Day: January 20, 2006

Senator Bingaman on Alito nomination

As you know, the President nominated Judge Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I have stated that I would like this nominee be a moderate, and someone whose views are generally consistent with those of Justice O’Connor on many of the important issues. This nominee will be replacing a justice who cast the deciding vote on numerous cases that upheld the broad application of laws guaranteeing the rights of women, minorities, and disabled people. Please be assured I will keep your comments in mind as I thoroughly scrutinize Judge Alito’s record to ensure that policies and values that have made this country great are not undermined.

United States Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) in email to NewMexiKen

Do you suppose they draw straws

… to see who gets to use which line?

Leno last night: “Al Jazeera has released an audiotape from Osama bin Laden. State Department officials say it shows he’s aware of world events. It opens up congratulating Brad and Angelina on their baby.”

Letterman last night: “There’s a new Osama bin Laden tape. We haven’t heard from him in about a year. Experts say it’s current because in the tape he references the Hillary Swank divorce.”

The New World

In a review where she calls The New World the “first necessary film of this young year” and describes Q’orianka Kilcher as “the sensational newcomer,” Manohla Dargis waxes poetically on film-making and imagery.

In the 1950’s, the young turks at Cahiers du Cinéma advanced an idea that cinema is not literature, but instead expresses itself visually through the mise-en-scène. The image of laundry hanging on a line or of a pair of empty shoes in a film by Yasujiro Ozu matters as much as the dialogue; those are no more decorative than the image of birds taking flight in “The New World.” The images don’t exist apart from the narrative; they are the narrative, adding layers and moods, imparting philosophies of life. In one film, the shoes convey a sense of profound loss, the ache of human impermanence; in the other, the birds speak to the idea that the world is not ours for the taking.

One of the pleasures of returning to a favorite film is that you are no longer as captive to the plot; you need not pay as close attention to who is saying what and why, and are therefore free to see – perhaps for the first time – how a filmmaker makes meaning with the images. Something I didn’t fully appreciate until I saw “The New World” a second time was how Mr. Malick uses physical space to contrast two separate world views. Indeed, the entire meaning of the film is conveyed in a single sublime edit that joins a shot of the grubby settlement as it looks from outside its walls – and framed inside an open door – with its mirror image. As the camera looks through the same door, this time pointed out, we see how the settlers would have viewed the beautiful wide world from inside a fort that was every bit as much a prison as their own consciousness.

Miss Kilcher, “Pocahontas,” 14 when the film was shot, was born in Germany. Her father is Quechua-Huachipaeri Indian (Peru), her mother Swiss.

No snow down here at 6,000 feet

… but a little, three miles away at 10,678.

Sandia Mountains January 20, 2006

No measurable precipitation in Albuquerque in more than 5 weeks. It looks like today could be the fifth day this month with absolutely no clouds — that is, 100% of the possible sunshine. Nice — but I’d prefer some rain.

The whispy clouds in the photo were all gone by early afternoon. Even this morning, they were isolated to just around the mountaintops.

Federal Judge Blasts Mandatory Minimum Sentences

From TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime:

The defendant is 32, with an IQ of 72. He’s a low level drug dealer. Under the federal mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, the Judge had no choice but to impose a sentence of life without parole. The Judge is angry.

Judge David N. Hurd said child rapists and murderers will go free on parole while Justin D. Powell languishes in prison for life, largely because the defendant was convicted of drug crimes twice during his teenage years, more than a decade before the instant offense. Because of those prior convictions, the sole sentencing option was life, Hurd said.
“The increment of harm in this case bears no rational relationship to the increment of punishment that I must impose,” Hurd said at a sentencing proceeding last week in Utica, N.Y. “This is what occurs when Congress sets [a] mandatory minimum sentence which distorts the entire judicial process… . As a result, I am obligated to and will now impose this unfair and, more important, unjust sentence.”

Read the entire entry at TalkLeft for more on the injustice of mandatory sentencing.

Why do we fear to fly?

Salon’s Ask the pilot on why airplane mishaps seem such sensationalist news:

First and foremost, millions of people find it hard to reconcile with the notion of traveling hundreds of miles per hour, far above the earth, inside pressurized tubes weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds. Flying is not natural for human beings, and while it doesn’t quite violate the laws of physics, it does seem to violate any and all common sense. Technology has made it work, but while airplane travel isn’t statistically dangerous, inherently it’s another story. I wouldn’t call us ignorant, exactly; most Americans can’t tell you how a television set works either, never mind a 747. The difference is, a TV set can’t crash into a skyscraper and kill 3,000 people — one of them you. In the end, everybody from veteran pilots to first-time fliers contemplates their mortality when stepping onto a plane, as well they should.

