On September 18, a group called Apportionment.us filed suit in federal district court for the Northern District of Mississippi on behalf of five people, one resident from each of the following states: Montana, Delaware, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah. The quintet's complaint: that their votes carry far less weight in the House of Representatives than do those from residents of other sates, like Rhode Island and Iowa. The group alleges this is the case because the population variance between the most under-represented congressional district in the nation and most over-represented district exceeds 80%. For example, according to the complaint, Montana has one representative for every approximately 905,000 people while its neighbor to the south, Wyoming, has one representative for approximately every 495,000 people . (The suit deals only with the House, not the Senate where, of course, residents of Montana have far more representation, per capita, than do residents of nearly every other state.) The group's demand: that the House of Representatives be ordered to add to its current roster of 435 members. Click here for the complaint; here for the press release from pportionment.us; here for a story from the NYT. WSJ Law Blog September 18, 2009

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have banned all texting while driving, and eight others prohibit texting by younger drivers only, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. Many of these laws essentially bar people from fooling with their smart phones in any way behind the wheel; in some cases, just reading from a mobile device is against the law. Some supporters of text-messaging bans say that states that provide traffic information via Twitter are undermining these laws. "I would guess that the states wouldn’t intend to be sending a mixed message, but it sounds like it could be a mixed message," said Judie Stone, president of the Washington-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. State transportation officials say they are not encouraging people to get online behind the wheel. They say drivers should read their tweets before hitting the road. http://kstp.com/news/stories/S1146729.shtml?cat=6

Time Out’s Top Ten cities in the world
"In arriving at Time Out’s greatest cities, we were not looking for great holiday destinations but living, working cities. This meant looking at all aspects of urban life, not just those one encounters on a weekend break, and what everyday life is like for people who actually live there. Resident writers were asked to rate their cities in terms of key criteria that make up a successful city: architecture/cityscape; arts & culture; buzz; food & drink; quality of life; and world status."
1. New York 2. London 3. Paris 4. Berlin 5= Chicago, Barcelona, Tokyo 8. Istanbul 9= Rome, Sydney

DOT and EPA Propose National Program to Improve Fuel Economy and Reduce Greenhouse Gases News release: "U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Ray LaHood and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jacksonhave jointly proposed a rule establishing an historic national program that would improve vehicle fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gases. Their proposal builds upon core principles President Obama announced with automakers, the United Auto Workers, leaders in the environmental community, governors and state officials in May, and would provide coordinated national vehicle fuel efficiency and emissions standards. The proposed program would also conserve billions of barrels of oil, save consumers money at the pump, increase fuel economy, and reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions." NHTSA and EPA are providing a 60-day comment period that begins with publication of the proposal in the Federal Register. The proposal and information about how to submit comments are at: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/regulations.htm for EPA and http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.43ac99aefa80569eea57529cdba046a0/ for NHTSA. Related postings on climate change

WSJ's Financial Crisis Word List
WSJ - Matthew Rose: "Just as the financial crisis has morphed into a daily grind instead of a daily fire drill, its peculiar argot has found its way into everyday conversations. This is probably an unwelcome surprise to those not conversant with the narrow byways of Wall Street. So, in the spirit of Ambrose Bierce--whose "Devil's Dictionary," originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book, provided a guide to the political and cultural language of the day--here is a Wall Street Journal Baedeker to acronyms, neologisms and bastardizations that shape the popular understanding of the pickle in which we remain one full year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers."
Related postings on financial system

Trivia from a muse reader in Illinois
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
Typewriter is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

History of Jersey
Originally part of the European mainland, the islands were formed after the Ice Age around 8000 BC. Jersey like the other Channel Islands, is steeped in history and discoveries in the 20th century have shown evidence of mankind dating back to 4000 BC (New Stone Age) when tribes, possibly from Spain moved here. Although most traces of ancient tombstones have been broken up in centuries gone by, the most famous of the remaining is at La Hougue Bie. These first inhabitants were probably a small dark pre-Celtic race and were later followed by fair haired Gauls. During the next five hundred years, the Romans occupied Jersey (named Caesarea) from around 56AD although it was not a significant outpost. The ending on the current name of Jersey "ey" is Viking meaning island. http://www.islandlife.org/history_jsy.htm

History of New Jersey
Samuel Smith's History of Nova Caesarea (1765) is the bedrock of New Jersey history. This was the first compilation of facts, documents, and materials relating the colony, written by one of its most prominent citizens. The presentation deals extensively with the early settlements, government under the Proprietors, the transition to a Royal Colony, and notable events of the 17th and 18th centuries. Of special interest is Smith's chapter on "The State of Indian Affairs," which records in detail the proceedings of the Treaty of Easton (1758, at which Smith took extensive notes). The 1890 appendix "John Tatham, New Jersey's Missing Governor," by John D. McCormack is also included. http://store.payloadz.com/str-asp-id.4055-n.History_of_Nova_Caesarea_New_Jersey_1765__eBooks_-end-detail.html

September 19 is the birthday of William Golding, (books by this author) born in St. Columb Minor, Cornwall (1911). He went to Oxford, published a book of poems, became a teacher. Then he joined the navy and served as a lieutenant on a rocket launcher. He was faced with a huge ethical decision when he learned that he would have to take the ship across a minefield in order to be on time for the D-Day operations. He couldn't decide whether to risk the lives of his men or the lives of all those participating in D-Day who needed their help. Finally, he risked it and made it in time. Later, he learned that the minefield wasn't real—it was put on a map to fool the Germans. That experience made Golding think about how moral decisions could rest on things that didn't even exist. He thought a lot about ethical dilemmas, and about the horror of war, and he wrote a novel about a group of good English schoolboys whose plane crashes on a desert island, and who descend into the extremes of savage behavior. For the title of the novel, he translated the word "Beelzebub" from Hebrew into English: "Lord of the Flies." The novel was rejected more than a dozen times, but when Lord of the Flies finally came out in 1954, it became a classic.
September 20 is the birthday of Maxwell Perkins, (books by this author) born on this day in New York City (1884). Perkins is most famous as the editor and champion of F. Scott Fitzgerald (books by this author), Ernest Hemmingway, (books by this author) and Thomas Wolfe (books by this author). Perkins had more than 60 books dedicated to him. The Writer’s Almanac