2005-07-26T01:24:00.000-05:00

Will the Republicans really overturn Roe?

This article is a bit old, but very insightful, addressing the question: Does the Right really want to overturn Roe?

Saletan argues that while the pro-life base that has powered the Republican Party since at least '94 ardently wishes for a reversal on Roe, the powers-that-be in the Republican Party don't want to risk tipping the balance of the Supreme Court quite enough to do that.

As it stands now, the Supreme Court is presumably 6-3 in favor of Roe:
For: Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, Souter, Kennedy, O'Connor
Against: Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas

Some people have argued that stare decisis would put Rehnquist in the pro-Roe camp, if push came to shove, but let's stick with this ideological alignment for argument's sake.

With O'Connor's retirement, Bush can potentially change this balance to a more precarious 5-4; and why wouldn't he? Anything less than a firm anti-Roe vote will gall the Right to no end (and rightfully so, as they believe they are responsible for his 04 victory.)

So why the relatively unknown John Roberts? Does Bush II really want a redux of Bush I's Souter experiment?

No, I don't think so. As the adage goes, how do you make a conservative a liberal? Name him to the Supreme Court. But in this case, I think Roberts will be a reliably anti-Roe vote; after all, his wife has been an executive vice-president of Feminists For Life, and while that's no smoking gun, it'd be naive to think it is an irrelevant point.

So while Bush was accused of rushing his Supreme Court pick in order to shield Karl Rove from the increasingly ravenous media, I think he's made a politically smart choice. Roberts is likeable enough, and unknown enough, that the Gang of 14 has all but wiped out the prospect of a filibuster. (Which, in turn, has made the Democrats powerless to stop Roberts from confirmation, for all their bluster.)

So we've established that replacing O'Connor with Roberts only changes 6-3 to 5-4, and Roe is still safe. What next?

Let's assume Rehnquist also retires during Bush's presidency (he does, however, seem to want to become the longest-serving justice in history). This changes nothing. Even if Bush replaces him with an anti-Roe justice, the balance is still 5-4. In fact, it gets really interesting if Bush decides to name Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to the chief justice position, who has been suspected of having pro-Roe sympathies (which would set the balance back to 6-3). Hell would have no fury as the Right would if this happened, but if it's after the 2006 elections I can see Bush taking this political risk to elevate his good friend to the position.

However, we're discussing how the Right plans to dismantle Roe, correct? So let's assume Rehnquist is once again replaced with an anti-Roe justice.

Now assume Stevens retires or dies during Bush's presidency. At age 85, Stevens doesn't have much time left. Here is the chance the Right has been waiting for. With Roe only being protected by Stevens's decisive 5th vote, another appointment of an anti-Roe justice will tip the balance. Victory at last?

Well, this is where Saletan's article becomes really interesting. He argues that 2/3rds of the country favors Roe. Since Roe really isn't a big deal to the public nowadays, it's not a push-button issue that translates into a guaranteed Democratic vote. If Roe is reversed, though, or even in danger of being reversed, that will change -- dramatically. People who voted Republican for reasons like taxes will be enraged at the reversal of Roe and go blue. It is the fear of this electoral shift that will probably prevent the Republican Party from actually reversing Roe.

Does that mean conservatives are doomed to no victories in the abortion war at all? Not really. O'Connor was the swing vote in many ancillary issues, such as parental notification and partial-birth abortions. On these issues, the ascendancy of Roberts will indeed have an effect, most likely leading to the banning of partial-birth abortions, and the upholding of state parental notification laws for when teenagers seek an abortion.

But is Roe's doom inevitable? Most likely, the answer is no.

2005-07-25T08:49:00.000-05:00

AimFight was released a couple days ago by some AOL programmers with too much free time (a la Google?). It's a neat idea, but the Flash interface is too clunky to really achieve a viral level of use.

After AimFight was posted on Slashdot, someone managed to figure out how to fetch the raw data from an AimFight just by plugging in two screennames. That makes it possible for all sorts of brilliant hacks of AimFight possible.

Inspiration strikes: if only we could make it possible to AimFight someone via profiles.....

The popularity of Subprofiles primarily comes from the fact that they load within the profile window. It just feels faster then opening up a new IE window. So what we really need is an AimFight that will load into a profile window. We already know how to load pages into the profile window (by using target=_self), but now we need a portable, lightweight version of AimFight.

My first (in retrospect, stupid) idea was to generate a PNG using PHP/GD2. So after an hour or two of work, the idea had come to fruition. Brilliant? Alas, what I was soon to discover is that AIM doesn't support images within profiles. At all.

Second try: Now we have to make it with just HTML? (AIM doesn't seem to support much in the way of CSS either.) Ugh. It took a little while to get it working, but finally, Portable AimFight works!

How do you add AimFight to your profile?

You have to find the "info.htm" file located somewhere in your AIM config files. You can usually find it in "C:\Documents and Settings\(Windows User Name)\Application Data\AIM\(AIM User Name)".

Open it in Notepad and paste the following:

<A HREF="http://s94813799.onlinehome.us/aimfight.php?sn1=YOURSCREENNAME&sn2=%n" TARGET="_self">whatever you want to call this link</A>

Save it and quit. If you did this while you were logged on to AIM, you will need to "confirm" the profile just by going through My Aim >> Edit Profile >> Next >> Next >> Finish. That will effectively "save" your profile.

Now, if you've listed yourself as a buddy (how narcissistic of you), you can check your own profile and try it out!

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