Josh Blackman announces Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! The October 2015 Term of FantasySCOTUS Is Now In Session. "Oyez, oyez oyez! Happy first Monday! Today LexPredict has launched the 7th Season of FantasySCOTUS. Continuing our successes from last year, FantasySCOTUS is sponsored by Thomson Reuters. If you’ve played before, or are new to the competition, sign up and start predicting cases."
The Grand Prize is $10,000!
I saw The Martian last night and loved it. I had read the book in June and think it's a great adaptation. The story is the same, but the story telling is a little different so that the things a movie can do well it does while the things a book does well it does. You can enjoy the film just as much having read the book or not, and if you want to read the book afterwards there will be more things in it that will keep it interesting. I knew what was going to happen while watching the film and was on the edge of my seat the whole time with a big smile on my face. They nailed this.
Matt Damon is an astronaut stranded alone on Mars. He has to overcome all the various ways Mars is trying to kill him using his wit and determination. Science itself is practically a character in this film. I'd avoid watching the trailer, it gives away too much. The best description of the book I've seen is from xkcd:
It's Ridley Scott's best film since Black Hawk Down. Drew Goddard did a great job on the screenplay adaptation. The scenery on Mars is gorgeous. Matt Damon is great. The movie is thrilling, emotional and funny. I found it really refreshing that everyone in this story is smart, really smart, and no one is stereotypical socially-inept genius that's in every other film. So far it's my favorite movie of the year. Go see it.
Update: Vox talks about 5 of The Martian’s boldest scientific twists, explained.
io9 writes Our Favorite Images From NASA's Incredible New Apollo Gallery
"Earlier this week, NASA uploaded an incredible treasure trove of images to a new gallery on Flickr: unprocessed photographs from all of the manned Apollo missions. They represent an incredible look into what the astronauts saw on their missions to the moon.
NASA’s astronauts are known for taking some of the world’s best pictures, but this gallery is a chance to see the raw results: untouched and unprocessed pictures of space. They’re high-resolution images that are perfect for reprocessing."
The gallery is here: Project Apollo Archive’s albums
David Morris writes about arbitration in On the Commons We Now Have a Justice System Just for Corporations. "How the Supreme Court twisted a 1925 law to undermine the interests of citizens, employees and small business."
In 1925 Congress passed a simple 4-page law, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Businesses that preferred a simpler and faster arbitration process in business-to-business transactions to costly and protracted court battles urged Congress to act because federal courts often refused to enforce many arbitration clauses.
The FAA was a legislative attempt to satisfy businesses’ desire for speedy and affordable dispute resolution while also satisfying the judges’ desire for justice. Arbitration, a process in which both parties in a dispute agree to accept the ruling of an impartial third party, seemed an effective solution.
For the next 60 years the law worked as intended. Courts consistently upheld arbitration awards between businesses but also consistently held that the FAA was procedural not substantive. Arbitration did not trump federal and state laws, and the FAA did not apply to employment or consumer contracts.
In 1984 the Supreme Court flexed its new conservative muscles. In a case involving the right of Southland’s 7-11 franchisees to sue under the California Franchise Law the Court reinterpreted the 1925 law as a Congressional declaration of a “national policy favoring arbitration”. It further ruled that this national policy applied not only to federal courts but to state courts and was substantive as well as procedural. No matter how one-sided the balance of bargaining power once a business signed a contract with an arbitration clause it was forced to abide by the decision of arbiters even if they ignored relevant state and federal laws and even if the decision-making processed was biased against the complainant. Dissenting Justices vainly pleaded with their colleagues not to ignore the clear will of Congress and derail more than a half-century of uncontroversial implementation of the FAA. As Sandra Day O’Connor observed, “One rarely finds a legislative history as unambiguous as the FAA's.”
In 2001 the Court, by a 5-4 vote, extended the FAA to cover employment contracts.
He then discusses the many problems of arbitration. One telling thing:
Corporations realize the disadvantages of arbitration from the complainant’s perspective. Which is why most arbitration clauses require only the weaker party (the consumer, employee, or franchisee) to arbitrate its claims, while allowing the dominant party (the corporation) to sue in court.
And arbiters hired by the arbitration firm know that those who rule in favor of the company will be rehired and those who don’t won’t. As arbitrator Richard Hodge maintains, “You would have to be unconscious not to be aware that if you rule a certain way, you can compromise your future business.”
