This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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Another example of interesting Constitutional stuff:
Executive constitutional interpretation
(Dale Carpenter, Volokh Conspiracy)
There are plenty of examples of presidents who opposed/vetoed legislation, thinking that the legislation was both unconstitutional and otherwise bad policy. Andrew Jackson’s veto of the Second National Bank is an example of this: he said in his veto message that he believed it was unconstitutional, but he also opposed it on policy grounds.
Both of the above scenarios involve presidents whose policy views lined up with their purported constitutional views. No conflict presented itself.
But here’s a challenge for bloggers and commenters everywhere: give an example of a president who opposed/vetoed legislation on the ground that he believed it to be unconstitutional, even though he otherwise supported it on policy grounds? Here the president’s view of the proper meaning of the Constitution would be opposed to his view of good policy. To put it in less abstract terms: it would be as if Andrew Jackson had loved the idea of a Second National Bank, but nevertheless vetoed it because he thought it was unconstitutional.
In the comments, very few examples of this could be found. And the most recent one was Woodrow Wilson.
See, the thing here, this should be a lot more common than it is. Presidents should view one of their primary goals as upholding the law of the land (especially the constitution) and that should take priority over their own policy viewpoints in the cases where they contradict each other. Lets review the oath of office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Oops. This should mean that if Congress passes an unconstitutional law (never mind the Congressional oath) then it shouldn’t have to wait to get to the Supreme court… the President should veto it out of principal EVEN IF HE/SHE AGREES WITH THE GOALS OF THE LAW.
Of course, not only does that not happen these days, but the executive seems to just routinely do whatever the hell they want, with no regard to the Constitution, Congress, or pretty much anything. So looking for an executive that would even consider vetoing a bill they agree with on policy grounds because it is unconstitutional… It may be another 100 years before it happens again…
Someday, I’ll properly alienate all my classmates
(Greg Haverkamp, Otherwise Occupied)
Some us apparently believe in freedom of speech and its concomitants, while others merely believe in it until a politically correct topic is adversely impacted by that right.
…
But that is hardly the point, anyway. This is about the freedom of expression. And while I can only gather that you believe only in freedom of expression for those expressing views you feel are “right,” I’m having difficulty understanding why you think the SBAWVC should be forced to express a view that it’s okay to be openly homosexual and Irish. Neither you nor I nor the Supreme Court should tell people what they must believe. People have the rights to be bigots in this country, and they have and must have the rights to express whatever bigotry they so choose.
…
Or, you can take away the more meaningful idea that freedom of expression is critical, that parades are inherently expressive activities, and that groups that organize parades, whether their views are popular or not, should have the right to determine was messages their expressive activity will send.
I love reading this sort of thing from Greg. In this case I agree with Greg completely, but in more general terms I like listening to debates about Constitutional law and the such. I find it all intensely interesting. Enought that occationally I find myself thinking that law school would be a hell of a lot of fun.
And then I remember that I have the memory capacity of a walnut, and if I can’t derive what I am supposed to remember from first principles I am hopeless, so if I had to remember case references and specifics of laws and procedures without having them right in front of me, I’d be done for. And then I also remember that I get incredibly frustrated when looking at precident that I think was stupid, but is now completely entrenched. (Like most Supreme Court decisions since the Civil War… OK, exaggerating just a tad.. but…) And of course I also remember that I have absolutely no interest in actually bieng a lawyer. I just like some of the debates… and more to the point, some of the underling political and ethical philosophy issues which underlie and inform some of those debates. Fun stuff.
OK, a bunch of you out there have done statistical stuff more recently than I have (although I did read that stats text book a couple months ago). Anyway for those of you who have done stats calculations any time in the past five years or so (Chad? Greg? Randy? Chris?) could you please check this? I am really rusty at this and could easily have made a fundamental mistake…
Here is what I am trying to analyse. In the last post I mentioned that big long chain of ancestors. That long chain all hinges on a connection with a Jane Gillham born in 1773.
All the sources that I can find that mention Jane Gillham being married to John Minter and having kids that result eventually in me give Jane Gillham’s birthday as April 21st 1773 in South Carolina.
