Sam's L33t Journal

I wouldn't have expected that one of the news stories this week could be summarized as "don't worry, it's just the President falling asleep in the middle of his midnight Twitter rant".

The bit about Trump pulling out of the Paris Accord is almost as much of a non-story. It's the quintessential Trumpian political move: It reverses a decision made by Obama, it's something Trump can do unilaterally, and it won't have any immediate or concrete effect.

(It also provided Trump with a fascinating opportunity to use "Pittsburgh" as metonymy instead of synecdoche.)

This weekend, there were more murderous terror attacks in London, followed by calls from UK PM Theresa May to censor the internet and President Trump repeating calls for blanket bans on travel from some majority-Muslim countries excluding ones where he has rich friends.

Here's a local news story I neglected to mention here earlier:

A local supermarket renowned for it's big crowds and cheap produce is in turmoil after the former CEO was ousted. The two main investors are cousins and their families, Arthur T. Demoulas (the former CEO) and Arthur S. Demoulas. After long-standing conflicts, the board ejected ATD and named James Gooch (a former president at RadioShack) and Felicia Thornton as co-CEOs. The Arthur S. side seems to be looking to increase shareholder dividends and possibly sell off the business to private equity. Other big supermarket chains in the area have significantly higher prices and worse employee compensation, so it doesn't take a genius to predict the planned new course for the company.

The result: Wildcat strikes and massive employee protests. Enough disruption to the warehouses to cause truckloads of spoilage and empty shelves in the stores (which was a bizarre sight to see there). Associates putting up protest signs in the store and picketing on their off-hours. Organizers fired, threats of mass firings. Counter-threats from pretty much every store manager of mass resignations. Sole demand of "return the old CEO". Many customers boycotting, others turning away due to the disruption in service. The whole massive supermarket chain wrecked in the space of a few weeks.

ATD has offered to buy out the other shareholders, but the board is considering other bids, and the ASD faction would have to accept the offer. I wouldn't be surprised to see him sell out to some big chain anyways. Sack the workers and sell the buildings to some other supermarket chain for a fraction of their previous value. Livelihoods wrecked and a successful business razed because owning half of a $3B enterprise wasn't enough to assuage ASD's greed.

More here, here, and here.

The federal government is back on as of last Thursday. A proposed Senate compromise was approved by large majorities in both houses. In the end, the only thing that surprised me was how many Republican representatives backed the compromise, once the were given the chance to vote (the count was 285-144 in the House, 81-18 in the Senate, all nay votes were Republicans). Hopefully Obama holding his ground this time will discourage the hugely irresponsible tactic of threatening default (probably not on treasury bond payments, but loans are not the only kind of financial obligation that matters, defaulting on bills or wages is just as irresponsible) as part of legislative negotiations. And those that are concerned about the national debt would be wise to avoid tactics that cause plenty of misery without actually saving any money.

In related (?) news, it seems Ohio is taking the medicaid expansion after all. A strange story, since the Republican governor and the Republican-controlled legislature don't see eye-to-eye on this issue. Wonder if more governors will follow. "I've stopped the federal government from paying for your health insurance" might not be so great a point to campaign on.

Bitcoin is over $200 per on increased demand from China. Chinese internet search giant Baidu has started accepting it for payment.

In my life, this week has been quite busy. I made some significant progress catching up on chores, and managed to find time to get this year's flu shot.

At work, my current bug is annoyingly hydra-like. Migration to Google infrastructure has wonderful aspects and annoying bumps.

Oh, I haven't mentioned tabletop gaming here for a while. Xave ran a brief Nobilis game, which was interesting, and now Andrew's running a game of "Dragons in the Vineyard" (Dogs in the Vineyard mechanics, Exalted setting). Very interesting so far. Dogs has a set of rules that make for fascinating storytelling, and places the players in a very different sort of role than many such games.

I said before I left for camp that I'd discuss current events, but didn't do so on my return. So I'll briefly discuss some of that now.

The Voting Rights Act Case (Shelby v. Holder) - The Supreme Court declared the formula for requiring certain jurisdictions to get federal clearance for changes in their election laws unconstitutional. Fortunately, this leaves room for Congress to reestablish the law on firm Constitutional footing by coming up with a new formula based on recent data. Unfortunately, there is no way the current Congress will do that.

