DanKohn.com

Evidence on how New York’s chronically dysfunctional legislature is a result of not having independent judges or bureaucrats redistrict.

“States where bipartisan commissions or judges draw district lines have far more competitive elections, and routinely see control shift between parties…. The arrangement turns the notion of bipartisanship on its head. Opposing factions go at each other, tooth and claw, over every issue where the public would want them to compromise. But in the one area where they are expected to battle, elections, they do not…. New York State legislators are literally as likely to die in office or be arrested as to lose at the ballot box.”

This, along with improving voting machines, is one of the fascinating areas of politics where real progress could be made, yet is a completely non-partisan issue.

Star Wars producer Rick McCallumargues that the ’sky is falling’ because the Internet means the end of DVD sales which means the end of the movie business:

“My passion about digital technology and the digital pipeline is just a small little brush fire,” says McCallum. “This other thing is a tornado. The business will implode once you can download a movie, give it to your friends and not have a moral problem with doing it. Then we’re screwed. Literally, our very lives are at stake now. George and I are just praying that we can finish ‘Episode III’ in time, before it’s all over.”

I actually agree with him.

Do you support democracy? Then push for the rest of the country to redistrict as Iowa does.

Amazingly compelling, comprehensive WSJ article arguing that a lack of government regulation in 5 markets is largely responsible for the current business turmoil. I think it’s unfair to blame the ‘96 telecoms act for dumb decisions that people made as a result, but I strongly support increased funding for the SEC.

From the NYT, doesn’t this sound like a bad movie: ‘A group of black-clad F.B.I. agents jumped out of a truck and swarmed a white van, guns drawn, yelling to to the driver: “Hands off the wheel! Hands off the Wheel!” After they cleared him, they jumped back in their truck and zoomed off, presumably to stop another van.’

“Things are looking bleaker than ever for Pluto, the most disrespected of the nine planets that we learned about in elementary school.”

An essay in the NYT travel section: A child gets a dire prognosis, and is set off on a lifetime of fearless travel. Of course, all of us are facing a dire prognosis: you see, we’re all going to die.

Michael Kinsley takes some (well-deserved) potshots at the Bush administration’s build-up to war:

Ambiguity has its place in dealings among nations, and so does a bit of studied irrationality. Sending mixed signals and leaving the enemy uncertain what you might do next are valid tactics. But the cloud of confusion that surrounds Bush’s Iraq policy is not tactical. It’s the real thing.

I’m supportive of attacking Iraq not because it is part of the war on terror but because the threshold of what represents a “clear and present danger” dropped on 9/11. However, I think the Bush administration has done a pathetic job of convincing Americans and the world, particularly in their dealings with the UN Security Council.

Excellent Slate piece on the awful existential significance of cellular suicide.

Wired talks about a new multiplayer game: Using high-resolution satellite and geographic data, Rekonstruction will let players work together and against one another to rebuild a parallel Earth that has been devastated by an asteroid strike. I love their premise.