a decent chance that the Republicans will see this as an opportunity to reform the bad habits they displayed for the last ten years. I see three possibilities. Possibility One: Republicans will work effectively and sincerely towards lower spending and smaller government, and will even ease up on the hog-at-the-trough earmarks. In other words, Republicans will take parts of the Tea Party message to heart, and the Tea Party elements, once in government, will actually live up to their rhetoric. Result: some reduction in the growth of spending and government power in the economic sector. Possibility Two: a bloody internecine fight among traditional Republicans and Tea Party Republicans. Result: more public discourse about cutting government, plus tremendous pass-the-popcorn schadenfreude entertainment. Possibility Three: Republicans, old-school and Tea Party, act like politicians always have and head straight to the trough and grow government to promote their own power. Result: more voter upheaval, depending upon the economy.

Chance of the Republicans "Getting It" About Small Non-Economic-Sector Government: Thumbs Down. There is no good indication that Republicans, whether traditional or Tea Party, grasp — or care — that military adventurism, the post-9/11 Security State, the War on Drugs, or government enforcement of conservative social agendas all tend to grow government power and cost lost of money. You dumb, hypocritical motherfuckers.

Chance of Democrats "Getting It": Don't make me laugh.

Impact on Obama: Meh. Obama will be less able to pursue a bigger-government, bigger-spending agenda. That's good. On the other hand, he'll be even more likely to be driven by feckless reactions to Fox News narratives rather than actually governing. That's bad to the extent I like some elements of his agenda in the social realm.

Chance of Civility and Bipartisan Cooperation: Meh: By specifically targeting moderate and conservative Democrats, Republicans have effectively trained Democrats not to move right or cooperate with Republicans. Or they would have, if Democrats were susceptible to training. On the other hand, cooperation is overrated. Cooperation on growth of government is a bad thing.

Impact on 2012: Meh. Too early to tell. I don't know. And neither do you.

Details, Details:

Refutation of Stunt Nominating: Thumbs Up O'Donnell, Angle, and (maybe) Miller lost. Look, I understand the notion of nominating freaks to send the message "you people in power are so awful that we're going to send you a big 'fuck you' with this crazy idjit, and we're still going to win." But quality matters. O'Donnell, Angle, and Miller were not quality. It's not because they were Tea Partiers or small-government advocates. It's because they had questionable backgrounds and couldn't tell the difference between candor and Tourette Syndrome. The Republicans would likely have the Senate now if they had been able to dig up small-government advocates who didn't exude crazy.

Defeat of California Proposition 19: Thumbs Down. Bummer. The War on Drugs is a failure, and the criminalization of marijuana is one of its most ludicrously wasteful fronts. The continuation of mindless "Just Say No" by both parties demonstrates that most small government advocates are actually better described as "small government of the type I don't like, big government of the type I like" advocates. Moreover, the defeat serves to embolden Holden and the central government to continue to meddle in local issues. But let's look in context: it would have been unimaginable a generation ago for a general decriminalization initiative to come this close to winning. The tide is turning. Plus, this initiative was a lousy vehicle thanks to its ham-fisted attempt to turn stoners into a protected class. Decriminalization should not involve telling businesses that they have to tolerate impaired people on the job unless they are willing to spend hundreds of thousands to navigate our failed legal system in order to fire Smokey McBudfan.

California Bucks The Trend: Thumbs Down. Jerry Brown? Barbara Boxer for six more years? Gross. At least, as of this writing there's a chance that the loathsome Steve Cooley will lose his bid for Attorney General.

Gay Panic: Thumbs Down. Iowans, please.

Safety From Sharia Law: Thumbs Down. Oklahomans took a strong stand against having Sharia law imposed upon them. As far as I can figure, the only way you can have Sharia law imposed on you is if at some point you consented contractually to having it imposed on you. Meanwhile, my plaintiff-side clients still routinely get binding arbitration imposed on them, which makes Sharia law look like an appearance before Judge Harry of Night Court. Maybe the idea is you can contract away your right to anything resembling due process only if it's in front of irritable retired judges in really expensive office suits, not if it involves weird robes and ululating and stuff.

Defeat of Russ Feingold: I totally understand how people can dislike Feingold for being a tax-and-spend liberal. I totally understand why people can dislike him for his cooperation with McCain to violate the First Amendment by suppressing political speech. But, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, I like my beer cold, my Tivo loud, and my Democrats FLAMING. Democrats ought to distinguish themselves from Republicans by supporting the rights of the accused, opposing military adventurism, and resisting the encroachment of the post-9/11 security state. If they don't, they are just shitty second-rate Republicans with less of a pretense of fiscal responsibility. In sharp contrast to most Democrats — who have pretty much uselessly pandered to "tough on crime" rhetoric for a generation, rolled over on war issues, and trampled each other to look Tougher On Terrorism — Feingold actually stood up for (non-First-Amendment) civil liberties. It's a shame that he loses while faux-Democrats like Boxer remain.

Edited to add: Diversity: Thumbs Up. More women governors. And congratulations to the first person of color to be Speaker of the House.

I'll lead with the most obvious:  This wasn't a vote for the Republican Party.  It wasn't even a vote against the Democratic Party.  It was, however, a vote for Change.  We capitalize Change now.  If Change means (as a Facebook friend put it), asking Wall Street to pick the next bubble and asking how hard they should blow, fuck 'em.  We'll get a third party.

Following up on last night's post, Alan Grayson blamed the weather (in Florida!) for his loss.  It was warm and rainy in Florida yesterday.  I suppose Grayson, in his darkest hour, agreed with the stereotype of Democratic voters as so lazy, apathetic, and stupid that they're unwilling to walk through the rain.

A liberal who cares solely about the Presidency might consider re-registering as a Republican to vote for Sarah Palin in the 2012 Republican primary, to give Obama an easy win.  An independent or Libertarian might consider re-registering as a Republican to vote against her, as nothing is certain in this life, and she'd be awful for America if she won.  She could win.  She's Elmer Gantry or Huey Long in stylish clothing.

The most interesting state for the next two years may well be North Carolina.  Republicans took control of both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1898 (!), and we have the weakest Governor in America, both in terms of character (she's a moral and mental defective who rode the 2008 wave to beat two indisputably better candidates, one of whom is on our blogroll) and in terms of power allowed by the state constitution.  The inmates will be running the asylum for two years.  The inmates might enact meaningful tax reform (our tax system is a horrible, motley mix of income, property, sales, and a million excise taxes compounded by a century of loopholes for favored constituencies), or they might waste two years on marriage amendments and declarations that July is Stonewall Jackson month.

(Not that I have anything against Stonewall Jackson.  Stonewall Jackson was not a slaveowner, but was a man of scarily upright character who lost his life delivering the sternest rebuke the Federal Government has ever gotten, and last night, if anything, was a rebuke to the Federal Government.)

Alaska voters demonstrated that the state is a vast parasite on the American body by going for "write-in-candidate" in the Senate, which means establishment Republican Lisa Murkowski.  While both her opponents ran horrible campaigns, especially Miller, this does demonstrate that it's time for the other 49 states to demote the Parasite State back to its rightful place as a federal territory, like Guam or Samoa.

Puerto Rico is far more deserving of statehood.