To properly pronounce Nevada, the middle syllable should rhyme with gamble.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:22 AM   0 comments

Not long ago, I was at dinner with a group of entertainment industry professionals, including a Los Angeles native and resident. Nice woman. After talking movies, we got into the "Where do you live?" and "Where did you grow up?" stuff -- and when she learned I had spent practically my whole life in the Chicago area, she talked about how much she loves our great city. We have the Cubs (does anyone from out of town ever say the White Sox?), the architecture, the food, the lake, the blues, the shopping, the Oprah, etc., etc.

Not to mention the wonderful people of Chicago -- the "down-to-earth" types with "good solid values," as we're often labeled.

And then this nice woman used the term that almost always makes me cringe. The label is favored by East and West Coast types who use it like a pat on the head to tell us how quaint we are, how charming we are -- and what rubes we are.

"I just love that whole Midwestern thing," she said.

I can't precisely recall the specific wording of what she said next, but there were a few more "down-to-earth" references, and something about how we're so much more "real" than Los Angelenos and New Yorkers, and how it's so refreshing that we're not embarrassed about our love for Wal-Mart and Celine Dion and Krispy Kreme.

Then, she mentioned that her husband attended school in the Midwest, and he has family in the Midwest, and she knows a lot of other people from the Midwest, including her college roommate who was from the Midwest -- and at that point I had to cut her off and explain something.

Chicago ain't the Midwest.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:42 PM   0 comments

The frenzy recalled the October 1993 scene in Somalia, when locals dragged the bodies of Marines killed in fighting with warlords through the streets.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:14 PM   0 comments

You will never change the hearts and minds of terrorists by bombing them.

That's OK, I'll settle for their death. I don't think we changed the hearts and minds of too many Nazis during World War II, either.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:16 PM   0 comments

Feels like the first time
Like it never did before

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:02 PM   0 comments

• Man tries to buy $7,000,000 in lottery tickets.
  This guy tries to buy seven million lottery tickets, which would give him a one in two chance of winning the $38,000,000 jackpot. Lottery officials decline. Not because it's against the rules, but because it's against the "spirit" of the lottery. That's right, they arbitrarily change the rules on the fly to suit their own agenda. Keep that in mind if you ever win; take the cash. Just because the lottery promises to pay out that money over twenty or thirty years, does not mean they will. The minute the state legislature needs it to give poor children LeBron sneakers, your winnings are seized. (Link seen on Fark.)
  
  
• There's too much extraneous crap overlaid on television.
  Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch agrees. Hey, Fox Sports Net, covering a quarter of the screen with an advertisement for Master and Commander while the Blues are breaking up ice does not endear me to you. I am not going to watch your "extreme" sports show or your fantasy football program. I want to watch the damn hockey game.
  
  
• Regulation by punchline.
  Radley Balko joins the party late in recognizing that reductio ad absurdum helps those who sue or legistlate brainstorm for fresh outrages. Recognizing a slippery slope doesn't mean you're not sliding down it.
  
  
• FBI can't use your OnStar against you....yet.
  A court has ruled that the FBI cannot just take your vehicular remote assistance product off the hook and listen to what you're saying in your car. Yet.
  
  Of course, you all know I would never buy a product where a radio signal can open your car doors or that the FBI could track your stolen vehicle. I don't even have a cell phone where a signal could take it off hook, either. You think I am mad? Listen to how carefully I planned it out! (Link seen on Tech Dirt.)
  
  
• Rigorous debate in comments is good.
  I don't have comments because I don't like trolls. So check this link out. It's a story about how Australian Prime Minister shared an elevator with some footy fans. But the trolls are all on John Howard for his politics, and the owner of the blog responds appropriately.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:56 PM   0 comments

Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:27 AM   0 comments

"I have an enormous soft spot for the Midwest and the hospitality, the generosity and the openness of a lot of the people who live there," says Meyer, a graduate of the University of Iowa.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:13 PM   0 comments

The U.S. Army declared medic Spec. Simone Holcomb AWOL for refusing to return to her duties in Iraq because of a family emergency, threatening her with a dishonorable discharge or even a court martial.

