by Burt Likko on August 31, 2011
So it seems that in Philadelphia, you can park in a no-parking zone if you’re attending services at select downtown churches and put a placard stating as much in your car’s windshield. Comments at a popular atheist website suggest that other cities simply turn their parking meters off on Sundays, or otherwise overlook flagrant-seeming parking violations near churches on Sundays, but there is an indication that in Philadelphia, at least one secular group gets a similar privilege.
The questions on the table are: 1) does giving special parking passes for worship constitute an impermissible Establishment of religion, or an appropriate accomodation of it? and 2) if it is an Establishment, does the extension of a similar privilege for secular groups redeem it?
Our jurisprudence has given us three ways to test for Establishment: the coercion test, the Lemon test, and the endorsement test. There is also the literalist reading of the Establishment clause, which is that it prohibits only the designation of a particular religion as the official religion of the Federal Government (and note that adherents to this point of view flirt with, and sometimes endorse, the idea that only Congress and netiehr the States nor the President is similarly prohibited from Establishing an official religion).
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by Burt Likko on August 30, 2011
Nearly four years ago, an old blogbuddy and sporadic poster here noted that the Republican party in its current incarnation could be divided up into three factions: Jesus! Bombs! and Money! (My objection to the Jesus! Bombs! Money! nomenclature that is that I consider the Moatdiggers as sort of a separate group, whose desire to see the Federal government issue licenses enabling the hunting of illegal aliens for sport to be the paramount inherent good overpowering even the deepest personal love they might have for Jesus! or Bombs! or Money!.)
That nomenclature is a good starting point for thinking about how, when, and where the decisive punches will be thrown in the 2012 Republican primary. I think I know enough now to make an effective prognostication.
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by Burt Likko on August 29, 2011
Not unlike last week, what is it that these U.S. cities lack? Quite unlike last week, the correct answer is not “NFL franchises.”
In descending order of population as measured in the 2010 census, the cities which lack [the answer to this week's question] are: Austin, Texas; Tuscon, Arizona; Omaha, Nebraska; Arlington, Texas; Anaheim, California; Aurora, Colorado; Lexington, Kentucky; Stockton, California; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Henderson, Nevada.
by Burt Likko on August 26, 2011
Heroes need sidekicks. Sancho. Friar Tuck. Robin. Sam Gamgee. Herminone and Ron. Rocky. Agent 99. The sidekick is often allowed a more extreme version of personality than the hero; like Donkey is to Shrek.
Sometimes the sidekick is a good device for narration, like Doctor Watson supplying the reader’s POV. Sometimes the sidekick is there to rescue the hero in the nick of time, like R2-D2 (photo compliant with Rule of Sexy, may not be authorized by Lucasfilm) does for Luke Skywalker. But a good story about a good hero almost always includes a sidekick. It goes back to the model of the Hero’s Journey, in which the hero befriends another journeyer, who helps the hero overcome a struggle along the way to the ultimate conflict.
The differentiation between sidekick and hero is that the narrative focus is always on the hero. If you have partners (say, Laverne and Shirley), they are narratively equal. A good sidekick, though, leaves you wanting more, even though in the cool light of recollection you probably realize that the ratio of hero-to-sidekick is never going to be quite enough to satisfy you.
At the end of the day, I’m going to say my favorite sidekick of all time is Inigo Montoya. A badass in his own right, switched from enemy to friend of the hero through earning mutual respect, was driven by a simple and powerful motive, carries the hero through a difficult portion of his journey (the hero was mostly dead, after all), and he got two of the best sidekick lines ever.
Think you you do better than Inigo? That’s what the comments are for!
by Burt Likko on August 25, 2011
The Wife subscribes to an organic food delivery service. I had misgivings about it — when she first suggested it, she said some words but what I heard her say was “I want to pay a lot more money for fruits and vegetables than the grocery store charges.” Eventually I gave in and indulged her, though.
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by Burt Likko on August 24, 2011
The war in Afghanistan (remember that one?) clearly is resulting in, at long last, a decrease in the opium poppy trade, and the concomitant decrease in the global supply of recreational heroin. Apparently, heroin has become next to impossible to obtain in Russia, not from law enforcement activity but rather because there just isn’t enough of the stuff making it out of Afghanistan.
