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Friday, May 29, 2009

National Popular Vote Update

Ok, today has just turned into revisit old postings.  It is not like President Obama named his choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court this week or anything.

Back in 2008 I had a discussion about the National Popular Vote Movement.  

For a quick review: this is basically a movement towards a popular vote system without amending the Constitution.  Individual states pass laws that require their electoral votes to be given to the winner of the national popular vote for President.  Once this has passed in the number of states equallying 270 electoral votes, it will effectively make the Electoral College meaningless.  Click here for a link to the website.

Current Status:
5 States have passed a measure into law. (Total of 60 Electoral Votes)
5 Have passed it in both houses of the legislature.
8 Have passed it in one house of the legislature
7 Have passed committee 
8 Have had hearings
15 Have introduced bills
2 Are currently drafting bills

We will see what happens.  I still am not sure whether this is the best idea, but I believe the constitutional implications of enough states passing measures like this will be unique.

Why we have National Parks...again

Well, back in 2007, I posted this about National Parks.  I have been doing some more traveling since then and here are some more beautiful shots of lands we have decided are worth protecting from development and resource exploitations:

Bryce Canyon National Park

Zion National Park from Angel's Landing

Canyon Lands National Park

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park

Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park

If you have the chance, I highly sugggest checking them out.  All of them have some great back country hiking (I can speak directly to Bryce and Zion), but all can also be seen with day hikes or even from the parking lots.  

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Is he a natural born citizen?

That is the question that the extreme right continues to ask, especially the people over at Worldnetdaily.


Basically, it really comes down to is either (a) Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen, is ineligible to be President, and got a number of assorted officials to go along with it; or (b) He and his guys are even sharper than we thought and have managed to keep the extreme right really distracted on basically a nothing issue.

Apparently, having a printed birth certificate certified by the state of Hawaii isn't enough for them.  I have to say, if there is another issue to get some of your adversaries to focus on, this is it.  Bravo.  This has been a headline in one form or another over at Worldnetdaily and other right wing websites since almost as long as I have been checking them out.  I am willing to bet that the people on Team O have a brand spanking new "long form" (whatever the hell that is, the one shown looks like a Hawiian version of my birth certificate) birth certificate and are laughing their way all the way to carbon emission caps and universal healthcare.