Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
 
Book Review: Basket Case by Carl Hiassen (2002)

Ah, a light mystery romp. This is the first book of Carl Hiassen's that I have read, and it probably won't be the last.

It's the story of a newspaperman who's gone from the front page of his small Florida daily to the obituary beat, punishment for his forthright (and possibly self-destructive) nature. As he grows older, he starts obsessing about the ages of famous people when they died, and whom he's out lived--without contributing as much.

When an obscure 80s pop star dies, Jack Tagger suspects foul play. He's right, of course; what kind of mystery would it be without it?

You know, Hiassen might just be the funniest writer to come out of the Miami Herald ever. The voice of the book is light, vulnerable, and humorous. It's a good light read, and I look forward to my next Hiassen novel.

Yep, that's all I got for a review.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:29 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
 
Emancipations from Proclamations

Thanks to a pinko reader for sending us an enlightening e-mail: Follow the link to the Snopes page, and you'll find that George W. Bush, as governor of the state of Texas, issued a proclamation that made June 10, 2000, Jesus Day in Texas. This, I guess, is supposed to illustrate that George W. Bush is a religious zealot, and that by electing a person who sincerely espouses a religion to elective office, we can expect to get someone who acts according to higher ideals. You know, convictions. So be it.

But tying Bush to this single proclamation is a red herring and not really an argument in that favor. George W. Bush issued numerous proclamations when he was governor; that's what governors do, at least it's the least harmful thing governors do. Personally, I'd rather they issue useless proclamations every day instead of politicking and spending tax money. But what do I know? I am just a voter in the minority.

Here's a running tally of other groups to whom George Bush is beholden, as illuminated by the proclamations he issued: So you can see that the Governor's mansion, and probably the White House, have a whole wing of highly-paid professionals who do nothing for 30 hours a week but to turn out these proclamations for someone to stamp the executive's signature on. To call Bush a religious nut or to think that the proclamation for Jesus Day is out of the ordinary, establishing a state church which will begin pogroms against other faiths or to even indicate that there's a morality above the Government is Good creed is asininine. (Sorry, that particular word is a little like banana to me.)

If you want to elevate one of these trivialities as a wedge issue, why not start printing the bumper stickers that say:

President Bush:
Weak on French Week, Weak on Terror

To be honest, there's only one trivial ceremonial issue that could make me vote for someone other than Bush this election. As a meat eater and a proponent of capital punishment, I am greatly bothered that this president, like his predecessors, pardons the damn turkey every Thanksgiving. It sends a bad message to America, that it's bad to kill something to eat, and that you can pardon animals like you pardon criminals. You want to know who I will vote for instead of Bush?

I will vote for the candidate who promises to whack the turkey, particularly if he (or she) will do it himself (herself) with a hatchet and a tree stump. I will even send money to a candidate who plucks the turkey and eats it himself. That's an American president. Also, I like turkey.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:41 PM   0 comments
 
Things You Wished I Hadn't Made You Think Of

Gollum singing Parliament's "Tear The Roof Off The Sucker (Give Up The Funk)":

Yessss, wes wantses the funk
Gives us the funk
Yesss, we needses the funk
Wes gotta haves that funk

Face it. In one fell swoop, I have infected your mind with the song and have possibly ruined the song for you forever.

No need to thank me, it's part of the community service portion of my sentence for Missouri State Statute Section 574.010, Grand Lack of Funk in the Second Degree.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:00 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 28, 2004
 
A Converse to the DYKWIA Syndrome

John Kerry visited St. Louis this weekend. His campaign managed to offend the largest radio station in the area and 50,000 watts' worth of a listening area spread across the Midwest by not granting interviews to mere radio reporters (television only, thanks) and by not even knowing who KMOX was. KMOX has been banging this drum all morning and has this on its Web site:
    Kerry Aide: What's KMOX?
    March 27, 2004
    Reporter barred from interview

    The John Kerry campaign came to St. Louis Saturday evening. . .and seemed a bit confused. The Democratic hopeful appeared at a tightly-guarded rally in Forest Park to talk about his plan to create jobs. KMOX Reporter Molly Hyland was on the scene but found Kerry campaign aides had decided that only television reporters could interview the candidate. Kerry's campaign aide said she had never heard of KMOX and would not allow an interview. The Kerry campaign did arrange for the senator to call KMOX by phone earlier in the day. . .but that, too, fell through. The call never came. Saturday night, the Kerry campaign phone lines were closed; its spokesmen out of reach.
Good work, Kerry. You're really connecting with the little man in the West Mid, or whatever the quaint residents call that desolate prairie between the coasts.

KMOX also mentioned on the air that the audience jeered the aides and the Secret Service whenever they asked who KMOX was and what kind of radio station it is. It's the biggest radio station in the market. It has been for decades. Thanks for stopping by in your layover between real work.

Undoubtedly, people will point out that this is only the ill will generation of a single campaign staffer, but I have to pose two rhetorical questions about the Kerry campaign from this tidbit:
  1. What does it say about the campaign that the event was controlled by imported help? Didn't they have any local support to organize the thing?

  2. So, Kerry's aides don't research enough to know what KMOX was. These are the incompetents running his campaign. If Kerry is elected, will these be the same people strumming the delicate strings of national power?

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:28 PM   0 comments
Saturday, March 27, 2004
 
Well, Court TV Is On Cable:

Unfortunate headline of the day, from FoxNews.Com yesterday:

FoxNews Headline

Kobe Lawyers Want Sex In Trial

Here's the interactive part of the blog--you get to make your own jokes.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:06 AM   0 comments
 
Journalism Schools Need More Math Classes

Here's an Associated Press story for you: Consumers rein in their spending. The online version doesn't carry the subtitle the print version does, but the lead drives the message home:
    WASHINGTON - Consumers, a key force shaping the nation's economic recovery, grew more restrained in February, increasing their spending by only 0.2 percent.
These are the same people who say that a slower increase in government spending is a cut.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust a reporter to tally a split check at a restaurant, much less explain the world or commerce to me.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:32 AM   0 comments
 
Duh-Nuh-Nuh-Nuh-Nuh - AU-GU-RY!

Note: I'd apologize for the title, but Metallica should know better. Any time a musician creates a song wherein a single word is presented independently and uniquely, the musician should expect people to use any other word with the same number of syllables in its place to make a relevant song about an occasion. "Battery" is one such song. "Goldfinger" is another, but not applicable in this case. Thank you. That is all.

So I got a rejection slip from a major east coast magazine yesterday. I won't say which magazine; suffice to say the name is body of water + period of time. So I opened the self-addressed, stamped envelope postmarked Boston, Massachusetts, and I got the (new) stock rejection.

The envelope contained a new rejection slip -- a different typeface and whatnot, so it's new to my rejection slip collection, as well as my submission, a poem. If you think that makes me a wuss, you're wrong; the fact that I own cats makes me the wuss. The poetry-writing only reinforces the felinity. How do you feel now, big man, now that you have reduced me to shameful tears?

