Author: NewMexiKen

The House of Representatives

“I confess I always thought this part of the constitution defective, though not dangerous; and that it ought to be particularly attended to whenever Congress should go into the consideration of amendments.” — James Madison, 1789

In the comments, Michelle asks an interesting question: Are they increasing the total from 435?

The D.C. legislation is still just a bill in the Senate but, as passed in the House, there would be two permanent new House seats; one for D.C. and one more. Utah gets that second seat because it is currently the next state in line to add a seat based on the apportionment formula. After the 2010 census, apportionment would be according to a recalculated formula.

I’m guessing (at this point) that they are adding two seats to keep the number odd (for votes), though that makes little sense. More likely it is a political sap to get Republican support for the bill.

NewMexiKen’s preferred solution for the District of Columbia would be to return the city of Washington to Maryland, treating certain parts of the city as a federal reservation (like a military base or national park). While not without issues, this seems the most reasonable solution to me. (The Virginia part of the original D.C. was returned to Virginia in 1847.)

Historical asides. The first of the original 12 amendments (ten of which are known as the Bill of Rights) was about apportionment. It was never ratified. The very first presidential veto ever, by Washington in 1792, concerned the apportionment of the House. The House has been fixed at 435 since the admission of New Mexico and Arizona in 1912 (except temporarily at 437 when Alaska and Hawaii first became states). The Constitution says “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand…,” so constitutionally we could have as many as 10,000 Congress-persons.

Old Dominion

You think you’ll find some mountains
in western colorado
fifty weeks of snowy peaks
is where you’re gonna be
but babe the rocky mountains are gradually eroding
the hills of coors are nothing more
than blue ridge wannabes

you think that autumns in new england
are the greatest of them all
but give me sweet virginia for the fireworks of fall
the prettiest october in all the fifty states
just drive up to the skyline
park the car and wait

when you’re talking home
you mean the old dominion
just southeast of heaven to the surf and the hills
she’s the best of thirteen sisters
and thirty seven more
sweet sweet virginia always keeps an open door

Eddie from Ohio
Old Dominion

Foul study

An academic study of the National Basketball Association, whose playoffs continue tonight, suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well.

A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.

Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, found a corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong. They went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”

The New York Times

I doubt this is surprising to anyone.

Steven D. Levitt has a take on this at the Freakonomics Blog.

Insight

NYU chick: I found out I didn’t have AIDS… I went to Whole Foods… It was a good day.

–27th & Park

NYU chick: Yeah, we almost broke up like four or five times, so I think that’s indicative that we’re happy together.

–Bowery & Canal

Queer student: I don’t really have a problem with incest, but in my family there aren’t many lookers.

–NYU Silver Center

Tourist girl to friend, looking at hall of fame pictures on wall: Leo-nard… Bern-stein… Oh, that’s the guy who wrote The Berenstain Bears.

–Gershwin Theatre

Overheard in New York

Brainiac

The one thing you must read today: David Byrne sits down with Daniel Levitin (This is Your Brain on Music) for a fascinating conversation at Seed Magazine. You can also watch video from the interview.

DL: They were first discovered in Italy where a laboratory was recording from a cluster of neurons in monkeys’ brains. There was a monkey who was just sitting aside waiting his turn, watching another monkey reach for a banana and then peel it and eat it. And a clever technician noticed the cell recordings from this monkey and that his motor cortex was going crazy—the part of his brain that would be active if he were actually reaching for something and peeling it back. They thought this was strange. Do we have our wires crossed? You know, we’re measuring this monkey’s brain and not the other. They looked into all possible explanations.

They eventually replicated it with a number of different things, and it turned out that they had discovered what are now called, loosely, mirror neurons: neurons that mirror the activity of others. It’s sort of the old monkey see, monkey do. So then the question is, how does that happen? How is it that monkeys learn to imitate behavior?

DB: So when you watch a performance, sports for example, you’re not only watching somebody else do it. In a neurological kind of way, you’re experiencing it.

DL:Yeah, exactly. And when you see a musician, especially if you’re a musician yourself–

DB: —air guitar.

Bookslut

Pretty much like flying coach

MAY 2–While you’re left to fight for a blanket and shell out $5 for one of those lunch boxes, Tiger Woods is flying in slightly more comfort. As seen here, when the golf star boards a Gulfstream jet with wife Ellen Nordegren, his Evian is chilled and flight attendants are aware of his travel requirements.

The Smoking Gun has the details.

Top 25 Cities for Clean Air (and Dirty)

The top metropolitan areas for clean air.

  1. Cheyenne, Wyo.
  2. Santa Fe-Espanola, N.M.
  3. Honolulu
  4. Great Falls, Mont.
  5. Farmington, N.M.
  6. Flagstaff, Ariz.
  7. Tucson, Ariz.
  8. Anchorage, Alaska
  9. Bismarck, N.D.
  10. Albuquerque, N.M.

And dirty.

  1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, Calif.
  2. Pittsburgh-New Castle, Pa.
  3. Bakersfield, Calif.
  4. Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, Ala.
  5. Detroit-Warren-Flint, Mich.
  6. Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, Ohio
  7. Visalia-Porterville, Calif.
  8. Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, Ohio-Ken.-Ind.
  9. Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, Ind.
  10. St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, Mo.-Ill.

Source: American Lung Association via WebMD

WTF?

According to a report in the Deseret News, there is a bill in Congress to create a U.S. representative for the District of Columbia. But, because the likely winner of that seat would be a Democrat, the bill adds an at-large district in Utah, seen likely to be won by a Republican.