This seems like it ought to be good news. After all, the (official) drug policy of Russia is like that of the United States: criminalization and interdiction, aimed at making the drug difficult for users to obtain. Law enforcement may not have succeeded in interdiction, but the goal of interdiction — reduced supply, keeping the heroin off the streets — has been realized.
But.
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by Burt Likko on August 24, 2011
This case from Kentucky is an excellent example of why I do not think tort reform is necessary. The poster child for tort reform is the aggrieved doctor who just wants to practice normal medicine who can no longer afford insurance and must close his practice because of greedy trial lawyers. I do not believe that doctor exists. The safeguard necessary to protect doctors (and, let’s not forget what’s important here, their insurers) from runaway lawyers and juries is… lawyers and juries who pay attention to the evidence.
As is usual for reporting on medical malpractice, sensationalism triumphs over good reporting and you have to read the entire article, to the very end, before you understand why the verdict was what it was.
by Burt Likko on August 24, 2011
Rumor has it that JP Morgan may make a bid to take over Bank of America, backed up by $100,000,000,000 of government money. In order for the deal to go through, the SEC would have to suspend antitrust rules, becasue the resulting entity would have too large a market share under current regulations. Recall that in early 2009, BofA used $45 billion of government money to buy out Merrill Lynch and a bunch of other TARP loans.
The precedent was set a long time ago for the government to lend money to private companies when the failure of those companies would have a significant impact on the national economy as a whole. But this is literally doubling down on failure. At some point, will this experiment in public bankrolling of private financial adventuring be called a failure? I’m not saying I wouldn’t like a helping hand if I were to fall down on my luck. I’m saying that maybe the public isn’t well served by this sort of thing.
If BofA is really that financially distressed, one of its competitors will offer to buy it out at a bargain price. Some stockholders will lose, others will win, and chances are that the same mutual funds will be owners of both stocks. There is no need for this level of government involvement in what amounts to a hostile takeover of a troubled company.
EDIT – On further consideration, I think I’ve improvidently titled the post. Bush this did sort of thing too.
by Burt Likko on August 22, 2011
Riverside, California; Portland, Oregon; Sacramento, California; San Antonio, Texas; Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Memphis, Tennessee are, in descending order, the ten largest metropolitan urban areas in the United States of America that have never had what?
by Burt Likko on August 22, 2011
No sane person would regret the collapse of the regime of Quadafi. However, no sane person, having observed the events of the Second Iraq War, would view the collapse of a government as anything short of perilous.
I see no cognitive dissonance in being grateful for the apparent victory in Libya of the forces with which the U.S. and NATO were allied on the one hand, and maintaining that we were fighting an undeclared, ill-advised, and illegal war. It’s good that we won and hopefully we’re better off for having fought. But that doesn’t mean we should have fought that war in the first place.
It’s not quite over yet. As I write, Quadafi himself is not yet accounted for and the provisional government in Benghazi has not yet secured the entire country. Loyalist forces will melt back into the civilian population and could very well mount a resistance manipulating tribal tensions, should they perceive a reasonable chance of success, security, or even short-term advantage in doing so.
And while we seem confident that the new government in Libya will be both democratic and within the political and economic orbit of the west, whether it actually plays out that way remains to be seen. Remember, the problem with democracy is that sometimes people vote wrong — to what extent will religious fundamentalists acquire political power, particularly in a democratic system, and if they do, will we have any legitimate grounds to object?
But for now, let freedom ring.
So it seems that in Philadelphia, you can park in a no-parking zone if you’re attending services at select downtown churches and put a placard stating as much in your car’s windshield. Comments at a popular atheist website suggest that other cities simply turn their parking meters off on Sundays, or otherwise overlook flagrant-seeming parking violations near churches on Sundays, but there is an indication that in Philadelphia, at least one secular group gets a similar privilege.
Burt Likko is the pseudonym of an attorney in Southern California. He is sometimes known as the "Transplanted Lawyer" in commemoration of a two-year sojourn in East Tennessee which was something of a transformative life experience. His interests include politics and public policy, Constitutional law with a focus on the separation of church and state, cooking, good wine, and bad science fiction movies.
Will Truman is the pseudonym of a somewhat random guy that lives in the Mountain West with his doctorly wife. He has moved around frequently, having lived in four states in the last five years or so. Part-poligeek, part-geek, sometimes substitute teacher, sometimes professional gearhead, and off-and-on amateur fiction writer. He is primarily interested in the balancing of competing interests and points of view where answers are not easily found. He does (mostly) non-political blogging at 