However, my returned poem bore two interesting marks: a single hole, which would indicate a thumb tack (an even number of holes might indicate staples, and numerous holes might indicate dartboard, but a single hole is a thumb tack, definitely) and a lowercase v above the title.

Is it a good sign, that maybe it just missed the cut? A sign that an intern liked it and tacked it in his or her cubicle before returning it? What do these entrails mean?

I mean, aside from the fact that I now have to send a fresh copy of the piece to a different, as-yet-undetermined target and have to spend another $.74 on the damn thing.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:25 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 26, 2004
 
Newt's Fighting Words

Newt Gingrich wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post outlining a GOP strategy for job creation. His basic premise:

    The Democrats think they've found the perfect one-sided debate by presenting themselves as the party that opposes "outsourcing" of American jobs. They hope the Republican Party will be dumb enough to take the bait and be the side that favors outsourcing.

    That kind of binary argument, in which the Republicans take the role of defending the loss of jobs overseas, would be a dead loser for the GOP. Republicans must set up a new, winning argument by focusing not on the loss of old jobs but on the creation of new ones.
Sounds good, until he issues the fighting words:
    Republicans, therefore, should insist, as President Bush has, that real economic growth depends on the right tax incentives and litigation reform to create even more investment, so that the next multinational company will choose the United States as the place to open a new location or headquarters.
He better mean lowering taxes across the board and not just lowering taxes for big corporations who will continue to play municipalities against municipalities, states against states, and nations against nations, each individual corporation sticking up the taxpayers for subsidies and corporate welfare to provide a pittance of jobs which the rest of the smaller companies and individual entrepreneurs in the area will pay for.

No, wait, he's a former politician. Of course he means the latter.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:51 PM   0 comments
 
Optimism Until the Fine Print

What's not to like about the headline and lead for this St. Louis Post-Dispatch column?
    Buyer's vision is 100 apartments for Pet Building

    It's happening. Mothballed for months, downtown's distinctive Pet Building has a buyer - and a metamorphosis in the works. Balke Brown Associates has the property under contract.

    Sale terms are not public, but here's the vision: to turn the 15-story office building into 100 apartments for an estimated $30 million.
Yay, team! Go development! Build! Build! Capitalism, rah!

Until the dreaded Fine Print strikes:
    The hurdle - and it's a big one, says Land - is securing the state and federal historic tax credits to make the deal work.
Never mind. It's not capitalism--it's crony capitalism. Any company that can even conceive of buying a property for $30 million dollars should not count on sucking from the government teat, and I mean should not count on my personal tax contribution to make it work.

Who died and made you Suharto?

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:34 PM   0 comments
 
Told You So

Techdirt follows up and acknowledges that the guy referred to in this post was indeed using a hardware keystroke logger.

And you thought I was mad!

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:17 PM   0 comments
 
Libertarianism Stops at the Water's Edge

I guess we've uncovered another reason why I, just like the d-42 guy, only scored a 66 on the Libertarian Purity Test: I am all in favor of legalizing most things, but I'll be damned if some international body is going to force it on my country.

Slashdot links to a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the World Trade Organization deciding that the United States is violating international trade laws by banning Internet gambling:
    The World Trade Organization, in its first decision on an Internet-related dispute, has ignited a political, cultural and legal tinderbox by ruling that the U.S. policy prohibiting online gambling violates its obligations under international trade law.

    The ruling by a WTO panel Wednesday is being hailed by online casinos operators overseas as a major victory that could force the United States to liberalize its laws.

    But the Bush administration vowed to appeal the decision, and several members of Congress said they would rather have an international trade war or withdraw from future rounds of the World Trade Organization than have American social policy dictated from abroad.

    "It's appalling," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. "It cannot be allowed to stand that another nation can impose its values on the U.S. and make it a trade issue."

    The decision stems from a case taken to the WTO in June by the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, which licenses 19 companies that offer sports betting and casino games such as blackjack over the Internet.

    Antigua and Barbuda argued that U.S. trade policy does not prohibit cross-border gambling operations and that the United States would be hypocritical to do otherwise because it wants to allow American casino operations to operate land-based and Internet-based subsidiaries overseas.

    It is not clear precisely why the WTO ruled in favor of Antigua and Barbuda, because the specifics remain confidential. The ruling covers only online casinos based on the islands, but other nations could seek similar rulings.
Cheez, Luis, this makes me want to put on a black ski mask, go to Washington state, and heave a brick through a Starbucks window. So the NWO World Trade Order gets to overwrite the laws of its members now, and to force them to trade in things its members have deemed illegal?

I tell you what, I will support this decision as soon as the WTO forces Smith and Wesson shops in interior China and opens Saudia Arabia to America's pork industry. Until that time, the WTO can stick to doing what it does best, which is...um....making bureacrats fatter.

On another note, we at MfBJN have created a pool to determine when regime change will occur in Anitgua and Barbuda. What the heck, who needs regime change? I say Antigua for us and Barbuda for our Canadian friends who so lust for a Caribbean paradise. Let the partitioning begin!

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:07 PM   0 comments
 
Rinsing with Ronin

Sorry for the late start, dear reader, but tonight my beautiful wife and I watched a movie together. We watched Charlie's Angels Full Throttle. Yeeks. It was not like watching a video game, it was like watching the demo mode teaser for a video game. In love with its own mojo, and utterly incapable of any suspense or viewer buy-in.

So of course I had to rinse the taste out of my mouth, and I did so successfully with Ronin. Ahhhhh. Jean Reno. Robert DeNiro. Masculinity and stoicism recharged.

Speaking of which, IMDb indicates that Reno has a house in Paris and a house in Los Angeles, and that he actually lives in France part of the year. I don't know what sort of Persephone relationship he has with France, but can't we liberate him somehow and make him an American citizen? He deserves it. The dude is tough.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:36 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
 
Hardware or Software?

Techdirt links to a story about a guy getting charged for putting a keystroke logger on a computer where he worked. Mike at Techdirt says this:
    The interesting thing, though, is the only way they caught him was because he was fired from the company and asked another employee to remove the keystroke logger. In other words, it wasn't any real detective work, but him telling someone. This means, if he hadn't mentioned it, it's likely this would have continued and no one would have noticed. It seems likely that things like keystroke loggers are becoming increasingly popular for those involved with corporate espionage - but it doesn't seem like most companies do much to check if their computers are clean from such programs. [Emphasis mine]
Mike's making an assumption, though. Here's the text from the story:
    A California man who prosecutors say planted an electronic bugging device on a computer at an insurance company was indicted on Tuesday on federal wiretapping charges in what prosecutors said was the first case of its kind.

