The Daily Parker

Apparently Illinois has its own rude Congressman:

Rep. John Shimkus, a Republican from Illinois, walked out.

"Congressman Shimkus was frustrated that the president was not offering any new ground and left with just minutes remaining in the speech," spokesman Steven Tomaszewski said today in response to our question about the late-speech walk-out.

I have also gotten clarification of the British way of doing things:

Language and expressions used in the Chamber must conform to a number of rules. Erskine May states "good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language". Objection has been taken both to individual words and to sentences and constructions ‐ in the case of the former, to insulting, coarse, or abusive language (particularly as applied to other Members); and of the latter, to charges of lying or being drunk and misrepresentation of the words of another. Among the words to which Speakers have objected over the years have been blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, rat, swine, stoolpigeon and traitor.

The context in which a word is used is, of course, very important. The Speaker will direct a Member who has used an unparliamentary word or phrase to withdraw it.

Members sometimes use considerable ingenuity to circumvent these rules (as when, for instance, Winston Churchill substituted the phrase "terminological inexactitude" for "lie") but they must be careful to obey the Speaker's directions, as a Member who refuses to retract an offending expression may be named or required to withdraw from the Chamber.

Still, our side disagreed with the President about a war that has cost thousands of lives and close to a trillion dollars and we behaved ourselves. What is it with the GOP today, anyway?

President Obama's speech last night demonstrated pretty clearly that he's committed to health-care reform, and most of Congress will support him. One Congressman, Joe Wilson (R-SC), decided to channel his inner Preston Brooks and...well, here's what the papers say:

Help me out here: does anyone recall the last time a congressman called the president a liar to his face during of a joint session of Congress?

He’s the face behind the off-camera shout of “You lie” after President Obama declared that his proposed health care legislation will not—repeat not—provide health care to illegal immigrants. Psst! Somebody please tell Rep. Wilson this is the U. S. Congress, not Question Time in Britain’s Parliament or a Town Hall meeting in Beaufort.

(One should note, of course, that while MPs may heckle each other during Question Time, none would do so during an actual speech. Also, during Parliamentary debates, members are forbidden to address each other, and can be expelled for doing so. "You lie!" would get the member tossed out; "Mr. Speaker, the Honorable Member from Basingfolly-on-Turdswallop lies!" is the correct form.)

Rep. Wilson has since apologized (sort of; watch the video and let me know what you think), though some want him to do so on the floor of the House.

As one observer remarked, the opposition have mistaken the United States Congress for a College Republicans convention.

The President has since said of the flap, "We all make mistakes. He apologized quickly and without equivocation. We have to get to the point where we can have a conversation about big, important issues that matter to the American people without vitriol, without name calling, without the assumption of the worst in other people's motives."

Thank you, Mr. President.

Quick update: In the few short hours since the outburst, Wilson's Democratic opponent has raised over $100,000, and pulled ahead of Wilson in fundraising. Talk about a career-limiting move.

Not my phrase; that's from Mark Twain. I thought of it as I dipped one more time into the well of James Fallows' blog and came up with this:

Rock out, Joe Biden.

Clarification: "You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is." Well, I get mine from The Atlantic and other similar places. Thus, frequent re-posts from Fallows and Sullivan.

This, ah, came up in conversation with a friend the other day (we were talking about her choices as a parent of a toddler). Via Andrew Sullivan, some thoughts about a very common and arguably unnecessary surgical procedure:

Here's the problem: Why is the CDC launching campaigns to "universally" promote a medical procedure? If you're an adult (and nuts) or a parent, no one stands in your way of having a bris. ... Today, incidentally, government-run Medicaid doesn't pay for the procedure in 16 states. Most private insurers, on the other hand, do.

Though dismissed by public-option proponents, this is an example of how government persuasion can influence our decisions—first by nudging and then, inevitably, by rationing.

Mildly amusing video of U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) [1] drawing a map of the U.S. freehand. I would like to find out what he was saying:

I think this or something like it should be required for all aspirants to Federal office, but then we'd lose half of Congress.

[1] Dang, I like seeing that.

NPR reported this morning on a rally in West Virginia funded by Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, and organized by the American Petroleum Institute. Money quote from Blankenship, speaking to the coal miners attending the rally:

In Washington they sometimes say those of us in Appalachia need help because we're not very smart. But we're smart enough to know that only God can change the earth's temperature, not Al Gore!

You know, it's really hard to argue with logic like that.

NPR's Morning Edition has a story today on a "tea party" rally in Nevada. Listening to the people interviewed, the only thing preventing me from recommending that no one be allowed to protest against the government without having taken a basic civics class is that I have taken a basic civics class.

Now, I know many people with center-right leanings who can make coherent arguments in favor of or against various policies. I enjoy those debates immensely. The people who spoke to NPR, though? Each had some different reason for yelling at their Congressman, ranging from self-interested fear to abject panic, while seeming immune to the basics of what the state actually does in this country.

