I Rule You.

Here's an interesting case.  A Mexican was tried, confessed and sentenced in Texas for murder, but never informed of his right to Mexican consulate assistance.  Mexico has since filed suit in the International Justice Court which resulted in Texas being ordered to submit to a review of this and 50 other similar cases.

Here's the rub: Texas doesn't want to.  Not really a big surprise since Texas is widely known to not like being messed with.  Oddly though, former emperor of Texas, President Bush has actually sided with the ICJ, issuing a memorandum as such.  Its kind of an odd agreement, since the court only has jurisdiction in cases where the involved parties provide consent.

So in this case, the US Federal Government has consented to jurisdiction and the court's ruling should stand.  However the State of Texas has not technically signed on to this international treaty (what states do?) and not provided consent.  And while states are commonly seen as subordinate to the Federal Government (mostly at the threat of withheld funding) no one's actually sure if Texas needs to listen to the President in a state presided murder case.  Which could put the President in the awkward position of being powerless to enforce an agreement he entered into.

Wait wait, I know what you're thinking.  Since when does Bush care what the rest of the world thinks concerning American aggression, detention, preemption or retribution?  I could have sworn his foreign policy consisted of a great big "Screw All 'Yall" sign in the rose garden.  Well don't worry cause Bush withdrew us from the part of the agreement that gives the ICJ power over claims of foreign prisoners who were illegally denied access to diplomats. 

So while we're waiting for the Supreme Court to get back to us and decide if Bush is still the boss of Texas, we can rest assured that no wimpy international justice agency will be handing out any more decisions about our prisoners.  Good thing too, cause I'm pretty sure there are a bunch who haven't exactly been given fair access to representation.

• BBC NEWS | Americas | US court considers death row case

The Tom Sawyer Retirement Package.

I didn't get this at first.  Why would you buy a condo on a barge that floats up and down the rivers in the heartland of America?  I mean, yeah its great traveling from city to city on vacation or something, but who could live that way?  You'd drive home from work to a different place every day.  Where would you park?  And what if you forgot the schedule?  Seemed like a kooky idea; then I read the part about it being for retirees. 

Oh.  That makes a lot more sense and knocks out most of my commuting arguments.  But still, I get the image of reckless retirees roving the inner coastal waterways of the US.  Harassing tug and paddle boat drivers.  Loitering around convienience stores, playing craps for pennies and decimating the salad bars at Howard Johnsons all over the midwest.  Like a swarm of locust they'd move from one city to the next disgorging from their party yachts directly into the prime, unsuspecting downtown shopping districts of the heartland.

Alright, fine, maybe my imagination is a little active.  But I'm still glad they're not running these things up the Anacostia.  There'd be lawn bowling and checkers squatters all over my ultimate fields.  And I have no idea what we could do about it.

• River Cities - A floating Mississippi condominium community

Don't Knock It Till You Try It.

So some goofballs turned off the California state domain the other day, which is silly.  But its even sillier that it took them so long to turn it back on after it happened.  TechDirt, who I normally follow unquestioningly said:

"Apparently, it happened around noon Pacific Time which is 3pm back on the east coast.  Sure, I can understand time zone differences... but 3pm isn't exactly quitting time."

I'm not trying to defend anyone here (well maybe myself) but back off.  3pm is a perfectly acceptable quitting time.  It just means that I'm warming up my desk chair while you're still snoozing at 4 in the morning.  And by the time you stumble out of the Starbucks with a nonfat-extra-caf-I-don't-care-achino I'm fightin off a post-lunch power nap.

What you really have a problem with is inept service, and while I wouldn't endorse it, I can certainly understand how someone who could accidentally disable and entire domain and leave work wouldn't be available for contact at all hours as his contract most likely stipulates.  Some industries have more leeway in response time, while tech service does not.  Yes, someone should have been able to handle the request nearly immediately, but don't rail about 3pm just cause of some staffing issues.

• Techdirt: Feds Accidentally Turn Off California Gov't Websites

Under The Glow Of Surveillance.

