Manhattan Equinox

From Monday, 14 July to Wednesday 16 July, residents of Manhattan will get a special treat: a complete sunset. On a typical evening in Manhattan, someone facing west on the east-west streets will see the sun set behind a building. On these special days, and their companion days in December, the sun will instead rise and set directly over the street, visible until it disappears over the horizon. The effect is astounding: shadows stretch to infinity, and the sun seems to descend on the street traffic just blocks away. Sunset on 34th Street This magic is possible because the famous grid pattern of Manhattan's streets is oriented 29.5 degrees off-center, keyed off of Amersterdam Avenue. On the special days, the sun also rises and sets on this same line, creating a perfect alignment. You'll read about this effect in the local papers. Unfortunately, there's no name for this phenomena, making it awkward to talk about. If the Manhattan streets ran perfectly east-west, we could use the handy summer equinox or winter equinox. Alas, John Randel had different ideas. So, it needs a name. We suggest: the Manhattan Equinox. Lovely, yes?

Medical Malpractice Reform in the Senate

There's apparently a problem with medical malpractice insurance. It has become so expensive to get malpractice insurance that some doctors are being forced to move their practices elsewhere. The medical associations blame exhorbitant jury awards. The trial lawyer associations say the awards are fair -- after all, they're decided by a jury and judge. Republicans are eager for tort reform in general, and medical malpractice reform is to be a big part of that. That might explain why Majority Leader Bill Frist is introducing a Republican plan into the Senate, even though he doesn't have the 60 votes he needs avoid a filibuster.

Cheapskate Overtime Rules

Some of you may have heard the story on NPR this week about how the Bush administration is proposing changes to the overtime rules. They are touting it as a way to give more OT to some million low wage workers. But, what it's really about is not allowing overtime to many more millions. Anybody who makes over $22,000 and supervises two or more people. So, your 7-11 manager? Executive, ineligible for overtime. Your McDonald's boss? Management: ineligible. NPR pointed out that the last day to comment is Monday. I looked high and low on the Labor Department website and couldn't figure out how. So, I called. They told me it may be too late. Got another number. Was transferred. Finally got the email address. If they want to keep people from commenting this much, I'd say it's worth it so send an email. HERE'S WHO YOU WRITE: whd-reg@fenix2.dol-esa.gov HERE'S WHERE THE INFO IS http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/ March 27, 2003 U.S. Department of Labor Proposal Will Secure Overtime for 1.3 Million More Low-Wage Worker Department Seeks to Modernize 50-Year-Old Wage Regulations The U.S. Department of Labor today published a proposal to modernize its 50-year-old regulations defining exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for "white-collar" employees, a measure that will help small businesses grow and guarantee overtime pay for 1.3 million more low-wage workers. "Our proposal will strengthen overtime for the most vulnerable low-wage workers and allow for stronger Department of Labor enforcement of this important worker protection," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.

Bush Video on September 11th

Everyone remembers the videotape of Andy Card whispering into President Bush's ear on September 11th. It was at a Florida elementary school, and Card tells the President: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." The President then looks into the distance. Some understood the look as a summoning of strength, others saw bewilderment. In any case, take a look at the next five minutes of the video, courtesy of Memory Hole. They don't end the photo-op. The Secret Service doesn't hustle the President out of the room. Ari Fleischer and Andy Card wait patiently. Remember what were you doing that day? The President sits there and does nothing. The videotape doesn't provide good context, which is unfortunate. This could be a clever edit job -- for all we know, Card whispers to the President at the end of the video. It hardly matters, though. The image of the President and advisors finishing their self-serving photo-op while the country is being attacked and before the Pentagon was hit is heartbreaking. How does this match with the other accounts from that day? The President left the photo-op and proceeded to fly around the Southeast until the afternoon. There was confusion in the Situation Room as to whether planes could be shot down -- eventually, Dick Cheney made the call. This video tells us that the President wasn't rushed to safety. He wasn't consulting with his aides. He was hanging out. Jokes about Cheney, Rove, et al being the real power behind the Presidency are common -- after watching this, they're not funny. They're terrifying.

Abizaid: WMD Intel “Perplexingly Inaccurate”

Arabic-speaking Lieutenant-General John Abizaid is replacing Tommy Franks. In his confirmation hearing, he admitted to being confused about the missing weapons of mass destruction. "Intelligence was the most accurate that I've ever seen on the tactical level, probably the best I've ever seen on the operational level and perplexingly incomplete on the strategic level with regard to weapons of mass destruction."

Google Dance Esmerelda

Every month, Google takes the results of the previous month's deep crawl, and pushes the results up to the Google servers. This results in some weird and unpredictable search results as each of the thousands of Google servers receive the updates. This is called the "Google Dance." At WebmasterWorld this month, Google Dances were given names, like Hurricanes. As we write this, Esmerelda is hitting the Google servers. The recent updates have been strange, though. This points to some major changes in the way Google works. In the past, Google has operated two sets of web crawlers: the "fresh" crawl and the "deep" crawl. The deep crawl is exhaustive, and runs once a month. The fresh crawl is superficial, and runs continuously. Recently, webmasters have noticed that the deep crawler has disappeared, and instead the fresh crawler is behaving like the deep crawler. The conclusion is that Google is moving towards a more continuous update process. Some speculate that Google's responding to the prospect of a Microsoft search engine as well as increased competition from the existing search services. Our pet theory is that PigeonRank is finally being implemented. A more thorough explaination can be found at Kuro5hin.