Good News for Maher Arar?

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Arar is the innocent Canadian we kidnapped at JFK and sent to Syria for torture under the “extraordinary rendition” program. He sued, but his suit got quashed by the district court on state secrets grounds, and that dismissal was upheld by a subset of the 2nd Circuit.

Now the 2nd Circuit has decided, on its own, to rehear the case en banc.

Now here comes the unexpected part: the 2nd circuit has announced that it will reconsider the case en banc, which means all the judges on the appeals court will hear it and vote on it. What makes this truly surprising is that Arar’s attorney didn’t ask for it; the court granted the rehearing sua sponte, on its own. That is extraordinarily rare. It suggests that there were a number of judges on the circuit who agitated for the rehearing because they believe it was wrongly decided.

Sure would be nice if some folks actually met consequences for what they’ve done to Arar, and what they’ve done to our nation.

Update: Frank chimes in with a link to the actual order.

Phelps is a piker

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Swimmers are getting all the love right now, but as this post points out, they’re not as far along in the “what’s the human limit?” game as sprinters — in part because of the Speedo suits’ “unlocking” of an additional tier of speed.

Twelve years ago, Michael Johnson doubled in track (200m and 400m), and the record he set in the 200m — 19.32s — remains absurdly out of reach. In a sport where hundredths of seconds are desperately hard to come by, Johnson’s 200m record is a full 0.30 seconds faster than his nearest competitor (Tyson Gay, last year). By comparison, Usain Bolt’s best 200m time (set in Athens this July) is 19.67.

(Via Kottke.)

Whoa

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This is a pretty fantastic photo of the still-incomplete tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai Tower. The last official height statement was from May: 160 floors, 636m tall.

The Sears Tower, by comparison, is “only” 442m and 108 floors.

So proud.

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Via BoingBoing:

A Hong Kong computer programmer who had legally resided in the US for 15 years (since he was 17) and fathered two American children went for his final green card interview and was locked up, detained until he died of cancer that the DHS refused to treat him for. […] In detention, his complaints of excruciating back pain were treated as fakery, and he was dragged around in shackles after he lost the ability to walk, taken on long, bumpy drives while official demanded that he drop his immigration appeals. The jailers who caused his death were private contractors with fat deals with the DHS to lock up immigration detainees.

As he lay dying, his family — wife and two children, aged 1 and 3 — were denied access to him while the warden considered their request to visit.

More at NYT.

Yes.

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Onion: Obama’s Hillbilly Half-Brother Threatening To Derail Campaign.

Barack Obama’s once-commanding lead in the polls slipped to two points Monday, continuing a month-long slide that many credit to the recent appearance of the Democratic candidate’s heretofore unknown half-brother, Cooter Obama.

[…]

Nonetheless, political experts said Cooter’s increased visibility in recent weeks has hurt Obama’s polling among urban, upper-middle-class, non-straw-hat-wearing voters. The Obama camp has scrambled to control the damage caused by Cooter’s penchants for loudly practicing his banjo during Obama’s speeches, repeatedly referring to Barack by his childhood nickname, “Ol’ Jelly Legs,” and chasing his troublemaking pig, Mbogo, in the nude in the background of Obama’s CNN interview on the importance of education.

Wait. What?

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See if you can find the oddball name collision in the following Olympics story:

BEIJING – Cat Osterman is accustomed to delivering for the U.S. women’s softball team.

On Wednesday, the 25-year-old Houston express-mailed a no-hitter for the Americans in a 3-0 win over Australia.

Osterman struck out 12 batters and walked only three in pitching only the second complete game no-hitter in Olympic history.

The U.S. improved its record in the opening round to 2-0 and continued its dominance of the Olympics. Between them, Jennie Finch (four innings), Monica Abbott (one inning) and Osterman (seven innings) have not surrendered a hit.

Osterman outdueled Australia’s Tanya Harding, who has handed the U.S. program two of its four losses in the games since 1996.

Dear Intarwub

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Please get one of these for LawyerHeathen. Last week was his birthday; it’s the least you can do. kthxbi.

More from Frank:

What you see in the picture is actually already on the market – the box with the graph is a pump just like mine, above that is the continuous blood glucose moniter transmitter that talks to the pump. What will make that combination an artificial pancreas is the algorithm that will do all the predicting and deciding. I was on a national JDRF conference call a few months back to discuss that very topic. The current algorithm is getting very, VERY close to actually predicting future blood sugars down to the mg/dl. It is scary good, but not good enough, yet. More testing is required and that takes millions and millions of dollars. Truly dollars well spent, though. The JDRF working hard to get this to market and to get it covered by insurance companies so people can get one.

This is an excellent reason to give money to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. We do. So should you.

How We Are Being Screwed

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Fred Clark explains the FICO scam for us:

Here’s how the scam works. You’ve got a $10,000 limit on a credit card and you’re carrying $2,500 due to a recent dental procedure. The lender, in the name of reducing risk, abruptly reduces the limit on your card to $4,000, announcing this change on page seven of the nano-type in a booklet mailed with your next monthly bill. Now instead of a 25-percent utilization rate, you’ve got a 63-percent utilization rate (they round up, when convenient), lowering your credit score.

That lower credit score means you no longer “qualify” for your previous rate of 9.9 percent and will now be paying 19.1 percent. Oh, and there’s a one-time fee of $35 dollars, conveniently added to your existing balance, for exceeding 50 percent of your available limit.

Unfortunately for you, these changes in your balance and rate became effective at 9 a.m. on the 15th of the month. Your electronic payment, dutifully set for the previous minimum payment, is credited to your account at 1 p.m. on the 15th. That minimum payment was based on the earlier interest rate, so it’s no longer adequate to cover your newer, higher minimum payment. A $35 late fee is therefore added to your balance and this delinquency is reported to the triumvirate, contributing to the further reduction of your credit scores. Second verse, same as the first.

