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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Placeholder for a post that won't get written.
As is often the case, crescat sententia, like volokh, offers a dozen interesting topics. Volokh has added comments and I am an occasional commenter there.
One valuable proof of concept for comments is the volokhian puzzleblogging.
Puzzles of various levels of difficulty, less than fermat's, get solved there routinely. There's a case for not having comments, and crescat usually doesn't.
This blog would have comments, except that if I push the buttons that might fix the lack of comments, I am concerned the blog would vanish or become muddled for reasons beyond my own muddlement. There was a time when this blog consisted largely of feedback to crescat. Currently it's more even mix of volokh, crescat, instapundit, slashdot, websnark, a few others, most of which can be accessed via the blogroll.
Anywho there are at the moment easily 6 threads at crescat worthy of further commentary , that I probably won't get to, even though I'm not really doing anything else.
One problem is if I started writing about them, I'd be tempted to go back to review, and then I'd find six more topics posted.
Today's menu includes state constitutional structure, street harrassment, a book 35,
.. it's like kim's game. Look away from the box, and see if you still remember the 25 things in the box. [Kim is maybe my favorite Robert Louis Stevenson book, and it should be free online somewhere.] RLS reminds me of another topic, talk like a pirate day.
Presidential candidate Dean received millions in federal funding for his adventure. Sure, that comes with strings attached, he can't spend it all on say cheese or ferraris or hookers. But, even given inflation, for a pirate to get millions in booty and loot is non-trivial. So I contend Dean is a successful pirate.

State constitutional structure: well, it's true the states tend to mimic the fed pretty closely, perhaps in a subserviant echo sort of way; it would be fun if we had more states like Louisiana that have their own unique (well around here anyway) structures. Two minor variations do stand out: some states require a constitutional convention every 20 years, and some states have constitutions amendable by initiative.

Section 8: What Baude fails to take into account are the negative externalities of section 8. One section 8 home can destroy the delicate ecology of a two-block radius in a poor working class neighborhood. A public housing project you can at least plan to avoid. I'm speaking from my experience here.

Street harrassment: Not sure what my take on that is. Last night I had planned to have out of town guests over. They arrived, in a big truck, and, based on some street harrassment type comments, decided my neighborhood isn't safe, and went and got a hotel room. That's what usually happens when I have offer hospitality. It's not just me. We then went and enjoyed the evening as planned, good time had by all.
I guess I see street harrassment as, as assertion of territoriality, backed up by implicit force - possibly microgovernments at work. And as a continuation of low intensity urban guerilla warfare. Partly cowboys versus indians, partly MauMau's fighting the war of african liberation from colonialism. Partly a gender thing.
Some of the gender dynamic comes down to an expectation that a man being harrassed if pushed too far will fight, and that a woman won't. A harrasser can expect to win any given conflict, but the cost to benefit ratio, if they lose one fight in 4, doesn't pay off well. A woman will more likely seek a rescuer or use words. I'm not sure what the optimum way to change the dynamic is. Maybe the cameraphone has a role.
Somebody could put up a web page for idiot harrassers, to shame them and help identify them. All for now. I think I'll have a 5th cup of coffee, maybe not the best choice at this hour.

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