Arizona election results

Arizona will now have a majority of Democratic Representatives in the House, as Rick Renzi is replaced by Ann Kirkpatrick in District 1 in a close race. The other close race is District 5, where Harry Mitchell has defeated David Schweikert. This means the Arizona delegation will be Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl (both Republicans), and Representatives Ann Kirkpatrick (D-District 1), Trent Franks (R-District 2), John Shadegg (R-District 3), Ed Pastor (D-District 4), Harry Mitchell (D-District 5), Jeff Flake (R-District 6), Raul Grijalva (D-District 7), Gabrielle Giffords (D-District 8).

Bad news: Andrew Thomas was re-elected as Maricopa County Attorney, and Joe Arpaio was re-elected as Maricopa County Sheriff. And Arizona went for John McCain as president, though he has graciously conceded to Barack Obama.

Some bad results on the propositions: Prop. 102 is passing, amending the Arizona constitution to ban same-sex marriage, Prop. 101 on medical choice is failing. But there's also good news: the payday loan industry-backed Prop. 200 is failing (that would add barriers to entry to new payday loan companies, as well as prevent the current payday loan legislation from sunsetting), and Prop. 100's ban on additional home transfer taxes is passing.

UPDATE (November 5, 2008): Prop. 101 is still too close to call, with "no" votes leading by 2,195 votes (867,924 no, 865,729 yes). There should be a conclusive result tomorrow.

UPDATE (November 6, 2008): Still counting on Prop. 101--it's now a 2,944-vote lead for no, 887,821 to 884,877.

UPDATE (November 12, 2008): Prop. 101 has been defeated, 961,567 no votes to 950,440 yes votes.

ApostAZ podcast #10

ApostAZ podcast #10 is out:

Episode 010 Atheism and Dogma-Free Thought in Phoenix! Go to meetup.com/phoenix-atheists for group events! Quiverfull, Innocence, Over-population, Which Came First, Religion or Ignorance? (Some of David's artwork: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbessent/), Fear and Dogma, Ignosticism, Priming the Gish Gallop.

There's some discussion of what the legal standards should be for government prevention of abuses by separatist religious groups like Warren Jeffs' FLDS group. It's a tough problem, especially when various child protective agencies themselves have a poor reputation and cause harm themselves. In the FLDS case in Texas, the state raided the FLDS compound on the basis of a hoaxed complaint, adult women were taken and held as minors, and the Texas CPS repeatedly misrepresented the facts to try to justify its actions (links are to several of numerous blog posts by economist David Friedman, who blogged the FLDS situation in detail).

Republicans kicked out of McCain event for not looking right

From the Iowa State Daily:

Audience members escorted out of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., campaign event in Cedar Falls questioned why they were asked to leave Sunday’s rally even though they were not protesting.

David Zarifis, director of public safety for the University of Northern Iowa, said McCain staffers requested UNI police assist in escorting out “about four or five” people from the rally prior to McCain’s speech.

Zarifis said while the people who were taken out weren’t protesting or causing problems, McCain’s staff were worried they would during the speech.

“Apparently, they had been identified by those staffers as potential protesters within the event,” Zarifis said.
...
Lara Elborno, a student at the University of Iowa, said she was approached by a police officer and a McCain staffer and was told she had to leave or she would be arrested for trespassing.
...
Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave.

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

Love the War, Neglect the Warrior: McCain's lack of support for veterans

Amy Silverman's "Love the War, Neglect the Warrior: His fame's based on his POW status, but Senator John McCain's made a point of voting against fellow veterans," tells the story of McCain's voting record on support for war veterans, and how various veterans' groups and retired military personnel feel about him:

Most vet special-interest groups decline to officially take sides (even VoteVets hasn't made a presidential endorsement).

But VoteVets is among many veterans groups to note the discrepancy between John McCain's talk and his actions.

In both 2006 and 2007-08, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a D for his record on key congressional votes.

The Disabled American Veterans scored him at 20 percent in 2006; 25 percent in 2005; and 50 percent in 2004.

And the Retired Enlisted Association gave him a 0 in 2006 and a rating of 18 percent in 2004. These are the most recent rankings released by the groups.

Another organization, Veterans for Common Sense, posted this comment on its website earlier this year: "John McCain is yet another Republican...military veteran who likes to talk a big game when it comes to having the support of the military. Yet, time and time again, he has gone out of his way to vote against the needs of those who are serving in our military. If he can't even see his way to actually do what the troops want, or what the veterans need, and he doesn't have the support of veterans, then how can he be a credible commander in chief?"

The article notes that while polls tend to show military support for McCain over Obama, Obama has raised $74,000 from active military personnel, to McCain's $16,000.

