Elephant In Exile

Super Cinco-De-Mayo Edition

Hope you enjoyed 05-05-05 as it won't be rolling around again for another 100 years. I went out for pomegranite marguiritas at Rosa Mexicana (Overrated). Anyway, for lack of a better title, here's your weekend reading, enjoy.

Obstacle Course: Filibusters are not sacrosanct, but they’re
useful

Critics of the Senate filibuster complain that it's undemocratic and obstructive. These are its two most appealing features.

Our system of government is undemocratic and obstructive in many ways, including the Constitution's enumeration of congressional powers, the rights it explicitly protects, the types of laws it explicitly prohibits, and the bicameral legislature it created, with one house based on proportional representation and the other giving equal voices to California and Wyoming. The two houses must agree on legislation, which has to be authorized by the Constitution and approved by the president, unless Congress can muster a two-thirds majority to overcome his veto.

http://www.reason.com/sullum/050605.shtml

Virginia Is for (Homoracial, Heterosexual, Mentally Adequate)
Lovers Old Dominion's old attitudes rise again

By a razor-thin vote (49-48), the Virginia State House passed a bill in late February that would allow private companies to extend health insurance coverage to members of employees' households other than spouses or dependent children. The measure was surprisingly controversial, given that it included no legal requirement for companies to cover anybody and that every other state in the union already allowed private firms to offer such coverage. Why was the Republican-dominated State House so reluctant to allow greater freedom of private contract?

http://www.reason.com/hod/db042805.shtml

'Whore College' Offers Hands-On Training
The 25 students in jeans and T-shirts could have been in any career that
requires hustle. The classes, covering topics such as effective marketing, stress reduction and legal issues, could have been part of any professional development seminar.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/sex_worker_school

A pretty sticky first 100 days

IT SEEMS to be an iron law of the Bush administration that, whenever the president declares victory, he is soon confronted with disappointment. On May 1st 2003, he landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare “mission accomplished” in Iraq. Ever since then, he has been confronted with tenacious resistance. On November 4th last year, he boasted that he had earned “political capital” that he intended to spend on a broad agenda. Ever since then, he has faced frustration.

http://economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3941628