Speed cameras banned statewide

In Texas, not here.

Famous for liking things big, Texas lawmakers have laid the smackdown on red light and speed cameras in a large manner. HB.922 states “A municipality may not implement or operate an automated traffic control system with respect to a highway under its jurisdiction,” which means that cameras, automated radar or laser, or anything else designed to snag an image of a car, driver, or license plate and record its speed is now forbidden. The even larger racket of red-light cameras have had the brakes applied by HB.1052, which requires giving motorists notice of the devices at least 100 feet out.

These bills have passed through the legislature and are awaiting Governor Rick Perry’s inscription. If the measures do make it into law, we hope that other states follow suit. Ticketing egregious speeders and actual red-light scofflaws is one thing, but the systems have been calibrated in a cynical manner to generate loads of revenue (and kickbacks) for the companies that sell and administrate the systems for municipalities. Rather than keeping people safe, random ticketing amounts to a tax….

Autoblog

Best line of the day, so far

When it comes to global warming and other assorted environmental disasters, get ready to hear one theme over and over again. Namely, that the damage is exceeding even the experts’ predictions. Today that phrase applies to carbon emissions, which—all together now—are exceeding even the experts’ predictions. Which is really scary because their prediction was: “We’re fucked.”

Daily Kos: Cheers and Jeers

May 23rd

Jewel is 33 today. Joan Collins is 74. Marvin Hagler is 55. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Jewel’s last name is Kilcher.

Drew Carey is 49.

Lauren Chapin, who played the youngest daughter, Kathy or Kitten, on “Father Knows Best,” is 62.

Benjamin Sherman Crothers — known to us better as Scatman Crothers — was born May 23rd in 1910. Crothers is best remembered as the permissive orderly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the concerned chef in The Shining and as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man. He was also a successful composer and singer and did a number of cartoon voices. The nickname Scatman came from his scat singing. Crothers died in 1986.

Clyde Champion Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in an ambush near Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, on May 23rd in 1934. The FBI has a web page with details about Bonnie and Clyde, including a photo of each. Not exactly Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman (who portrayed Clyde’s brother Buck). All three were nominated for an acting Oscar, as were Michael J. Pollard and Estelle Parsons. Parsons, who played Buck’s wife Blanche in the 1967 film, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

William Harvey Carney was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on May 23rd in 1900 — for duty performed nearly 37 years earlier at Fort Wagner, S.C. Sergeant Carney was the first African-American to receive the Medal of Honor. Carney was a member of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, the regiment whose story was told in the film Glory (1989) with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick. Carney was not portrayed in the film by name. The citation for Carney’s Medal of Honor reads: “When the color sergeant was shot down, this soldier grasped the flag, led the way to the parapet, and planted the colors thereon. When the troops fell back he brought off the flag, under a fierce fire in which he was twice severely wounded.”

The beginning of William Clark’s entry in 1804: “Wednesday May 23rd 8 Indians Kick: [Kickapoo] Came to Camp with meat we recved their pesents of 3 Deer & gave them Whisky ….”

What Albuquerque is he talking about?

ALBUQUERQUE

At 9 a.m. on the very edge of the dusty, desolate collection of adobe homes and Vietnamese restaurants that seem to form this city, David Iglesias begins his run through the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. This is not easy terrain. The footing is terribly uneven. The altitude can be unbearable. At certain times one can hear the grumbling of mountain lions and the feasting of coyotes.

How many things can we find wrong with that paragraph from an article by Sridhar Pappu in The Washington Post — The Next Best Path? Would you believe anything that followed in that article?

Hat tip to John Fleck for the link.

And, with apologies to John and other reporters I respect, I am reminded of a quote I posted here three years ago today from Susan DuQuesnay Bankston:

As a general rule, I don’t like reporters. They go to meetings. I go to meetings. I come home and think about the meeting. They go home and write about the meeting. The next day when I read about the meeting in the newspaper, I wonder where I was yesterday when I thought I was at the meeting. This can be disconcerting.

Moonbows

From the Los Angeles Times, Beauty in the misty moonlight. It begins:

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — Aristotle took note of this celestial happening a couple of millenniums back. Ben Franklin bagged a sighting or two, as did Mark Twain. The venerable John Muir, chronicler of Sierra mountaintop and meadow, waxed enthusiastic about the nighttime phenomenon.

The hunt for the elusive “moonbow” has long been a nocturnal lure for dreamy hikers, insomniac seamen and intrepid photo buffs. But in the past, seeing one of these nighttime rainbows — caused when a full moon’s rays bounce off the mist of a departing rain cloud or raging waterfall — has been dictated mostly by chance.

No longer.

The Assault on Reason

From a review of The Assault on Reason, Al Gore’s new book, by Michiko Kakutani in Tuesday’s New York Times:

In “The Assault on Reason” Al Gore excoriates George W. Bush, asserting that the president is “out of touch with reality,” that his administration is so incompetent that it “can’t manage its own way out of a horse show,” that it ignored “clear warnings” about the terrorist threat before 9/11 and that it has made Americans less safe by “stirring up a hornets’ nest in Iraq,” while using “the language and politics of fear” to try to “drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts or the public interest.”
. . .

