I feel like the End Times are upon us. First Haloscan sends me a "Your money or your comments" ultimatum email. Apparently, they've decided to get out of the comments game, and are forcing me to switch platforms and/or lose all the old comments. I know nothing about other commenting platforms except that they tend to be havens for spam.

And now, Blogger tells me that it is ending its FTP thingy, which I don't totally understand, but is the reason this site is published through the Blogger interface but ends up at my own url instead of a "blogspot.com" one. I mean, what's next -- they're going to start making us pay for Hulu and the New York Times website? What's that? Uh-oh.

Well, I have been meaning for a long time to do a serious redesign here at BTQ. And when I say "a long time," check out how many defunct blogs are still listed on the sidebar here to get an idea of how neglectful I've been of the design/behind-the-scenes aspects of this place. I'm not knocking former co-blogger Fitz-Hume, who handled much of that gruntwork, but it's like when your roommate moves out, and there's a couple of boxes of miscellaneous junk left around that neither one of you can remember bringing in.

So, if anyone reading this is interested in helping me re-work this site (and probably move to WordPress or some other host that will allow me to continue using this url) and figure out what to do about the comments, I would love your help. Given the relatively short deadlines I've gotten from Haloscan and Blogger, I would need to do this pronto, as in within the next couple of weeks. I'm willing to pay a moderate amount for the technical help (ideally, cleaning up code and getting me to a point where I can run things once you take the training wheels off) and some aesthetic redesign help.

Any advice, pointers, contacts, etc., much appreciated.

The source for this post's title: The Grateful Dead tune "Samson & Delilah."

Here's all you need to know about federal habeas corpus review of state-court decisions. It comes from the transcript of the Supreme Court's oral argument in Berghuis v. Smith (available here at SCOTUSBlog).

Under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), federal courts reviewing state-court rulings for constitutional error are supposed to grant deference to the state courts' decisions, and not throw out those holdings unless they are -- not just wrong -- an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Courts have spent about fifteen years trying to parse out the intricacies and nuances of this language. Chief Justice John Roberts hit upon a very succinct and pithy distillation in the Berghuis argument.

The case involved the proper standard a court should apply to determine whether members of a particular minority group are systematically under-represented in jury pools for criminal trials. (Here is a nice overview from SCOTUSwiki.) A fair amount of the argument revolved around various statistics, and percentages, and methods of analyzing group representation, and whether the state supreme court used the correct test for assessing the prisoner's jury claim. Justice Stephen Breyer, in sort of a roundabout way, asked the state's lawyer a question about the absolute numerical difference versus the expected sample size (or something), and basically said he didn't want to get the math wrong and "write something, like, saying 2 and 2 is 6."

Chief Justice Roberts tied this circumlocution back to the governing statute:

[I]t's not that you are going to say: 2 plus 2 is 6. I suppose, under AEDPA, all you have to do is say: 2 plus 2 is somewhere between 3 and 5, right?

And that's the bottom line in federal habeas. The state court, in ruling on someone's federal constitutional rights, can say, in essence, that "2 plus 2 is somewhere between 3 and 5," and a federal court cannot (or at least should not) overturn that decision, even when it acknowledges that 2 plus 2 is clearly 4 and the state court's didn't get that right. Now, you can debate the wisdom -- and even the constitutionality -- of that policy, and you can certainly debate how well the federal courts abide by that dictate, and you can debate whether the state court in the Berghuis case even managed to get in the right ballpark. But you'll never see a more cogent summation of the rule.

I don't really understand all the consternation over what to call the last decade. I agree that there doesn't seem to be much consensus on the right name, but I fail to see why this is much of a problem. Whether you say "the zeros" or "the aughts" or some other name, people pretty much know what you're talking about.

For the record, I think we'll eventually call the decade "the oh's," because we're likely to refer to the years in that decade as "twenty-oh-eight" rather than "two thousand and five" or whatever. My hunch is based on the fact that we refer to every other year by saying the first two digits as if they were one number, like "nineteen-oh-six" and "eighteen-oh-four." "Twenty-oh-X" seems easier to me, hence the number of people who catch themselves saying "twenty-oh-ten" for this year.

Still, we could do away with all the confusion by just giving the naming rights for each decade to the highest bidder. I'm not sure how the payment system would work -- maybe they could make donations to the U.S. Treasury -- but it's not like it wouldn't be worth a lot to the bidders.

