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10:54: Justices Rule Inmates Don't Have Right to DNA Tests (New York Times)

Another frustrating Supreme Court ruling. I will acknowledge that this particular case could go either way, based solely on an interpretation of the Constitution's text. The court had some discretion here. The justices in the majority used this discretion to preserve government power at the expense of justice. Given that the Constitution bends over backwards to protect the individual from government power in the criminal justice system, this ruling is contrary to the intent of the document.

Given the large number of convictions that have been overturned based on DNA evidence since it became available, it is clear to me that these cases were decided under a flawed standard of proof. Those who were convicted without access to DNA evidence should not remain in prison simply because their trials took place before this technology was prevalent. That serves the interests of the state no better than it does those of the convict. DNA testing has been transformational for criminal justice, but it will probably not be the last such breakthrough. The framers did not anticipate this kind of paradigm shift. The court needs to provide a coherent standard here to protect citizens' rights, instead of deferring to one side of an adversarial system.

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20:47: Tom Robbins

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12:27: Top British Anti-Terror Officer Resigns After Blunder

"Britain's top counterterrorism officer resigned from London's Metropolitan Police on Thursday — one day after a security blunder forced police to move up a major operation in northern England."

Does anyone else find it a little bizarre that the London Metropolitan Police is in charge of Britain's anti-terror operations? I think it is freaky enough that the New York Police Department has a foreign intelligence wing.

9:44:
Hiking in Mt. Rainier National Park, 9/08

14:00: Weekend doings
Friday night, Mel and I stayed in with E and Shane to enjoy Mexican food, drinks, and Carcassonne.

Saturday night, we met up with Christina and her librarian crew for pool and bowling at Garage Billiards.

Sunday morning, Mel and I sneaked into the Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference to watch the keynote speaker, Ira Glass. He put on a fairly excellent presentation about the philosophy and narrative techniques used in making This American Life. I was amused by the conference's practice of turning some men's rooms into women's rooms.

After dropping Shane off at the airport, Mel and I brought E to the 15th street Victrola for a Seattle coffee shop experience. This used to be my regular morning place. I was glad that I was still recognized despite having been gone for five months.

Then, spontaneously, we drove into the mountains for a Twin Peaks pilgrimage. We visited Snoqualmie Falls, next to Salish Lodge, which provided the exterior shots of the Great Northern Hotel on Twin Peaks. We had a late lunch at Twede's Cafe, which was the Double R Diner on the show. I enjoyed one of their many idiosyncratic burgers. We all shared a piece of the iconic cherry pie, which was sadly not very good. The diner burnt down in 2000. The rebuilt diner is fairly different from its previous on-screen persona.

After that, we returned to the city for a low-key evening, watching Fire Walk with Me and eating homemade pizza.

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10:14: The librarians have come to town.
The Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference is going on in Seattle right now. Some of our librarian friends have come to town to take part, giving Mel and I an excuse to go out and enjoy the city a bit more.

E and Shane are crashing at our place during the conference. It has been fun getting to hang out with them a bit more than I have in the past. Shane is really into experiencing the local beer culture, so we hit the Pike Pub and Brewery on Tuesday night. I enjoy a few of their beers, in particular the Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale. The food left me a bit cold. My salmon pot pie was lackluster and contained (the horror!) canned peas. Not a good corner to cut, in my opinion.

One of Mel's high school friends, Christina Pryor, is also in town for the conference. Last night, Mel and I met her and some of her librarian buddies at Liberty. Liberty is my favorite place for cocktails, these days. They also have surprisingly good sushi and Seattle's best selection of absinthe. Last night I tried local Pacific Distillery's first batch of absinthe and was favorably impressed. It was the first time I had enjoyed the fountain ritual at the table, which the whole group found entertaining. My palate is not so educated at this point, but I did find this absinthe much more enjoyable than Lucid, which was my only previous experience with the drink.

The company was good, as were the sushi and cocktails. After a while, we moved on to Coastal Kitchen for some more robust victuals. The Kitchen has recently started doing a 9-11 happy hour, which turns out to be an excellent value. There was a small selection of very appealing small plates for $3 apiece as well as some drink specials. Mel and I managed to have a very satisfying near meal for $12, before tax and tip, including a local micro-brew for me. The fish tacos seemed pretty excellent. I had a Tunisian-inflected "bacon-fried lamb meatball" sub. I'm in love with the carnivorous glee in that little phrase. It was quite good as well. I am certain that we will return to this happy hour in the future.

Anyway, as much as I ramble about the food and drink, most of the fun of the evening came from getting to know some fascinating new folks. There should be more library conferences in this town.

16:18: New OpenPGP subkeys
If anyone is interested in doing a signature exchange, it could be arranged.
( The keys... )
Of course, you could also just grab the key from subkeys.pgp.net .

8:43: Dog park in the rain

10:44: Rachael Yamagata
Rachael Yamagata will be playing at the newly reopened Crocodile Cafe on March 31st. I really recommend going. Mel and I saw Rachael play last year at the Chop Suey. Despite what was clearly a debilitating flu, she put on an excellent show. I can only imagine she performs better when healthy. Mel and I will be there.

It seems like Seattle clubs get some kind of absurd advantage in Google search rankings. If you search for "crocodile," the club gets the second spot. Searching for "chop suey" gives the club the first position. For that matter, searching for "stranger" gives the top spot to our local alternative newspaper, well ahead of the somewhat more relevant book by Camus.

8:43: Really?

This is an absurd number of snow days for this town.

12:53: Happy birthday, zootsaxismyaxe!

23:16: At loose ends...
With Mel out of town, my inclination is to lurk at home and commiserate with the cat. This weekend I decided to ignore this inclination and pack in enough fun things that I would have no real time for loneliness and gloom. Surprisingly, this actually worked out OK.
( Read more... )

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21:00: Kevin Bacon is so consistently and convincingly vile a screen persona that it can be hard to believe that he's not just like that.

20:33: Puerto Morelos

Trip to Puerto Morelos, February 2008