ThinkProgress points out the fallacies of a popular pro-gun theory, 'Good Guy With A Gun' Was On UCC Campus At Time of Massacre
The issue of whether UCC was a ‘gun free zone’ has become a source of controversy. Gun advocates argue that ‘gun free zones’ encourage gun violence by creating a space where people are unable to defend themselves.
This is not supported by the facts. According to a study of 62 mass shootings over 30 years conducted by Mother Jones, ‘not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns.’ Many of those mass shootings took place in areas were guns where permitted, but not a single one was stopped by armed civilians.
Parker’s interview revealed the practical difficulties of armed civilians trying to stop a mass shooting. By the time he became aware of the shooting, a SWAT team had already responded. He was concerned that police would view him as a ‘bad guy’ and target him, so he quickly retreated into the classroom."
They also write, The Sheriff Investigating The Oregon Shooting Believes Some Seriously Fringe Things About Guns. Seems he's an Oath Keeper and probably thinks Obama is trying to take everybody's guns.
Hanlin’s letter also blurs the line between a matter that is lawfully within state officials’ discretion and something much more akin to insurrection. Under the Supreme Court’s “anti-commandeering doctrine,” states may refuse to enforce federal laws that they do not wish to devote their resources to enforcing. For this reason, provided that state law gives him the discretion to do so, Hanlin is permitted to deny his department’s resources to federal officials seeking to enforce federal gun laws.
What Hanlin may not do, however, is unilaterally assign himself the power to decide what is or is not constitutional and then refuse to “permit the enforcement” of federal laws by “federal officers within the borders of Douglas County Oregon.” This rule stretches back at least as far as the late nineteenth century, when California charged a United States Marshal with murder after the marshal shot and killed a man who threatened the life of a sitting supreme court justice. In ordering the charges dropped, the Supreme Court explained that a federal official who “is held in custody in violation of the Constitution or a law of the United States, or for an act done or omitted in pursuance of a law of the United States. . . must be discharged.”
If Hanlin believes that the federal government is acting unconstitutionally, he can file a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s action. But local sheriffs are not permitted to use the powers of their office to thwart federal officials trying to carry out their own duties.
Vox of course had a nice all inclusive piece, America's gun problem, explained.
The NY Times reports Airstrike Hits Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan.
A United States airstrike appeared to have badly damaged a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the Afghan city of Kunduz early Saturday, killing at least 16 people, including patients and staff members, and wounding dozens.
The United States military, in a statement, confirmed the 2:15 a.m. airstrike, saying that it had been targeting individuals ‘who were threatening the force’ and that ‘there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.’
Accounts differed as to whether there had been fighting around the hospital that might have precipitated the strike. Two hospital employees, an aide who was wounded in the bombing and a nurse who emerged unscathed, said that there had been no active fighting nearby and no Taliban fighters inside the hospital.
For a more harshly worded version of the story, see Glenn Greenwald's One Day After Warning Russia of Civilian Casualties, the U.S. Bombs a Hospital in Afghanistan.
Good thing the war is over.
FiveThirtyEights break down the fact that 33 Million Americans Still Don’t Have Health Insurance "It isn’t a surprise that some Americans still don’t have health insurance. Despite aiming to insure ‘everybody’ in the U.S., the Affordable Care Act (ACA) left significant gaps in coverage, and decisions made by the law’s opponents have denied benefits to millions of people it was designed to help. But the new numbers reveal that most of the uninsured last year were people who should have been able to access insurance under the law. That presents a major challenge for President Obama in the final years of his term, but also an opportunity: Millions of Americans qualify for coverage but, for whatever combination of reasons, haven’t yet signed up."
Ian Millhiser writes in ThinkProgress Everything You Need To Know About The Big Supreme Court Cases The Justices Will Hear This Term. I thought it was a nice summary of the issues.
Vox provides some statistics on Gun violence in America, in 17 maps and charts "America is an exceptional country when it comes to guns. It's one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected, and presidential candidates in other nations don't cook bacon with guns. But America's relationship with guns is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most violent — in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms. These charts and maps show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it's such a tough problem to fix."
NASA writes Pluto’s Big Moon Charon Reveals a Colorful and Violent History "NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon – and these pictures show a surprisingly complex and violent history."