In this spirit, I propose naming the decade that just ended "the googles." It works well because those "o's" in "google" look like the zeros in the years. And, of course, the provenance of the company name is a math term with a lot of zeros in it. Plus, it's hard to dispute that this wasn't Google's decade. We could even give the decade's naming rights to Google for a reduced fee, both in gratitude for how much easier it's made things, and also because the decade is over.

The real bidding war can start with the current decade. Why do we have to call it "the teens"? Ugh -- moody, awkward teenagers are not the kind of brand association we want with our calendars. Someone else should step up. What about "the AT&T's"? As in, "Will Sarah Palin run in AT&Twelve?" I'm sure that a certain Japanese car company would be all over the following decade, "the toyotas." Future history books will talk about how "in twenty-toyota-five, a Chinese rocket landed on the moon." Oh, I'm sorry, I meant "a Chinese rocket landed on the big M&M in the sky."

I know what you're saying: How are we going to write these numbers? I'm way ahead of you. Part of the naming-rights deal would include a license to use the company's logo as part of the year name. So the "1" in "2012" would be replaced by the little blue AT&T globe icon. And the second "2" in "2025" would be replaced by Toyota's circle-t thing logo.

I think this is a win-win for everybody, and I want to see it happen. I just hope I live until "the Gatoradeys." I think 20G4 (that's "twenty-gatoradey-four") will be a pretty good year.

Happy new year from an old friend of the blog. She's nicer than she appears.

I've decided to take the 50-book challenge again in 2010. I have tried this a few times before and come up short. I'm sure I made it well past 50 in my youth, when I had more free time, and although I always seem to lose count nowadays, I think the best I've done in recent years is probably in the 35-40 range. Anyway, this post will eventually collect all the reviews; for now it's a placeholder.

Any suggestions for good books to read in the new year?

I'm a big fan of the blog and podcast from the Stuck in the '80s guys. I follow it pretty closely, and I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when the blog didn't mention the death of actor Edward Woodward. Woodward was most famous for the work he did in the 1980s, especially the tv series The Equalizer. Well, I emailed Steve Spears, the proprietor of the blog, to ask what was up, and he offered me a chance to write an obituary for Edward Woodward. I did, and he ran it. You can check it out here on their website. (Click here to find a great podcast about "Red Scare" movies of the '80s, including the one that inspired my name!)

After you check out the Edward Woodward obit, or maybe even while you're reading it, please enjoy the totally awesome theme song from The Equalizer.

I write not about politics. I'm talking about a much more important subject. Light.

Background. I work in a relatively small company. My group occupies a section of the 3rd and top floor of your average office park building. There are 20 people on our floor. With the onset of fall, it is not unusual to get to work before the sun has fully cleared the tree line. We have a set of people on the floor who like to get to work early and leave early. I am often in the middle of the pack, with about 10 people already there when I get to work.

Those 10 people that get to work early, and myself, will leave the hallway lights off. But then, someone will walk in (usually the same one or two someones each time) and turn on the lights. They know that several people are already there. They obviously know that the several people already there prefer the lights to be off. But yet for some reason this one person's preference to have the lights on overrides the preferences of literally 10 times more people.

The hallway we work on is a big U shape, with doors and light switches on each end. One day a group of us were at one door when Light-Turner-Onner came in the other door and turned the lights on. One of the guys in the group waited a second, then reached over and turned the lights back off. In about 15 seconds Light-Turner-Onner went back to the other door and turned them on again. The guy waits a few seconds again and turns the lights back off. Sure enough, seconds later, the lights come back on. Even when the preference of the majority was attempted to be actively enforced, those who like the light believed their wish had priority.

For some reason this always reminds me of a line from Bill Cosby (I can't find a good link). He was talking about how someone only had to be 1/8th black to be able legally claim that they were African-American. Cosby: "That means if I'm at a party with 7 white guys, they have to play my music."

I don't have a point or a conclusion, just a curiosity as to what makes people think their desire trumps others? I know this is not an isolated phenomenon because I have seen this play out at other places where I've worked. If any of you loyal, or not so loyal readers are the Light-Turner-Onner at your office, I would very much like to know what goes through your mind.

Via Deadspin, I found this story about a college in Pennsylvania, Lincoln University, with an interesting graduation requirement: students with a body mass index over 30 have to take a physical education class. They don't have to actually lose weight or body mass, but they have to take the course, which consists of "walking, aerobics, weight training and other physical activities, as well as information on nutrition, stress and sleep."

