Governor John Lynch today signed legislation making New Hampshire the sixth state (and the fifth in New England) to allow gay marriage.
If gay marriage—or, the right of a person and another person to marry—can pass New Hampshire and Iowa, I think it's officially "mainstream." New Hampshire ("Live Free or Die") is the most Republican state in New England, and John Lynch is a Republican governor; so this isn't a party issue any more. Rhode Island politics may not permit the state to weigh in for some time (I've got emails out to some GOP friends from East Greenwich for clarification), which I kind of expected.
But now, I would hope that Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, even Maryland, and other states with long progressive histories start getting marriage-equality acts through. Since it's a matter of when, not if, I would like to see my home state on the van.
There are apparently proposals out there to make beer drinkers sad:
In Congress, the Senate Finance Committee has raised the possibility of a 150% increase in the federal tax on beer to help pay for health care reform. And about three dozen states, including Illinois, have called for alcohol tax hikes to offset budget shortfalls.
The federal government hasn't raised the beer tax in nearly 20 years, but legislators are considering increasing it to the same level as spirits. An equalization of alcohol taxes would be a huge problem for brewing giants such as MillerCoors LLC, which will move its headquarters to Chicago this summer. The tax hikes would raise prices and drive many customers to buy cheaper brands or switch to spirits, beer industry insiders say.
But wait! Turns out, MillerCoors is wrong: the tax increase wouldn't lead people to cheaper beers (as if such existed), it might actually lead people to better beers:
Small brewers would be exempt from the taxes, giving the fast-growing microbrew segment another boost against giants like MillerCoors.
The [Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group] estimates most people would pay little extra if taxes were increased on alcohol because 20% of drinkers consume 85% of the alcohol in the U.S.
In marginally-related news, hoppy beer in San Diego is booming:
A dizzying variety of small breweries are lapping away at the dominance that mild, light-colored lagers have enjoyed since Prohibition, and some of the best-regarded are in North County, short on history and long on the bitter herbs known as hops.
... North County breweries have racked up their share of accolades. The Brewers Association named Port Brewing as the nation's best small brewing company for 2007. The association named Alesmith Brewing Co., in San Diego's Miramar neighborhood, as the best small brewery last year. Beer Advocate magazine called Stone the "best brewery on earth" in December and rated five Stone beers among its top 25. Food & Wine Magazine's June issue dubs Highway 78 a "near-mystical" route for visiting breweries.
So, it the beer tax doesn't seem that bad, especially in Southern California.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was in Canada yesterday, just a few days ahead of new border crossing requirements between the U.S. and its closest friend in the world:
Ms Napolitano said she wanted to "change the culture" along the 8,900 km line to make it clear that "this is a real border."
... American officials say the millions of new identity documents they have issued should ensure that there will be no big delays at the border after June 1st. But if their confidence is misplaced, heaping more trouble on Canadian exporters already struggling to cope with the recession, the bilateral relationship is likely to sour.
It does seem a bit unfriendly, locking up our border with Canada, and it's a little alarming to me. My own passport is out for servicing (getting new pages put in), so unless I get it back in time I can't even walk over the Ambassador Bridge when I visit Detroit next month. I'm also not sure what the new restrictions accomplish, other than to increase border delays and poke Dudley Doright in the eye.
Does it make any sense that one may legally walk from Krakow to Lisbon without having to show an identity document of any sort, let alone a passport, while crossing the street in Derby Line, Vt. practically requires an exit visa?
Probably nothing like this:
*MANN, JOE E.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army.... On 18 September 1944...Pfc. Mann boldly crept to within rocket-launcher range of an enemy artillery position and, in the face of heavy enemy fire, destroyed an 88mm gun and an ammunition dump. Completely disregarding the great danger involved, he remained in his exposed position, and, with his M-1 rifle, killed the enemy one by one until he was wounded 4 times. Taken to a covered position, he insisted on returning to a forward position to stand guard during the night. On the following morning the enemy launched a concerted attack and advanced to within a few yards of the position, throwing hand grenades as they approached. One of these landed within a few feet of Pfc. Mann. Unable to raise his arms, which were bandaged to his body, he yelled "grenade" and threw his body over the grenade, and as it exploded, died. His outstanding gallantry above and beyond the call of duty and his magnificent conduct were an everlasting inspiration to his comrades for whom he gave his life.
Pfc. Mann's story, and those of all the other Medal of Honor winners, are worth reading on Memorial Day.
From the New York Observer, some very evil humor:
4. You’re Americans! Who do you think you are? Us?
...