Meanwhile, the document I can find linking a Jane Gillham to her parents, and through them eventually all the way back to King Kenneth and the like… lists her birthday as October 21st 1773 in South Carolina… and has no mention whatsoever of John Minter… but also not of any other information that would contradict her being the same Jane… other than the birthday.
My hypothesis is that at some point in the last 233 years, as the Gillham records that show who Janes parents are were copied over and over again, April at somepoint got miscopied into October. (Someone couldn’t read it, recreated it from memory, whatever… )
Basically, I think these “two” Jane Gillhams are really the same person. But there is no proof of course, so I want to figure out the odds…
Here is the analysis I did… please check me and point out any math or logic errors I may have made:
- South Carolina population in 1773 was about 250,000 (based on 1790 census so this is actually bigger than reality)
- Live births were approximately 50 per 1000 population in the late 1700’s (based on stat in “Encyclopedia of the New American Nation”)
- This gives about 12500 births in South Carolina in 1773.
- About 6250 of those would have been girls.
- About 3% of those would be named Jane (based on Given Names Frequency Project for 1801-1810 time period)
- That gives us about 181 Janes born in South Carolina in 1773.
- We need to multiply by the percentage of the whole South Carolina population that were Gilhams.
- I have no idea what that number is. For now I will call it “G”. (As a fraction, not a percentage, to avoid the factor of 100 everywhere.)
- So the number of Jane Gillhams born in South Carolina in 1773 would be about 181*G.
- Now, we know pretty confidently that John Minter’s Jane Gillham was born April 21st.
- We could figure out the odds of a second Jane Minter being born on October 21st specifically.
- It would be 1-(364/365)^(181*G). This would be our lower bound on the odds. (Using math principles found on Wikipedia Birthday Paradox page)
- But… the hypothesis is that sometime in the last 233 years someone just transposed October for April in the Gillham family records.
- In that case we don’t care specifically about October 21st, but instead just the odds of a second person being born on ANY of the 21sts other than April 21st.
- That is because our hypothetical miscopier could have switched it with any of the eleven other months, not just October.
- In that case our odds turn out to be 1-(354/365)^(181*G). This should be our upper bound on the odds.
- This gives the chances of another Jane Gillham being born on the 21st of any other month besides April, given that our Jane Gilham was born on April 21st.
So lets run this with some possible values of G:
This shows the chances (X) of a second Jane Gillham being born on the 21st of another month, and therefore probably being an actual second Jane Gillham rather than the same person with the date miscopied.
Everybody in SC is a Gillham (G=1): 99.6%
1 out of 2 is a Gillham (G=0.5): 93.7%
1 out of 5 is a Gillham (G=0.2): 67.0%
1 out of 10 is a Gillham (G=0.1): 42.5%
1 out of 20 is a Gillham (G=0.05): 24.2%
1 out of 50 is a Gillham (G=0.02): 10.5%
1 out of 100 is a Gillham (G=0.01): 5.4%
1 out of 200 is a Gillham (G=0.005): 2.7%
1 out of 500 is a Gillham (G=0.002): 1.1%
1 out of 1000 is a Gillham (G=0.001): 0.6%
Reversing the calculation… and solving for G…
G=log(1-X)/(181*log[354/365])
Plugging in a few numbers there…
As long as there are fewer Gillhams than 1 in 108 you have over a 95% chance that these two Jane Gillhams are the same Jane Gillham and not seperate people after all.
If there are fewer Gillhams than one in 552 then you have over a 99% chance that these are the same Jane Gillham…
(And even if there were so many Gillhams that 1 in every 8 people in SC was a Gillham, you’d still have better than even odds that this was the same Jane Gillham.)
One in 108 would mean that there were about 2300 people with the surname Gillham in South Carolina around the time of the 1790 census
One in 552 would mean that there were about 450 people with the surname Gillham in South Carolina around that time.
So, this all depends on the number of Gillhams in South Carolina in 1790… but if there were any less than 2300 or so, I’d feel really confidant betting that this is only one Jane Gilham, and someone just miscopied her birthday at some point (probably on the Gillham side… although all the math is the same if it was the reverse.)
Thoughts?