    Larry Lee Ropp, a 46-year-old former insurance claims manager, is the first defendant charged with a federal crime for using a "keystroke logger," which tracks the activities on a computer and feeds the information back to its owner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said.
Sounds like a hardware keystroke logger to me. What, you don't know what a hardware keystroke logger is? Of course not, you're not the Shidoshi of Paranoia. A hardware keystroke logger plugs in between the keyboard and the keyboard socket on the back of the PC. It looks like an adapter, but it's got memory on it. Whatever you type goes into the memory and then to the computer, too. Bad guy comes along later, unplugs it, plugs it in on his computer, uses an escape key sequence, and copies the log onto his computer. You don't have to break into the 'hacked' system to get it, and there are no software gotchas to deal with.

Also, it would explain why he needed someone to remove it from the PC, wot? Hey, buddy, just unplug my adapter I loaned to the secretary.

Learn your lesson, my students. Always look at the back of the PC before you start typing. I do.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:23 PM   0 comments
 
Try Again, Senator

Medicare's going to run out of money by 2019, its trustees report. And as the sun sets, the whooperwill start shrieking out for the soul of the departing entitlement; only they're understandably chirping at Bush:
    In a conference call with reporters arranged by the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois blamed the Bush administration and its Medicare prescription drug bill for Medicare's shortened solvency.

    'The Clinton administration and Democrats believed save Medicare first,' Durbin said. 'The Bush approach is save the special interests first. ... This is not just about Medicare. It's about the credibility of the Bush administration.'
So you see, Bush and our revered leaders have voted to add a drug benefit which redistributes wealth from workers to retirees, thus accelerating the decline of the entitlement. And Durbin cheeps about special interests.

You win, Senator. The elderly who receive more something for nothing are now a special interest. Those of us funding the free ride are a special interest. We, the citizens and electorate, are nothing but special interests fighting each other for your privileged dispensation or disbursement.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:24 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
 
Thanks for Ruining My Life

Michael Williams has shown me a set of bots that let you play Infocom games in AOL Instant Messanger.

Lucky thing I don't have that installed at work, or I would conduct furious consultations via AIM all day with important colleagues (if anyone were to see it and ask).

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:27 PM   0 comments
Monday, March 22, 2004
 
Sell Me Another One

Jeff Jarvis spends a lot of time championing Howard Stern as some sort of Libertarian hero, I'd like to provide my own Stern Update Rebuke from something he said this morning.

Stern held up recent legislation from Charles Schumer as an example of proper legislation as opposed to bills cracking down on indeceny on the radio. Proper legislation, I guess, is overreaching legislation that does not particularly target Howard Stern.

This new bill makes gang murder a Federal crime and apparently adds a number of related offenses. Schumer's out to Federalize crimes already covered by state statutes (I assume it's still illegal to kill someone in New York) and adds another redundant layer of offenses that short-circuit double jeopardy protections of the Constitution.

This is good legislation because it's specifically not bad for Howard Stern.

Behold your leader, minions, and worship.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:59 PM   0 comments
 
Beat It

I was sort of embarrassed to admit, after homie Owen prompted me, that:

HASH(0x8ac34ac)
You are Lawrence Ferlinghetti! Modern rebel and
owner and proprietor of the City Lights
Bookstore in San Francisco, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti is known for his playful tone and
innovative style. He is MY favorite poet, and
the works of lawrence are always eye-opening
socio-cultural critiques in a light-hearted
tone. He is recognized as one of the most
influential poets of the beat era.

Which famous poet are you? (pictures and many outcomes)
brought to you by Quizilla


Disappointing, as I like end rhyme. At least I wasn't Walt Whitman. Or Sylvia Plath. Or Allen Ginsberg.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:42 PM   0 comments
 
Steve Chapman Speaks

With his relatively orthodox libertarianism, I am surprised the blogosphere doesn't hang on the Chicago Tribune's Steve Chapman's every column (Mondays and Thursdays, kids). Here he is today on New York's newly-unconstitutional vehicle confiscation law (registration required):
    This is a small but important victory for the proposition that Americans should not be punished without a demonstration of guilt. It's also a blow to the government's habit of using law enforcement to snatch property for its own enrichment.
Word to power. Or power to word. Whichever one won't flip the circuit breaker and make me tromp into the litter-cluttered dark of the basement in my bare feet.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments
 
Let's Hear It For Prince

The Prince, that is. By Niccolo Machiavelli. Over at Samizdata, Andy Duncan reviews the book and approves.

I read it in college and have based my view of foreign policy on it. I liked it so much that I was going to name my first cat Niccolo Machiavelli (Mach for short), but I got a girl kitten instead (Dominique Francon, natch).

On a more somber note, Andy calculates the number of books a person can read in a lifetime at 8000. How limiting. Especially since I am not on pace and because I already have 400 of the remainder picked out, purchased, and on my to-read shelves. It's like staring mortality in the face.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:31 PM   0 comments
 
Equivalence

Actually, equivalence makes two things equal. This story about the death of the Hamas leader does not actually equivocate:
    Sharon's government has gone after militant leaders using Israeli helicopter gunships in a controversial policy that has resulted in a number of civilian casualties in addition to the deaths of senior figures in Hamas and other groups.
It's controversial because of accidental civilian casualties. Attacks that target innocent bus riders or train riders or just people eating in a cafe or dancing in a nightclub--that's an accepted, noncontroversial expression from an aggrieved people. They're acceptable, but the Israeli policy is not. Thanks for dishing up the unwritten commentary with the facts, AP.
    Yassin was viewed as an inspirational figure by his followers in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) and West Bank. His death could spur violent protests not only in the Palestinian areas but in the wider Arab and Islamic world, where he was well-regarded as a symbol of the Palestinian battle for independence.
His death could spur violence. Why should it differ from his life?

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:53 AM   0 comments
 
Dismissed

From Lileks today, expressing his fascist nature to the protestors:
    These people want “freedom,” but only for themselves. Freedom to preen. Freedom to flatter themselves that they are somehow committing an act of bravery by Speaking Truth to Power. But they’re speaking Nonsense to Indifference.
Speaking Nonsense to Indifference. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. But print it out first.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:19 AM   0 comments
Saturday, March 20, 2004
 
Who's Your Multi-Blogger?

Check out Pop-Up Mocker, wherein I mock various and sundry pop-up and pop-under ads.

I won't tell you again!

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:07 PM   0 comments
 
Not Worth My Time

Free clue to banks, financial institutions, and my creditors: Online bill paying is not worth my time nor trouble.