Some students object to this rule. One, Tiana Y. Lawson, wrote an opinion piece in the school paper titled "Too Fat to Graduate." With a headline like that, you know it has to be a thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion of the issue, right?

Lawson starts out by acknowledging that the school has had the policy since 2006, but that "it seems as though Lincoln is more adamant about students taking the course this year." So the first class of student to whom the rule applies are being pressured to fulfill a graduation requirement they've had three years to meet? Well, that makes no sense! Tell me more!

Lawson goes on to say, "I feel as though the administration is now telling me that not being a size two may hinder me from graduating from Lincoln." Now, I don't know much about women's sizes, but I do know that there's a lot of range between a size two and a BMI of 30. Even if BMI is a flawed or incomplete metric, this isn't a situation where the school is using Kate Moss as a model for their graduation robes. It would be just a hyperbolic of me to assert that this rule will only apply to the fat twins on motorcycles from the Guinness book. But regardless of what Lawson "feels," this policy isn't a putsch against everyone who isn't waifish.

Lawson makes a point, somewhat obliquely, by noting that if the aim of the phys. ed requirement is to "make everyone healthy" (as a friend put it), then everyone should be required to go. After all, skinny people can be unhealthy, too -- ask Keith Richards. And maybe some people with a BMI over 30 are perfectly healthy, too. (You know, if they're seven feet tall.) So maybe the college should require the course for everyone. But short of that, why not try to do some good without being terribly overinclusive?

I can see some cause for consternation if Lincoln had sprung this policy on its students with no warning. But, as noted, the rule has been in place since 2006, and students have had plenty of time to (a) not attend Lincoln, (b) transfer, (c) lobby the administration to change the policy, or (d) take the course. Weeks before one's final semester isn't the time to start griping. And hey -- at least they don't go to VMI. That school requires a phys. ed course every semester except the first one, when being a "rat" is exertion enough. Oh, and finally, who complains about taking what sounds like a fairly easy course during their last semester in college? Isn't that the best time to try some of that experimentation I mentioned in the last post?!

A little sports story in Mississippi has turned into quite the hullabaloo. The University of Mississippi (or "Ole Miss") band had been playing a song during football games called "From Dixie With Love." At the end of the song, a contingent of students and fans recently started chanting "The South will rise again!" Anyway, long story short, the school administration banned the song, hoping to quell the chant. Many Rebel fans were upset, but I'm not writing to get into the merits of that call.

The controversy of the banning of the "Dixie" song led to some yokels in the Ku Klux Klan to announce they would show up at this Saturday's game in protest. I believe the quote was that they wanted to prevent Ole Miss from turning into "another liberal sodomite college." (Hey, doesn't everybody do a little experimenting in college?)

Well, the Kluxers showed up all right -- about a half-dozen of them. Not exactly a terrorizing turnout for observers. And while the small number of idiots (and the high number of counter-protesters) is a good sign, my favorite image from the "rally" is their flag. In the picture above, which I first saw at Dr. Saturday, notice how perfectly creased the Confederate battle flag is. That thing's spent a whole lot of time folded up in storage. You know those guys haven't done much night-riding and marching and whatnot if they haven't even bothered to iron the creases out of their flag. Or maybe they leave that to the KKK Ladies' Auxiliary. In any event, a pretty sorry demonstration.

I'm about to post a thought that occurred to me about the House health care bill, and more specifically the Stupak amendment that secured its passage. I'm not going to weigh in on abortion as a practice. Honestly I doubt it's even in my top 10 issues I care about when it comes to politics, and I think the bill is horrible regardless of how it's dealt with. However, many liberal blogs are unsurprisingly outraged about it. Over at the Tapped blog there are many posts railing about the amendment, and there is a great deal of effort to refer to the issue as "reproductive health". After all, if it's got health in the name, it must have to be included in a health care bill.

But the question I have has to do more with the basic nature of insurance itself, at least as we currently know it. Insurance does not cover elective procedures. If it's not medically necessary, insurance doesn't pay for it. My Lasik surgery payments are proof of that. Abortion, except in obvious exceptions, is essentially an elective procedure. It's right there in the name of the supporters, Pro-CHOICE. In most cases, it's a choice made by the woman or couple based on lifestyle choice, not on medical health. So why should insurance cover this particular elective procedure and not others?