Relative to incomes, houses are now 10% undervalued, and relative to rents they are fairly valued, thinks Paul Dales of Capital Economics, a consultancy.

This is a new perspective I hadn't heard before - be careful about reading to much into this datapoint but its interesting.

U.S. Housing Undervalued | The Economist

Decius wrote:
Five months later and it happens again... my internet is down. The router (an SMC Barricade) that I hooked up during the previous debacle is now unable to obtain a DHCP lease from Comcast's network....

So, I replaced the SMC with my Belkin. This is the exact same Belkin that Comcast's first and second level technical support insisted MUST be malfunctioning last December because it was unable to obtain a DHCP lease from their network at that time. It works just fine. I'm back up.

And then three weeks later I'm down again. I was out of town on Sunday so its possible this occurred on the weekend as well. Tried to get a new lease with the Belkin and couldn't, even after resetting both the router and the cable modem. I replaced the Belkin with the SMC, and now I can get a lease just fine.

The last time I had to do this, I was up for 6 months. This time, I was only up for three weeks. Thats not a good sign...

RE: Comcast's DHCP is STILL broken

In their zeal to rationalize support for Obama's decision making, several people on the left are arguing that Doninger is "OK" because its only a preliminary injunction hearing.

I reject that view for three reasons.

1. The ruling does not present the possibility that Doninger's blog post might turn out to be protected speech nor does it narrowly refuse the injunction based on a concern that there is some possibility that Doninger might loose at trial. The ruling very strongly favors the school. It argues that Doninger has no chance because her speech clearly isn't protected by the First Amendment. This isn't a case where the court thought it was a close call.

2. As I've argued elsewhere, the reasoning in this decision is deeply flawed and corrosive to democratic values. The fact that its just a preliminary injunction doesn't change the character of the argument being made.

3. The First Amendment is a strong positive right. The government can rarely sanction acts of expression. We should expect that most preliminary injunctions for first amendment claims will be issued unless the claim is facially unreasonable.

Another point on Doninger.

Troubling is how the Doninger opinion applied Tinker’s speech-protective standards to regulate all off-campus expression so long as it might be deemed “reasonably foreseeable” that such expression would find its way to campus and then might cause some kind of “substantial disruption,” which as applied in this case is synonymous with any disruption, however insubstantial or however caused. The opinion seemed to equate “substantial disruption” with student complaints to school officials, who could have readily made a general statement to the student body to clear up any misimpressions.

True, Sotomayor did not author the opinion. And true, judges tend to be less demanding when they join a judgment then when they write an opinion. That said, had Sotomayor approached the Doninger case as she approached Quattrone, Papineau and Campos, the applicable law would have been more scrupulously applied to the facts and the First Amendment claim would have been sustained.

First Amendment Center on Sotomayor

This post links to the Doninger decision, joined by Obama Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor. I think its a very dangerous decision that represents a view of the Constitution which runs counter to its intent.

I oppose Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court because of this decision. The decision was not written by Sotomayor, but she joined in it, so she has to accept responsibility for the position it stakes out, as does Loretta Preska who was on Bush's Supreme Court short list. Its possible that the decision does not actually reflect Sotomayor's views today, but as it is only a year old, that seems a bit far fetched. If Sotomayor can't stand behind this decision, that will need to made clear in the confirmation process. Otherwise I must oppose her nomination, FWTW.

The First Amendment protects your right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It does not, however, give you the right to disrupt other lawful activity in the course of your petition. An example might be hosting a sit-in in the middle of a busy public road without a permit. The police can rightfully arrest you for that. Its not your ideas that are at issue, but the fact that you are obstructing traffic. Your acts of expression can leave the realm of protected speech and enter into the realm of action which might be reasonably prohibited by the government.

In this case, the fundamental question is whether the plaintiff's blog post was sufficiently disruptive to constitute an action that the government might legitimately sanction.

Here is the blog post, as quoted in the decision:

jamfest is cancelled due to douchebags in central office. here is an email that we sent to a ton of people and asked them to forward to everyone in their address book to help get support for jamfest. basically, because we sent it out, Paula Schwartz is getting a TON of phone calls and emails and such. we have so much support and we really appriciate it. however, she got pissed off and decided to just cancel the whole thing all together. anddd so basically we aren’t going to have it at all, but in the slightest chance we do it is going to be after the talent show on may 18th. andd..here is the letter we sent out to parents.