The Washington Post's Leslie Walker muses on online bill paying, but she focuses on the glitzy side:
    Some things you expect to be no-brainers online turn out to be as tricky as a Rubik's cube. Bill payments fall into that category. Nine years after the Web went commercial, many large Internet players are still trying to piece together the electronic-bill puzzle.
The puzzle, I assume, is to do it effectively. Which would mean profitably, of course, but the people behind the online bill paying maelstrom need to remember an important thing: it's got to benefit consumers as well.
    America Online is the latest to believe it has found the answer. Launched on Tuesday, AOL Bill Pay lets AOL members pay 2,500 different billers from a single menu. The service is free to subscribers even though AOL is paying a partner, Yodlee Inc., an undisclosed sum to do the heavy lifting behind the scenes.
America Online, unfortunately, you are nothing but the mechanism through which the money would flow. You can pay 2,500 billers? Big whoop. My checkbook is virtually unlimited, as are the more secure money orders. The number of people you can pay are not the stumbling block.
    Increasingly, online bill paying is becoming a strategic tool used by large businesses to reel in and retain customers, especially since it appeals strongly to folks with high incomes and lots of monthly bills. Banks and other financial institutions have been falling over one another in the rush to offer free online bill payments, based on a belief that customers who take the trouble to set up the accounts will remain more loyal than those who don't. So far, one-third of the nation's largest banks and brokerage firms offer free Internet bill payments, according to financial research firm TowerGroup.
Okay, so large businesses will accept bill payment through this medium as a means to reel in and retain customers. Hmmm. So what? What's the advantage over cash, check, or money order? I reckon it might be cheaper or more instantaneous for the recipient who accepts online bill pay. After all, the money's sucked from the payer's account into your coffers immediately, without the need to hire a bunch of letter openers.

But what's the benefit for me, the payer?

Let's face it. As far as these online bill paying schemes go, the people whom I can pay are still limited. A user cannot necessarily pay everyone whom he wants to pay, and so the user is expected to make his life more complicated using a variety of different mechanisms through which he can settle his accounts.

As Walker points out in her piece, she doesn't want to spread her secure financial information too much throughout the Internet--yet, the recipients, and the companies who play middlemen, all get the data. It's a security risk multiplied by the number of payees and middlemen. Any one of them could get hacked and suddenly, I am buying computers for Romanians.

Worse, if anyone of these entities has a mere computer glitch, suddenly my bank account is empty and all other checks, debits, and withdrawals are bouncing, and my bank is charging me an extra $20 a day to remind me that my account is still empty. I have seen enough critical defects outside the financial industry to recognize how tenuous the Web is and to put my actual information--and my credit rating--on the line.

In exchange for assuming these risks, what do my creditors and the online bill-paying industry offer me? Convenience.

I say: Not good enough.

So as a consumer, I am expected to incur the risks of theft, identity theft, and defect-related (unreversible) Insufficient Funds notices for mere convenience, while the person I am paying gets instantaneous access to the cash at a lower cost to the creditor. Sometimes I can pay extra for these goodies, too. You know what? Maybe I am not high enough income to be a target for this scam, but I am damn happy to expend the cost of ink, eight cents for a check, and thirty seven cents of postage for my peace of mind.

So my question to my creditors is, "What's in it for me?"

All of you in the online bill paying industry ought to come up with a better answer than "Convenience." Paying bills is never convenient. Show me the money.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:54 PM   0 comments
 
Announcing the Kittinger Award

Andrew Sullivan has a number of awards that he dishes out to people who say something foolish. It's high time I was self-important enough to announce a special award and give it out periodically. Ergo, I hereby announce the Joseph Kittinger, Jr., Award for Demonstrable Manliness, named after Joseph Kittenger, Jr., who had gall as big as church bells.

Unlike Sullivan, I won't nominate people and then present a single award every year; when I see something inspirationally manly, I shall award it on the spot.

The first official Joseph Kittinger, Jr., award winner: Mark Bartholomew of Allentown, Pennsylvania:
    Most people would try to avoid an out-of-control car -- but not Mark Bartholomew. He used his truck to block a car that was repeatedly bouncing off a highway median in the Allentown, Pennsylvania, area on Monday. The woman driving the car says she passed out after having stomach pains.

    Other drivers swerved to avoid the car, but Bartholomew noticed the driver appeared to be unconscious.

    He pulled ahead and allowed the car's front bumper to hit his truck and gradually slowed it to a stop. The driver of the car calls Bartholomew "a lifesaver."

    Bartholomew says he doesn't worry about the vehicle damage, saying, "what's a vehicle compared to a life?" Besides, he adds, "it's a company truck."
A heroic act and a snappy wisecrack line. Mark Bartholomew, we here at MfBJN salute you, and quite frankly hope we never have to replicate your actions.

(Link seen on Fark, whose founder Drew Curtis probably covets the Kittinger Award and thinks founding Fark should be enough.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:17 PM   0 comments
 
It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power

Madfish Willie links to a bit on the Lush Lexicon, the buzzwords slurred amongst those of us who enjoy a good case of beer every night now and then.

Very clever.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:06 PM   0 comments
 
Tech Professionals Suddenly Anti-Free Markets

Funny, I seem to remember about six years ago that all of the IT professionals in the world were all for the free markets, especially since those free markets meant that the IT professional's next job in six months would yield a 20% salary raise. Oh, how shallow the sentiments ran.

According to CNet, the IEEE has come out against outsourcing:
    In a policy statement, IEEE-USA said U.S. government procurement rules should favor work done in the country and should "restrict the offshoring of work in any instance where there is not a clear long-term economic benefit to the nation or where the work supports technologies that are critical to our national economic or military security."
I agree with the bit about security, much as I think the country should have manufacturing capability to build B2s when every other country is against us, but I don't think the government should prop up an overpaid bunch of undercompetent IT workers. Let the marketplace do its work and return those who cannot produce quality, and inexpensive, hardware or software back to the retail or services industry where they belong. If you alone are making twice the national median income or more for a family, stop begging for sympathy and complaining about workers who can support an elevated personal standard of living for less than you can.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:04 PM   0 comments
 
Is the Worm Turning?

As you might know, I've always said that one of the earmarks of a good downtown area is grocery stores. I haven't determined if it's a symptom, cause, or symbiosis that vital downtown areas with actual, you know, residents, have grocery stores. For much of my adult life, downtown St. Louis has been bereft of basic foodstuffs and residents. Now, however, the loft dwellers and homeless will have somewhere to shop, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Downtown bags two hungrily awaited groceries [sic].

Now, how about some housing that's not provided by Larry Rice or that costs $300,000?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:50 PM   0 comments
 
Call Your Travel Agent

Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story on the front page of its Travel and Leisure section entitled Angola sheds its image as nation's bloodiest prison.

What does it say about the state of Louisiana, or the author's view thereof, that the only attractions associated with Louisiana are plantation houses remade into bed-and-breakfasts and prison?

Please, don't e-mail your responses. I'd rather not know what it means.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:47 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 19, 2004
 
Snail Spam Dilemma

Which of the fourth-class junk mail envelopes that arrived for me today should I open first?
  • Urgent Update - Stop Hillary Now: Help NRA-PVF DEFEAT the "Clinton Candidates" of 2004

    or

  • How you can help our new Democratic nominee, return address of James Carville, Democratic National Committee
Perhaps I should do a reality-television like poll about it, but there's always the chance you whacky, Kerry-loving "friends" would make me open the DNC one at all.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:39 PM   0 comments
 
Searching for Software Tester

   Sometimes, on long days on the job, I hear the voice of Ben Kingsley in my mind, paraphrasing those lines from Searching for Bobby Fischer:
    Bruce: Do you know what it means to have "contempt" for the software?
    Brian: No.
    Bruce: It means to hate it. You have to hate it, Brian, it hates you.
I've never actually seen the movie, but I do hear Ben Kingsley talking to me, oh yes I do.

