In 1961 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby started Marvel Comics with Fantastic Four #1. They wanted something different from the traditional comic book superheroes. The characters wouldn't be in some Metropolis or Gotham City, they would be in New York. If they had super powers he'd want everyone to know it, so no secret identities. Their heroes would be real people, with real problems like paying the rent and family squabbles and even for a couple of issues, without costumes. FF comics combined adventure (with mundane super-villians and with earth-shattering cosmic ones) with everyday life and a little bit of Quasimodo-like self-pity. This movie, for better or worse, captures this pretty well, but without the earth-shattering cosmic villians.
The bulk of the movie is the obligatory origin story. Reed Richards and his buddy Ben Grimm want to study a space cloud which could unlock the origin of life. NASA turned them down so they turn to Reed's MIT classmate Victor von Doom who's the head of a huge company with its own space station. Sue Storm is a scientist who used to date Reed but now works for and dates Doom and her younger brother Johnny is a pilot who washed out of NASA where he worked with Ben. Doom agrees to help for 75% of any profits and off they all go. The storm hits early and they are subjected to special effects. They return to earth and while under observation at Doom's private medical facility in snow covered mountains find they have super-powers. Johnny can burst into flame (fire), Sue can turn invisible and generate force fields (air), Reed can stretch elastically (water), and Ben has turned into a super-strong rocky orange creature (earth). Doom is also affected and turns into metal and can conduct electricity or something. Reed vows to cure Ben, Johnny is enjoying the celebrity and Sue acts like mom keeping them all from fighting while falling for Reed again. Doom however lost his company somehow and wants revenge against not just Reed but all four of them.
I think the above captures some of the feel of the movie, meandering while trying to get details out that don't really fit together all that well. We see a few scenes were Sue gets mad at Reed for not taking action in their relationship, and that provides the impetus for the resolution but we get nothign to explain what attracted her to him and nothing on her relationship with Doom. Ben's story could be quite tragic, he's become a monster who's site scares children and causes his fiancee to leave him, but again it's treated superficially. Doom's character and company make no sense whatsoever. It's a pre-IPO company with enormous towers and its own space station. It's not clear if he's the CEO or smartest scientist, but for some reason the bankers give him a week to turn things around or they'll back out. Nothing is remotely realistic. And while the four undergo transformation they don't ask Doom if he is, he keeps them secret, and they don't want to examine him to find out why he wasn't affected by the same phenomenon.
There are some funny bits and it's pretty true to the comic. But in comparison with Batman Begins it misses all the details. It turns out the original comic, while ground breaking, isn't all that good by today's standards. Spider-man explores responsibility and the difficulty of having a secret life. The X-Men explores prejudice. The FF are left to explore normalcy and that's not all that interesting for superheroes. The Incredibles seemed to be mostly based on the Fantastic Four, but is so remarkably better it makes this film seem pointless.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
100,000 Superballs, Dropped
What's sure to be the meme of the day this photo from FlickrBlog about a commercial being filmed in what looks like San Francisco. Every kids dream.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Removing a brain tumor - a photoset on Flickr
This seems real and is quite disgusting, don't follow the link if you're squimish. But this guy in NJ had a brain tumor and he keeps a blog and is into photography and so was the surgeon and he posted a photoset on Flickr of his surgery and the results. It's been two weeks since surgery and he seems to be doing fine.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Rick Santorum on the Daily Show
Jon Stewart is doing a great job getting Republicans on his show and have "rational discourse". Last night he had Rick Santorum on, who was hawking a new book. The first thing they did was agree that ice cream is a delicious treat but too much could spoil the appetite. They moved on to another simple issue, homosexuality.
Santorum talked about virtue and Stewart said he lived in NY, a sea of homosexuality and it seems virtue is unrelated to homosexuality, and Santorum agreed. Though he went on to say that for raising children the ideal is one man one woman, not that others can't work (he mentioned single women). He went on to say gov't should encourage the ideal. Stewart asked if you can legislate an ideal and Santorum said "of course you can, you have to, we owe it to children, children need a mom and dad...it doesn't mean that one parent can't do it but we should be for the ideal"
That doesn't make any sense to me. I thought the government was supposed to protect the minority position because the majority position doesn't need protection. If you legislate that you need a father and mother for children that doesn't allow for single parents. If you have an allowance for single parents, wouldn't two same sex parents be better?
Santorum said he was concerned about the popular culture and the influence on children, that they are bombarded with things that don't promote virtue. Stewart brought up the same thing he has previously, is our culture worse now with things like Victoria Secret ads (which Santorum brought up) or back (only) a few years when segregation was around. Santorum said Segregation and racism were bad and we needed a strong federal government to correct that. Is he a federalist?
Overall, another really good Daily Show, Stewart's on a roll.
Santorum talked about virtue and Stewart said he lived in NY, a sea of homosexuality and it seems virtue is unrelated to homosexuality, and Santorum agreed. Though he went on to say that for raising children the ideal is one man one woman, not that others can't work (he mentioned single women). He went on to say gov't should encourage the ideal. Stewart asked if you can legislate an ideal and Santorum said "of course you can, you have to, we owe it to children, children need a mom and dad...it doesn't mean that one parent can't do it but we should be for the ideal"
That doesn't make any sense to me. I thought the government was supposed to protect the minority position because the majority position doesn't need protection. If you legislate that you need a father and mother for children that doesn't allow for single parents. If you have an allowance for single parents, wouldn't two same sex parents be better?
Santorum said he was concerned about the popular culture and the influence on children, that they are bombarded with things that don't promote virtue. Stewart brought up the same thing he has previously, is our culture worse now with things like Victoria Secret ads (which Santorum brought up) or back (only) a few years when segregation was around. Santorum said Segregation and racism were bad and we needed a strong federal government to correct that. Is he a federalist?
