The Yin Blog

The end of "24" is near . . . .

I suppose I should be saddened by the news that this season will be the last for "24," but instead I feel a sort of relief.  Although parts of this season have been outstanding, it's largely recycled past years' plot devices, and most regrettably, it's come up with a sideplot (i.e., Dana Walsh) that rivals season 2's mountain lion in utter lameness.

It's kind of weird that the last four years have been such highs and lows.  Season 5 was probably the best overall season, and season 7 was consistently strong.  Season 6, on the other hand, was about the worst season, although season 8 has the potential to challenge that.

Oh well, it sounds like a "24" movie is on the horizon.  Maybe they'll use my Jack Bauer in Europe idea. . . .

If elections matter . . .

I didn't vote for President Bush in 2004, but he won the election and I thought he was entitled to nominate well-credentialed lawyers like Miguel Estrada and John Roberts to the federal courts, because elections matter.

Senator Obama won the White House in 2008, and the Democrats expanded their control of Congress that same year, so they should be entitled to enact health insurance/care reform, because elections matter.

But if elections matter, shouldn't the House, I don't know, actually have to vote on health insurance/care reform?  I realize I'm not a politician, but I think I would have come up with a better explanation for the use of "deem and pass" than, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

"Fish are our friends, not food"

We've introduced our boys to the Pixar movie "Finding Nemo," both the DVD itself (once) and the read aloud storybook version on CD (many times).  Last night, as we sat down to a dinner with a main course of fish, my younger son recited a line from the movie: "Fish are our friends, not food."

Thankfully, he went ahead and ate dinner anyway.

CIA drone pilots as unlawful combatants?

Georgetown adjunct law prof Gary Solis has an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post in which he argues that CIA pilots of remote controlled aerial drones are violating the laws of war:

[T]hey are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.

I think there are some structural reasons to ask whether military drones should be piloted only be military officers, given the desirability of clear chains of command and the like.

However, as I understand it, the purpose of the distinction requirement is to enable combatants to identify lawful targets and to distinguish those from unlawful targets (such as civilians).  Solis does note later on that it is unlikely that there are Taliban or al Qaeda snipers near Langley who could attempt to kill the CIA pilots.  But it seems to me that the analysis risks overlooking the primary vector of conflict -- namely, the drones themselves.  Presumably, the drones must be distinctly recognizable as military aircraft so that they can be appropriately targeted by combatants.  That strikes me as a far more important aspect of distinction than the nature of the pilot, given the remote nature of the piloting.

I'm happy to be excused from jury duty, but what harsh wording!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a piece of forwarded mail that turned out to be a summons for jury duty in Iowa City.  I wasn't too worried about it, since I was pretty sure that Johnson County was not going to want to pay me travel expenses of $.40 x 3800 miles for a day of jury service.  So I returned the questionnaire with a note that I had moved from Iowa to Oregon.

Today I received a letter from the Iowa court telling me that I was excused from jury duty.  What was the weird was that the letter started off by saying that I was "disqualified."

Ouch!  That's a harsh way of putting it, making it sound like I did something wrong!

Dear Census Dept: Show, don't tell

In yesterday's mail, I received an official looking letter from the Census Department.  It was quite thin, but I had read that this decade's census form was streamlined, so I excitedly opened it to get to the census.

Instead, it was a letter from the Census Department telling me to expect the census form next week and emphasizing how important it was to fill it out.

Wha?!?

Here's an idea: maybe we could start reducing the deficit by not needlessly wasting paper, time, resources, and postage by not sending out useless pieces of paper.  Better yet, follow the instructions of the best writing teachers: show, don't tell.  Show me the census, don't tell me about it.

I think I've kicked the "American Idol" habit!

How is the show with Ellen DeGeneris?  I watched the audition episodes this year, then fell behind during Hollywood week, and didn't see the announcement of the top 24.  And then with the Olympics, I missed the first two performance weeks . . . 

. . . and I don't feel like I've missed anything.  So I think I am finally done with "American Idol" -- perhaps one season too early since Simon Cowell is still on it, but better too early than too late.

(I'm really loving "Survivor: Heroes v. Villains," though, so it's not like I've given up on the genre.)

Buffett vs. Congress on health care reform

I think I'm going to believe that Warren Buffett has a better sense of whether health care reform as currently proposed is a good idea:

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett advised President Barack Obama on Monday to scrap the health care bill and start over.

In an interview with CNBC, Buffett said the current bill does not focus on controlling costs, which he sees as the central problem that must be addressed to reform the system. He added that while he does not like the Senate bill, he’d vote for it in preference to doing nothing.