I don't even play chess well.

On long days, my mind just wanders.

Long nights, too, I guess.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:00 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 18, 2004
 
Heather Exposes a Double Standard

So I point my beautiful wife to this Fark photoshop contest because it's about a cat and she likes cats. "That one with Natalie Portman isn't bad," she says.

My friends, do you see the unjust double standard at work here?

Picture of cat scratching scantily-clad Natalie Portman = not bad.
Picture of Brian scratching scantily-clad Natalie Portman = exhibit in State of Missouri vs. Heather Noggle capital murder trial.

I ask you, is that fair?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:29 PM   0 comments
 
Book Review: The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz (1959, 1967, 1997)

I know, I know. You're all saying, "Brian, why are you reading a book that goes in the Self-Help / Psychology / Inspiration section?" Easy question.

Because I am a promiscuous book slut. I'll read anything with two covers. Sometimes two at once even. Good, bad, beautiful, ugly, I just cannot stop. Also, I thought the title indicated this particular work was a mind-over-matter, Zen or Hindu ascetic equivalent of Gainpro. There, I admitted it.

It's not. What it is, however, is a dose of practical, populist pragmatism for the masses. Of course, since I spent forty-five thousand dollars and interest on a Philosophy degree, everything relates to Pragmatism, Existentialism, Objectivism, Dialectic Materialism, or Rudimentarialistic Sponteneal Constructionism.

The core message is that you have to believe in yourself and your abilities to make the efforts and to take the chances to succeed. Much like William James's parable of the mountain trail, or Thoreau (a Transcendentalist, not a Pragmatist, don't you think I know that?) telling you to aim high, for men can hit what they aim at. Schwartz directs much of his energy and the book at being successful in business, particularly succeeding in a corporate environment or as an entrepreneur. As such, he does intimate that you can get by with just the right attitude without bogging down your pretty little head with technical aptitude. I've worked for too many project managers who got an MBA from Schwartz's academic successors to heed that augury. I forgive him, though.

I forgive him because the style of the book is accessible and easy to read. Easier than Charles Sanders Peirce, anyway. And since it deals with everyday problems and situations, it makes pragmatism relevant to everyone. Undoubtedly, it's helped the two generations preceding mine, as the book was originally published in 1959 and revised in 1967 before being reissued as a paperback in 1997. So while the concepts are applicable, the book's quaintly dated whenever he mentions salaries, housing prices, or veterans (from World War II and Korea) taking night classes.

So grab the book if you can find it cheaply. It's inspired me a bit, and I've even put a quote from it on my whiteboard:
    Persisting in one way is not a guarantee of victory. But persistence blended with experimentation does guarantee success.
That's better advice than I've ever gotten from an underpants gnome, werd.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:12 PM   0 comments
 
Unions Outsource Television Production

Look, guys! Not only are the Evil Greedy Corporations sending jobs away, but so are the Nice, Defending-The-Little Guy Greedy Unions.
    Philadelphia proved a little too real for The Real World.

    After squabbling with local unions, the producers of the MTV series yesterday gave up on Philadelphia as the site of its 15th season. Taping was to begin in three weeks.
Wait a minute.... You don't think.... The obstructionism and agitation of labor, organized or not, for overpriced wages might have a hand in all outsourcing, could it?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:10 PM   0 comments
 
Curse You, Top Five List!

Gahhhh! My eyes! It's Leonard Nimoy singing "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins".

I could have lived my life without seeing that.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:53 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
 
Book Review: Ghost by Piers Anthony (1986)

In his characteristic Author's Note at the end of the book, Anthony admits:
    I wrote "Ghost" the story, about 10,000 words long, somewhere back in 1961....
No doubt. This whole volume smacks of a sixties sensibilty. The Author's Note describes how long and hard it was for Anthony to get this thing published. It's not that the book is bad, but it is dated with a sixties sensibility.

The plot deals with a time-traveliing ship, the Meg II, sent into the future to search for a source of energy for the starving planet. And maybe some insight into what happened to the Meg I. The world from which the Meg II launches is a slightly dystopian future, where space travel exists but is looked down upon by earthbound residents as a waste of scarce resources. So far, so good.

But the timeship is rooted to its original time by a psychadelic psychic beacon whose connection to its origin time cannot survive strong emotions from crewmembers. So it goes without saying that the free-love rules will lead to strong emotions, and there's a suicide, and suddenly the ship finds another entity moving through time. A galaxy, or a ghost. Once the ship meets the entity, suddenly it's a bad acid trip having something to do with the Seven Deadly Sins and when the crew groks understands the nature of the entity, the book ends.

Incarnations of Immortality, it ain't.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:26 PM   0 comments
 
Buck You, Senator Kohl

Millionaire Senator Herbert Kohl, D-Wisconsin, is starting to make "buy me an arena" noises in the city of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Kohl owns the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, which plays at the creaky 16-year-old Bradley Center:
    The Bradley Center opened in the fall of 1988 and is one of the oldest and smallest arenas in the 29-team National Basketball Association, facts that Kohl conceded would be a surprise to most Milwaukeeans.

    Despite its limitations, Kohl said, the building was in excellent shape.
Apparently, the board that runs the Bradley Center wants to make upgrades, but that's not enough for the distinguished gentleman:
    Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl said Tuesday that it did not make sense to spend $50 million to $100 million to remodel the Bradley Center and said the community would have to discuss in the future the need for a new arena.

    The Democratic U.S. senator, noting that it had been a joy this season to own the team, said spending millions more to remodel the facility "would not extend its useful life."

    Rather, he said, the Bradley Center board ought to consider more modest upgrades to the building that will generate new revenue for the Bucks.
Give me more money, says Don Kohl. Generate revenue for me, he says. Here's what he wants:
    Kohl said the Bucks were interested in a new, eight-year lease with the Bradley Center - "A decent lease," he said - that would include more revenue from concessions and suites and the possible addition of club seats.
A new decent lease? What exactly are the terms of the current lease?
    The Bucks, who pay no rent at the Bradley Center, receive 27.5% of total gross receipts from concessions other than programs, merchandise, and food and beverage sales in the suites. The team also gets 13.7% of gross revenue from food and beverage sales from the suites at all Bradley Center events. In addition, the Bradley Center board paid about $2.1 million more in the fiscal year ending last June 30 to help the team financially.
That's a johnking lease? What can the Bradley Center lease me for equivalent terms? Lord, love a duck.
    Then what?

    "After that, the community has to decide what to do with the NBA in Milwaukee," Kohl said. Right now, he added, "The community is not in the mood to talk about a new facility."
Hey, brah, I will talk about it. How about you use some of that wealth of yours to build your own heinzenjohnking arena, and then you can keep all the concessions and all the total gross receipts and you can rent it out to other production companies for when they want to bring Comcast on Ice to town.