Links to the sites I got stats and math from:
Just sent this to some of my relatives. Thought I would share here too. I’ve been having fun lately researching family trees and such. I have a nice big chart and spreadsheet with hundreds of ancestors listed, which I will probably eventally post. But here is my latest update (with some slight edits for clarity). I made a nice exciting find today!
From: Me
Subject: New Deepest Relative
Date: April 30, 2006 08:02:18 GMT
To: Grandmother, Father, Mother, Brandy, Cynthia
Spent some more time today doing genealogical internet searches using a bunch of the information Grandmother sent me in December as a starting point. Before today the deepest chain I’d found was on my Mother’s side (15 generations deep), but I found a deeper one today on the other side. There are still some paths I haven’t yet researched, but as of now, this is the farthest back I have gotten…
(0) Samuel Antonio Minter (1971-) of Wisconsin son of
(1) William Maynard Minter (1942-) of District of Columbia son of
(2) David Ramseur Minter (1912-1991) of Arizona son of
(3) William Ramseur Minter (1873-1943) of South Carolina son of
(4) John Russell Minter (1833-1913) of [South Carolina?] son of
(5) William Carter Minter (1797-1871) of South Carolina son of
(6) Jane Gillham (1773-1834) of South Carolina daughter of
(7) Thomas Newton Gillham Jr (1749-1828) of Virginia son of
(8) Margaret Gay Campbell (1725-1776) of Virginia daughter of
(9) William Campbell (????-1754) of Ireland son of
(10) John Campbell (1674-1741) of Ireland son of
(11) Duncan Campbell (1645-????) of Ireland son of
(12) Andrew Campbell (1609-????) of Ireland son of
(13) Hugh Campbell (1579-????) of Ireland son of
(14) Patrick Campbell (1544-????) of Ireland son of
(15) Duncan Campbell (1504-????) of Scotland son of
(16) Dugal Campbell (1474-????) of Scotland
Dugal lived in Inverary, Argyll, Scotland and was born in the “Ancestry Home of the Clan Campbell” according to one source I found.
Anyway, that’s the longest chain I’ve got so far. Although there are a bunch of other interesting chains too on both sides of the family. And I still have yet to Google many of the names on my chart.
Plus, I still haven’t even cracked the info that was sent to me by Mom today on the ancestors going back from my mother’s father’s mother (Mary Evelyn VanTilbergh). But it is late, so that will have to wait for another day…
Oh no…
I decided to look for five more minutes, and I found Dugal’s father… verified it because the same source shows Duncan as on of his kids, and Patrick as one of his kids, and Hugh as one of his kids… Some of the years are a bit off from the ones I had before (by just a few years) but four generations of names matching up would be a pretty big coincidence. Just checking more generations, they are still matching. Hugh has a son Andrew… who has a son Duncan… who has a son John… who has a son William… who is reported to have married Sarah Gay, who is who I have him marrying from my earlier research. Definitely the same Dugal Campbell.
And I am checking so hard to be sure because this listing has not only Dugal’s father, but fathers upon fathers going back another 600 years or so… It will take me many hours to incorporate this information….
This is a huge 2 Megabyte text file listing all the descendants of Duncan, Lord of Mormaer (born around the year 950). Myself, Cynthia, Dad and Grandmother are all apparently descended from this guy. This file gets me the direct line from us all the way Back to Duncan.
Duncan was the father of Crinan of Dunkeld, who has a Wikipedia entry…
CrÃnán_of_Dunkeld
Also of course Crinan of Dunkeld was married to the daughter of King Malcom II of Scotland (and the children of Crinan we are descended from are her children)… so she is in our line too, and I am pretty sure I’ll probably be able to go back even further in that line…
Yup, with just a few clicks on Wikipedia I can go back 150 more years to this guy:
Kenneth I of Scotland
Born around 800 AD, later to become the first King of Scotland… and a direct verifiable ancestor.
Filling out the years between 800 and 1474 AD in my spreadsheet I’m using to track all this will have to wait until at least tomorrow… it will take me many hours. And it is very late. Time for bed.
Hmmm… I’ll Blog this first…
Do we need this? I like BSG. This may be OK. But Spinoffs are always spotty. Sometimes they work, sometimes they do not. We’ll see how Torchwood goes too. Lots of potentially interesting but potentially horrible spinoffs in the works!