Overall, another really good Daily Show, Stewart's on a roll.
...The Whole Truth...
I don't care if Roberts was in the Federalist Society, apparently a lot of talented people are. But if you're asked if you're a member, you don't walk a fine line on the meaning of membership, you describe your affiliations with the group. And if you're the White House you don't continue the deception when caught, unless you're this White House.
Roberts seemed like a slam dunk, now it's not for two things the White House (not Roberts, though he doesn't remember membership in the Federalist Society) did. First is this, second is refusing to provide records of Roberts service to the White House in the 90s. Open and honest is always better than closed and secretive. You'd think a uniter (and not a divider) would know that.
Roberts seemed like a slam dunk, now it's not for two things the White House (not Roberts, though he doesn't remember membership in the Federalist Society) did. First is this, second is refusing to provide records of Roberts service to the White House in the 90s. Open and honest is always better than closed and secretive. You'd think a uniter (and not a divider) would know that.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The Reason Gonzales Wasn't Nominated
Here is a fun new bit in the Plame case. When the Justice Department started the investigation they first told Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, at 8pm. Gonzales told White House chief of staff Andy Card immediately but with the Justice Department's permission waited until the next morning (12 hours) before telling anyone else.
This could be a simple, end of business day thing (anyone know what the standard procedure would be?) or could be an 18 1/2 minute gap thing. Either way, it's clear Gonzales will go through some investigation on this, and that certainly would have delayed any confirmation the Senate would have been doing.
This could be a simple, end of business day thing (anyone know what the standard procedure would be?) or could be an 18 1/2 minute gap thing. Either way, it's clear Gonzales will go through some investigation on this, and that certainly would have delayed any confirmation the Senate would have been doing.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
The Party of Responsibility
The Party of Responsibility is a great post by Cenk Uygur, a former Republican on how Bush Jr. has lost the lessons of his father. I couldn't agree more.
Sadly, Life Imitate Art
I saw this story on Andrew Sullivan's blog, some good politicaly commentary from a rational, conservative republic, who's also gay. "Ronnie Paris Jr., 21, of Tampa, Florida is accused of abusing his 3-year-old son in an effort to prevent him from being gay, until the boy slipped into a coma and died." The defendant's Bible-study friend, testified, "He didn't want him to be a sissy" Yep, Paris was in Bible study. Maybe there needs to be a "love thy children" commandment.
The oddest part is that The Onion had a fake news story a month ago entitled New Dat Thinks Baby Might be Gay. But even their creativity couldn't imagine a father killing his infant son in this way.
The oddest part is that The Onion had a fake news story a month ago entitled New Dat Thinks Baby Might be Gay. But even their creativity couldn't imagine a father killing his infant son in this way.
Movie Review: The Village
M. Night Shyamalan's fourth movie is of course difficult to talk about without giving stuff away but I'll try. it's set in a 19th century village surround by woods that the people don't go into because dangerous creatures live in them. The young boys of the village play a game at night of standing with their backs up against the forrest for as long as they can before getting scared. The creatures wear red cloaks and the villagers sometimes wear gold ones.
We meet several families, the Walkers led by Edward (William Hurt) and Kitty (Judy Greer) with two daughters Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is blind and Tabitha (Jayne Atkinson). Alice Hunt (Sigourney Weaver) is a single mother of Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix). Both of the hunt girls have feelings for the restrained and serious Lucius. Then there are Robert and Vivan Percy, parents of Noah (Adrien Brody) who is, as they would say in that time, slow. All of these parents are part of the elder council who rule the town and they have to deal with strange goings on as the creatures start skinning livestock. When someone gets injured, someone ventures through the woods to "the towns" to get medicine.
Since it's a Shyamalan film we know to expect some twist. This meta-knowledge hurts his films. In order to avoid us merely waiting for the end, or constantly thinking up theories, the film has to engage us throughout. Good fleshed out characters and intresting plot developments, not just hints for the twist. I didn't love most of The Sixth Sense, I found it slow and realized that as soon as I got engaged in a scene it switched to another, sometimes abruptly which seemed unnatural, but the ending made up for it. I think Unbreakable was his worst film because I didn't care about the characters (it's hard to care about a numb Bruce Willis) and they themselves would have figured out the twist if they were really in those situations. The film was merely a construct to keep a mystery from the audience at the expense of everything else. Signs got this balance better but still twisted the plot outside of authenticity of the characters that he created.
Ivy is an interesting character and her sister has some life in her. We're not quite sure what they see in Lucius but the romance story moves and is at least enough to hold our interest. William Hurt plays the typical Shyamalan stoic but so do the other adults and in their roles as elders we accept this. Life in this 19th century town is mostly missing. The romance while interesting isn't a lot of screne time and rather than seeing views of everyday life, we see scenes that bait the twist. So I found myself wondering what was going to happen and within the first 10 minutes guessed correctly. There was a point in the middle where I had my doubts but it didn't last long. Now that wouldn't be enough to have ruined this film. What did is how inconsequential the film is. If there was more of a metaphor to our own world or more put into how these people live their lives and the moral choices they make, this film would give us something other than is our twist theory right. Shyamalan's films are films for films' sake, but after a few of them, we've been conditioned to know what to expect. To still entertain, he has to add more to the mix. There is a reason it's so hard to write reviews about his films without giving the ending away, there's nothing else in them to write about.
