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Election thingies
Nov. 5th, 2008 04:46 amYes, I'm excited. Yes, I can breathe again. Yes, this is a hell of a lot better than, say, 2004, when my wife and I were hoping for a better wedding present from the electorate.
But I don't understand how CNN gives the figures as 60.5 million to 54 million, i.e. maybe 115 million votes, when the turn out in '04 was 122 million and the numbers are supposed to be so much higher this year. And I really, really don't understand how California could have gone 53/47 in favor of Proposition 8, which is where it is now and which is how it looks like it's going to go.
(And I'd really, really like to see someone challenge the amendment, which reads in full Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California., on the grounds of the ambiguity discussed in this LanguageLog post. In particular, I was struck by the same reading that Aaron Dinkin found, i.e. "It's only marriage that is recognized between a man and a woman in California", which entails that California doesn't recognize "dating" as a valid relationship between a man and a woman, but leaves entirely open the question of what's recognized between two men or two women. I'm not remotely a lawyer and I'm fairly sure that there's a "reasonable interpretation" basis for not allowing that kind of challenge, but (a) if you write something semantically ambiguous, you should suffer the consequences, and (b) frankly, anything that would get rid of this abomination of an amendment is just fine with me.)
Maybe when I wake up, things'll be clearer. As it happens, the PA Attorney General race changed significantly since the point at which the state was called for Obama: at the time, the Democratic challenger was up by about ten points, and now the Republican incumbent is up six. I voted for the Republican, incidentally. I wasn't impressed by any of the ads I saw, which were entirely attack ads from both sides. But the Dem's website stressed three issues—restricting parole for violent offenders, cracking down on illegal immigrants, and making it illegal to be a member of a gang even if one's actions are otherwise entirely within the law. These all struck me less as issues and more as posturing (and the third one worried me on First Amendment grounds; I gather that a federal court ruled that gang membership isn't a first amendment right, but it seems to me to be, if not a free speech issue, at least a free assembly issue, and mostly it seems a little like thoughtcrime.)
Right. Bed.
But I don't understand how CNN gives the figures as 60.5 million to 54 million, i.e. maybe 115 million votes, when the turn out in '04 was 122 million and the numbers are supposed to be so much higher this year. And I really, really don't understand how California could have gone 53/47 in favor of Proposition 8, which is where it is now and which is how it looks like it's going to go.
(And I'd really, really like to see someone challenge the amendment, which reads in full Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California., on the grounds of the ambiguity discussed in this LanguageLog post. In particular, I was struck by the same reading that Aaron Dinkin found, i.e. "It's only marriage that is recognized between a man and a woman in California", which entails that California doesn't recognize "dating" as a valid relationship between a man and a woman, but leaves entirely open the question of what's recognized between two men or two women. I'm not remotely a lawyer and I'm fairly sure that there's a "reasonable interpretation" basis for not allowing that kind of challenge, but (a) if you write something semantically ambiguous, you should suffer the consequences, and (b) frankly, anything that would get rid of this abomination of an amendment is just fine with me.)
Maybe when I wake up, things'll be clearer. As it happens, the PA Attorney General race changed significantly since the point at which the state was called for Obama: at the time, the Democratic challenger was up by about ten points, and now the Republican incumbent is up six. I voted for the Republican, incidentally. I wasn't impressed by any of the ads I saw, which were entirely attack ads from both sides. But the Dem's website stressed three issues—restricting parole for violent offenders, cracking down on illegal immigrants, and making it illegal to be a member of a gang even if one's actions are otherwise entirely within the law. These all struck me less as issues and more as posturing (and the third one worried me on First Amendment grounds; I gather that a federal court ruled that gang membership isn't a first amendment right, but it seems to me to be, if not a free speech issue, at least a free assembly issue, and mostly it seems a little like thoughtcrime.)
Right. Bed.