I gotta say, when I first heard about this I wasn't wild about the idea.  And it hasn't grown on me.  DC Area commuters are set to be scanned by flesh sensing cameras next year.  See, they're opening up new express lanes that can be used by car-poolers for free and by single riders for a fee.  The only trouble is figuring out which is which and charging the toll without slowing down traffic.

So that seems like a good idea at first, more lanes that move faster for those that want to pay for it.  Except if you realize that we already have a whole bunch of HOV lanes around the city.  These new HOT lanes are just a way for people who are too lazy or self centered for carpooling to get in on the action.

So the locals are contracting out for new technology because enforcing this by hand apparently won't work.  The cameras differentiate between skin and upholstery using infrared beams as the cars speed past, charging drivers without enough riders.  Hello invasion of privacy.  I know perhaps using HOT lanes is a privilege and you have to give up certain things for that, but using roads at all is a privilege.  How long before there are all kind of invasive devices monitoring your movements?  And yes, innocent people have nothing to worry about, the same rhetoric can be posited for all invasion of privacy concerns.  And just like in all the other cases, its really about abuse of information and the slow erosion of rights.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; not (as George Bush would have you believe) by the government, but from the government.

But never-mind all that.  You guys are about to flush a bunch of money down the toilet to pay for these cameras so that you can start making money with HOT lanes.  Wouldn't you make a lot more cash if you just left out the cameras?  Here's a couple alternatives that don't involve peeping at me with infrared.

• Don't allow individual drivers to use HOT lanes.  Then when someone gets pulled over they pay $100 for the infraction.  You only have to identify 1 out of every 100 single driver cars to make up for not charging them.  This also keeps the pressure on people to carpool, reducing the number of vehicles you have to accommodate anyway.
• Charge car-poolers for using HOT lanes just like everyone else.  They can split the fees amongst each other, its still the same price per car, or you can arrange some incentive program whereby they can get reimbursed after proving they actually run a  carpool.
  

• Infrared Scans May Regulate HOT Lanes - washingtonpost.com

NASA Gets Competitive.

NASA is stepping up to combat their direct competition and most dangerous rival: Six Flags America.  They've got that one really cool ride already, but officials at NASA know that the amusement park chain has them beat hands down on ride diversity.  So the top brass have brought in the world's foremost experts and designed a new roller coaster that offers a free fall drop from 380 feet above ground.  It will be painted bright yellow to increase exhilaration levels in patrons.  Designers acknowledge that this is the worlds third tallest roller coaster, beaten out by rides in NJ and OH, but are confident in the ride none-the-less.  They believe that the ride's main draw (the thrill of escaping a devastating explosion) will more than make up for the 76 foot shortfall of the record.  The ride terminates outside an underground bunker which would be an ideal place to install a laser tag arena or bumper car facility.

• Universe Today » NASA is Building the Third Tallest Roller Coaster in the World, as an Escape System

Bring The Pain.

Ok, so I dunno if you watch the office, but chances are that you do because you're cool.  I mean, I assume you're cool.  You're here after all, right?  Anyway a couple weeks ago NBC launched an office participation site called Dunder Mifflin Infinity.  Its part of a new corporate strategy implemented by Ryan on the show.  Basically you join a branch and participate in weekly tasks for the long-shot chance at some office swag.  So anyway I've been trying to do this but honestly I'm not sure I can any more.

I'm starting to think its on purpose, but this site is terrible.  Half the links don't work, they just say "coming soon" and the ones that do work mostly seem pointless.  You create a "profile" that consists of a picture, your favorite character and a quote.  There is a message board for each branch, but no way to group conversations.  So everyone is basically making random comments with no continuity at all.  Also the tasks SUCK.  The first week the task was to design your branch logo.  You had to use the "Dunder Mifflin" text, the infinity symbol and you also had to use their crappy graphics web app.  This meant that you could rotate, resize and drag shapes onto the canvas.  Are you serious?  How interesting of a logo are you gonna get if all I can do is turn the text upside down and drop a red star on it?  Weak.  I'm not graphic designer but I could do way better if I wasn't strapped in to this torture device you call a website.  I eventually gave up trying to make even a rudimentary entry because the interface was the single most frustrating UI I have ever come across.  It was the WORST experience I have ever had.

