I am disappointed in California for voting against families, but I am unsurprised. There is a lot of hate, misinformation, and convoluted logic surrounding Prop 8, and it’s all on an issue that is emotional at heart and therefore impossible to argue. I take heart in two things. First, the prop will pass with a far slimmer margin than its older sibling did in 2000, therefore things are moving in the right direction. Second, California has domestic partnership laws that grant all rights of marriage that are within the state’s power to grant. (The federal Defense of Marriage act blocks the rest, and would have done regardless of Prop 8′s outcome.) While “separate but equal” is still wrong, it’s pretty darn equal in this case, and more equal in California than in other states. (J’accuse, Arkansas.) It’s shameful that such a “liberal and tolerant” state voted this way, but it’s not the end of the world.

I am proud of America for electing Obama. Regardless of what happens in his administration, he proved the American dream of equality of opportunity is reality and not merely a yet-to-be-fulfilled promise. I am proud of Obama for focusing on the work ahead and not resting on his laurels, and I acknowledge that racism in America still exists today as much as it did yesterday and the day before. But it is significant that yesterday morning it was possible for anyone but a white guy to become President, but today it is reality.

I am excited about electing a President who ran on a platform of being smart, capable, thoughtful, and articulate, not one of “Hey, I’m a nice guy and I’m just like you stupid people.” I am amused that even cries of “Socialist!” could not prevent Obama from being elected. I am pleased that I got to vote for a candidate and not merely against another, and I am elated that it was possible to run an honourable campaign that enjoyed success. That’s change. It’s good change.

It’s clear that there will be changes, and there is a great deal of information on what those changes might be. I’m looking forward to see how those changes are implemented, and what else lies ahead.

The 12th amendment dictates that the incoming congress then gets to choose, but the exact rules are complex. The Senate chooses the vice-president; one senator one vote. Currently the prediction is for some 54 to 57 Democratic senators, so this scenario welcomes Joe Biden as VP. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives chooses the president. But here it is one state one vote. The 53 Californian representatives get together to make their choice, and the 1 North Dakotan representative has an equal vote. Currently the Democrats control 26 states to 21 for the Republicans, with 3 ties. It is more likely that the Democrats will hold or add to that lead in the election, and the House would then select Obama as president. But it is possible that the Republicans (although they have no credible chance of taking a lead in the total number of representatives) could take the lead in the number of states, and Biden could find himself working with president McCain. Or maybe neither party would be able to muster a majority of votes in the House. If the Senate chooses Biden and the House is split, Biden becomes president. If neither chamber is able to make a choice, then speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi becomes president.

The US government is wacky. Add this to the list of weird things, like what happens if Beau Biden* gets nominated a Senator while serving in Iraq.

* His middle name is Robinette, which I find unusual.

In the interim, I have a few fun internet things to post. None of them is a post of its own, but together, they might be nice.

Irish Lawyer Fergus O’Rourke points to interesting figures from the Economist, that explore the details about the mind of the Irish electorate.It seems that Europe is still popular in Ireland, and the final analysis seems to point to the notion that the case was simply not made for the treaty. It points to the fact that there is a clear need for an Irish political body which is pro-Europe, but more skeptical than our current parties.

Techdirt has an article on university patents and how they have harmed basic research. It’s an area of considerable interest to me, especially as I am moving towards a big research project. There is huge pressure in Ireland to get IP income out of research, but it seems to me that since most of the IP goes to startups, and that very few patents anywhere make money, the restrictive nature of the current model *is* hurting innovation. On the other hand, patents can work. The University of Nottingham has MRI (I think) machnes to thank for being differentiated financially from a whole slew of Universities in the UK.

You probably missed Hug a Developer Day, if you did, shame on you. Code Monkeys are people too.

Ok, I know everyone is sick of the election already, so I held these to the end: Hating Obamawith Gerard Baker in the Times. McCain is a lying liar by Krugman in the NYT.

Am I the only one heartily amused that the Florida and Michigan Democratic parties sacrificed their constituents’ voices so they could have an earlier (presumably more important and influential) primary date?

(Apologies if this observation has already been made; I’ve been living under a rock for the past month or so and therefore have no idea if people have been giggling about this for some time.)

Never fear. In the tradition of the Chuck Norris meme, but with a twist, the Internets present Barack Obama is your new bicycle. (Keep clicking on it.)

As it turns out, nearly 50,000 voters unaffiliated with a political party did invalidate their votes by not filling in that bubble on their ballots. Apparently this ballot design, in addition to being obstructively confusing, is illegal because it requires some voters (like me) to take an extra step to vote versus other voters (like anyone who registered Democrat).

This “design flaw” didn’t trip me up in the 2004 election, but the fact that the poll workers were useless and my own lack of research ahead of time did lead to me not voting at all in the Democratic primary that year. (I’d had some idea that I could vote in the Democratic primary, but when I wandered up to do so the poll worker handed me a nonpartisan ballot and shooed me off towards the nonpartisan voting booth, rather than the Democratic booth I should have gone to.) It hadn’t occurred to me that anything was wrong until I was contacted by a reporter collecting information and opinions from independent voters, and today was the first time I found out people were getting hot and bothered about it.

How ’bout that. Maybe my vote really does count.

Even though I’ve never been registered to vote in Georgia, I still watched its primary results with some interest. By a very narrow margin, the Republican primary there went to Huckabee. I’d like to say I’m disappointed, but that requires me to have expectations or a high opinion of the electorate. (As a group, of course. The individuals I know in Georgia are lovely, mostly sane people. It’s the state as a mob that fails to impress.)

For a nearly useless but educational tally of delegate counts, check out the New York Times.

Granted, she hasn’t helped her case by nearly dissolving into tears. I must say, however, after watching the event on YouTube I wonder how many people having fits over this have actually seen a woman break down in tears the way they describe Clinton as doing. It really doesn’t look like that, guys. She got a little misty. It was probably the latest in a line of attempts to create an image that looks less bitchy and more likable. Whatever. Sometimes I wonder if all this obsession over trivia is really because there are no substantial differences between the candidates.

Gloria Steinem wrote a pithy and insightful article on the “female” issue. It is the first piece I’ve read during this entire election cycle (nearly a year now, considering my last blog entry on the subject was in February of last year) that I really liked and agreed with most of.

This is my favo(u)rite bit, but there are several other juicy lines in the article:

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.

I don’t think it’s true that she doesn’t have to prove her masculinity (indeed, the requirement to do so has trapped all powerful women between the rock of seeming weak and the hard place of coming across as a bitch), but wouldn’t it be nice if no one did?