‘Galactica’ Prequel on Tap at Sci Fi
(Zap2It)
The Sci Fi Channel will delve into the backstory of “Battlestar Galactica” with a new series that looks at the years leading up to humanity’s devastation by the Cylons.
The prequel, called “Caprica,” heads a list of development projects the cable network unveiled Wednesday.
…
“Caprica” will be set more than 50 years prior to the events of “Battlestar Galactica” and focus on the lives of two families — the Adamas (ancestors of future Galactica commander William) and the Graystones. Humankind’s Twelve Colonies are at peace and on the verge of a technological breakthrough: the first Cylon.
As “Battlestar Galactica” is about a lot more than space battles, “Caprica” will be as much family drama as sci-fi tale. Remi Aubuchon (“The Lyon’s Den,” “24”) is writing the pilot script; “Galactica” veterans Ronald D. Moore and David Eick will executive produce it.
(via TivoCommunity)
Yet more new features to the Abulcam! Actually, the return of a feature that was on the original AbulCam many years ago, but went away at one point when the function wasn’t supported in the updated software I had. I bypassed the camera software and got it done seperately….
In any case, while viewing the AbulCam you can now, for the first time in many years, type a message, hit a button, and that message will be read out loud on my computer using Apple’s text to speech features. Unlike the AbulCam of many years ago, you actually get to pick the voice yourself rather than that being something I set on my end.
So anyway, visit the AbulCam and talk all you want.
Of course, if people get too obnoxious, I can always turn it back off.
OK, I did it again. Noted some interesting URLs during work yesterday, got home tired and didn’t do anything useful at all, let alone make blog posts. So here are some more quick Links. I’ll limit myself to one sentence of comment on each. Or I’ll try anyway.
Nationwide Housing Prices Decline
(David Bernstein, The Volokh Conspiracy)
MiniTake: Yup, excellent timing, this sucks.
Fight Club Politics
(Juliet Eilperin, The Huffington Post)
MiniTake: This is where the moderates have gone. (Well, this is part of it.) The current division of everything into the crackpot left and the crakpot right, with no sane people in the middle left in positions of power is horribly detrimental. I recommend an automated redistricting algorithm based purely on population distribution and mathematics with a preference toward “simple” boundaries, but with absolutely no regard to pre-existing geographic, political or cultural divisions.
It’s Official, I Now Pity George Bush
(Trey Ellis, The Huffington Post)
MiniTake: Just the usual oedipal sort of look at the motivations of George Bush, but I found it humorous.
Clinton nearly ses rocket’s red glare
(Norm Clarke, Los Vegas Review-Journal via Drudge Report)
MiniTake: Just amusing… A porn star has a birthday party for her five year old daughter and is about to shoot off some fireworks as part of the party, and the secret service runs up telling her not to set off the fireworks, because Bill Clinton is just a few yards away.
A New Voice
(Canadian Music Creators Coalition via P2PNet via Digg)
MiniTake: Bunches of musicians coming out for file sharing and against the super strict copyright contingent. Good for them.
Treasue Coast Home Sales Drop
(Nadia Gergis, TCPalm)
MiniTake: Mostly about the Treasure Coast, which is not us, but does include a blurb saying that year over year “Home sales in the Melbourne-Palm Bay area decreased 23 percent, while the median price rose 7 percent to $222,500.” So price still up year over year, but market slowing greatly.
Da Vinci court papers ‘show secret code’
(ITV News)
MiniTake: The judge putting a secret message in his ruling. Very cool.
OK, that’s it for now. Maybe more tomorrow, maybe not. Maybe one at a time, maybe all together. Dunno.
Three links to news stories I noticed yesterday wanting to comment on, but then never had time. I figured I’d still pass along the links.
Pro-Taliban Speech Constitutionally Protected, Criticisms of Homosexuality Unprotected (Volokh)
My MiniTake: All forms of speech should be protected, regardless of how it may offend some people, including in many cases myself. This is speech in a public school, which is traditionally more regulated than just regular old speech, but I still think vast deference should be given to the right to be offensive. The desire lately to sanitize and protect people (including kids) from being offended is itself offensive.