What, Milwaukee might rebel against your enlightened entrepreneurship and its demands upon the city's treasury? I mean, it's been two years already since the taciturn community blew hundreds of millions of dollars building a free sports facility that stands empty even when the Brewers are playing in it. Maybe you better get a cush little cooling-off period before you start sniffing around for a public-private "partnership" where you're the comedian and it's the straight man.

I used to respect you, Senator, but no more. I only wish I could vote against you.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:18 PM   0 comments
 
Blues Win!

Hey, the Blues won. Dallas Drake, Keith Tkachuk, and Mike Sillinger all scored.

I think this team might be just on ex-Phoenix Coyote away from a Stanley Cup.

Can I get a Khabibulin? Khabibulin!

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:22 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
 
Hockey Linx

I'm working on an essay on the decline of the NHL, but I won't post it tonight (if at all--hey, if it's a real essay, I'll try to sell it first, werd). Since it's taken my attention, you, too, should focus on hockey, particularly the violence within it (as illustrated by the Todd Bertuzzi incident).

Go forth and read:
  • This letter to the editor in USA Today from Eric Weinrich, a new St. Louis Blue. A letter to the editor? Wow, I might have expected that from Steve "Harvard" Martins, a graduate of Harvard University, or Mark "College Puke" Rycroft, who used to spend time after a game writing papers for his classes, but not Weinrich. He's responding to a column by Christine Brennan that asserts that hockey could be an easy also-ran in the greater scope of the American sportscape. She's right (a thesis I touch upon in my essay, or will when I get to writing it instead of amusing you, gentle readers). If the NHL folded, fewer people would miss it than the NHL or the NHLPA and all associated stakeholders would like to think.

    (Link seen on American Realpolitik. Welcome to the blog roll.)

  • The Meatriarchy Guy lays into the other American sports in a spasm of defensiveness. Dude, hockey's not one of the big three sports in the (United States') American mindset. It never will be. Stop fighting the apathy, and cheer on your (lesser) Eastern Conference team.

  • Don't forget Hockey Pundits.

  • Also, you Blues fans out there who bemoan the big contracts handed out to a handful of players (Weight, Tkachuk, Pronger) that deprive the team of midlevel scoring help, you're barking up the wrong tree. The money's not the issue. Read the fine print, which offers the players an extra, unheralded extra benefit for signing: four extra weeks of vacation in 2004. A-ha!

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

I know how poorly it reflects upon me, but I laughed at this account of an untimely death as presented on Practical Penumbra.

I am a ghoul. A ghoul, I tell you!

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:00 PM   0 comments
Monday, March 15, 2004
 
Book 'Em, Dano

Courtesy of Jailbait Kelley, I discovered:



You're The Things They Carried!
by Tim O'Brien

Harsh and bitter, you tell it like it is. This usually comes in short,
dramatic spurts of spilling your guts in various ways. You carry a heavy load, and this
has weighed you down with all the horrors that humanity has to offer. Having seen and
done a great deal that you aren't proud of, you have no choice but to walk forward,
trudging slowly through ongoing mud. In the next life, you will come back as a water
buffalo.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:44 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 14, 2004
 
Back at Keys

Good day, fellows.

I am back at the blogging bit after a brief vacation with my beautiful wife in southern Florida.

I've gotten a little tanned (or "sunburned" as we call it here in the Midwest) and have had a number of days of reading, loafing, and general laziness. I haven't touched a computer in four days, friends.

You might not know this, friends, but it's always summer in Florida. Whereas Missouri is about to start into spring, with buds and flowers springing forth after the brown and infrequent white of winter, the palms are always green in south Florida. Every time we visit, I remark that I cannot imagine what living without seasons must do to the psyche of Floridians, or what it would be like to grow up without the physical representations of the passage of time or the school year. Cannot do it.

And if you must know, if your personal commentator (me) has a single flaw, it must be a fear discomfort with air travel. I don't know where this discomfort began; as you might guess, as a poor young man, I had few opportunities to fly when I was young. I flew took two trips via air in my first twenty-seven years of life. I took my third and fourth trips in 1999, but somewhere between there and 2002 I grew very leary of air travel. I don't attribute it directly to the 2001 attacks. However, I did become very aware of how little control I have over the situation, and how few people survive mishaps.

To put it bluntly, Heather and I passed a car turned on its side on I-95 just north of Fort Lauderdale this morning on our way to the airport. She missed the physical manifestation of the accident (except the lane closures); I reported the car on its side and the people sitting beside it, on the median wall, looking sheepish that their parents might find out that they were driving their high-school-graduation present at unlawful speeds after a couple tablets and a couple drinks; in air travel, there are no sheepish survivors ashamed at their choice of transit or response times.

So laugh at me, or mock me, but every time those wheels chunk into their housings on takeoff or the engines change to idle to begin the descent, I notice and begin to sweat. Some people simply trust the professionalism and competence of untold score of personnel involved in the construction, maintenance, and operation of air travel equipment, and some of us can only (however actively) hope that those professionals handle their jobs more competently than some of us handle our household maintenance.

The quality of the library should not be judged by the gaudy nature of its bookends, though, and I had a wonderful time.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:44 PM   0 comments
 
Book Review: Bad Business by Robert B. Parker (2004)

As some of you know, I hold Robert B. Parker in the in the highest esteem. Of course I buy his books when they come out, whether they're Sunny Randall or Jesse Stone, or especially when they're Spenser novels.

This novel represents the best of the Spenser novels. For those of you who are not in the know, the Spenser character spawned the 1980s series Spenser: For Hire which starred Robert Urich. So they're crime fiction. This piece finds Spenser working for a wealthy woman who wants to catch her husband in flagrante delecto for a divorce. The husband turns up dead in his office at a large energy-trading corporation while Spenser's outside tailing, which Spenser cannot abide. Spenser finds himself with an onion to peel; each layer of sex, scandal, and big business leads to another. Red herrings abound. A tightly-crafted plot, and Spenser muddles through with some help from his friends.

Sure, Parker derives some from the Enron scandal and even some from his own previous work, but it's a damn good read and a damn good thirtieth birthday present to the Spenser character and his fans. 'Nuff said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:57 PM   0 comments
 
A Plausible Solution for Social Security

Friends, Roamers, and Countrypersons, I have stumbled upon the solution to save Social Security. No new taxes. No benefit reductions for United State seniors. A solution so simple, so elegant, that we'll have wondered why we haven't thought of it before.

Expel Florida from the United States of America.

Florida has a large number of people who undoubtedly draw Social Security benefits. If only we would throw them out of the U.S., placing armed troops at the Alabama and Georgia borders if needed, we could reduce the number of benefit collectors to workers paying into the system. The anachronistic New Deal payout could go on indefinitely, or at least until such time as we nation of Double Income, No Kids start retiring.

Sorry to Frank J., you'll have to shoot your way out.