Holcomb, whose husband is also in the military as a tank commander, had to rush home to care for their seven children. Her mother-in-law had been taking care of the family, but had to leave Colorado suddenly when her father-in-law fell ill with cancer.

But the Army wasn't too sympathetic, slapping Holcomb with the AWOL label and later deactivating her and reassigning her to the Colorado National Guard (search). She is considering taking legal action to be reinstated as a full-time soldier.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:02 PM   0 comments

1. Using Internet Explorer, open and read this story, "The end is near for pop-up ads".
   
   
2. Close the browser window.
   
   
3. Examine the CNN Money pop under ad that displays when you close the window.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments

Clifford said Kim, who had herself been busted twice for prostitution, was charged with money laundering because she would invest her ill-gotten gains back into her massage parlors.

• Getting money through illegal activity.
• Spending money made through illegal activity.
• Laying waste your powers with illegal activity.
• Having stuff bought with money made illegally.
• Using stuff bought with money made illegally.
• Eating food bought with money made illegally.
• Having money that was once earned illegally.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:13 PM   0 comments

"I feel embarrassed and humiliated, especially because my parents and the people who love me have been hurt," the socialite and reality TV actress said Monday in a statement to The Associated Press.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:03 PM   0 comments

I had one typewriter for 50 years, but I've bought seven computers in six years. I suppose that's why Bill Gates is rich and Underwood is out of business.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:24 PM   0 comments

The United States accepts that to avoid humiliating failure in Iraq it needs to bring its forces quickly under international control and speed the handover of power, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, has said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:26 AM   0 comments

• Kim du Toit's The Pussification Of The Western Male, which details how the modern American male is shackled and coddled by the State and society into a "civilized" passive consumer.
  
  
• Val MacQueen's Tech Central Station column A New Stockholm Syndrome, which explores how Swedish society has become so passive that citizens stand idly by while a leading political figure is stabbed to death in a mall.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:47 PM   0 comments

The second shot is Bush, in the infamous shot after he landed on the deck of the carrier, dressed in an olive-drab flight suit (military garb and straps were in last season) with a helmet tucked under his arm. The ad suggests that this was a phony costume to go with the false label on the big ship. Bush had no right to wear military garb, because he never served in the real military, only in the Texas Air National Guard, which kept him far from Vietnam. This juxtaposition is a page out of the Bush family's own political playbook: It's Michael Dukakis playing soldier in a tank.

The National Guard is not the real military?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM   0 comments

Baseball just can't match the intensity of football. When the Cards trot out Pedro Borbon in a tie game, you can turn off the tube and say to yourself that they'll get 'em tomorrow, because even the Yankees lost 61 games this year.

But when Arlen Harris misses yet another blitz pickup and Marc Bulger gets hit so hard you expect him to wind up looking like the cat at the end of an "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon, you want to have your dog soil Arlen's lawn, because you know every loss in football is huge.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:50 PM   0 comments

It does surprise me. I mean, I think the theme throughout all of these numbers is hopefulness. People under 30 just are much more optimistic about America's future. They feel more secure in the job market with the economy. They think things are getting better. They think Iraq is going better than people over 30 do.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:22 PM   0 comments

"Show me a community that doesn't want $24 million in federal funding and I will show you Olivette, because that is the only one," said [Larry] Gerstein [director of the Olivette Community Connection].

While Gerstein acknowledges Sterman has no financial stake in whether the interchange is built, he insists Sterman should not be using his position to evaluate the merits of the interchange, which is a topic of local debate.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:42 PM   0 comments

Now, this is ``Must-See TV.''

I mean, I had no intention of watching CBS' Ronald Reagan miniseries. But given the furor raised by the Republican party and assorted conservative pundits over what they perceive as a hatchet job on the former president, I don't see how I can afford to miss it.

This week, CBS gave in to the pressure and announced that it had pulled The Reagans from its November schedule. The movie has instead been shipped off to the Showtime cable network, which is expected to run it next year.