We meet several families, the Walkers led by Edward (William Hurt) and Kitty (Judy Greer) with two daughters Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is blind and Tabitha (Jayne Atkinson). Alice Hunt (Sigourney Weaver) is a single mother of Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix). Both of the hunt girls have feelings for the restrained and serious Lucius. Then there are Robert and Vivan Percy, parents of Noah (Adrien Brody) who is, as they would say in that time, slow. All of these parents are part of the elder council who rule the town and they have to deal with strange goings on as the creatures start skinning livestock. When someone gets injured, someone ventures through the woods to "the towns" to get medicine.
Since it's a Shyamalan film we know to expect some twist. This meta-knowledge hurts his films. In order to avoid us merely waiting for the end, or constantly thinking up theories, the film has to engage us throughout. Good fleshed out characters and intresting plot developments, not just hints for the twist. I didn't love most of The Sixth Sense, I found it slow and realized that as soon as I got engaged in a scene it switched to another, sometimes abruptly which seemed unnatural, but the ending made up for it. I think Unbreakable was his worst film because I didn't care about the characters (it's hard to care about a numb Bruce Willis) and they themselves would have figured out the twist if they were really in those situations. The film was merely a construct to keep a mystery from the audience at the expense of everything else. Signs got this balance better but still twisted the plot outside of authenticity of the characters that he created.
Ivy is an interesting character and her sister has some life in her. We're not quite sure what they see in Lucius but the romance story moves and is at least enough to hold our interest. William Hurt plays the typical Shyamalan stoic but so do the other adults and in their roles as elders we accept this. Life in this 19th century town is mostly missing. The romance while interesting isn't a lot of screne time and rather than seeing views of everyday life, we see scenes that bait the twist. So I found myself wondering what was going to happen and within the first 10 minutes guessed correctly. There was a point in the middle where I had my doubts but it didn't last long. Now that wouldn't be enough to have ruined this film. What did is how inconsequential the film is. If there was more of a metaphor to our own world or more put into how these people live their lives and the moral choices they make, this film would give us something other than is our twist theory right. Shyamalan's films are films for films' sake, but after a few of them, we've been conditioned to know what to expect. To still entertain, he has to add more to the mix. There is a reason it's so hard to write reviews about his films without giving the ending away, there's nothing else in them to write about.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Firefly Reruns start tonight
Firefly was a great sci-fi series from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Unfortunately it didn't find it's audience on FOX and it was cancelled after only a few episodes. Like Family Guy, the DVD sales were huge (currently #27 on amazon, was as high as #2) and now a feature film based on it called Serenity is coming out in September. The Sci-Fi channel is starting reruns (in the right order, something FOX didn't do and including 3 episodes never aired) tonight at 7pm ET, one a week until the movie comes out. Tell your TiVo.
Stupid Software
Excel doesn't understand dates before 1900 (on Mac, on Windows it's 1904). Cut and paste September 21, 1874 into a cell, format it as a date and all looks fine. Try to refer to that cell in a formula and you get a cryptic error. Ok, the OS natively uses dates starting from those times, you have to do some extra work to handle old dates, and dealing with date math involving leap years and the conversion to the gregorian calendar(which happened in 1752 in America but as early as 1582 in parts of Europe) isn't easy. But really has no one in Microsoft ever dealt with history or genealogy? You can find free plugins to add extended date functions but really why should you have to?
Spotlight is OS X's new search technology and it's pretty good. At first I didn't use it much and now I'm using it more. While it normally searches inside files I saw a hint that said if you surround your query with quotes it will only search filenames which is useful to narrow down a search. I had a file called "WikiBookConf.txt", if I searched for "Wiki" (with quotes) I didn't get that file in the results. It turns out at least for filename searches (and maybe others) Spotliight only searches whole words, not parts of words. How dumb is that? Yeah I'm now adapting my naming conventions but it would have been nice if any of the spotlight documentation indicated this is how it worked.
Spotlight is OS X's new search technology and it's pretty good. At first I didn't use it much and now I'm using it more. While it normally searches inside files I saw a hint that said if you surround your query with quotes it will only search filenames which is useful to narrow down a search. I had a file called "WikiBookConf.txt", if I searched for "Wiki" (with quotes) I didn't get that file in the results. It turns out at least for filename searches (and maybe others) Spotliight only searches whole words, not parts of words. How dumb is that? Yeah I'm now adapting my naming conventions but it would have been nice if any of the spotlight documentation indicated this is how it worked.
Area 51 on Google Maps
Where's Mulder to see Area 51 & Surrounding Area Satellite Images Via Google Maps
Distractions suck
Gee, what a surprise interruptions are counter-productive. I've read a lot of great things about growl a notifications manager on the mac. I tried it but found the notifications distracting. I guess I was right.
More Proof the Music Industry is Inept
Here's yet more evidence that the music industry might have the worst understanding of their customers of all industries. The Guardian reports that Beethoven sales beat the beatles in downloads by 1.4 million to 20,000. One was free the other was $1 plus change but the remarkable piece is that the music industry was shocked that classical was so popular. Know thy customers, or lose them.
Great interview with Wil Shipley
This is a great interview with Wil Shipley who's a founder of OmniGroup and Delicious Monster. A luminary in the mac programming community. It's a great read that covers: management styles, mission statements, good software design, getting fired, algorithm design, selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitors, and extreme gardening. Well worth the time.
Strict Constructionist
I'll be reading more about this stuff, but I think Karen Russel get's it wrong in her post Why the “Strict Constructionist” Crowd Makes Me Really Nervous.