Item: A woman complained that the EPA has wants to close a public road near her house for unspecified environmental reasons, which will prevent her "three little children" from riding all over the place on all-terrain vehicles. What gives the government the right to close a public road, she asks?

Item: A man rants that "people" (i.e., "you people") are telling him what to do because "Obama won, and they think that gives them the right, like everyone wants to do this, and I'm not 'everyone.'"

Item: Another man believes the government wants to "take over the Internet" in an emergency, and he doesn't want "the government" telling him what to do.

OK. Let's review.

The "government," in a republic like the U.S., is us. "Government" also means many, many different things: Federal, state, county, township, city, water reclamation district, parks authority, and on and on. So, when the "government" wants to close a "public" road (meaning, a road the "government" built in the first place), who gave "them" the right? Well, you did.

You see—and here we need less a civics class than a good Kindergarten teacher—we can't have everything we want. So, every so often, you get to go and vote for the person you think best represents you in "government." Your neighbors vote too. Sometimes they want things you don't; sometimes they do. If the "government" wants to close a road instead of allowing your children to risk death while tearing up the landscape and polluting the air and scaring the bejeebus out of your neighbor's livestock, my bet is that you need to take up the matter with your neighbors, not with the President. And, ma'am, sometimes you lose.

As for the third guy, this presents a trickier problem. Ignorance of basic technical matters often complicates debate. But to discuss the difficulties in "taking over" the Internet, we first have to close our eyes to the subtext of his comment, which involves U.N. troops in black helicopters keeping him under constant surveillance as part of their nefarious plot to control our children with fluoride in the drinking water.

It bothers me that saying we need rational debate between people who have passing acquaintance with the Constitution angers people. But come on. We have serious problems and we need serious discussions to solve them. Let's stop wasting time with the cranks.

The Chicago Tribune reported this afternoon that the Red, Yellow, and Orange Lines have gotten approval for long-overdue extensions—or, in the case of the Yellow Line, restoration:

The Red Line extension, some 40 years in the making, would use Union Pacific Railroad right of way. The new train service would improve mobility for low-income residents in communities under-served by mass transit on Chicago's South Side, as well as provide a new transit option for commuters from the southern suburbs who either drive downtown or drive to Metra stations.

In addition, the Orange Line would be expanded from Midway Airport to near the Ford City shopping center. The extension is intended to improve bus-to-train connections for numerous CTA and Pace bus routes along Cicero Avenue and other nearby parts of the Chicago area where there has been significant growth. ... In the north suburbs, the Yellow Line would be extended several miles to near the Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie, from the current terminal on Dempster Street.

I say "restoration" for the Yellow Line because, until 1963 when the North Shore Line went bankrupt, the line ran a bit farther than Dempster Street. Actually, it ran all the way to Milwaukee. But because public preference and policy favored private cars over all other forms of transportation, the northern suburbs expanded through road construction, to the detriment of the existing interurban rail lines that covered the area. The Yellow and Purple Lines run over the North Shore Line's tracks, in fact.

That the CTA now wants to restore 5 km of track that existed for 60 of the past 100 years was predictable when the track was removed in the 1960s. I wonder how long it will take before the Yellow Line goes up to Northbrook Court. Again.

Via The Daily Dish, the results of the American Time Use Survey, in very cool form.

Background:

Sunday Business analyzed new data from the American Time Use Survey to compare the 2008 weekday activities of the employed and unemployed. ... The annual time use survey, which asks thousands of residents to recall every minute of a single day, is important to economists trying to value the time spent by those not bringing home a paycheck.

The chart, though, is wicked cool.

After Illinois passed a tough anti-corruption law in the wake of Rod Blagojevich's implosion, the Federal Highway Administration found it ran counter to U.S. law:

[T]he General Assembly passed a bill making it illegal for the governor or any agency he controls, like the Illinois Department of Transportation, to award a contract to any person or entity that donated more than $50,000 to the governor's campaign fund.

[S]tate Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) and the House sponsor of [a second bill that lifted the cap on IDOT projects], Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago), say they had no choice but to weaken the anti-corruption law because the feds told them they had to or Illinois could lose zillions in federal highway funds.

"However laudable the goals of such state laws, they have the effect of limiting competition in the awarding of federal-aid highway contracts," says the May 9 letter from FHWA Acting Deputy Administrator Jeffrey Paniati. Putting a brick on the proposals in Illinois and Jersey — which arguably is just as corrupt as Illinois — was "necessary to ensure compliance with federal law," the letter said.

Now, wouldn't it be an interesting twist, and typically Illinois, if the legislature passed the $50,000 cap to throw contracts to friends of the legislature instead of friends of the governor....

Nah, they're not that sophisticated, are they?