(Sidetrack: Having said the above, I have not looked at the actual details of the court case and of course am not doing the lawyer thing, so I can’t say if I feel the judge acted correctly… as a very important general principle, it is very often that the correct decision in a court case is one that would result in an incorrect policy… but I would still believe the court decision is correct… one is about interpreting what the law is, the other is about determining what the law should be, and they are completely different questions.)
Coalition Sounds Off on Net Neutrality Legislation (SlashDot)
My MiniTake: Net Neutrality is a good thing. It is the right policy. However, government has no business regulating this one way or the other. The market should decide. If the major telcos decide to introduce tiered service, it would be a bad thing for the public in my opinion. But they own the wires, and they should have that right. Hopefully if they try they will fail, or other companies will provide alternatives. But it is their stuff and they should be able to do whatever the hell they want to with it, even if it isn’t the “best thing” as determined by some measure of public good.
The Bill the Hollywood cartels don’t want you to see (IPac)
My MiniTake: Intellectual propery rights need to be rolled back, not strengthened. The idea of IP, both copyright and patent, was to incentivise creators to create more than they would otherwise by providing LIMITED protection of their work from being exploited by others commercially for some period of time. Over the last 50 years this has been extended and expanded over and over again. At this point a very strong argument can be made that these laws and regulations are no longer serving their purpose of encoraging creativity and invention, but instead are outright stifling those tendancies by wrapping everything in rules and lock boxes. This law would be a huge mistake, and a huge further curtailment of individual rights with no balancing benefit other than helping to prop up the failed business model of the entertainment cartels. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if this passed with bipartisan almost unanimous support. That seems to be the trend.
Hmmm, I guess I ended up saying most of what I wanted to say anyway.
A few seconds ago I emailed our agent all the forms needed to officially list our house in Florida and put it on the market. Doing so makes me sad.
I am not unhappy to be here at this job. It is so much better than the last one that there is no comparison at all. I am not even unhappy to be out of Florida. It isn’t a bad place by any means (although Brandy may differ) but I am not attached to the state or even the town. But I am very sad to leave the HOUSE. It felt like home, and it was something I was proud of and enjoyed. It had enough space for the three of us to spread out and still feel comfortable. And I love the lanai and the pool, although we didn’t get to use it enough cause by the time the screen was up, I was practically on my way here. I loved the layout and the tile floors. I just liked how it all fit together. It just felt like a home. It felt like a place I could be in for many many years. It felt like a place that could be a place to settle down, not just a place to be for a little while. But it was just not to be.
And here, we’re going to be in a dinky little apartment for the short term, in a slightly better and larger apartment for the medium term, and then who knows how long it will be before we buy again, and even then it is most likely going to be smaller and not quite as nice. (Unless something unexpected happens, which could always happen, you never know…) Not saying we won’t be able to get something that is OK and nice in its own way, but it will not match the place in Florida. The economic realities of real estate in the two places are just that way.
I may or may not even be able to go back to visit it one last time. That is up in the air. I may have seen it for the last time and not even known it at the time. Sigh.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually do like the Seattle area a lot. In many ways I like it more than I liked Florida. And I like the job. And there is absolutely no question that this was the right choice and the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, not just by a little bit, but by a lot. Overall, when all things are considered, in all other aspects of life other than abode, we will be so very much better off here than there…
But that doesn’t keep me from being very sad and mourning the loss of my house.
(And yes, I felt the same way about the house in Pennsylvania… I loved that house and still miss it too, although I think I feel this one more strongly.)
The market has slowed to a crawl in Florida though. It may take us longer than we would like to sell it, and we won’t make as much as we had once hoped. We would have put it on the market a couple months ago, but there was some work on the house that HAD to be done first, and it wasn’t like we were vacating before June anyway.
We’ll see how it goes, hopeully it will sell in one or two months, not five or six months. But you never know. The days of selling in a few days are long gone though. And until the day it sells, we’re still paying the mortgage, even if we are not there, and that paying for double housing thing makes everything very tight.
Oh well, one way or another it will work out.
And in the end, this is a better place for us than Florida ever was.
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