The dissent in Griswold was that the law was silly but it wasn't the role of the US Supreme Court to declare it so. The alternative is that the elected legislators of CT change it, it's in their power to do so and in fact it's the right place. I'm sure there are counter arguments (in the legal sense) but I don't know them yet, if anyone wants to enlighten me please do. Now if we did what the strict constructionists wanted, we pass a Right to Privacy amendment that they could strictly interpret. 3/4 of all states isn't easy, but aren't the conservatives the ones that want to keep gov't small? :)
The dissent in Griswold was that the law was silly but it wasn't the role of the US Supreme Court to declare it so. The alternative is that the elected legislators of CT change it, it's in their power to do so and in fact it's the right place. I'm sure there are counter arguments (in the legal sense) but I don't know them yet, if anyone wants to enlighten me please do. Now if we did what the strict constructionists wanted, we pass a Right to Privacy amendment that they could strictly interpret. 3/4 of all states isn't easy, but aren't the conservatives the ones that want to keep gov't small? :)
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Roberts connection to the Brady Bunch
In the print version of this Boston Globe article they included a picture of the house John G. Roberts grew up in. Does anyone care? The only thing that occurred to me when seeing it was how similar it looked to the Brady Bunch house. Maybe Roberts is actually Greg Brady.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Scotty is Beamed Up
I've been a Star Trek fan as long as I can remember, it definitely encouraged an interest in science. But in hearing of the passing of James Doohan, who played Scotty the chief engineer I realized that I wasn't at all influenced by that character to get into engineering. I've seen a number of articles where NASA employees and others describe the influence of Star Trek in their careers, but few mention Scotty (several black women mentioned Uhura). In spite of the character being a second fiddle to the big three, he had many of the most memorable lines. I imagine today there are people who say or hear "Captain I need more time" or "the engines canna take much more of this" in a scottish accent and don't know why.
More on Roberts
This Boston Globe article has a little more Roberts.
It points out the argument against Roe he made in 1991 was on behalf of a client (George Bush Sr.) and might not represent his own views. He is a member of the Federalist Society, a fraternity of legal conservatives whose members often espouse the view that the Constitution should be interpreted literally and oppose ''activist" judicial decisions that find implicit but unwritten rights in the document -- including the unwritten right to privacy from which abortion rights are derived.
However, during his 2003 confirmation, Roberts said, ''Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. . . . There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." I think this means he supports Stare decisis which means that courts will not overturn established precedent without an extraordinary reason to do so, though it could be that in a lower court he had no choice. Thomas is the only current justice who doesn't believe in it and is willing to overturn decisions he views as incorrect, even if they've been established and working law for over century.
The last paragraph in the Globe article is: "I think it's very hard to say what his legal views are," said Dennis Hutchinson, associate dean of University of Chicago Law School. ''Everybody is going to be spinning it from both sides. But no one knows the Supreme Court better, of all the candidates. He was widely regarded as one of the best oral argument makers in the last decade on the court. He has impeccable academic credentials. He has a calm, judicial demeanor. He's going to be very tough to fight."
It points out the argument against Roe he made in 1991 was on behalf of a client (George Bush Sr.) and might not represent his own views. He is a member of the Federalist Society, a fraternity of legal conservatives whose members often espouse the view that the Constitution should be interpreted literally and oppose ''activist" judicial decisions that find implicit but unwritten rights in the document -- including the unwritten right to privacy from which abortion rights are derived.
However, during his 2003 confirmation, Roberts said, ''Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. . . . There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." I think this means he supports Stare decisis which means that courts will not overturn established precedent without an extraordinary reason to do so, though it could be that in a lower court he had no choice. Thomas is the only current justice who doesn't believe in it and is willing to overturn decisions he views as incorrect, even if they've been established and working law for over century.
The last paragraph in the Globe article is: "I think it's very hard to say what his legal views are," said Dennis Hutchinson, associate dean of University of Chicago Law School. ''Everybody is going to be spinning it from both sides. But no one knows the Supreme Court better, of all the candidates. He was widely regarded as one of the best oral argument makers in the last decade on the court. He has impeccable academic credentials. He has a calm, judicial demeanor. He's going to be very tough to fight."
Book Review: Longitudes and Attitudes
Thomas Friedman is a foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times who's won two Pultizers. His new book is The World is Flat about globalization and I'll be reading that soon. But first I read Longitudes and Attitudes which is a collection of his columns from just before 9/11 to April 2003. If you read his column regularly there's no need to read this book, if not, it's really worth while.
Friedman is mostly liberal but did support the war in Iraq, though he feels it was handled badly. As a result he's criticized by both the left and the right. He travels extensively through the Middle East and South Asia and talks with leaders. He comes across as quiet knowledgable about that part of the world.
"The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy, and terrible at diplomacy." He's unhappy at how they handled the Kyoto treaty and ABM treaty, basically that we pissed off the whole world, and then we say in the war on terrorism, you're either with us or against us. He also warned, before the war, that the reconstruction will be hard and we won't be successful if we try to do it alone.
He wonders how there are many unhappy people in the world, and some perform terrorist acts, but it seems only Sunni Muslims become suicide bombers. He says Muslims have a poverty of dignity that while their's is supposedly the most refined take on monotheism, they seem to be behind (economically, techinically, militarily) the Christians and Jews in the modern world. The Arab governments have failed the people in building a viable economy or education system. He thinks that sucessfully bringing democracy to Iraq might help inspire the other Arab nations to change their ways.
He also notes that the extremists don't offer any solutions, only destruction. That bin Laden talks only about destroying the US not about building up anything. As the education system and the culture is intolerant anything other than Islam, he finds lots of hatred for jews and Israel. Some unfounded, like the myth that 4000 Jews where told to stay home on 9/11, and some reasonable criticisms of Ariel Sharon. But he places most of the blame squarely on Arafat who rejected the Oslo accords which offered Palestinians about 97% of what they wanted and in return neither he nor any Arab nation offered a non-violent alternative.