The fight for Utah’s potential fourth seat in Congress moves to the Senate today as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., introduce the bill that creates the new seat and grants voting rights for the District of Columbia.

The bill passed the House last month . . . .

My Constitutional history is a little vague on this, but do you suppose this is what the founders had it mind?

I’m too old to cry and it hurts too much to laugh

NewMexiKen missed the Daily Howler yesterday but got to it this morning. It is absolutely required reading if you want to understand how the political discourse in this country has been framed.

Here, via Somerby, is Brian Williams’s actual first question to Senator Clinton:

Senator Clinton, your party’s leader in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, recently said the war in Iraq is lost. A letter to today’s USA Today calls his comments “treasonous” and says if General Patton were alive today, Patton would wipe his boots with Senator Reid. Do you agree with the position of your leader in the Senate?

As Somerby says, “Good God! Nothing too ‘loaded’ about that question!”

Or his question to Senator Obama:

Senator Obama, you have called this war in Iraq, quote, “dumb,” close quote. How do you square that position with those who have sacrificed so much? And why have you voted for appropriations for it in the past?

As Somerby points out, Obama called the war “dumb” BEFORE the war. When Obama used that term, no American soldier had died.

Go read it all!

Have a little savoir faire

The woman across the street is moving and the van is here to load her stuff (locals, not a national firm). Anyway, the radio is on so loudly in the truck that I can make it out all the way in the back of my house across the street.

Wanted to share that with you.

Breaking: Doctors say neckties are a health hazard

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysian doctors have declared neckties a health hazard and called on the heath ministry to stop insisting that physicians wear them.

Citing studies that show ties are unhygienic and can spread infection, the Malaysian Medical Association says they are not often washed and carry germs that can cause pneumonia and blood infections, the Star newspaper said on Tuesday.

Yahoo! News

NewMexiKen’s favorite was the colleague who stopped wearing a tie to the office when wearing one was still the norm. When asked why he didn’t wear a tie, he’d say there was nobody he worked with that deserved that much respect.

I’ve had some mean bosses, but never quite this mean

RANCHI, India (Reuters) – An employer in eastern India beheaded one of his workers for failing to milk his cows, police said on Saturday.

Neighbors watched in horror as Upendra Yadav was dragged out of his house in Jharkhand state on Friday by his angry employer.

The employer’s father and brother held Yadav down before he was beheaded with a sword, police said.

The employer has been charged with murder.

Yahoo! News

Who you going to believe?

“Tens of thousands of Northern Californians fought their way through a chaotic commute this morning, a day after a gasoline tanker exploded and sent up a tower of flames that destroyed a heavily used freeway overpass near downtown Oakland.” —
The New York Times

“Officials had braced for terrible traffic jams and crowded ferries, trains and buses, but save for some backup on westbound Interstate 80 and Highway 101 on the Peninsula, the morning went smoothly.” — San Francisco Chronicle

Do you suppose it’s like obituaries and The Times is writing all its news stories in advance?

[Emphasis mine.]

Speaking of Richardson

This is not good.

Two recent stories illustrate the bumbling reality of Richardson’s campaign, and how it contrasts with his glowing resumé.  The first concerns the Guv’s dumbass decision during last week’s debate to name Byron “Whizzer” White — one of the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade, and a dissenter from the majority in Miranda — as his model Supreme Court justice.  Yet that’s not the worst part.  When pressed to square his professed admiration for White with his alleged support for reproductive freedom and civil rights, Richardson made two more boners.  Which one bothers you more?

A) He cited the fact that White “was an All-American football player besides being a legal scholar” as a justification for describing the often retrograde White as his model High Court member;

B) He apparently doesn’t really know or care about Roe, given that he excused his White pick by saying, “White was in the 60s. Wasn’t Roe v. Wade in the 80s?”

I can’t choose.  (A) is a hopelessly meatheaded answer, and I’m saying that as a serious sports fan.  What next?  Is Richardson going to name Ford as his favorite president simply because he was All-American at Michigan?   And if Bush had said that Roe was decided in the 80s, we’d be mocking him for weeks.  Either way, l’affaire Whizzer is a stain on Richardson.

Daily Kos

Alas, she’s in the majority

“It seems [Richardson] calls his 92-year-old mother every Sunday, and she’s getting forgetful. One day she says to him, “Son, are you still Governor?” He says yes. Ten minutes later, she says, “Son, are you still Governor.” “Yes, Mom, unless I’ve been impeached since the phone call started. In fact, I’m running for President.” She replies: “¿Presidente? ¿Presidente de que?”

The Reality-Based Community

[Translation: President? President of what?]

Willie

It’s the birthday of singer and songwriter Willie Nelson, born in the small farming community of Abbott, Texas (1933). As a young man, he wrote songs and performed at honky-tonks with names like the County Dump and the Bloody Bucket. Then, in 1959, he wrote “Night Life,” a song that was eventually recorded by more than 70 artists and sold over 30 million copies. He only made $150 from the song, because he sold the copyright. But he used that money to buy a second-hand Buick, and he drove in that Buick to Nashville, hoping to become a country music star.

He spent the next decade writing songs for other country singers, but after getting frustrated by Nashville, he went back to Texas and started recording his own albums. In 1975, he recorded Red Headed Stranger, a concept album about a preacher on the run after murdering his wife and her new lover. At the time, many country singers were backed by orchestras and backup singers, but Nelson recorded the album with just his acoustic guitar and a few other instruments. No one thought it would be a hit, but it sold millions of copies, and inspired a traditional country music revival.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media