But maybe that's the goal.  They're trying to simulate the frustration, anger and eventually the lifeless apathy of working at Dunder Mifflin.  I was transfered 4 count them, 4 times last night.  For no reason that I can see except that the application process is all effed up and branch managers all over the country got applications from when I first joined the site.

I could totally see this being the implementation Dunder Mifflin comes up with for their website, but I am shocked at how poorly it reflects on NBC as a media and entertainment provider.  If they can't put together a site that is useful, beneficial and doesn't crash as soon as they flash the url on the screen they've got troubles.  On the other hand, many other NBC sites run just great and seem like you'd expect.  Is it just much more complicated to set up a social networking site like this?  Did NBC skimp on the budget for this promotion?  Is it really supposed to be this terrible as a promotion of the show?

• Dunder Mifflin Infinity

No One Cares About Your Flag Certificate.

Michael Turner is protesting the removal of the word "god" from a certificate sent along with a flag to one of his constituents.
Ok, I have several reactions to this listed in order of increasing importance:

1) They asked for the letter to contain a dedication which included god, who will you be offending?
2) Good thing we don't have more pressing issues like an illegal war, skydiving dollar, nuclear wielding enemies, untrustworthy chief executive, failing climate, skyrocketing debt, and out of control corporations to deal with otherwise this might be thought of as a waste of time and money.
3) We're flying 100,000 flags over the capital every year and just giving them away?  Do you know how excessive that is?  And you're not even charging for them!  Asshats.

• News from The Associated Press: Lawmaker protests god censorship.

Quitter.

Since when has dementia ever stopped a politician from seeking office?  I thought it was a requirement to get on certain tickets.  But in all seriousness, why do we have 75 year old senators?  Isn't there a mandatory retirement age or something?  People might say that's being ageist, but stop kidding yourself.  This country functions as a direct result of ageism.  Driving, smoking, drinking, voting, health care, insurance, military service, credit, movie discounts.  All age based systems.  They're the best approximation we have for determining someone's developmental appropriateness for an activity or privilege.  I'm not qualified to run for Senate (for a variety of reasons, including lack of motivation, experience, or tolerance for bullshit) first and foremost because of my age.  If US citizens can be disqualified from holding public office for being too young, why can't we tell people they're too old to be there?  Cause all the old bastards in charge of making the rules don't want to turn themselves into invalids.  That's why.

• News from The Associated Press- Senator's disease Dementia.
  

Leggo My... Leg.

This is a little effed up.  Lets say you bought a used barbecue.  Lets also suppose that there was a severed leg inside it.  Would you
A) call the cops, have them investigate and immediately discard the rank barbecue
B) call the cops and try to get the leg back from the morgue because you want to charge people to look at a rotting leg in your barbecue.

I'm pretty firmly in the A) camp myself, but apparently not everyone wold be.  Like Shannon Whisnant, who recently purchased a barbecue smoker and, he contends, everything inside it at auction.  Of course, the leg's original owner also feels he has a claim to it because, well its his fucking leg.  Before you go passing judgement on poor one legged John Wood, hear me out.  He didn't intend to sell his leg in a barbecue but, you know, things happen.  He started out storing it in the freezer, but they shut off his electric so he put it in the next best place he could think of.  No, we're not to the barbecue yet.  "He hung it on a fence post in his front yard."  Yeah, that's totally cool with your neighbors, right?  But after a little while he lost his house and threw the leg into the smoker which he then sent to storage.  And then he couldn't make rent on the storage unit, so they auctioned his stuff off, leg and all.  It could happen to anyone.

There's a lot of things I could say about this but mostly I'm wondering: why the hell would you buy a barbecue that smells like it has a rotting limb inside it?

• US men wrangle over three-year-old amputated leg | The Register

Lingual Assumptions.

How come you can translate an entire language that I don't speak, but I'm the one who has to tell you the language of origin?  I don't know what it means, I obviously don't speak the language I'm trying to interpret.  How the hell am I even sposed to know what its called?  Or even pick from a list of languages I don't speak.  I feel like you could take a better stab at picking a source dictionary than I could.  Heck, try it with a few languages if the words are similar.  I'll decide what's gibberish in my own tongue.

• Google Translate