The Republican faithful are counting that as only a partial victory. They're pleased the show won't be run on a major broadcast network. They'd prefer it not be run at all.

Mind you, they haven't actually seen the movie. Their antipathy is based on a number of other factors, including the fact that Reagan is portrayed by James Brolin, husband of the über-liberal herself, Barbra Streisand. Then there are the script excerpts published by The New York Times, particularly one that portrays Reagan as lacking in compassion for gay people dying from a then-new disease called AIDS.

Yet as everyone knows, the Reagan administration stood silent on the sidelines in the early years of that plague. Reagan may never have said the words the script reportedly puts into his mouth -- ''They that live in sin shall die in sin'' -- but the sentiment was certainly there. That's an unalterable element of his legacy.

Which is ultimately what this argument is about, the battle for Reagan's legacy.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:43 PM   0 comments

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:06 PM   0 comments

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope that you will spare me a few minutes of your time to tell you about something that I saw on Monday, October 27.

I had been attending a conference in Annapolis and was coming home on Sunday. As you may recall, Los Angeles International Airport was closed on Sunday, October 26, because of the fires that affected air traffic control. Accordingly, my flight, and many others, were canceled and I wound up spending a night in Baltimore.

My story begins the next day. When I went to check in at the United counter Monday morning I saw a lot of soldiers home from Iraq. Most were very young and all had on their desert camouflage uniforms. This was as change from earlier, when they had to buy civilian clothes in Kuwait to fly home. It was a visible reminder that we are in a war. It probably was pretty close to what train terminals were like in World War II.

Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them questions in the Starbucks line or just saying "Welcome Home." In addition to all the flights that had been canceled on Sunday, the weather was terrible in Baltimore and the flights were backed up. So, there were a lot of unhappy people in the terminal trying to get home, but nobody that I saw gave the soldiers a bad time.

By the afternoon, one plane to Denver had been delayed several hours. United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their seats and take another flight. They weren't getting many takers. Finally, a United spokeswoman got on the PA and said this, "Folks. As you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of leave and we're trying to get them where they need to go without spending any more time in an airport then they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight. If we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers to know that we respect what you're doing, we are here for you and we love you."

At that, the entire terminal of cranky, tired, travel-weary people, a cross-section of America, broke into sustained and heart-felt applause. The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of them just looked at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears.

And, yes, people lined up to take the later flight and all the soldiers went to Denver on that flight.

That little moment made me proud to be an American, and also told me why we will win this war.

If you want to send my little story on to your friends and family, feel free. This is not some urban legend. I was there, I was part of it, I saw it happen.

"Folks. As you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of leave and we're trying to get them where they need to go without spending any more time in an airport then they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight. If we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers to know that we respect what you're doing, we are here for you and we love you."

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:47 PM   0 comments

He [the judge] also said it was Davis' neighbors who were victimized - not Davis.

"What you've done, sir, in my judgment, has torn at the moral fiber of the community, of the state."

Stephenson held up 21 letters from neighbors, complaining about Davis.

"You have caused them psychological damage," the judge said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   0 comments

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia suggested that, instead, Mr. Moonves program a reality show that relocated network executives to "the sticks," where they would have to find a job. Mr. Moonves admitted the "phenomenal" opposition to the show left him "pretty surprised."

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:11 PM   0 comments

"This means municipalities can identify a space they want and force a landlord to lease it to them," said Mike Freret vice president of development for Orsett/Columbia Ltd. "It may mean that if the space they want already has a business owner in it, they could boot them out." Tom Irvine, who represented the county, said that's exactly what it means.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:09 PM   0 comments

John,
I never thought I would read a hockey piece with a reference to Howard Roark. If you were to cast the Fountainhead of the late '40s with contemporary actors, whom would you choose? What current hockey player would you have to play Mr. Roark?