I wondered if it would be odd reading newspaper columns from 4 years ago, but the perceptive of knowing what happened was interesting. The last 70 pages are a diary from his travels. Some of this info went into his columns of the time and that was boring. But other parts were descriptions of conversations with various leaders and average people in that part of the world and those were always interesting. I'm really glad I read this, and I'll be reading his column regularly from now on.
Friedman is mostly liberal but did support the war in Iraq, though he feels it was handled badly. As a result he's criticized by both the left and the right. He travels extensively through the Middle East and South Asia and talks with leaders. He comes across as quiet knowledgable about that part of the world.
"The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy, and terrible at diplomacy." He's unhappy at how they handled the Kyoto treaty and ABM treaty, basically that we pissed off the whole world, and then we say in the war on terrorism, you're either with us or against us. He also warned, before the war, that the reconstruction will be hard and we won't be successful if we try to do it alone.
He wonders how there are many unhappy people in the world, and some perform terrorist acts, but it seems only Sunni Muslims become suicide bombers. He says Muslims have a poverty of dignity that while their's is supposedly the most refined take on monotheism, they seem to be behind (economically, techinically, militarily) the Christians and Jews in the modern world. The Arab governments have failed the people in building a viable economy or education system. He thinks that sucessfully bringing democracy to Iraq might help inspire the other Arab nations to change their ways.
He also notes that the extremists don't offer any solutions, only destruction. That bin Laden talks only about destroying the US not about building up anything. As the education system and the culture is intolerant anything other than Islam, he finds lots of hatred for jews and Israel. Some unfounded, like the myth that 4000 Jews where told to stay home on 9/11, and some reasonable criticisms of Ariel Sharon. But he places most of the blame squarely on Arafat who rejected the Oslo accords which offered Palestinians about 97% of what they wanted and in return neither he nor any Arab nation offered a non-violent alternative.
I wondered if it would be odd reading newspaper columns from 4 years ago, but the perceptive of knowing what happened was interesting. The last 70 pages are a diary from his travels. Some of this info went into his columns of the time and that was boring. But other parts were descriptions of conversations with various leaders and average people in that part of the world and those were always interesting. I'm really glad I read this, and I'll be reading his column regularly from now on.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Nominee John G. Roberts Jr.
Here's his career:
He's only 50 years old, so he'll potentially be on the court a long time. But the average age of an appointed justice is 52.75 (since WWII it's a little higher at 53.88). Scalia, Thomas and Ginsburg all came from the important DC Circuit Court, where Roberts has been serving.
A little more disturbing is that he's only been a judge for 2 years. That still gives him more judicial experience than Rehnquist or Thomas when they were nominated, but less than all the others by 2-12 years. Rehnquist wasn't a judge at all, he was assistant Attorney General of the US for 2 years. Stevens was a federal judge for 5 years. O'Connor was a state judge for 6 years. Scalia was a federal judge for 4 years, Kennedy for 13. Souter was a state judge for 7 years and a federal judge for less than 6 months. Thomas was a federal judge for 1 year, Ginsburg for 13 years and Breyer for 14 years. Is it odd that the 3 most conservative justices (and now perhaps 4) all have the least judicial experience coming into the court?
With so little experience we don't have a long record to look at. Slate has some background info on him.
We know from a 1991 brief for Hodgson v. Minnesota that he opposes Roe having said "the Court's conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."
He seems weak on the separation of Church and State. In 1992 in Lee v Weisman he argued that public high-school graduation ceremonies could include religious ceremonies. The Supreme Court disagreed 5-4.
And he seems to have several times voted or argued against environmental regulation. In Rancho Viejo v. Nortion, 2003 he found that the interstate commerce clause didn't give the federal government the power to create the Endangered Species Act. I just saw an episode on Penn & Teller's Bullshit about the ESA, they were not impressed with it either.
I think some amendments are in order :)
- 1976, BA from Harvard
- 1979, Law degree from Harvard
- 1979-1980, Clerked for Henry Friendly on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals
- 1980-1981, Clerked for Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court.
- 1981-1982, Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General
- 1982-1986, Associate Counsel to the President
- 1986-1989 Associate Hogan & Hartson law firm
- 1989-1993 Principal Deputy Solicitor-General (argued ~30 cases before the Supreme Court)
- 1993-2001, Partner at Hogan & Harston
- 2001, Appointed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
- 2003, Confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
He's only 50 years old, so he'll potentially be on the court a long time. But the average age of an appointed justice is 52.75 (since WWII it's a little higher at 53.88). Scalia, Thomas and Ginsburg all came from the important DC Circuit Court, where Roberts has been serving.
A little more disturbing is that he's only been a judge for 2 years. That still gives him more judicial experience than Rehnquist or Thomas when they were nominated, but less than all the others by 2-12 years. Rehnquist wasn't a judge at all, he was assistant Attorney General of the US for 2 years. Stevens was a federal judge for 5 years. O'Connor was a state judge for 6 years. Scalia was a federal judge for 4 years, Kennedy for 13. Souter was a state judge for 7 years and a federal judge for less than 6 months. Thomas was a federal judge for 1 year, Ginsburg for 13 years and Breyer for 14 years. Is it odd that the 3 most conservative justices (and now perhaps 4) all have the least judicial experience coming into the court?
With so little experience we don't have a long record to look at. Slate has some background info on him.
We know from a 1991 brief for Hodgson v. Minnesota that he opposes Roe having said "the Court's conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."
He seems weak on the separation of Church and State. In 1992 in Lee v Weisman he argued that public high-school graduation ceremonies could include religious ceremonies. The Supreme Court disagreed 5-4.
