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An interesting brief essay on how the general composition of the Supreme Court has changed over the past 100 years. The experiences and backgrounds of past judges were more varied and more likely to have legislative experience.
(0) #There undoubtedly are many reasons for this phenomenon – a post-Bork confirmation process that favors nominees with no “paper trail”; interest groups in both parties that demand nominees likely to be “dependable” votes in certain kinds of cases; and the widespread impression – fostered by the ascendant legal ideology – that judging is a technical exercise, for which the essential credential is expertise in the legal academy, as a judge, or the equivalent.
6/29/2007
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Thirteen hours before the bodies of WWE pro wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife, and their son was found by the police (and later ruled a murder/suicide), an anonymous user from Stamford, CT edited Benoit’s Wikipedia entry announcing the death of his wife. Stamford, incidentally, is the home of the WWE headquarters. Benoit must have been in communication with others before his suicide, possibly sending the news through the wrestling rumor mill. The most dramatic result of this is probably an obstruction of justice charge, but still, this is the first time I’ve heard about Wikipedia timestamps opening up a new angle in a homicide case. (thx, flea) Update: The person who made the edit has spoken out, claiming that they had no inside information and that they made the edit based on some online rumors.
(6) #6/28/2007
Sicko
I saw Sicko this past Saturday, and I thought it was a very effective and entertaining look into the massive flaws of the American health care system. I was already a believer walking into the theater that every American should be granted unfettered access to health care, but the film’s emphasis on the tragedies of middle-class Americans who do have health care was far more revealing to me.
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A modified Tesla coil that shoots out high-voltage sparks modulated to play musical tones. Stage 1-2 of Super Mario Bros. is always a fan favorite.
(0) #6/27/2007
Artificial nostalgia and 70's tv shows
I’m too young for it, but this tribute to Saturday morning live-action TV shows from the 1970’s fills me with me with artificial nostalgia. I think the false sense of familiarity comes from all the influence these shows have had on those slightly older than me. Take, for instance, the credit sequences from 1973’s Lidsville, which is obviously a source for the 1997 Mr. Show sketch, The Altered State of Drugachusetts.” Merlo even looks like Bob Odenkirk. (thx, rd)
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An interesting essay about the America “class” divisions as represented by the different types of people who use MySpace and Facebook. I put “class” in quotes because I think that’s a historically loaded term, and even though the author argues that “class” now means something different, I think she’s better off using a new term. (Why not “cultural divisions” instead of “class divisions”?) (via bb)
(0) #6/25/2007
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This is five years old, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it: A somewhat successful recovery of the source images used to generate the “stargate sequence” at the end of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, done with a program that reverses the slit-scanning technique used by the filmmakers. (via bb)
(0) #6/22/2007
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Roger Ebert’s first Movie Answer Man column in over a year, since he stopped writing because of complications from surgery related to his thyroid cancer. The recovery must be going well.
(2) #6/22/2007
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A cynical yet honest 5-minute crash course in American constitutional law, by Duke law professor Walter Dellinger.
(0) #[B]road constitutional phrases are different from sports rules, so a judge would be like an umpire only if the game—instead of having a strike zone and a set number of balls, strikes, and outs—provided instead that “each batter shall have a fair chance to hit the ball” and “each team shall have a reasonably equal opportunity to score runs.”
6/22/2007
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A photo gallery of the 10 tallest monuments in the world. The Chinese Buddha statue listed as #8 is probably the coolest statue I’ve ever seen.
(0) #6/20/2007
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Nothing scares me more than Supreme Court Justice Scalia using the example of 24 ‘s Jack Bauer to support his positions:
The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges.
Isn’t the presidential pardon a sufficient escape hatch for these one in a billion ticking time bomb hypotheticals?
(6) #6/19/2007
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Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford Law professor who played a large role in popularizing the “free culture” movement and in bringing “intellectual property” policy to the mainstream as the founder of Creative Commons, has publicly announced that he will be shifting his focus away from copyright issues:
I have decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues… “Corruption” as I’ve defined it elsewhere will be the focus of my work. For at least the next 10 years, it is the problem I will try to help solve.
I applaud the courage it must take to abandon the field that has given one fame, comfort, and stability. Even among the wealthy or others in stable academic positions like Lessig, this sort of thing is all too rare. I wish him luck.
(0) #6/19/2007
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For the first time since 1912, wormwood absinthe is available in the U.S., legally. This is the real deal – not the artificially-colored syrup/anise stuff one finds at frat parties. Still, don’t expect any hallucinogenic effects.
(9) #6/18/2007
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A brief trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, There Will Be Blood, an adaption of Oil! , a 1927 novel by Upton Sinclair. I love Daniel Day-Lewis’s voice. (via aicn)
(9) #6/16/2007
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This Mike Gravel campaign ad may the be the weirdest one in the history of presidential elections. This is not a random dude – this is a former Senator who has been in all of the Democratic debates so far. Update: Here’s his second video in the series: Fire. (thx, nya)
(9) #6/15/2007
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CNN and YouTube have partnered up for the upcoming Democratic and Republican debates on July 23 and September 17, respectively, allowing anyone to upload a YouTube video question that, if selected, will be shown to the field of candidates. Please don’t ask for their interpretation of The Sopranos finale.
(2) #6/15/2007
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The best fan-made alternate final scene of The Sopranos so far. (via kottke)
(0) #6/14/2007
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Didn’t like the use of Journey at the end of last week’s Sopranos finale? Watch it again with the song of your choice.
(0) #6/14/2007
The Sopranos: "Made in America"
Now that the furor has died down a little, and nearly every possible interpretation has been bandied about, I’d like to say a few things about what happened on HBO Sunday night. Or, more accurately for me, Monday night, since I was on a plane Sunday night and had to spend all of Monday avoiding blogs, TV, and radio in order to not spoil the The Sopranos finale. And yes, stop reading now if you don’t want spoilers, but at this point, I’d be surprised if you’ve managed that for the entire week.