Howard Roark was tall, strong and uncompromising. Actor: Ben Kingsley, minus 20 years and plus five inches (He's 5-foot-8). There are no tall, strong, young, uncompromising actors today. Hockey player: Todd Bertuzzi. He plays like he doesn't care if anyone likes him. I love that.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:10 PM   0 comments

Rio Rancho Public Schools issued a written statement: "On Monday a teacher observed Mason manipulating the soft drink machine at the school. The teacher advised Mason that getting two sodas for the price of one is the equivalent to stealing. When the teacher observed Mason doing the same thing again on Tuesday, she wrote him up."

The boy said the teacher called him a thief and accused him of trying to teach other students how to steal. He was written up, given a two-day in-school suspension and the incident will appear on his permanent school record.

"It makes me feel very sad that I'm going to be thought as a thief later on in my life," Mason Kisner said. "Heck, I might not get in a good college or get a good job because on my permanent record it will say that when I was a kid, I stole."

"I'm flabbergasted, bewildered, dumbfounded. I can't think of another word to describe how I feel about this incident," said Edward Kisner, the boy's father. "What kind of character is this showing Mason?"
. . . . "I'm very disappointed I haven't gotten a phone call from the school rescinding Mason's suspension at this point," said Edward Kisner. "You know, when you say you're wrong, it's not a sign of weakness."

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:44 PM   0 comments

• You complain about revisions to the cuts of cloth in Levi's 501 blue jeans.
  
  
• You cover this for a major metropolitan newspaper with all appropriate indignation for the rights of the common man.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM   0 comments

• It's set in Wisconsin, my home state.
  
  
• Its plot involves a young woman coasting through her 23 years of life who must evaluate her life's direction when her high school and college sweetheart and bethrothed, with whom she's grown disenchanted but with whom she was coasting toward matrimony anyway, dives from the titular pier and ends up in a coma. Hey, I know what it's like to re-evaluate your life. I was twentysomething once, and I am about ten years shy of my mid-life crisis.
  
  
• I have tinkered with the beginnings of a literary novel with a similar theme and wanted to see what I could steal learn from this book.

1. The author's not from Wisconsin, nor does the author appreciate Wisconsin. The author lives in Northern California, and hence focuses her coastal lens on the quaint people in the Midwest. The main character talks to another former Wisconsin resident, and she calls them Wisconsonians. Damn it, we're not Wisconsinians, we're Wisconsinites. The author also uses the simile bland as Wisconsin. Listen, sister, you don't do that.
   
   I'll admit, I have a chip on my shoulder about the way some coastal types see the rest of the country. If I even catch a slight sniff of superiority from someone who assumes that the relevant country ends at one piedmont or another, I cross my arms and the person's lost me. Whether it's an author telling me that life doesn't begin until you move to New York City or a billionaire venture capitalist saying that offshore developers are as good as the developers in St. Louis--nay, even as good as the developers in SILICON VALLEY, I get the urge to curl the fingers and let fly. Maybe I'm just wound too tight, but I don't care for the theme.
   
   
2. So let's just elaborate on the plot, shall we? The main character doesn't deal with the aftermath of the aforementioned dive. She goes mechanically about her life, alienates her friends, and then when the boyfriend wakes up, kinda wanders into a breakup with him. Then, bam!, it's section two, wherein she drives to New York City and enjoys some liberation from her Midwestern lifestyle, if you can call "sleepwalks through a relationship with a mysterious and uncommunicative man and through an undirected life in New York" liberation. Just when she's getting into New York, bam!, she returns to Wisconsin and rediscovers friendships she's let go and whatnot so she can sleepwalk through them, too.
   
   Suffice to say, I didn't care much about the main character, nor did I think much of her "decisions." I thought the mysterious and uncommunicative man bit was cool, until he revealed his secret torment to her when she had returned to Wisconsin. Quite frankly, it was a rather simplistic and unbelievable revelation. I won't ruin it by divulging it here. At least they shared some rather vivid boom chokka wokka in the book, which helped keep my interest. Smuttier than Valley of the Dolls, believe you me.
   
   
3. Come on, the voice of the book, the first person narrator, annoys me. She sleepwalks through the entire thing. Personally, I've been told for over a decade that my female characters are lacking, werd, and I swear, if the main character of this bit represents an authentic feminine point-of-view, you can expect strictly male characters in my work from here on out. Genre fiction set on planets where men reproduce through fission, I kid you not.
   