And he seems to have several times voted or argued against environmental regulation. In Rancho Viejo v. Nortion, 2003 he found that the interstate commerce clause didn't give the federal government the power to create the Endangered Species Act. I just saw an episode on Penn & Teller's Bullshit about the ESA, they were not impressed with it either.
I think some amendments are in order :)
Need Nominations Be So Partisan?
The choice of the next Supreme Court Justice is being closely watched by all sides. Some are geared up to protest the moment the nominee is announced. Some feel that depending on the nominee, their rights might change, particularly the current right of abortion (though some feel it would need two new justices to change that).
How could this be? Doesn't the Constitution define a system of government with separation of powers where no one person has so much power? Isn't the Supreme Court supposed to interpret the Constitution and not make law? Well kinda. They are supposed to interpret, that's the only way they can figure out if a search and seizure is "unreasonable" or not. It turns out that many rights aren't explicitly mentioned in the constitution or the amendments (well they are only in amendements) but have been inferred. I'm a loose constructionist and don't have a problem with that, but it does cause problems. Some are strict constructionists (which is perfectly valid) and feel that regardless of what the current moods of culture might be, they have to rule based on what the constitution says, since any two people could infer different things from a sentence.
The 14th Amendement was adopted in 1868 to address the rights of citizens post-slavery. The Due Process Clause states "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . ." Making sure the rules are followed properly is called procedural due process. The real question is, what is "liberty"? While "freedom" is a good answer, it isn't any more specific. Substantive due process is ruling on the substance of the law (not just the procedures followed) to ensure liberty isn't infringed.
This is a big deal and greatly expanded the role of the Supreme Court. Substantive due process was used in the late 1800s to strike down regulations on corporations based on "liberty of contract". In the 1920s liberty was used to include parents' right to send their children to private school and have them taught a foreign language (really, there were laws preventing this). In 1967 a case defined that liberty includes the right to marry who one chooses and struck down laws preventing interracial marriage (it took until 1967!). In 1965 the decision of Griswold v Connecticut struck down a CT law that made it crime to use or counsel anyone in the use of contraceptives. In so doing the court found a "right to privacy" in the constitution including it as part of "liberty" in the 14th amendment amongst other places. Roe v Wade then expanded on this to include a right to abortion in a right to privacy defined as part of "liberty".
Justice Potter Stewart dissented in Griswold. He wrote "I think this is an uncommonly silly law...But we are not asked, in this case, to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do" He couldn't find a "right to privacy" in the constitution, and indeed, you have to go through some contortions to do so, and some aren't comfortable with that and hence the court struggles with figuring out which rights are implied by the word "liberty" and other things.
There is a way to remove this problem. Article V describes how to amend the Constitution. Imagine if we actually defined a right to privacy that said things like the government can't regulate the behavior of consenting adults when such behavior doesn't affect others; that the government can't interfere with families except to prevent abuse and that the government can legislate to protect the right of privacy from unreasonable abuses by other people, corporations, and the press. Maybe there's more but that's a start (the above is vague with respect to abortion, maybe it should be maybe it shouldn't, I'm not sure). It would need ratification by 3/4 of the states but would people really object to something like the above?
Having such an amendment, would make it much easier for strict constructionists and originalists to do the right thing. And it might make Supreme Court Justice nominations a little less partisan. Imagine that, no really imagine it. Isn't it nice?
How could this be? Doesn't the Constitution define a system of government with separation of powers where no one person has so much power? Isn't the Supreme Court supposed to interpret the Constitution and not make law? Well kinda. They are supposed to interpret, that's the only way they can figure out if a search and seizure is "unreasonable" or not. It turns out that many rights aren't explicitly mentioned in the constitution or the amendments (well they are only in amendements) but have been inferred. I'm a loose constructionist and don't have a problem with that, but it does cause problems. Some are strict constructionists (which is perfectly valid) and feel that regardless of what the current moods of culture might be, they have to rule based on what the constitution says, since any two people could infer different things from a sentence.
The 14th Amendement was adopted in 1868 to address the rights of citizens post-slavery. The Due Process Clause states "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . ." Making sure the rules are followed properly is called procedural due process. The real question is, what is "liberty"? While "freedom" is a good answer, it isn't any more specific. Substantive due process is ruling on the substance of the law (not just the procedures followed) to ensure liberty isn't infringed.
This is a big deal and greatly expanded the role of the Supreme Court. Substantive due process was used in the late 1800s to strike down regulations on corporations based on "liberty of contract". In the 1920s liberty was used to include parents' right to send their children to private school and have them taught a foreign language (really, there were laws preventing this). In 1967 a case defined that liberty includes the right to marry who one chooses and struck down laws preventing interracial marriage (it took until 1967!). In 1965 the decision of Griswold v Connecticut struck down a CT law that made it crime to use or counsel anyone in the use of contraceptives. In so doing the court found a "right to privacy" in the constitution including it as part of "liberty" in the 14th amendment amongst other places. Roe v Wade then expanded on this to include a right to abortion in a right to privacy defined as part of "liberty".
Justice Potter Stewart dissented in Griswold. He wrote "I think this is an uncommonly silly law...But we are not asked, in this case, to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do" He couldn't find a "right to privacy" in the constitution, and indeed, you have to go through some contortions to do so, and some aren't comfortable with that and hence the court struggles with figuring out which rights are implied by the word "liberty" and other things.
There is a way to remove this problem. Article V describes how to amend the Constitution. Imagine if we actually defined a right to privacy that said things like the government can't regulate the behavior of consenting adults when such behavior doesn't affect others; that the government can't interfere with families except to prevent abuse and that the government can legislate to protect the right of privacy from unreasonable abuses by other people, corporations, and the press. Maybe there's more but that's a start (the above is vague with respect to abortion, maybe it should be maybe it shouldn't, I'm not sure). It would need ratification by 3/4 of the states but would people really object to something like the above?