Second, the airlines themselves shoulder a heavy portion of the blame for being such lousy communicators. Airlines have a terrible habit of responding to anomalies — be it a minor malfunction or a catastrophic crash — in one of two ways: either with total silence or, perhaps worse, by employing hideous oversimplifications. A flight from Las Vegas is canceled because “it’s too hot to fly”; a crew aborts a landing because “a plane crossed in front of us.” At Flagstaff, Ariz., counter staff at America West Express told a group of delayed passengers that several volunteers were needed to give up their seats. When passengers asked why, they were told, “We need to lighten the load. The plane has been having problems and we’re afraid one of the engines might cut out.” The result is nearly total lack of trust from the public. People dislike airlines and don’t believe anything they say — partly because they never actually say anything — or, when they do, it’s both condescending and terrifying.

Amen!

Patrick Smith, the pilot, notes that 2 billion people boarded commercial aircraft in 2005; 1,050 of them were killed.

Note: This item from the same Salon web page (i.e., same link) as preceding item.

Ask the pilot

NewMexiKen is a fan of Salon’s feature Ask the pilot, despite the annoyance of having to watch an ad to get a free day pass. Though I knew something about altimeters and altitude, I still found this interesting:

A plane’s altimeters (typically there are three independent units) — and, in turn, all air traffic control instructions — are referenced to sea level, not to the ground. Parked at the gate at Mexico City, they will read about 7,500 feet. Thus, when the captain announces that you’re cruising at 35,000 feet, the surface of el mundo may or may not be 35,000 feet below you. Over the ocean, yes, but over a high plateau, mesa or mountain range, no. A sea level datum allows aircraft to be safely and evenly sequenced. You couldn’t have a sector full of planes, all at 15,000 feet, if 15,000 kept changing each time you passed above a hill or depression.

Altimeters have no idea where the ground is, strictly speaking. Essentially barometers, they are set by dialing or programming in the local barometric pressure, gauged in inches of mercury (or metric millibars) like the ones given out by TV meteorologists. The atmospheric standard for sea level is 29.92 inches (1013.2 mb), but actual pressures will vary from place to place, depending on the weather. If you enjoy tuning in to United’s Channel Nine, you’ll hear crews being advised of the local value. “Altimeter: two-niner eight-six,” for example.

En route, above certain heights — 18,000 feet in the U.S., but usually lower elsewhere — all aircraft change over to the single standard of 29.92 inches. At this point, cruising altitudes become known as “flight levels.” Thirty-five thousand “feet” is technically “flight level three-five-zero.”

There’s a separate cockpit unit called a radio altimeter that measures a plane’s position relative to the turf itself. Height above ground level, or AGL, is referenced when flying close to the surface — up to maybe 1,500 feet or so– such as during instrument approaches. Over uneven terrain, the radio altimeters, unlike the main altimeters, will be constantly changing.

How to Foil Search Engine Snoops

In light of federal subpoenas for Google search information (and the fact that Yahoo! and MSN complied with similar subpoenas), Wired News explains:

How does a search engine tie a search to a user?
If you have never logged in to search engine’s site, or a partner service like Google’s Gmail offering, the company probably doesn’t know your name. But it connects your searches through a cookie, which has a unique identifying number. Using its cookies, Google will remember all searches from your browser. It might also link searches by a user’s IP address.

How long do cookies last?
It varies. Yahoo sets a cookie that expires in June 2006. A new cookie from Google expires in 2036.

What if you sign in to a service?
If you sign in on Google’s personalized homepage or Yahoo’s homepage, the companies can then correlate your search history with any other information, such as your name, that you give them.

Why should anyone worry about the government requesting search logs or bother to disguise their search history?
Some people simply don’t like the idea of their search history being tied to their personal lives. Others don’t know what the information could be used for, but worry that the search companies could find surprising uses for that data that may invade privacy in the future.

For example, if you use Google’s Gmail and web optimizing software, the company could correlate everyone you’ve e-mailed, all the websites you’ve visited after a search and even all the words you misspell in queries.

What’s the first thing people should do who worry about their search history?
Cookie management helps. Those who want to avoid a permanent record should delete their cookies at least once a week. Other options might be to obliterate certain cookies when a browser is closed and avoid logging in to other services, such as web mail, offered by a search engine.

There’s more. Follow the link.

Key quote: “If you are doing any search you wouldn’t print on a T-shirt….”

