The Daily Parker

I admit, I missed HRC's speech, and I'm looking for it right now on YouTube. But so many bloggers are commenting on it right now that I am, as my dad would say, "taking a Pasadena."

Instead, I would like to highlight (via Talking Points Memo) a ruling today, in which a Federal judge denied Harriet Miers's and Josh Bolten's motions to avoid testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee. This is a non-trivial victory for the legislature over the executive, probably in the short term at least as important as the Democratic Convention. From Chairman John Conyers (D-MI):

Today's ruling clearly rejects the White House's efforts to run out the clock on the Committee's investigation of DOJ politicization this Congress. I am heartened that Judge Bates recognized that the public interest in this matter is best served by the furtherance of the Committee's investigation. ... The Committee intends to promptly schedule a hearing with Ms. Miers and stands ready as always to consider any reasonable offer of accommodation with the White House.

"Reasonable," in its plainest meaning, means that the White House will turn over the documents requested. We'll see.

No, not me; Gustav. The National Hurricane Center forecasts the storm pointing straight at the Louisiana coast by this time Monday. True, six days out the error bars are pretty far apart, but New Orleans is right in the center of them.

There, they've said what I only hinted at: the Cubs are on track to win 100 games this season, and their current record (81-50) is not only the best in baseball right now, but also the Cubs' best since 1969:

Perhaps it would be fitting for the Cubs to win 100 games on the 100th anniversary of their 1908 world championship.

After Monday's 12-3 romp over Pittsburgh at PNC Park, they were on pace to finish with that nice round number, a mark the Cubs haven't reached since 1935.

...[Yesterday] the Cubs moved to 31 games over .500 for the first time since the end of the 1984 season.

If they win on Tuesday, the Cubs will be 32 over for the first time since, gulp, 1969.

Baseball. October. Wrigley Field. Mmmmmm.

The Cubs are the first team to win 80 games this season, continuing their unbroken run in first place since mid-April. Can they make 100 in the 33 games remaining?

Maybe, maybe not. Still, it's good news to wake up to.

This is interesting. I opposed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act of 1998 (officially the Copyright Term Extension Act), sponsored by Sonny Bono (R-CA), because I (a) believe that copyright protection already went on too long (50 to 70 years), and (b) it was such a naked lobbying bid by Disney.

Well, it turns out, Disney's copyright in the Mickey Mouse character may actually have lapsed in 1998 despite the Act:

Film credits from the 1920s revealed imprecision in copyright claims that some experts say could invalidate Disney's long-held copyright, though a Disney lawyer dismissed that idea as "frivolous."

...

Today, title-card claims are no longer required. But when courts rule on historical copyright issues, they follow the laws in place at the time—in this case, says [Georgetown University law graduate Douglas] Hedenkamp, the 1909 law requiring that the word copyright or its symbol be "accompanied by the name of the copyright proprietor"—a rule scholars said means in the immediate proximity.

The article isn't exactly law-journal ready, but it gives a reasonable outline of the issues. I'm not expecting anyone to challenge Disney on this, but it's funny to me how they spend a lot of time yelling and screaming to protect their Mickey Mouse trademark even when they know they've lost the copyright on several films, and possibly the character itself.

Short flight today, just landings. But—despite its monotony—I've still got a Google Earth file of it.

It's hard to see from the KML, but my pattern actually got much better as I practiced, which was the point, I suppose.

Via Talking Points Memo, the Associated Press makes an inadvertently true comment about Sen. Joe Lieberman (R-CT).

...and bison start wandering the Chicago suburbs:

I wrote this post on my flight to Dallas listening to the Indigo Girls. Fitting, because having an extra day to spend in Atlanta, my cousin and I went out to Decatur to have lunch with one of my oldest surviving friends and her wife. As my cousin said while we were poking around the interesting kitsch in Blue Moon (below), "Ah, here's the Community."

My Decatur friend suggested the most appropriate (and, in fact, tastiest) place to have lunch in these circumstances: Watershed, which the Indigo Girls' Emily Saliers co-owns. In for a dime at this point, I put in my dollar by having shrimp grits and a mint julep. I know what my fellow Northerners may think right now: "grits? Ew." But what are grits? Nothing more than pieces of corn pan-fried in butter. Well-prepared grits—at Watershed, they prepared them well—are quite tasty, and these, paired as they were with possibly the best-made mint julep I've ever enjoyed, completely ended any reservations I had about this Southern staple.

From there, my cousin and I got back on the MARTA (Atlanta's cute little ol' light rail) and headed next to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site. Wow. Intense. I've studied the Civil Rights Movement from the distance of 20 years and 1000 km, but standing by the Ebenezer Baptist Church and walking past King's tomb truly moved me:

We wrapped up the day at Turner Field, where we got to watch the Cubs sweep the Braves with 29 runs in two days. The park hardly contained any Braves fans at all; it sounded like a home game at Wrigley, complete with "Let's-Go-Cub-bies!" chants and mocking the Braves' tomahawk chop. Milwaukee also lost last night, increasing the Cubs' first-place lead to 4½ games. This year, the post-season is ours to lose.

It was, I kid you not, NASCAR night at the park, with actual stock cars lekking around the warning track during two inning breaks. Occasionally one of the cars would rev at us, causing some in the crowd to cheer. I really don't have anything against NASCAR, but there is something of a cultural gulf between my crowd and theirs.

I did find the two local-beer vendors, and had some Sweetwater 420 Ale. Good pale ale; I recommend it.

From Dallas I'm on to San Francisco, mostly to see family, but also to visit park #15 on the 30-Park Geas, Oakland's Cisco Field. The As are playing the White Sox, which means rooting for the home team (and wearing a Cubs hat) are doubly enjoyable. That's Sunday; tomorrow, it's beer and curry at Kennedy's. I can't wait.

My cousin and I are in Atlanta, which works well with the 30-Park Geas because we saw the Cubs play. Tuesday's game got rained out so we got to Turner Field for the second half of a double-header. The first game went to Chicago 10-2; ours, 8-0. We're going back again tonight to see what should, by averages, be a 9-1 Cubs victory.

From our seats we had a great view of the field:

Including the gilded dome of the Georgia State Capitol and what the hell is that cow in the baseball hat? Oh. It's a Chik-Fil-A advertisement that does the Braves Chop when, as we found out, any Braves player makes it to any base even if it's a walk.