Investigation: Secret Service tried to discredit US lawmaker
"Scores of U.S. Secret Service employees improperly accessed the decade-old, unsuccessful job application of a congressman who was investigating scandals inside the agency, a new government report said Wednesday. An assistant director suggested leaking embarrassing information to retaliate against Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House oversight committee.
The actions by the employees could represent criminal violations under the U.S. Privacy Act, said the report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, John Roth. 'It doesn't take a lawyer explaining the nuances of the Privacy Act to know that the conduct that occurred here — by dozens of agents in every part of the agency — was wrong,' the report said."
I'm surprised I haven't seen anything about this today. Last night Chris Hayes interviewed South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard and it was amazing. "Chris Hayes talks to the mayor of South Miami, Philip Stoddard, who is also a biology professor, about what it's like when most of your senior politicians are climate change deniers."
Hayes pointed out that two prominent presidential candidates, Bush and Rubio are from Florida and while they don't deny climate change is happening, they don't think we can or should do anything about it. He asked Stoddard about the effects they're seeing in Miami and what he would say to these candidates. Here are my favorite quotes:
Well, my first reaction is disappointment. We expect our elected leaders to be the adults int he room, take responsibility to look after everybody's best actions. They're not doing it, frankly. It's a puzzle coming from Jeb Bush because he has such strong connections to the real estate community. They're the ones with the most to lose. So why isn't he engaging this issue like all the big banks are and the big financial houses and now like the underwriters. I mean that's a mystery.
Thomas Edison was the one that predicted that the industrial revolution was going to put enough carbon in the atmosphere to affect the climate. This is not a new idea.
We've seen our summer season extending by a month over the past few decades. We see salt water coming up out of the storm drains when it didn't used to...So particularly along the coastal regions the tides come in, especially when there's a full moon, the all the drains become the suppliers of salt water into the streets and that's what we call sunny day flooding. You can have a beautiful sunny day and the streets fill up with water and people wonder where is the water coming from. You stick your finger down there and you taste it and you go that's salt water. That's not rain water.
The sea level has risen 5 inches in the last 5 years. An inch a year. That's not global sea level rise, that's local sea level rise.
I'd say your [Bush and Rubio's] arguments are complete bullshit. The idea that you don't want to harm the economy by engaging the problems with sea level rise... What do you think sea level rise is going to do to our economy? It's going to destroy it! We're gonna be underwater for heavens sake. How can you give these specious arguments about wanting to protect the economy when the biggest threat to the economy we've ever seen is coming on us like a truck.
Watch the whole interview here:
Wonkblog says Donald Trump is more than right: Most Americans don’t work. (But …).
"Whatever chart that was, Trump was reading it wrong. And he’s been called on his error repeatedly. My colleague Glenn Kessler wrote a thorough takedown at the time, pointing out that Trump was lumping together retirees, students, stay-at-home moms, and all kinds of people who aren’t figured into the unemployment rate because they aren’t available to work. It doesn’t seem that Trump was paying attention, so we’re going to try again — with charts."
I watched Trevor Noah's debut last night on The Daily Show and I mostly agree with Vox, 5 Thoughts On The New Host. The format was the same, he was pretty good in the segments and the correspondents joking on his newness was good. The interview wasn't good, but I'll give him time. I enjoyed Stewarts interviews with comedians least of all so I don't fault him for that.
I was wondering where they were pulling video from. Was it Reuters? Because it didn't look like Fox or CNN or MSNBC.
Apple published their Approach to Privacy.
CultOfMac summarizes the high points, Apple reveals just how seriously it takes your privacy.
A lot of it is pointing out that they don't use or want your personal information. They make their money selling hardware and services. This is in contrast to Google and Facebook who offer free services and get their money from advertisers by using your personal information.
The MacArthur Foundation announced the winners of the 2015 MacArthur Fellows Program, aka the genius grants. I'm very happy for Ta-Nehisi Coates, the only winner I'd heard of.
Reminder: don't set fire to spiders while you pump gas / Boing Boing "A foolish motorist was lucky to escape unharmed after trying to kill a spider in Center Line, Michigan, with fire. At a gas pump. While pumping gas."
Kind of surprised this wasn't done by a Florida Man.