9. Please! For the love of God, I can't take any more of this harsh treatment which does not rise to the level of torture!
I couldn't stop laughing and cringing at the same time.
Via Talking Poinst Memo, Mancow lasts six seconds before deciding waterboarding is torture:
"If I'd known it was going to be this bad, I never would have done it."
As TPM noted, "remember: this was in a controlled setting where the victim knew he wasn't going to be harmed."
Or was he really the biggest reason for the failures of the last administration? Robert Draper's account in GQ of Rumsfeld's incompetence doesn't address this specific question, but it does lay out in painful detail how Rumsfeld may have been Bush's worst liability with the possible exception of Dick Cheney:
"What rumsfeld was most effective in doing," says a former senior White House official, "was not so much undermining a decision that had yet to be made as finding every way possible to delay the implementation of a decision that had been made and that he didn’t like." ...
The Department of Justice got a taste of such stalling tactics two months after September 11, when the president issued an order authorizing the establishment of military commissions to try suspected terrorists. Rumsfeld resisted this imposition of authority on his DoD turf. "We tried to get these military commissions up and running," recalls one former DoJ official. "There'd be a lot of 'Well, he’s working on it.' In my own view, that’s cost the administration a lot. Hearings for detainees would’ve been viewed one way back in 2002. But by 2006"—the year commissions were at last enacted—"it's not so appealing."
Some of Rumsfeld's greatest damage came during the Katrina response:
The search-and-rescue helicopters were not being used because Donald Rumsfeld had not yet approved their deployment—even though, as Lieutenant General Russ Honoré, the cigar-chomping commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, would later tell me, "that Wednesday, we needed to evacuate people. The few helicopters we had in there were busy, and we were trying to deploy more."
The problem was that the Guard deployment (which would eventually reach 15,000 troops) had not arrived—at least not in sufficient numbers, and not where it needed to be. And though much of the chaos was being overstated by the media, the very suggestion of a state of anarchy was enough to dissuade other relief workers from entering the city. Having only recently come to grips with the roiling disaster, Bush convened a meeting in the Situation Room on Friday morning. According to several who were present, the president was agitated. Turning to the man seated at his immediate left, Bush barked, "Rumsfeld, what the hell is going on there? Are you watching what's on television? Is that the United States of America or some Third World nation I’m watching? What the hell are you doing?”
Great article, long overdue.
Tom Vanderbilt on Slate points out that U.S. rail travel was better in the Harding administration than it is today:
[T]he most striking aspect of [1940s train timetables] is found in the tiny agate columns of arrivals and destinations. It is here that one sees the wheels of progress actually running backward. The...Montreal Limited, for example, circa 1942, would pull out of New York's Grand Central Station at 11:15 p.m., arriving at Montreal's (now defunct) Windsor Station at 8:25 a.m., a little more than nine hours later. To make that journey today, from New York's Penn Station on the Adirondack, requires a nearly 12-hour ride. The trip from Chicago to Minneapolis via the Olympian Hiawatha in the 1950s took about four and a half hours; today, via Amtrak's Empire Builder, the journey is more than eight hours. Going from Brattleboro, Vt., to New York City on the Boston and Maine Railroad's Washingtonian took less than five hours in 1938; today, Amtrak's Vermonter (the only option) takes six hours—if it's on time, which it isn't, nearly 75 percent of the time.
What happened? I put the question to James McCommons, author of the forthcoming book Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service. As with most historical declines, there is no single culprit but rather a complex set of conditions.
In sum, cars, trailer trucks, and airplanes happened. On the other hand, as Vanderbilt mentions, other countries seem to manage. The Madrid to Barcelona train in Spain (which travels mainly on the plain) gets passengers between the cities quickly enough to compete seriously with air travel. Imagine if the Acela went near its top speed from Washington to New York, and got people to Penn Station in under two hours. Do you think the Delta Shuttle would have problems competing against that?
Interesting article.
(...at least, by the New Jersey plan). Five of these united States now allow people who love each other to get married regardless of gender: Maine's governor signed his state's bill into law this afternoon.
Once more: where's Illinois? We're at least as progressive as Connecticut. Come on.
A gay marriage bill has passed Maine's lower house, and goes back to the Maine Senate for final approval tomorrow.
The AP reports: "The proposal would make Maine the fifth state to allow gay marriage. But it's unclear whether Gov. John Baldacci would sign it. Baldacci remains undecided. Four states now allow same-sex marriages: Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa by court orders and Vermont through legislation. New Hampshire's Legislature is actively considering a gay marriage bill."
Come on! Where's the Illinois bill, guys?