Well, that headline is a little lame, but here we have the band They Might Be Giants singing for science, with Ira himself introducing! (In case you’re the type to wonder what the people on the radio look like.) Below and here.
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Just in case you missed this awesomeness, I present you, slappin’ da base, by Paul Rudd: [video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUOXXAK55C4]
Again, one of those things I never thought would get “legs” sure enough is discussed–on TV (tee vee!).
When The New Yorker reporter David Grann posed that question in his thorough revisiting in early September of the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004 for killing his three daughters in a fire—later ruled arson—two days before Christmas in 1991, I figured it would wind up as one of those intriguing, yet unprovable, mysteries.
But yesterday, the story got some legs: According to The Associated Press, Gov. Rick Perry (R)—in office at the time of the execution and currently in a contentious bid for reelection—removed three members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission just before they were to review a report highly critical of the arson investigation that led to Willingham’s execution.
Grann’s reporting on Willingham’s case—a story of botched investigations, fairy tale fire science, unreliable witnesses, and a state indigent defense system in tatters—raises reasonable doubt that justice was done. Perry’s actions today are almost sure to also raise eyebrows in a case long in the cross hairs of death penalty opponents.
One, the Innocence Project, already says flatly that Texas executed a man who was not guilty:
In the days leading up to Willingham’s execution, his attorneys sent the [Texas] governor [Rick Perry] and the Board of Pardon and Parole a report from Gerald Hurst, a nationally recognized arson expert, saying that Willingham’s conviction was based on erroneous forensic analysis. Documents obtained by the Innocence Project show that state officials received that report but apparently did not act on it.
The Innocence Project, in fact, was instrumental in getting the Texas Forensic Science Commission to investigate the case. It hired renowned arson expert Craig Beyler—who is quoted extensively in The New Yorker piece—to investigate. His damning report, issued August 2009, says the inculpatory evidence presented against Willingham was wrong—and that the experts who testified against him should have known it.
As the Innocence Project notes, the Texas commission was supposed to issue its own conclusions some time during 2010. Perry’s actions now to replace commission members who were about to deliberate on the matter, according to AP, put the panel in disarray, forcing the meeting’s cancelation.
As the panel regroups, it will be interesting to see if the motivations of Perry—who has defended the execution and told the AP that the commission personnel changes are “standard business as usual”—are further scrutinized.
Willingham maintained his innocence until his death.
From the Smithsonian description:
In the early morning, fishermen clean their nets by Erhai Lake. By Johan Ensing (Driehuis, Netherlands). Photographed October 2008, Yunnan, China.
Ensing and the Chinese fishermen he shot that day did not share a common tongue, but that didn’t matter. The language of photography proved universal. “I asked the fishermen if it was OK to take some shots. (In other words, I held up my camera and showed them my most friendly grin.) For more than a half-hour, I made my pictures.”
View more of the winning images here. The deadline for submissions to the 7th annual contest is Dec. 1, 2009. Read the rules here.
The September Kaiser Health Tracking Poll is out and finds support for health care reform rebounding from a summer dip, even as the Senate Finance Committee can’t seem to agree on what the heck should be in or out of its legislation for it to advance to the Senate floor.
(Don’t bother trying to find out information from the committee’s website, however; it’s just about the worst communications tool I’ve seen. Why doesn’t Chairman Baucus exercise his public option to use his chairmanship’s no doubt significant public dollars to build out a functional website to help the public understand how it will be impacted by this important legislation? Legislation that still, thanks to Baucus’s votes today, does not include a public option?)
The details of the Kaiser poll are here, although it does not appear that senators are all that much influenced by what options the public wants as part of health care. Which brings me back to my oft-asked question: Is the Senate really working for the public?
(Also, numbers guy Nate Silver runs through today’s votes and what they might mean for the fate of the public option in the Senate, at least at this early stage. I know, it doesn’t seem early … )
The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki interviews the Nobel-prize-winning economist on the financial crisis, among other economic topics (VIDEO).
Fruit for thought, below or here.
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Most reporters assigned to cover the seemingly interminable health care mark-up taking place this week at the Senate Finance Committee no doubt have the twin struggle of mastering the details and battling extreme minutia-induced fatigue.
When members of the panel itself fail to stay awake, we must pause to take our hats off to all of those reporters on hand to tell us what’s going on — or not going on.
The folks at the New Republic’s The Treatment get Blog Alley’s inaugural — semi-regular? — “Stay Awake” award for giving us the essential mark-up details, without causing us to crave nap times of yore. All hail, The Treatment, we salute you!
No surprise:
Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $13,375 annually for family coverage this year—with employees on average paying $3,515 and employers paying $9,860, according to the benchmark 2009 Employer Health Benefits Survey released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET).
Live coverage of the second day of the Senate Finance Committee health care mark-up continues today on C-SPAN 3.
Twenty-four people — selected for their “creativity, originality, and potential” — will receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over five years from the MacArthur Foundation to continue independent work in many different realms, from journalism to writing to health services. Review the list of winners and watch videos where they describe their talents and interests.