Having such an amendment, would make it much easier for strict constructionists and originalists to do the right thing. And it might make Supreme Court Justice nominations a little less partisan. Imagine that, no really imagine it. Isn't it nice?
Monday, July 18, 2005
Wilson's Findings
If we're going to be so concerned with specific words such as "involved", "identity", "name", "leak", etc. (and I think we should) we should be concerned with all the words. I've heard a lot this weekend about what Wilson's trip to Niger found. The facts seem to be that he found that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium but didn't succeed.
In a Boston Globe article today Diedtra Henderson wrote: "In a first-person article about his grand jury testimony in this week's issue of Time, Cooper said he called Rove about Joseph C. Wilson IV, author of a New York Times op-ed article on his mission to Niger in which he found no evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to procure uranium to make nuclear weapons. The Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq as necessary to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and Wilson's article said it twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." The sentence structure is screwy but I think the bit about the Niger trip is her summary of the facts rather than referring to the op-ed article or Time article. If so, they're false.
The following is all according to the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence Report (pages 39-46). Wilson went to Niger, reported verbally to the CIA, the CIA wrote a routine report based on the trip which Wilson never saw. The report said that that in June 1999 an Iraqi delegation wanted to meet with former Nigerian Prime Minister Mayaki (it's not clear if he was Prime Minister in 1999 but he was definately not when Wilson met with him in 2002) about "expanding commerical relations" and that the meeting took place but that Mayaki never discussed what they meant by that phrase. Wilson also reported that no sale happened, that Mayaki didn't want to discuss trade issues with a country under UN sanctions, and that due to how the uranium mines in Niger are structured it would be very difficult to conseal any such sales.
That report got an internal, routine grade of "good" and the reports officer said it "merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting."
The Senate's report says "When the former ambassador spoke to Committee staff, his description of his findings differed from the DO intelligence report and his account of information provided to him by the CIA differed from the CIA officials' accounts in some respects. First, the former ambassador described his findings to Committee staff as more directly related to Iraq and, specifically, as refuting both the possibility that Niger could have sold uranium to Iraq and that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium." The intelligence report described how the structure of Niger's uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossibIe, for Niger to sell uranium to rouge nations, and noted that Nigerien officials denied knowledge of any deals to sell uranium to any rogue states, but did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium." it goes on to describe other discrepancies.
So when you see all the stuff on the air about what Wilson found and reported, keep the above in mind. And to be clear, the Senate report is quite damning of the intelligence used to justify war. It's over 500 pages and I haven't read it all, but Republicans should not be proud of its conclusions.
In a Boston Globe article today Diedtra Henderson wrote: "In a first-person article about his grand jury testimony in this week's issue of Time, Cooper said he called Rove about Joseph C. Wilson IV, author of a New York Times op-ed article on his mission to Niger in which he found no evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to procure uranium to make nuclear weapons. The Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq as necessary to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and Wilson's article said it twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." The sentence structure is screwy but I think the bit about the Niger trip is her summary of the facts rather than referring to the op-ed article or Time article. If so, they're false.
The following is all according to the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence Report (pages 39-46). Wilson went to Niger, reported verbally to the CIA, the CIA wrote a routine report based on the trip which Wilson never saw. The report said that that in June 1999 an Iraqi delegation wanted to meet with former Nigerian Prime Minister Mayaki (it's not clear if he was Prime Minister in 1999 but he was definately not when Wilson met with him in 2002) about "expanding commerical relations" and that the meeting took place but that Mayaki never discussed what they meant by that phrase. Wilson also reported that no sale happened, that Mayaki didn't want to discuss trade issues with a country under UN sanctions, and that due to how the uranium mines in Niger are structured it would be very difficult to conseal any such sales.
That report got an internal, routine grade of "good" and the reports officer said it "merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting."
The Senate's report says "When the former ambassador spoke to Committee staff, his description of his findings differed from the DO intelligence report and his account of information provided to him by the CIA differed from the CIA officials' accounts in some respects. First, the former ambassador described his findings to Committee staff as more directly related to Iraq and, specifically, as refuting both the possibility that Niger could have sold uranium to Iraq and that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium." The intelligence report described how the structure of Niger's uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossibIe, for Niger to sell uranium to rouge nations, and noted that Nigerien officials denied knowledge of any deals to sell uranium to any rogue states, but did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium." it goes on to describe other discrepancies.
So when you see all the stuff on the air about what Wilson found and reported, keep the above in mind. And to be clear, the Senate report is quite damning of the intelligence used to justify war. It's over 500 pages and I haven't read it all, but Republicans should not be proud of its conclusions.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Murderball is in theaters
I saw Murderball in April at the Independent Film Festival of Boston It's now out in limited release. This is a really great documentary, you can read my review here. It's playing near you, go see it.
Rove lied and the Republican leadership is supporting him
Whether or not Karl Rove or others in the administration actually commited a crime will have to wait for the grand jury results and any possible trials after that. The bar is high and it's not clear that Mrs. Wilson was covert anyway. What is clear is that 2 years ago, Joe Wilson wrote an Op-Ed critical of the president and after that various people in the administration, including Karl Rove, spoke with various journalists about Wilson and his wife. Then it occured to someone that identifying (not naming, but merely identifying) a CIA agent might be illegal and the administration denied they did it. The CIA got the Justice Department to investigate and after a connection to Rove was established Ashcroft (Rove's friends) appointed a special prosecutor and by all accounts the administration has fully cooperated.