The Prop 8 Case (Hollingsworth v. Perry) - The California gay marriage switch has been flipped back to on again after the Supreme Court denied the appeal on standing, ruling that proponents of a state ballot measure don't get to appeal a challenge to the constitutionality of that measure just because the state government refuses to do so. I wasn't surprised. The opinions are pretty interesting, though. Plus it was a very odd split on the ruling, with Sotomayor joining Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito on the dissent, Scalia joining Roberts, Ginsberg, Breyer, and Kagan on the majority.

The DOMA Case (US v. Winsor) - The Supreme Court struck down the part of DOMA that says the federal government doesn't respect same-sex marriages on equal rights grounds. The other part of DOMA (that allows state governments to not respect other state's same-sex marriages) was not at issue. There were also weird issues of jurisdiction on this case, given that both sides were arguing that the ruling should be upheld. The US government argued that they had standing to appeal the case based on the taxes they'd have to refund to Edith Winsor if DOMA was upheld, even though they didn't want DOMA to be upheld. Jurisprudence is supposed to be based on adversarial cases, the government is arguing in this case that the adversarial presentation of the issues is ensured entirely by amicus briefs. I can see why the Obama administration wouldn't want DOMA to apply to only part of the country, and wouldn't want to wait for all the District Courts to fall in line or for a split ruling to force the Supreme Court to hear the issue, but it's still pretty weird. Scalia's dissent is probably the most interesting part of the opinions here, a passionate and grumpy rant against "judicial activism" (in the most technically precise sense of the phrase):

[...] declaring the compatibility of state or federal laws with the Constitution is not only not the "primary role" of this Court, it is not a separate, free standing role at all. We perform that role incidentally—by accident, as it were—when that is necessary to resolve the dispute before us. Then, and only then, does it become "'the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.'" That is why, in 1793, we politely declined the Washington Administration's request to "say what the law is" on a particular treaty matter that was not the subject of a concrete legal controversy. 3 Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay 486–489 (H. Johnston ed. 1893). And that is why, as our opinions have said, some questions of law will never be presented to this Court, because there will never be anyone with standing to bring a lawsuit.

[...]

Windsor's injury was cured by the judgment in her favor. And while, in ordinary circumstances, the United States is injured by a directive to pay a tax refund, this suit is far from ordinary. Whatever injury the United States has suffered will surely not be redressed by the action that it, as a litigant, asks us to take. The final sentence of the Solicitor General's brief on the merits reads: "For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the court of appeals should be affirmed." Brief for United States (merits) 54 (emphasis added [by Scalia]). That will not cure the Government’s injury, but carve it into stone. One could spend many fruitless afternoons ransacking our library for any other petitioner's brief seeking an affirmance of the judgment against it.

(Would be an interesting exercise for law students to actually attempt this "scavenger hunt". Did Scalia do so for this case?)

Scalia also helpfully writes the argument against the other part of DOMA for the liberal part of the court in the tradition of grumpy-but-perspicacious conservative dissents (e.g. as in Griswald, Lawrence). Scalia is angry in advance that that other part of DOMA will also be overturned in time, and there's nothing he can do about it.

George Zimmerman's Murder Trial - The case is and remains a tragedy. I wouldn't have been happy to see the verdict go differently, given the evidence. I don't want juries convicting based on their personal belief that the defendant is a bad person. In this case, the law said to convict Zimmerman only if it was clear beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn't act in self-defense. But who knows what happened? There were only two witnesses to the start of the altercation, and one of them is dead. Physical evidence and witness testimony were compatible with scenarios where Martin got into a fistfight with Zimmerman under conditions that fall far short of the legal standard for provocation and with scenarios where Zimmerman intentionally and maliciously provoked a fight. I agree with this analysis.

Of course, protections for people who use lethal force in self-defense make it easier to get away with murder. And the whole scenario is steeped in racism, from Zimmerman's determination that Martin was a suspicious character to Martin's reaction to the "creepy-ass cracker" following him. And Martin surely didn't get any judicial due process. One could snarkily suggest that if you're frightened in Florida, you'd better run away or pull a gun and escalate to lethal force immediately. When everyone's frightened and fear excuses everything, half-measures will only get you killed. But that would be taking things in the wrong direction.

I was going to write about various minutiae, but after today's events, I don't see how I could.

How to begin: I'm safe and unharmed, so is Julie, so is everyone else I know.