The post then reproduced the email that the Student Council members sent that morning. The post continued:

And here is a letter my mom sent to Paula [Schwartz] and cc’d Karissa [Niehoff] to get an idea of what to write if you want to write something or call her to piss her off more. im down.—

Avery then reproduced an email that her mother had sent to Schwartz earlier in the day concerning the dispute.

The court decided that this was disruptive and thus fair grounds for government sanction and not subject to First Amendment protection. Their decision relies on three factors:
1. The language was offensive, and would incite offensive... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]

Why the Doninger decision is dangerous and Sotomayor must not be confirmed.

Read this, and click through and read the post it references, which states:

[This] should give everyone who values these freedoms in our society serious cause for concern about Sotomayor's possible nomination to the High Court.

The very bad first amendment decision herein referenced is a far more direct blow to civil liberties than anything I recall from Roberts or Alito during their nomination processes. I am very seriously concerned that the Democratic party would nominate someone in light of this issue - which was known and discussed before the nomination was finalized. There is no universe in which this was a correct or acceptable outcome in this case, and someone who would make this decision does not take civil liberties seriously enough to be the kind of Supreme Court justice that I want on the bench. Oppose Sotomayor.

I oppose Sotomayor.

Time lapse video of night sky as it passes over the 2009 Texas Star Party in Fort Davis, Texas.

The galactic core of Milky Way is brightly displayed.

Images taken with 15mm fisheye lens.

From the archive:

Oh! I feel it. I feel the cosmos!

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas

President Obama and Dick Cheney conspired on Thursday to propagate a myth. The myth is that we lived through an eight-year period of Bush-Cheney anti-terror policy and now we have entered a very different period called the Obama-Biden anti-terror policy. As both Obama and Cheney understand, this is a completely bogus distortion of history.

I would include in the somewhat mythical nature of this debate the notion that we are currently at war with Al'Queda. The Al'Queda network that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks was destroyed many years ago.

Op-Ed Columnist - Cheney Lost to Bush - NYTimes.com

Cheny's response includes some good points and some bad points. His perspective that the "enhanced" interrogations saved lives seems earnest, and its not his fault that he can't prove it.

However, he delves headlong into the sort of political extremism that has defined the past few years while simultaneously complaining about the lack of national unity. It becomes quite clear that Mr. Cheney has absolutely no respect for the opinions of people who disagree with him and has not seriously considered the possibility that he might be in the wrong. There are lots of passages I considered quoting here but I decided that these two are the clearest:

The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals are unhappy about some decisions and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the president is on the path of sensible compromise.

But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half-exposed.

He is making the argument that partisan absolutism is a necessary ingredient in the war on terror and if the people who don't agree with him are ever listened to on any point the consequence is that people will die.

After making such a sweeping generalization he has the audacity to also complain about the lack of national unity:

When they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along.

Instead, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for: our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

To quote Cheney - "Its another version of that same old refrain from the" right - that people who disagree with their policies have no right to an opinion and they should shut the fuck up because their very expression of their views hurts this country.

Thats a bit much from someone who is clearly wrong on several points, including his insistence on repeating a legal argument which was totally discredited within weeks of its original announcement:

We did not invent that authority. It's drawn from Article II of the Constitution, and it was given specificity by Congress after 9/11 in a joint resolution authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" to protect the American people.

Transcript of Dick Cheney's remarks on national security - CNN.com

The President's speech is a major step against the Bush administration's approach to the rule of law. It is worth a read.

Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset...

It is the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they'd receive better treatment from America's armed forces than from their own government.

It is the reason why America has benefited from strong alliances that amplified our power, and drawn a sharp and moral contrast with our adversaries...

From Europe to the Pacific, we have been a nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law. That is who we are. And where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology.

I think this sort of perspective demonstrates a depth of understanding of the purpose of our institutions that conservatives have lost sight of.

Transcript of President Obama's national security address - CNN.com