Also, a personal note to the silver-and-bald gentlemen at the Palm Beach Gardens Gold's Gym who were lifting multiples of their body weights on the smith machine: Gentlemen, you needn't fear: I shall supplement your income with monthly checks, mailed direct, if you'll promise not to beat the snot out of me when the U.S. State Department gives you a Thugs-Fly-Free visa.

Granted, throwing Florida out has some drawbacks. For instance, the boat people trying to reach South Carolina from West Palm Beach. We'd free up the resources that normally guard the long penninsula coastline, though, so we'd be all right on that. As an added bonus, no more addled people who foul up the election process. Aside from regular voters, that is.

Don't thank me now, and don't expect the media to run with this idea unless I can put some anti-Bush spin on it. Wait, I got it....One Less Bush In United States Government! Perfection! I have nothing more to say.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:16 PM   0 comments
 
Book Review: Freefall by William Hoffer and Marilyn Mona Hoffer (1989)

I brought this book along on my vacation as some light reading for the flight to Florida. The full title of this book is Freefall: From 41,000 Feet to Zero - a True Story. To make a long book short, on July 23, 1983, a 767 bound from Ottawa to Edmonton ran out of fuel in mid-flight. Somewhere east of Winnipeg, the engines just shut off at 41,000 feet. Fuel starvation, it's called. But hey, without any explosive fuel, the passengers only had to contend with dropping from eight miles in the sky at 400+ miles an hour--no fireball needed!

Yes, I brought it and yes, I read it on the plane--a 757, thank you, not a deathtrap 767 like in the book. Some people read horror books about clown-looking serpent demons who come out of storm drains, but they're pikers. You want real terror, put something at stake. Like your life aboard one of those damn contraptions while your read about a hideous plane disaster

You want to know why flying a plane is scary? Because a cascading system of simple failures can lead to disaster. Suppose you've got a fuel sensor, redundant of course with two channels, but instead of getting 5v to one channel, it's getting .9v and the whole sensor blanks out instead of switching to the working channel, and then a mechanic discovers a work-around but the mechanic at the next airport disables the work-around, and the visor-wearing Quebecker fuel guy hand calculates the fuel in the tank by multiplying by the specific gravity of pounds (1.44) instead of kilograms (.8), and suddenly you've got 61 passengers and 8 crew watching personal in-flight movies of their lives on the backs of their eyelids.

I'll admit, the book helped take the edge off of the flight. Its pacing is slow and non-suspenseless. It's as though the authors took a Reader's Digest Drama in Real Life and stretched it into two hundred plus pages. The authors manage to work in the biography of all of the crew, many of the passengers, some people in an unrelated nearby plane, and the complete history of the town of Gimli, Manitoba. The fluff, while adding depth to the book, really detracts from the suspense.

Without appropriate apprehensiveness from reading this book, I had to turn to Heather's uncle in Florida, a former engineer for Pratt and Whitney, for tales of terror. Remember Des Moines? He does, and he can tell you in great detail what happens when a stress-fatigue crack sends a turbine blade through the control cables on the wing.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:21 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
 
Heh

Frank J. (no relation) says:
    Iraq now has a constitution. All they need now is strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma and they'll be ready to go.
Geek!

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:28 PM   0 comments
 
A Whole New Level to Covet

So I used to go to Realtor.com to look for the million-dollar homes for sale in the St. Louis and Milwaukee areas, preferably with some land to go with them. However, Ravenwood has shown me I am a piker, for I had not until now thought about buying my own island.

If only I were an entrepreneur, founding my own company that would lead me to wealth through hard work and a bit of self-made luck.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:26 PM   0 comments
 
I Am Impure

My Machiavellian foreign policy and grasp of reality have doomed me to only a 66 on the Libertarian Purity Test.

I recognize the difference between libertarian and anarchist, thanks.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:19 PM   0 comments
 
These Cats Are So pwn3d

In a piece on Slate, the appropriately-named Jon Katz muses on the difference between calling people "pet owners" instead of "companion animal guardians." The cookie quote:
    My IDA packet contained a testimonial from a Michael Mountain of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. "People of other genders, races and even age groups were once treated as property in this country," Mountain wrote. "Now, it is time for 'people' of other species to be accorded the same simple dignity of being recognized, not as someone else's property but as beings in their own right."

    Mountain couldn't have made the point more dramatically—or offensively. I don't care to jump in with a moral value system that equates my beloved border collies with human slaves. Nothing about this comparison helps animals. It distorts their true natures and diminishes ours.
I will be "guardian" to the fourteen four cats that live here when they start paying the guardian rate. Freeloading entitles you to possession status. Keep that in mind, brother, if you ever find yourself down on your luck and needing a place to crash.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:05 AM   0 comments
Sunday, March 07, 2004
 
A Lemay Accent at the Wrong Time

St. Louis denizens will tell you about the peculiar South St. Louis (County) accent that adds terminal Rs to non-terminal syllables, which turn wash into warsh and toilet into torlet.

So as I was in Lemay this morning, speaking with an aunt, she mentioned coming out of retirement to earn a few extra dollars. "But I don't want another orffice job," she said.

We in your family salute your decision, dear. Be forewarned we shall remind you of this decision into the unforeseeable future to make sure your commitment remains.

Thank you, that is all.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:48 PM   0 comments
 
Quoteable

Government succors the stupid and suckers the rest.

I made that all up by myself.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:27 PM   0 comments
 
Incoming Clue! Everybody Down!

Special message to Roger K. Miller, a newspaperman for many years and a freelance writer who penned this book review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for The Explainer, a collection from Slate.com. Mr. Miller, you finish your review with the following throw-away line:
  • Finally, the answer to one entry - "What Health Benefits Do Congressman Receive?" - raises another question that is, unfortunately, beyond the purview of the Explainer. Which is: Why don't the rest of us have that?

Here's your FREE CLUE!


The rest of us don't get job benefits for jobs we don't have. For instance, you don't get my salary, my health and dental plan, my free, confidential counseling, my 401k match, nor my opportunity to participate in the employee stock purchase plan (ESPP). Hey, you don't get invited to the Christmas party, either. You know why? Because you don't work there!

I get your ill-placed point, though. The government should provide all benefits to all people, regardless of their employment situation, personal ability, or drive to succeed. That's a nice story, Brody I notice you've stopped stuttering.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:46 PM   0 comments
Saturday, March 06, 2004
 
Introspection

Thanks to a little help from Kelley (and a couple of pints of Guinness, I discovered:

.
What Kind of Drunk Are You?

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:28 PM   0 comments
 
Book Review: Time Flies by Bill Cosby (1987)

When I drove to Milwaukee, I listened to a couple of Bill Cosby CDS that were originally released as Bill Cosby LPs in the late 1960s, when Cosby was fresh from I-Spy and before he embarked on the Fat Albert thing and The Cosby Show. If you damn kids don't know what an LP is, Google it. I enjoyed his warm storytelling style of humor and the easy chuckle-style amusement it brings, so I stopped by Downtown Books in Milwaukee and picked up a copy of Time Flies, a book written during the height of his Cosby Show celebrity.