Cell Phones: No Link to Brain Tumors

Do cell phones cause brain tumors? The question has been asked since the phones first arrived on the scene, and now one of the largest studies ever to examine the issue shows that the answer is no.

The new report is in line with most other large studies and should reassure the hundreds of millions of regular cell phone users around the world.

WebMD

Cell phones do cause public displays on inanity on a consistent basis, however.

Wine Drinkers Buy Healthier Foods

If there’s a wine bottle in your grocery cart, you’re probably buying healthier foods than your fellow shoppers who are buying beer.

So say researchers who peeked at the purchases of Danish grocery shoppers. Their findings:

  • People who bought wine bought more olives, fruit, vegetables, poultry, cooking oil, and low-fat cheese, milk, and meat.
  • Beer buyers bought more prepared dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork, butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks.

WebMD

Which reminds me, Trader Joe’s will be opening in Albuquerque soon — some months before they open a store in New York City.

Sam Alito On Brokeback Mountain

In an outstanding essay, much of which is excerpted here, Mark Morford asks “What do the bitter neocon nominee and the amazing Oscar-bound film have in common?”

Witness, won’t you, the confluent forces, the twin streams of conflicting culture represented by the amazing “Brokeback Mountain” movie phenomenon, a spare and sad and highly controversial little indie-style flick that is shaking up the homophobic community and raking in the Golden Globes and which now seems a shoe-in to win an Oscar or four, as compared and contrasted with, say, the humorless, depressing, dry-as-death Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination. Oh yes, we have a match. Do you see it?

Look closer. On the one hand, here is the astounding reach and power of this rare and striking little film, an emotional tinderbox of a movie that, in the wrong hands or with the wrong marketing or if it had been off pitch by just this much, could have very easily been trashed and quickly dismissed, would have hobbled the careers of two up-and-coming hunk actors, been mocked across the board and demonized by the religious right as revolting gay propaganda, the source of all ills, proof of the existence of the devil himself.

Of course, the latter is still happening (isn’t it always?), but the amazing thing is, no one seems to care. The screech of the right’s homophobes is being easily drowned out by the fact that this astonishing, pitch-perfect film is now considered a movie that, quite literally, changes minds. Shifts perceptions. That moves the human experiment forward and makes people truly think about sex and gender and love and not in the way that, say, “Pride & Prejudice” makes you think because that kind of thinking is merely sweet and harmless, whereas “Brokeback” slaps bigotry and intolerance upside its knobby little head and induces heated discussions of the film’s dynamics and politics and ideas of love over a bottle of wine and some deep curious sighing.

That’s one side. On the other hand, here we have this relentless neocon spiritual death wish, as evidenced by the imminent appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, yet another dour white male judge who, by all evidence, will do everything in his power to keep America’s spiritual, humanitarian and sexual progress — you know, the exact kind of universal awareness illuminated by intensely intimate movies like “Brokeback” — locked in the ironclad box of anti-women, anti-gay, power-über-alles conservative thinking for the next three decades or more.

Of course you may say: Oh please, this is just silly, no way is there a direct connection between Alito and “Brokeback.” I mean come on, one’s just a heartbreaking gay love story and one’s a massive disheartening political maneuver and they simply have no direct correlation in this world as we know it and to draw a correlation is to, well, make stuff up.

To which I say: You are right, but only a little. Of course Alito is not about to be appointed to deflect “Brokeback”‘s message per se, but rather, he is being installed in general reaction to, in attack on, in preparation for what “Brokeback” and its ilk represent. Which is, of course, the aforementioned awakening, the shift, the movement toward something new and different and open. Do you see?

This is the ever-present push-pull of the culture. This is how we stumble toward the light, gasping and bleeding and with painful rope burns on our wrists. After all, there is no progress forward — intellectual, spiritual, sexual or otherwise — without a concomitant blood-curdling scream from the power brokers and the religiously terrified to hold it all back. Change brings fear. Sexuality brings confusion. For every person who has his rigid homophobic ideology shattered by “Brokeback”‘s emotional hammer, there is a confused neocon who redoubles his efforts to replant it.

Best line of the day, so far

“George W. Bush has been president for precisely five years. By my reckoning that means he can serve for another three years, unless, after consultation with the Attorney General, he exercises his Executive Privilege to void the Constitution entirely and declare himself President For Life.”

Joel Achenbach, who adds that he’s not saying that will happen, “It’s much more likely that he will declare that he didn’t really win in 2000, and therefore should be permitted to run again in 2008.”

Actually, go read Achenbach’s whole entry.