   The main character's adrift too much for me to like the book, and I don't see any change in her. At all. So what's the point of the book? I mean, sometimes the point is the character learns something, but the main character doesn't indicate any change, other than she returns home to her "bland" state. Give me a break. The heroine crossing the return threshold? She's supposed to bring something back, darling.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:51 PM   0 comments

"Soldiers are not development workers. There is industry skill, a body of knowledge that goes with it. You can't just say 'There's a pothole over there and get it filled' and fix a country," said Dominic Nutt, a spokesman for Christian Aid, a British humanitarian group.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:35 AM   0 comments

Violent crime in the UK is about 4 times higher than in the US. The conclusion I have come to is that's because of guns (I really, really, kept an open mind about the good/bad things about guns). In the adult years I was in England, (18 to 27, a total of 9 years):

• my house was burgled 3 times (the third time, my room mate was severely beaten, because he was home)
• my car was broken into twice
• car stolen once
• and I was assaulted twice.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:10 AM   0 comments

"I don't like it," Ozaukee County Sheriff Maury Straub said Wednesday. "Proponents say it's for citizen safety. As sheriff, I know of very few people who have had to protect their lives or the lives of others by deadly force.

How many people who were unarmed do you know of who died when someone attacked them? I don't remember Ozaukee County being that safe. Straub's words could quite easily indicate that he doesn't know of any because those people have not had the right to defend themselves outside of their homes. Also, keep in mind deadly force implied that the goblins got killed instead of just winged. Maybe the Ozaukee residents are good at shooting out kneecaps.

"It will give people a lot of false securities. Even though people can shoot at a paper target and take a class to learn gun safety, the bad guys are going to assume their victim has a gun and will be more aggressive and more violent," said [Hartford Police Lt. Tom] Horvath, saying he was speaking only for himself and not the department.

What's good for Britain is good for us, hey, loot? Of course, maybe if the goblins feared for their own lives, they'd perhaps think of another line of work.

Said Cedarburg Police Chief Tom Frank: "My initial reaction is, I'm not in favor of it because of the many situations in which police officers have contact with angry citizens.

"In many of those cases, citizens who have been arrested for various offenses have acted in a violent manner toward a police officer," Frank said.

"I'm just fearful that with some people now carrying concealed weapons, the violence toward police officers could become a greater problem," he said.

Frank has a valid concern. However, he's weighing the safety of a few citizens (the police) against the majority of the citizens. Police would be safer, too, if they kept the general population sedated. Quick, someone legislate manditory downers for all!

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:42 AM   0 comments

I wrote the seller, through eBay, using my primary ID, alerting him to the fact that it was rather unlikely that the five hard-to-find beanies would turn out to be genuine and suggesting that he should pull the auction, relist the common ones, and send the others for authentication.

There is no need to explain my message further because he printed the message, without the "disclaimer" and "counterfeit" eBay rules I had included , and INCLUDED MY ID. He posted also that he had blocked me from bidding. I had also alerted eBay that the auction should be pulled because it was fraught with disclaimers. eBay paid no attention to its own rule and did nothing. I also alerted eBay that he had posted my ID, which is against eBay rules, and again, nothing was done. From the tenor of the listing, I believed the seller to be an angry person, upset by his wife leaving him, but did question that if she was such an avid collector why she would leave behind the rare and valuable beanies. I checked his feedback with over 500 positives and no negatives, his "ME" posting, and later his name and address which checked out. Based on this I bid using my glorybeeto ID. I learned later that two friends asked him questions about the beanies and he did not respond. I did not question him with my bidding ID because I felt, in light of his obvious anger, he would block that ID as well. (Emphasis mine)

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:51 AM   0 comments

Dramatic television footage showed Curry, 53, of Simi Valley, trying to hide behind a tree as the man police identified as Strier fired several times.
...
Strier, a heavyset man with graying hair and glasses, calmly walked by stunned reporters before an off-duty sheriff's reserve officer tackled him.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:12 AM   0 comments