On Actually Voting in Illnois

I grew up in Wisconsin, where it is very easy to vote. You show up at the polls with some proof of your address, and you vote. Then I moved to Minnesota, where it was much the same.

Now I live in Illinois. It's harder to vote here. You have to register in advance. And, as my wife found out today, your registration can be rendered "inactive" by some bureaucrat without notice. If you show up to the local polling place with this "inactive" registration, you will be turned away. [BUT SEE UPDATE.]

Here's the story, set forth in emails between me and the Cook County clerk's office.

When did America decide it wanted more Star Wars movies?

I missed the meeting when we voted on this but it turns out that there will be "at least" three more Star Wars movies.  The Onion AV Club has the scoop. 

Upon further reflection, Justice Stevens still thinks he is right.

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports that retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is still unhappy about being on the dissenting end of two cases from the 1990s.  However, Justice Stevens is not just sitting there wallowing in defeat.  Instead, Justice Stevens is proposing an amendment to the Constitution.

Justice Scalia's advice to law students: just say no to frills.

The Caspar, Wyoming Star Tribune has a report about a speech that Justice Scalia gave to students at the University of Wyoming law school.  The article mentions the advice Justice Scalia gave the students about what courses they should take.

Judge Posner: A Critical Critic

Reader(s)™ are familiar with my series of posts on the Posner–Scalia-Garner dustup. Recently, however, Judge Posner came out with another controversial and extremely critical book review, this time of Professor Akhil Reed Amar's new book called "America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live." A snippet:

WHEN YOU HAVE twelve constitutions to play with, of which only one is a document, you can reach any result you want, and you can say that the result you want is in the Constitution(s), which like the Trinity is at once singular and plural. You put it in, you stir it in a pot called “the implicit meaning of the Constitution as a whole,” and then you pluck it out, congratulating yourself on your “sensitive understanding of America’s unwritten Constitution.”

Perhaps my biases are showing, but I thought this particular hatchet job was pretty awesome. I decided to look for some other Posner attack-reviews. It turns out that the noncuratlex blog has already gone through the trouble of finding the best Posner book reviews. For example, here is Posner's take on Herman Melville's "Moby Dick":

. . . yet, in the final analysis, Melville’s tale of obsession rings hollow from an economic perspective, and thus, proves utterly unpersuasive.  Fairly early in the text, it becomes clear that Ahab could maximize his returns by pursuing other whales, instead of Moby-Dick.  True, Ahab lost his leg to the creature, but that is a classic sunk cost. (Can you see why?) That Ahab foregoes other, better opportunities for oil and ambergris in his hunt for the white whale represents a mystery that the author never satisfactorily explains . . .

For other excerpts, head over noncuratlex.

Shamed, or at least censured, by his game.

Reader(s)™ may recall this post from April in which we discussed how Wayne County, Michigan Circuit Judge Wade H. McCree told the media "Hot Dog, yep that's me. I've got no shame in my game" upon being shown a picture by the Detroit Free Press of the judge sans shirt that he had given to his bailiff.  The bailiff's husband was not amused.

The future is getting closer.

When I was a kid, the future contained two big promises.  First, that we would have jet packs.  Second, that the weapon of the future would be lasers (or possibly phasers).  Since jet packs were featured on the intro to the Wonderful World of Disney, it seemed like the public would get jet packs first. 

Rules are rules

The Chicago Tribune reports that man charged with killing thirteen people and wounding more than two dozen more in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood has had his trial indefinitely delayed.  Why has the trial been delayed?  The suspect will not agree to shave.

Did Richard Milhous Nixon win the popular vote in 1960?

A fascinating blog post by Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics says yes, although the real answer is that the question is incoherent because of the way Alabama voted for its electors.

Meanwhile, according to Nate Silver there is currently a 5.4% chance that Mitt Romney will win the popular vote but lose the election this time around (see "scenario analysis" in right sidebar at link).

And Ross Douthat wonders whether, in such an event, the Electoral College could survive.

I wonder, on the other hand, whether the Electoral College could ever be killed.

Something completely different.

I was in northwest Iowa this weekend and attended mass at Sacred Heart Church in Spencer, Iowa.    As anyone familiar with the Catholic mass knows, there is a part of the first Eucharistic Prayer that  states,