And yet for all its sharply voiced opinions, “The Assault on Reason” turns out to be less a partisan, election-cycle harangue than a fiercely argued brief about the current Bush White House that is grounded in copiously footnoted citations from newspaper articles, Congressional testimony and commission reports — a brief that is as powerful in making its points about the implications of this administration’s policies as the author’s 2006 book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was in making its points about the fallout of global warming.

If only I could find the corkscrew

Drinking alcohol in moderation may slow the progression to dementia in elderly people who already have mild mental declines, new research suggests.

Defined in the study as less than one drink a day, low to moderate drinking was associated with a significantly slower progression to dementia among people with mild age-related cognitive declines, compared with nondrinkers.

The protective benefit was not seen with higher alcohol consumption.

WebMD

Darth Vader’s Psyche: What Went Wrong?

Anakin Skywalker, the Star Wars character who became Darth Vader, had borderline personality disorder, psychiatrists report.

The news comes not from a galaxy far, far away, but from San Diego, where the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is holding its 160th annual meeting.

Today, experts from the psychiatric department at France’s University Hospital of Toulouse told the APA’s annual meeting that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader could “clearly” be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

WebMD

Borderline? Didn’t he blow up entire planets?

Car names

There were thirteen American car brands sold by the Big Three when NewMexiKen was a kid. GM had Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet. Ford had Lincoln, Mercury and Ford. Chrysler had Chrysler, Imperial, DeSoto, Dodge and Plymouth. (When I was very little other manufacturers sold Kaiser and Studebaker and Nash and Willys and Packard, and I suppose some others I’ve forgotten.)

So, other than the obvious Ford, how did the brands get their names?

Continue reading Car names

General Motors’ Branding Fiasco

A quick study of GM over the years from The Truth About Cars. It begins:

Imagine a different GM from today’s confused and embattled automaker. A General Motors where each division has a clear and coherent brand, universally known and recognized by automotive consumers. Where each division’s image and related price range is unique, without overlap. Where each division is the dominant brand– or at least highly competitive– in its respective market segment. Welcome to General Motors circa 1930.

In 1930 a Cadillac sold for 12 times the price of a Chevrolet. By the 1960s it wasn’t even twice the price.

Lucky Lindy Lands at Le Bourget

Lindbergh Does It!
To Paris in 33 1/2 Hours;
Flies 1,000 Miles Through Snow and Sleet;
Cheering French Carry Him Off Field

Paris, May 21 — Lindbergh did it. Twenty minutes after 10 o’clock tonight suddenly and softly there slipped out of the darkness a gray-white airplane as 25,000 pairs of eyes strained toward it. At 10:24 the Spirit of St. Louis landed and lines of soldiers, ranks of policemen and stout steel fences went down before a mad rush as irresistible as the tides of ocean.

“Well, I made it,” smiled Lindbergh, as the little white monoplane came to a halt in the middle of the field and the first vanguard reached the plane. Lindbergh made a move to jump out. Twenty hands reached for him and lifted him out as if he were a baby. Several thousands in a minute were around the plane. Thousands more broke the barriers of iron, rails round the field, cheering wildly.

What’s Going On?

The great Marvin Gaye album, What’s Going On, was released on this date 36 years ago. The title song is so sadly pertinent still.

This 1971 song begins with the friendly, bustling sounds of a Vietnam veteran’s homecoming party, but, all the while, an uneasy vibe lurks beneath the good times. The veteran was Marvin Gaye’s much-changed brother Frank and “What’s Going On” reflected a similar change in the singer’s career. His personal life and the nation’s struggle to come to grips with divisive social issues made Gaye realize that singing simplistic love songs for Motown Records was something he could no longer do. Music reviewer Tom Moon reveals how the song marked a resurrection of sorts for Gaye and influenced Motown to allow other artists in their stable to take creative liberties in their work.

Listen to the song and its story from the NPR 100. (You’ll need RealAudio.)

May 20th is the birthday

… of Joe Cocker. He’s 62. And of Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant; he’s 38.

And of Cher. She’s 61.

James Stewart was born on May 20 in 1908. Stewart received five best actor Oscar nominations in his long career, but won only for The Philadelphia Story in 1941.

Charles Lindbergh departed Long Island for Paris 80 years ago today.

Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland for Ireland on May 20th in 1932, the first woman to solo the Atlantic.

Why Lincoln Fell Gravely Ill After Delivering His Gettysburg Address

Many school children in the United States memorize President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, considered one of history’s most brilliant speeches and a model of brevity and persuasive rhetoric.

But according to two medical researchers at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, most historians have failed to recognize that when Lincoln delivered it on Nov. 19, 1863, he was in the early stages of a life-threatening illness — a serious form of smallpox. Their report appears in the current issue of Journal of Medical Biography, a scholarly quarterly published by the Royal Society of Medicine Press in London.

Almost a third of those contracting this serious form of smallpox in the mid-19th century died, the researchers said.

ScienceDaily

Link via Andrew Sullivan. NewMexiKen agrees with Sullivan: “Ju[s]t when you thought he couldn’t be more impressive a figure …”

Best line of the day, so far

(CBS/AP) President Bush sought to rally Republican lawmakers around his Iraq plan Thursday, saying Iraqis are ready to “take the training wheels off” by assuming some political power.

He warned that violence is likely to worsen as that transfer approaches, and after it passes.

President Bush, May 20, 2004 (CBS News)

Three years ago today. Idea from Atrios.