The serious poses are urged by DMVs that have installed high-tech software that compares a new license photo with others that have already been shot. When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sends alarms that someone may be trying to assume another driver's identity.
But there's a wrinkle in the technology: a person's grin. Face-recognition software can fail to match two photos of the same person if facial expressions differ in each photo, says Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Takeo Kanade.
I sometimes hear people insist that the Portuguese are "obviously" not Hispanic. To me, the question seems closer. Certainly, Portuguese-inclusive uses of Hispanic are not unheard of, even in educated circles. Thus, for example,
Tony Coelho, a Portuguese-American congressman from California, was a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus when he was in the House, and Representative Dennis Cardoza, Democrat of California, whose ancestors came from the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago, is still a member. [Neil A. Lewis, "Was a Hispanic Justice on the Court in the '30s?" New York Times Online (May 26, 2009) (hyperlinks mine)]
Moreover, as Professor Volokh has pointed out, 49 C.F.R. § 26.5 defines "Hispanic Americans" to include "persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central or South American, or other Spanish or Portuguese culture or origin, regardless of race."
Is this usage illogical? Certainly, the term "Hispanic" sounds distinctly Spanish. But the adjective's history is actually friendly to Portuguese-inclusive usage. The word is tied etymologically to "Hispania," the old Roman name for the entire Iberian Peninsula (which of course includes Portugal).
This is not to deny that the narrower definition is vastly more popular. It surely is. But Portuguese-inclusive uses of the word are neither unheard of nor per se illogical.
The California Supreme Court's opinion in Strauss v. Horton, upholding Proposition 8's revival of the state's same-sex marriage ban, can be found here.
Haywood v. Drown, Docket No. 07-10374. Held: [New York's] Correction Law §24, as applied to [42 U.S.C.] §1983 claims, violates the Supremacy Clause. STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and SCALIA and ALITO, JJ., joined as to Part III.
Montejo v. Louisiana, Docket No. 07-1529. Held: 1. Michigan v. Jackson should be and now is overruled. 2. Montejo should nonetheless be given an opportunity to contend that his letter of apology should have been suppressed under the Edwards rule. He understandably did not pursue an Edwards objection, because Jackson offered broader protections, but the decision here changes the legal landscape. SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, J., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, and in which BREYER, J., joined, except for n. 5. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Abuelhawa v. United States, Docket No. 08-192. Held: Using a telephone to make a misdemeanor drug purchase does not "facilitat[e]" felony drug distribution in violation of [21 U.S.C.] §843(b). SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
It seems Sonia Sotomayor will receive the nomination to replace David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. Given the Democrats' commanding Senate majority, confirmation seems all but certain.
As the New York Times reports, Sotomayor would become the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.
Update II: Though Somin says "Spanish or Portuguese," the article he links to focuses on the possibility that the Cardozos came from Portugal. I suppose it's debatable whether Portuguese ancestry would actually qualify someone as "Hispanic." The article does add, on the other hand, that "there is no firm documentation about the particulars," and that "[t]he family tree is filled with names like Seixas, Mendes, Gomez, Riveiro, Navarro, Peixotto, and Pachecho, indicating their heritage as Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula" (emphasis mine). So who knows?
In any case, Sotomayor would certainly be the first Supreme Court justice with the last name Sotomayor. So Sotomayors everywhere can rejoice in what they have gained.
The state Supreme Court will rule Tuesday on a challenge to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that reinstated California's ban on same-sex marriage.
The court announced the impending decision today in lawsuits by same-sex couples and local governments, led by San Francisco, seeking to overturn the measure that 52 percent of California voters approved in November. If the court upholds the measure, it must also decide how the proposition affects the marriages of about 18,000 same-sex couples who wed before the Nov. 4 election.
On what ground is Proposition 8 being challenged? As the article states, "Plaintiffs . . . argue that [it] made such fundamental changes to the rights guaranteed by the state Constitution that it amounted to a constitutional revision, not merely an amendment."
A constitutional amendment, you see, may be proposed by initiative. Cal. Const. art. XVIII, § 3. But a constitutional revision must be proposed either by the California legislature, acting by a vote of two-thirds of both houses, id. § 1, or by a constitutional convention, id. § 2, which involves an even more daunting process. And therein lies the Achilles' heel of California democracy.
Thanks to horribly egregious copyright legislation, books published from the late sixties onward are typically under copyright for 100 years, meaning that someone besides the author is charged with administering rights. That person is usually completely ignorant of book publishing and the content of the book or why it matters. All he wants is money that is not there. More often than not, this person will refuse to make a deal. And book [sic] stays out of print, for the rest of our lifetimes at least.
This is what copyright extensions have amounted to: great impediments to printing books and preserving literary legacies. Already, provisions of the law have burned more books than most despots in human history. And this has only just begun. We are going to be seeing this nonsense for another 100 years at least.
Truth be told, Tucker may well be understating the harm of lengthy copyright terms. Even books that it would not be economical in the least to bring back into print could be made accessible online at Google Book Search, Archive.org, or a similar service.
On the topic of intellectual property generally, I recommend this excellent EconTalk podcast with Michele Boldrin, as well as Boldrin and David K. Levine's thought-provoking book, Against Intellectual Monopoly.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, Docket No. 07-1015. Held: 1. The Second Circuit had subject-matter jurisdiction to affirm the District Court's order denying petitioners' motion to dismiss. 2. Iqbal's complaint fails to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for purposeful and unlawful discrimination. KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and SCALIA, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, Docket No. 07-543. Held: An employer does not necessarily violate the [Pregnancy Discrimination Act] when it pays pension benefits calculated in part under an accrual rule, applied only pre-PDA, that gave less retirement credit for pregnancy than for medical leave generally. Because AT&T's pension payments accord with a bona fide seniority system's terms, they are insulated from challenge under Title VII §703(h). SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and STEVENS, SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a concurring opinion. GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BREYER, J., joined.
I recently came across these YouTube "videos" (actually, audio recordings accompanied by a fixed picture) of H.L. Mencken speaking. Mencken comes across in this conversation the same way he came across in writing: blunt, funny, and endearingly iconoclastic.
The recording, incidentally, is from June of 1948—just months before Mencken suffered the stroke that robbed him of his ability to read and write.
In March of 1788, an all-but-forgotten referendum on the Constitution of the United States was held in Rhode Island. The voters overwhelmingly rejected it; only in 1790 would Rhode Island, this time acting through an ordinary "convention," ratify the plan of government.
About a year and a half ago, I dug up the results of this referendum. It's been 17 months since then, but I've finally put together an interactive image map showing the results for each town. (Hey, better late than never, right?) To access it, just click here.
Note that while the map provides a close approximation of Rhode Island's 1788 town boundaries, it should not be taken as absolutely definitive in this respect. I relied overwhelmingly on old maps from the time period, double-checking them against scattered comments in old books on the history of Rhode Island.
Writes Jeffrey Tucker of the Ludwig von Mises Institute:
[McDonald's has] taken a luxury drink like a cappuccino and found a way to bring it to every living soul, in a package that is a beautiful and unashamed mimic of the competition. In this sense, it embodies the very soul of capitalism: efficiently universalizing society's most desirable things.
. . . .
Yes, it is all about profits. Sorry socialists: this also means that it's all about people.
A charming perspective.
I can't say I've been particularly impressed by the McCafé, though. For one thing, the drinks I've sampled have been grossly over-sweetened.