But Scott McClellan made the public statement that Karl Rove "was not involved", and anything to contrary was "ridiculous". But as we learn, Karl Rove spoke to Novak (and was his second source) and to Matthew Cooper and probably to other reporters. That seems to be "involved". Now if this administration came out and said something to the effect that we checked, we were mistaken, he (and maybe others) spoke about this, we don't think anything illegal was done but are cooperating with all investigations to confirm this, any reasonable person would say ok, let's see what happens. But this administration has never admitted making any mistakes, even in the face of obviously conflicting facts. This morning's Meet the Press was just another example.
On today's Meet the Press Ken Mehlman (not technically part of the administration but the chairman of the RNC) blatently lied to distort the facts. The full transcript will be posted soon but it's clear that the talking points have been established and they are sticking to them. He says that the news that has come out in the last few days "actually exonerates and vindicates, it doesn't implicate" Karl Rove.
Tim Russet: But he said they were not involved, is that accurate?
Ken Mehlman: Well according to the information that's come out this week and again we're here speculating but the information that's come out this week that we all agree on says that they were not involved in a leak
John Podesta: Oh well I think that's absurd and I think the American public see that. The question at the time that Mr. McClellan was answering, was Karl Rove one of the two sources for Mr Novak, now we know that he was.
Karl Rove and others might not have done anything illegal but it's clear that he was doing to Joe Wilson what he's often done in the past, smear someone else and deflect the story away from the president. Then he made a mistake, he denied being involved which was clearly a lie. And still rather than come clean they keep denying it, smearing Joe Wilson. blaming the Democrats for partisanship, and trying to deflect the questions on technicalities, which to me reinforces the accusations.
Russet asked the dumb question of if this had been reversed and if the Democrats were in the White House wouldn't the Republicans be screaming for a resignation. I'd wish he had stuck to the facts rather than hypotheticals but comparisons to Clinton are ripe so lets follow them. David Brock made up a stories about Clinton in American Spectator and Paula Jones sued for sexual harrassment. While undergoing a grand jury supposedly about Whitewater when asked about a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton denied it. He was then impeached for perjury. The suit by Jones, once brought to court was summarily dismissed as groundless. He wasn't found guilty of anything to do with Whitewater. So the underlying event was false, but the Republicans impeached on perjury of the investigation. Now we don't know what Rove said to the grand jury, we'll see, but he certainly covered up his involvement and lied to the American people. What should the Democrats be doing? Taking the high road or fighting fire with fire? I"m actually not sure, but maybe there's a lesson for Mr. Rove. If your career is based on smears and sleeze maybe it comes back to haunt you.
But more importantly this really shouldn't be about getting Rove. Let's not forget what Wilson was investing were claims that Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction which were found to be false even though they were used to justify going to war. The big picture here is that Bush misled the American people on going to war with another country (inventing a pre-emptive war doctrine). Whether you think the war was a good thing or not, the rationale was false.
But Scott McClellan made the public statement that Karl Rove "was not involved", and anything to contrary was "ridiculous". But as we learn, Karl Rove spoke to Novak (and was his second source) and to Matthew Cooper and probably to other reporters. That seems to be "involved". Now if this administration came out and said something to the effect that we checked, we were mistaken, he (and maybe others) spoke about this, we don't think anything illegal was done but are cooperating with all investigations to confirm this, any reasonable person would say ok, let's see what happens. But this administration has never admitted making any mistakes, even in the face of obviously conflicting facts. This morning's Meet the Press was just another example.
On today's Meet the Press Ken Mehlman (not technically part of the administration but the chairman of the RNC) blatently lied to distort the facts. The full transcript will be posted soon but it's clear that the talking points have been established and they are sticking to them. He says that the news that has come out in the last few days "actually exonerates and vindicates, it doesn't implicate" Karl Rove.
Tim Russet: But he said they were not involved, is that accurate?
Ken Mehlman: Well according to the information that's come out this week and again we're here speculating but the information that's come out this week that we all agree on says that they were not involved in a leak
John Podesta: Oh well I think that's absurd and I think the American public see that. The question at the time that Mr. McClellan was answering, was Karl Rove one of the two sources for Mr Novak, now we know that he was.
Karl Rove and others might not have done anything illegal but it's clear that he was doing to Joe Wilson what he's often done in the past, smear someone else and deflect the story away from the president. Then he made a mistake, he denied being involved which was clearly a lie. And still rather than come clean they keep denying it, smearing Joe Wilson. blaming the Democrats for partisanship, and trying to deflect the questions on technicalities, which to me reinforces the accusations.
Russet asked the dumb question of if this had been reversed and if the Democrats were in the White House wouldn't the Republicans be screaming for a resignation. I'd wish he had stuck to the facts rather than hypotheticals but comparisons to Clinton are ripe so lets follow them. David Brock made up a stories about Clinton in American Spectator and Paula Jones sued for sexual harrassment. While undergoing a grand jury supposedly about Whitewater when asked about a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton denied it. He was then impeached for perjury. The suit by Jones, once brought to court was summarily dismissed as groundless. He wasn't found guilty of anything to do with Whitewater. So the underlying event was false, but the Republicans impeached on perjury of the investigation. Now we don't know what Rove said to the grand jury, we'll see, but he certainly covered up his involvement and lied to the American people. What should the Democrats be doing? Taking the high road or fighting fire with fire? I"m actually not sure, but maybe there's a lesson for Mr. Rove. If your career is based on smears and sleeze maybe it comes back to haunt you.
But more importantly this really shouldn't be about getting Rove. Let's not forget what Wilson was investing were claims that Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction which were found to be false even though they were used to justify going to war. The big picture here is that Bush misled the American people on going to war with another country (inventing a pre-emptive war doctrine). Whether you think the war was a good thing or not, the rationale was false.
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