November 2, 6, 8

 I am going to start this but I probably won't finish it today. I found this piece on Slate which is interesting. I have two basic problems with legal originalism, the notion that judges have to make decisions concerning applying the law based on what the text meant at the time it was drafted. First, we are two centuries removed from the men who wrote the Constitution and the first ten amendments. The conditions of our society are not the conditions they lived under and most would probably be horrified about the conditions they would find if they could time travel to our era. The legal interpretations should be able to take the current ideas, values and conditions of this time. Second I wonder who their medium is conducting the seances in which the ask the ghosts of the founders what they meant when they drafted the Constitution. And the same arguments also apply to the subsequent amendments. The judge who decided to appoint an historian to help him has thrown a good monkey wrench into Thomas' spokes. But different historians see the past and interpret it differently. We all see the past through the lenses of today.

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I hadn't intended to let this go this long but....

Finally, we are almost through this mid-term election. I am so very tired of the coverage. It will be interesting, not comfortable but interesting, to see what comes of the only poll that matters. I will be honest--given the Republicans on the ballots (those we hear about anyway) I really hope the Democrats clean their clocks. I have heard some say (or read what some have written) that they hope any Republicans who get in are moderate or move in the moderate direction. I am not hopeful. I think we are in for a rough two years that will make the COVID years look like "the good old days."

The bloodbath at Twitter has begun. It really doesn't matter to me because I have never used it and only rarely read anything on it at all unless as a repost on a blog or news story I was reading anyway.

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We both went out and voted today. We generally do wait til Election Day to vote though we did do early voting in 2020 because of the pandemic. That was a very cold day with a very long line. Today the line was long but it moved quickly. Our county has made it possible for us to vote at any polling place not just at the assigned precinct. It hasn't affected us since our precinct is located about three blocks away. 

This Responsible Statecraft article asks a good question at the end. I have heard for years about countries buying U.S. agriculture assets. China bought at least one of the largest pork processors a couple of years ago. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were buying up land so they could ship the produce home to secure their food supplies. The Saudis tried for more than a decade to use the water in their aquifer to irrigate wheat crops but stopped when they realized they were quickly depleting their water supplies. From what I have read over the last few years water may become (or is becoming now) the new oil.