Otto saves the canal dog

Last night Otto was barking at something while inside the house. This isn't unusual, but what was unusual was that he didn't run out into the backyard to bark. I was trying to get to sleep early in order to deal with 4 a.m. irrigation, and he came upstairs and continued to bark. Kat went outside to see if there was an animal outside (such as a cat that spends a lot of time in our front yard), and heard a dog barking nearby that was too close to be one of the neighbor dogs.

She got a flashlight and went out to find a dog trapped in the Highline Canal, struggling to get out, but the sides were too steep. The dog's front paws were bloody from the effort. She managed to get a leash around its neck to try to pull him out, but he resisted. She called the Arizona Humane Society to get someone to come take him (and help get him out if we were unable to manage it)--since he's an injured dog, this was a case they are permitted to deal with. (If a stray dog is over 6 months old and uninjured, Maricopa County Animal Care & Control is the only entity legally permitted to take them.)

I went and got a ladder and put it into the water to see if he could use it to pull himself up, but he just used it to hold himself in place.

When the Arizona Humane Society arrived, they had a dog snare which, combined with the leash, we were able to use to pull the dog to safety. He was dried off and willingly jumped into the kennel on the truck.

The dog had a collar, but no tags. Kat will be putting his photo up on Pets911 this morning.

Thanks to Otto's barking, this dog avoided the fate of another whose skeleton was pulled out of the canal by our house, in the same location, earlier this year.

Gas station ghost: Captain Disillusion's re-edit

"Captain Disillusion" has produced a re-edited version of a news story about a ghost caught on a gas station security camera that is much better than the original.

Economic results by political party

Here's a nice set of graphs from the New York Times that shows various economic metrics by President and party majority in the Senate and House of Representatives.

For the budget surplus vs. deficit, there seems to be a benefit to having one party in the presidency and another party in control of Congress. In general, it looks like Republicans in the presidency and the Senate produce bad results...

(Via the Big Picture blog.)

Palin "going rogue"

There are reports that Sarah Palin is "going rogue" by continually going off message and clashing with key McCain aides. One McCain aide reports:

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

This is not the kind of person who should be in a position of political leadership in a representative democracy--perhaps in a banana republic, but not a first-world nation.

(I do agree with her that "robocalls"--prerecorded political advertisements--are extremely annoying.)

Palin declines to call abortion clinic bombers terrorists

Sarah Palin says that Bill Ayers counts as a domestic terrorist for setting off bombs, but declines to apply the term to those who set off bombs to blow up abortion clinics:

WILLIAMS: Are we changing -- it's been said that to give it a vaguely post-9/11 hint, using that word that we don't normally associate with domestic crimes. Are we changing the definition? Are the people who set fire to American cities during the '60s terrorists in -- under this definition? Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist under this definition, Governor?

PALIN: There's no question that Bill Ayers, via his own admittance, was one who sought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There's no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to -- I don't know if you're going to use the word terrorist there, but it's unacceptable, and it would not be condoned, of course, on our watch. But I don't know -- if what you're asking is if I regret referring to Bill Ayers as an unrepentant domestic terrorist, I don't regret characterizing him as that.

WILLIAMS: No, I'm just asking what other categories you would put in there, abortion clinic bombers, protesters in cities where fires were started, Molotov cocktails were thrown, people died?

PALIN: I would put in that category of Bill Ayers anyone else who would seek to campaign, to destroy our United States Capitol and our Pentagon and would seek to destroy innocent Americans.

I agree with her that Bill Ayers' actions constituted domestic terrorism. But so do those of abortion clinic bombers, which is why they are considered an appropriate target for the FBI's counterterrorism efforts. The RAND Corporation's terrorism incident database is no longer available via the web, but when I last looked at it, bombing incidents by abortion opponents was one of the largest categories of U.S. domestic terrorism, along with actions by animal rights activists and environmental activists.

Video:

The Constitution-free zone

Via the Reason blog: The 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte established an exception to the Fourth Amendment, allowing the federal government to establish roadblock checkpoints within 100 miles of U.S. borders to stop people and search for illegal immigrants and smuggling.

The ACLU notes that 190 million people live within 100 miles of U.S. borders, providing this helpful map. (Although Lake Michigan is entirely within U.S. boundaries, by treaty Canada is allowed full navigation rights to the lake--so it's not clear if that 100-mile boundary would actually be as in the ACLU's map around Lake Michigan.)

There are currently 33 checkpoints in operation within the boundary area. Here's some video footage of one of them in Arizona:


(Via Checkpoint USA, which has numerous videos of interactions at one of these temporary checkpoints.)