I want to say "keep calm and carry on", but it's easy for me to say when I didn't suffer personally. Those who were injured, who were first-hand witness to the brutality of the attack, those who lost friends and family, for those people, fear and despair are completely understandable reactions. Yet I still selfishly hope that they, too, will assert that terrorists may take lives, may cause grievous harm, may destroy things that we hold dear, but the only humanity they can destroy is their own.

I take some comfort in the fact that terrorists are incompetent, cowardly, and generally ineffective, while hoping that a free society could continue to be free in the face of the most effective attacks that evil people could theoretically muster. But I still hope this isn't the end of the post-9/11 trend that actually happened and the start of the post-9/11 trend everyone feared (indiscriminate attacks on numerous and undefendable "soft targets").

I hope we will remember that terrorists are the small demons of modern society. They have a hard time causing as much death and destruction as, say, traffic accidents, though they cause it in a way that's much more horrifying and gruesome and depraved. Thwarting and incapacitating terrorists is crucial, but when it comes to measures taken to increase safety, we need to remember that safety is a means to freedom, not an end in itself.

Today, the marathoners accomplished a feat worthy of praise. I say, and I hope, that the terrorists accomplished nothing.

I've been around, but haven't managed to get the time to write a post since two weeks ago. I've been very stressed out. Not by my last post's news (quite the opposite), lots of things are going well for me personally (Julie, too). I'm looking forward to the holidays.

But work has been super busy. And I've been sick. So has pretty much everyone I know, this year seems to be producing a bumper crop of common cold strains. Plus the news has ranged from discouraging to incredibly depressing.

Going to try to get to climbing some today. My back has recovered from its injury.

For those following the story of crooked Jon Corzine or the state of Wall Street in general, read this. Damon Runyon would be proud.

Still busy, as evidenced by the lack of posts.

It was a happy weekend of parties (office summer party on Friday, Olin summer party on Saturday, Julie's friend's kid's first birthday on Sunday (plus Film Club Sunday evening)). The weeks have been enjoyable, too.

But it's been a melancholy week at the Grotto. My housemate DJ's mom is no more, the best cancer treatments could only do so much. Death is always too soon, but in this case (as in many cases) it is particularly too soon. By all accounts she led an extraordinary life.

The news from Aurora, while less personal, also casts its shadow on the overall mood.

Very interesting!

The 9th District Court of Appeals has issued a 2-1 panel ruling affirming the lower-court ruling that overturned CA's Prop 8. The full ruling is quite long, I haven't been able to get into it yet, but here are the key points from the summaries I've read:

1. The stay is still in effect, pending deadlines for filing an appeal, so nothing changes for those seeking to get married in CA. The Prop 8 Proponents will probably ask for a longer stay as they continue the appeal process (if the Circuit Court of Appeals refuses as stay, they could ask for a stay from SCOTUS).

2. The next step in appeals is to ask for the entire set of 9th Circuit Court Judges rule on the case en banc.

3. The ruling seems to be on rational basis instead of strict scrutiny grounds, so doesn't require argument about whether laws regarding sexual orientation require stricter review.

4. It's a narrow ruling, in that it specifically looks at the issue in the context of CA, which has marriage-minus-"marriage" civil unions (both before and after Prop 8). A lot of the arguments that Prop 8 serves a legitimate government interest refer to interests that are not in fact served merely by removing the term "marriage". The ruling concludes: "Proposition 8 serves no purpose and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." It is an attempt at "separate but equal" which cannot be constitutional.

If SCOTUS ever ends up hearing this case, I'd hope they wouldn't be so restrained in scope and not rule against "separate but equal" in a way that leaves open the question of whether states can simply ditch the "but equal" part on this particular issue (leading to a scramble to repeal long-established compromises on civil partnerships / civil unions). But making a narrow ruling increases the probability that SCOTUS will just decline to review the case, letting it stand for now (until other circuit courts have a chance to rule on it, anyways).

Warm up = 30 sec. jumping jacks, 30 sec. shuffle splits, 30 sec. burpees, 30 sec. mountain climbers. What's new this week is that I'm running through that twice in a row.

My incredibly itchy nose has been fixed by better allergy medicine.

It looks like Hurricane Irene is going to be quite a bad storm.

In mostly unrelated news, I'm going to PiCon this weekend.