Since my first iPhone I've used an astronomy program called Starmap. There are several popular such programs but this has been my favorite and I've always been surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. They've just released a big upgrade, known as Starmap 2. It's a universal app available for free in the app store with basic features that will be sufficient for most users. It basically does everything, show the map, knows where you are and which direction you're pointing, show info about the stars, planets, etc. With additional purchases it can control telescopes, show more catalogs, show a view flying through the solar system, track satellites, speak stories explaining astronomy while pointing you at things to look at.
There are also a few in-app purchases for more features and those are on sale for Monday (but starting now, Sun evening). The Classic version, normally $5 is on sale (in the US) for just $2 and the Pro version is on sale for $7 (normal $15). Buying the feature on one device means you can use them on all of your devices, so for $7 I upgraded to Pro on both my iPhone and iPad (and Classic probably would have been fine for me).
I highly recommend downloading it and if you like it, buying some of the add-ons on Monday.
National Geographic explains Rare Super Blood Moon Total Eclipse: How to See It. They have a nice chart of tonight's viewing times.
Akinori Machino describes The Secret of the Apple’s New San Francisco Fonts .
Salon talks about Trevor Noah’s learning curve: How “The Daily Show” host plans to turn his “clean slate” into success. I'm now more nervous.
“The fun part is the learning, and I think sometimes transferring that learning into a TV show and giving that to the audience is fantastic, like when you have a child, they learn new things and then you get to relearn it with them,” he added.
Take covering the recent Republican debates: Noah said he and his team worked together to figure out how to stay true to the show’s brand and to his sensibilities simultaneously. “For the writers, they’ve got a history with all of these people,” he explained. “I’m watching the debate and someone says something about something one of the politicians did 10, 15 years ago, and they’re like ‘that’s like the time that happened.’ And I’m the person going ‘why is that funny? Who is that person? What is important about that?’”
“What’s great about this is I think we have an opportunity to re-learn these instances,” he added. “I come in on a clean slate with a lot of the politicians, a lot of the news media outlets.”
In this model I shouldn't be the child learning or re-learning things. I'm glad he can bring a new perspective, and I could learn from that; but I'm apparently like his writers, and I don't want to be teaching him things.
In Focus shows amazing Images From Offworld "Robotic probes launched by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and others are gathering information all across the solar system. We currently have spacecraft in orbit around the Sun, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, a comet, and Saturn; two operational rovers on Mars; and a recent close flyby of Pluto and its moons. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are still performing experiments in low Earth orbit and sending back amazing photos. With all these eyes in the sky, I’d like to take another opportunity to put together a recent photo album of our solar system—a set of family portraits, of sorts—as seen by our astronauts and mechanical emissaries. This time, we have closeups of Pluto and of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a closer look at bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres, several eclipses, wonderful images of Saturn and its moons, and, of course, lovely images of our home, planet Earth."
A New Universal 'New Yorker' Cartoon Caption has been found. There are now three captions known to work in all New Yorker cartoons. They are (in order of discovery):
Federal judge rules 'Happy Birthday' song in public domain
"The music publishing company that has been collecting royalties on the song 'Happy Birthday To You' for years does not hold a valid copyright on the lyrics to the tune that is one of the mostly widely sung in the world, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge George H. King determined the song's original copyright, obtained by the Clayton F. Summy Co. from the song's writers, only covered specific piano arrangements of the song and not its lyrics. The basic tune of the song, derived from another popular children's song, 'Good Morning to All,' has long been in the public domain."
NASA reports on The Hidden Meltdown of Greenland "All by itself, Greenland could bump sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet) if its ice melted completely. And … it’s melting."
Rignot’s team found that Greenland's glaciers flowing into the ocean are grounded deeper below sea level than previously measured. This means that the warm ocean currents at depth can sweep across the glacier faces and erode them.
“In polar regions, the upper layers of ocean water are cold and fresh,” he explains. “Cold water is less effective at melting ice.”
“The real ocean heat is at a depth of 350-400 meters and below. This warm, salty water is of subtropical origin and melts the ice much more rapidly.”
Rignot’s research team is providing critical information needed to document this effect and accurately predict where and how fast glaciers will give way. The team gathered and analyzed around-the-clock measurements of the depth, salinity, and temperature of channel waters and their intersection with the coastal edge of Greenland's ice sheet. They found that some of the glaciers balance on giant earthen sills that are protecting them, for now. But other glaciers are being severely undercut out of sight beneath the surface, meaning they could collapse and melt much sooner.