The entire affair is designed to perpetuate both “bad” credit and high debt. Banks are not your friends. Frankly, no corporation is your friend. Behave accordingly.

Ah, the Mouth of the South

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MeFi noticed Jerry Clower today, and has a nice selection of his bits pointed out (at YouTube) for your perusal. If you grew up in the southeast, especially MIssissippi, Clower was inescapable.

More Gould

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Somewhere, I have a no-doubt-decaying VHS tape of one of Dana Gould’s early standup specials; it’s some incredibly funny stuff, but I worry it’s become unwatchable. Fortunately, a signficant subset of it is available in his MySpace channel. Check it out, especially if you’re Frank and remember the tape. (No, the commercial bit isn’t included.)

Dept. of Friends of Friends Doing Cool Things

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Years ago, I met FOAF Pascal in a beautiful and terrible bar in the Heathen Homeland. Then, years later, I discovered a fairly rockin’ tool for web development, and it turned out to be written by the same dude. Neato.

Just now, needing a fresh copy of said tool for some web tweaks — I’d lost mine somewhere, and don’t do much web layout work anymore — I discovered Pascal’s new pursuit is an inventive collective-band type thing called Balthrop, Alabama that includes, among others, his sister as well (sometimes) former members of Rainer Maria. From an April notice in the New Yorker, of all things:

April 18: Balthrop, Alabama is an expansive local folk-rock collective led by the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Pascal Balthrop and his sister Lauren, a vocalist and keyboardist. They grew up singing gospel and pop tunes with their family in Mobile, Alabama, and now the pair and their band play paeans to the lovelorn and the droll. The group, whose name is meant to conjure a fictional town in the heart of Dixie (the band members go by aliases), released an impressive début double album, “Your Big Plans & Our Little Town.” Tonight the “townspeople,” including Kyle Fischer, formerly of Rainer Maria, on lap-steel guitar, turn out for a full-blown hootenanny. The group will be accompanied by the artist Michael Arthur, who will be drawing spontaneous ink-based interpretations of the songs. The drawings will be projected onto a screen behind the stage, in the tradition of a “chalk talk,” a lightning-fast drawing act from the days of vaudeville—practiced by such comic-strip luminaries as Winsor McKay (“Little Nemo in Slumberland”)—that was a precursor to animation. The singer Caithlin De Marrais, also formerly of Rainer Maria, opens.

Amusingly, the video (on their web site) for “God Loves My Country” is that same artist drawing as the song is sung, though it’s sped up a bit, so I imagine it captures a bit of the April show’s bizarre fun. Recommended.

Perhaps the coolest watch story I know

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(I think I’d blogged this long ago, but apparently not; its recent resurfacing at MeFi reminds me to do it now.)

During World War II, Rolex extended a fairly amazing offer: British officers detained in German camps could order timepieces on credit, so Clive Nutting ordered one in March of 1943. Nutting was at Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany, which is now part of Poland, and — more importantly — was one of the organizers of the Great Escape. Owing to a backlog of orders by other British officers also in German hands, Rolex was unable to fill the order until June, but they acknowledged the order with a letter dated 30 March stating “This watch costs to-day in Switzerland FRs. 250,– but you must not even think of settlement during the war.”

In other words, don’t pay us ’til you get home. How cool is that? (Also, consider a world where POWs could get mail, order watches, etc.)

Nutting got the watch that summer, along with an invoice with a zero balance, and almost certainly used it for timing purposes as they planned the escape. Nutting kept the watch until his death, n 2001, at 90.

Scans of the correspondence with Rolex as well as pictures of the (restored) watch are available at TimeZone, long the best watchgeek site online.

Tab Clearing Omnibus Post

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These are not factory second posts; they’re full quality, and include the usual guarantee. Use as directed:

Dept. of Obsessive but still Awesome

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Let’s say you love pizza. I mean, you really, really love the stuff. But suddenly you move away from your favorite pizza places in NYC, and find yourself in Atlanta, and what’s a guy to do? It goes without saying that non-northeastern ‘Za is simply unacceptable, so clearly you embark on a wild and obsessive pursuit of awesome pizza made at home.

I’m not talking about the shallow end of the pool, either. This guy’s got strong opinions on flour types, on the fermenting of dough, on kneading technique, on blenders, and, most significantly, how to modify your home oven so it’ll go to 800 degrees, since cooking pizza at 475 just won’t cut it.

(Confidential to Mrs Heathen: I remain perfectly happy getting ours from Dolce Vita or Pink’s. I have no need to modify the Jennair.)

How they police in Minnesota

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Last year in their fine snowy state, a SWAT team raided an innocent family’s home unannounced; they threw in flash-bang grenades and ended up in a shooting match with the homeowner, who thought he was being attacked by some armed gang. Fortunately, no one was killed.

Guess what happens if you raid the wrong house and shoot at innocent people in Minnesota? Yep, that’s right: you get a commendation. No one was held accountable at all.

Someone geekier than I about football should comment here

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Football offense is an evolving beast, but perhaps the last major evolutionary step came with Walsh’s “West Coast” quick-short-pass plan, which has since become the de facto standard for the NFL and college and even some high schools. But apparently not at Piedmont High in California, where a combination of factors led two coaches to create something entirely new that involves two quarterbacks and all 11 men carrying the ball.

No, really. They’ve had it reviewed by rules committees, too, and it’s apparently been determined to be legal. And the college coaches are already interested.

There’s a story here, and a whole site about it at A11offense.com.

(Via Kottke.)