3 Posts
ArchPundit
At the Political State Report
–Sis Daley
–New Gov Stumbles sort of
–Quick profile of IL Democratic Senate Candidate for 2004.
February 2003
Lotta Time Lambert has
but he caught another problem with Lott’s work. Apparently the parabola does not fit, but one must not acquit…
Drip, drip, drip…
Speaking of Stupid Leader Articles
This idiot claims that it would have taken him an 2 hours to get from Belleville to Lambert Airport by Metrolink. Sure-if he lived an hour from the Belleville station. The trip is one hour. Of my many complaints with Bi-State, Metrolink isn’t one of them. However, there is a problem if some people are too dumb to read a schedule.
The Leader’s ERA obsession
With the tactic to try and bring back the ERA for consideration to the US Constitution gaining steam, the Illinois Leader opens fire and is either too dumb or just lying about the effect of the Equal Rights Amendment. It is really a twofer for them since Illinois House Minority Leader, Tom Cross, is a supporter of the ERA, they can attack both at once.
First, let me say, I don’t really understand the movement. It seems to me that the language of the amendment precludes it being considered further at this point, but I’ll leave that to Constitutional Scholars. I am for an ERA though and fail to understand why it has never been passed.
The Leader decides to pull out all of the garbage Phyllis Schlafly and other conservatives used to defeat it the first time.
Let’s run them down:
1) Women will be drafted and forced to serve in combat
2) It will legalize gay marriages
3) It entitles women special rights
4) It automatically means state funded abortions
Well, one is correct. Women will be drafted and if they made the fitness levels, they would serve in combat. Some do now, though only in the Navy or in jets. Welcome to the 21st century, women have the same obligations as men in our republic.
Two is nonsense, absolute Schlafly bullshit. The ERA would make gender a suspect classification, not sexual orientation. I’m for sexual orientation being a suspect classification, but the ERA doesn’t do that.
Three, well no, forcing the state to only treat you differently if there is a compelling state interst isn’t a special right, it is something that should be normal for a feature that is irrelevant to one’s participation as a citizen. Having ovaries is irrelevalant to one’s participation as a citizen.
Four, is simply not true. There is some argument that abortion would be further protected by the ERA because of equal protection. IOW, because men don’t have the same restrictions on reproduction, similar restrictions on women would be unconstitutional. However, claiming state funding of abortions would be mandated is simply not true. Given the state doesn’t have to fund health care, this is a silly claim.
My favorite not contained in the article is that there will only be unisex bathrooms. I’m sure that is in the next article.
The ERA should be a non-controversial issue. It isn’t solely about women either, despite what the wingnut fringe would like to claim. It makes gender a suspect classification just as race, religion and national origin currently are. There is nothing special about this at all.
The ERA is yet another attempt by the loony Left to force through an agenda that would have slim popular support if it was not couched in egalitarian feel-good sophistry. It might also help if Republican lemmings stopped chasing the almighty suburban soccer mom vote right off the sanity cliff.
Or if wingnuts got a clue…
My Writing can be bad
But Joyce never disappoints and chimes in again with a nearly unreadable essay on consensus building.
Moseley-Braun Slogan Contest
Is taking place over at Cornfield Commentary.
I got nothing…
Gregg Easterbrook gets more mileage
out of one bad subsidy than any professional writer should be able to. This isn’t a slam at Gregg Easterbrook, one of my favorite environmental policy writers, it is a slam at politicians who keep reinvinting the square wheel and claiming it will now work.
First, he does a good job describing the barriers to a hydrogen economy well. My argument is that one should start a competition to develop hydrogen sources economically and energy efficiently over time. It is a technical problem, a big one for sure, but it is a solvable technical problem.
Second, he ups his mileage on pointing out how the President’s plan is a stupid, as he pointed out previously about the Supercar Program under Clinton. For a more detailed version see the Chicago Tribune seriesDemonstrating that no bad idea can die, Dubya decided to reinvent the program so that it won’t produce a fuel cell car just as the first didn’t produce a Supercar. However, it does stop pressure on CAFE standards–or pressure for the better solution as I linked to Dynamist earlier–gas taxes.
Title IX confusion
I’ve been a bit befuddled about what to write about the Title IX commission’s suggestions for reforms. First, it is vital that only sports is allowed to be considered because beyond that, Title IX shouldn’t be controversial at all. The commission refused to get rid of the proportionality rule as many wrestling advocates wanted. That is good. What does it mean, well neither, I nor the Chicago Tribune can figure that out. Modest changes in flexibility may not be the end of the world, but I can’t really tell what the hell they are actually proposing.
South Suburban Metra Shift
Bill Lipinski apparently knocked someone over the head and Metra is now doing a study for a south suburban run.
Damn
The note about Hart I sent to Virginia Postrel is just about unreadable with its odd sentence structures. But thanks to Virginia for posting it.
Oh, and scroll down to her post on SUVs and taxes–it is a good post.