The tone of the 30 year-old Cosby's stories contrast with the book written by the 50-year-old Cosby; the book deals with Cosby turning 50, and he reminisces about his former glory as an athlete and talks about the loss of memory, physique, and other things that come while the eternal footman goes to the coat check room for you. The essays don't mourn the loss with disappointment or rancor, but more a nostalgia. I liked the book and read it pretty quickly.

An interesting, extra poignant moment in the book is when Cosby compares his aging physique to that of his son, Ennis, as they play basketball together. The young reaching its prime, the older recognizing the fundamental shift and the nature of the cycle. Ten years later, the cycle was broken when Ennis died, but seventeen years ago, they played basketball together, and the father thought of his mortality while the son didn't recognize his own.

Unfortunately, the publisher or someone has seen fit to include an introduction by Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D., that really detracts from the book as a whole. Before Cos can start, the doctor has started talking seriously about the prospect of aging and the fears faced by aging people (as opposed, I suppose, to dead people, who are very mellow indeed). We readers could have figured out Cosby's overall message without some therapidiocy slathered onto the actual text before we read the text. Thanks, doctor, for getting me in touch with my inner senior.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 05, 2004
 
Query

A Robert J. Samuelson column in the Washington Post about The Future of the Welfare State (registration required) triggered a thought. When Samuelson says:
    But Europe relies heavily on a sales tax -- the "value-added tax" -- that, in theory, falls on consumption and not investment or work effort.
I think, you know, some people want to introduce a national sales tax, or consumption tax, in these United States to replace the income tax. I hadn't given much thought to the stupidity of the consumption tax, but here's my epiphany: A consumption/sales tax rewards people like Scrooge McDuck who throw all their moneys into savings and vaults but don't purchase things, which keeps the economy going. Of course, when Scrooge McDuck dies, the inheritance tax kicks in and the heirs get less than the sum of Scrooge's savings, which they can save or spend (with applicable consumption taxation). Holy cow, Taxman!

Perhaps less taxes would spur the economies. But less taxes means less government dole, and how can one get elected with the latter?

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

Via The Meatriarchy, we see government largesse funding an artiste who mocks religion:
    How about a performance artist who:

    "suspended himself naked, filled his mouth with his own blood and assumed the lotus position. In Liaison Inter-Urbain he dug a shallow grave, inserted a vial of blood into his anus and contorted himself so that the blood flowed into his mouth."
I think governments should pay good cash money only to artists who pry out their own eyes with spoons and hang upside down from trees to gain true knowledge. Put that on my 1040 form; I'd check the box to depopulate artists who suck in more ways than one.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:01 PM   0 comments
 
Ya Think?

In an essay on CNet, Dan Schoenbaum states the obvious:
    Instead of exponentially increasing business productivity and allowing us to realize the full potential of our ever-faster and more powerful hardware, software consistently grows more complex, bloated, cumbersome and slow.

    It is no secret that the majority of IT initiatives fail. Software is hard to write, hard to understand, hard to deploy, hard to use, hard to manage, hard to maintain and increasingly hard to justify. We spend billions of dollars building, implementing, fixing and fighting with our software, and yet we demand little in return, meekly accepting that our investments come with no quality or performance guarantees.
Because:
    IT projects fail because we often approach the software development process with reckless abandon. We have thrown the proven engineering principles and processes that other disciplines adhere to right out the window. We are lax in planning, we have few standards and design principles.
The solution is to embrace the concept of total quality throughout the SDLC (software development lifecycle) and hold to the virtues of some other contemporary buzzwords and blah blah blah.

This gets written and discussed ad infinitum, but if ignoring it completely is what it takes to get one more sale in the current quarter, then those are the sacrifices with which we have to live.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:24 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 04, 2004
 
A Nickel's Worth of Free Advice

The St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Association has commissioned a highly-paid professional to come up with some suggestions about improving the business environment in St. Louis, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The consultant offers a couple of suggestions as well as a couple of head pats for what this charming provincial little city on the frontier is doing right.

To summarize:
    Those assets include affordable living, a renowned medical school and several unique cultural and historical amenities such as Forest Park, he said.
That's the head pat. This metro area of two million people has cheap housing, a medical school, and "unique" amenities like Forest Park. That sounds more like Columbia, Missouri.

The biggest drawbacks?
  • Often, however, talented workers leave the region because its corporate culture stifles entrepreneurs and leaves little opportunity for up-and-coming, creative employees, Kotkin said.

  • But in order to compete effectively with cities like Kansas City and Minneapolis, the region must first address several obstacles, including "standoffish attitudes toward outsiders, as well as a legacy of racial divisiveness," Kotkin said.
Uh huh. Neckties too tight, xenophobia, and racism. Platitudes, platitudes, and more platitudes for $75,000. I think I want to start a company called PlATTITUDES! and get in on this racket.

Here's my nickel's worth of free advice, St. Louis (and I address the city because no one else in the country understands the extreme difference between the city of St. Louis and the rest of us in St. Louis County):
  • Elevate the level of the elected officials in St. Louis. Let's face it, if they're peeing in trashcans during debates or pouring a pitcher of water on the adversaries as directed by the voices in your head, they're not governing, and they're only serving as trivial punchlines. This is what people from around the country see in your city.

  • Instead of world-class, tax-funded sports facilities for football, baseball, hockey, basketball, la crosse, volley ball, arena football, soccer, and tournament bridge, how about some world-class roads instead of the cheese graters you have downtown? I don't have an off-road vehicle. And I don't go downtown.

  • Hey, how about some tax cuts? I mean, I don't live or work in the city because I don't want to pay the one percent of vig the city taxes off of my earnings to pay for commissions that recommend world-class sports facilities and then paying for luxury boxes in said sports facilities for said commissions into perpetuity.

  • Hey, has the state removed the accreditation for your schools yet?
Hey, my advice's free, and it's better than the stuff assembled as a discussion of the $75,000 answer:
    Some ideas already have been developed by a group of young professionals assembled by the RCGA to discuss the report. Those ideas include creating a system to welcome new workers to the area, devising a mentoring process to link executives with younger workers and establishing an annual entrepreneur contest.
That's what you get when you assemble young professionals whose neckties are too tight.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:33 PM   0 comments
 
Ten Women in History Who Weren't Important to Anyone But Modern Journalists

MSN has a bit on Ten Women Who Changed the World, and I didn't realize it was getting to be chick history month again. Upon further review, perhaps it's not, since MSN and its content partners iVilliage and/or Lifetime put their logos on this list of important women:
  • Amelia Earhart
  • Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Betty Friedan
  • Shannon Faulkner
  • Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  • Margaret Sanger
  • Elizabeth I
  • Mother Jones
  • Jackie Kennedy Onassis
  • Katherine Graham
:: cough, cough ::

Excuse me? That's the best this particular person could scratch up for women who changed the world? An aviator, the wife of a president, the wife of a president and then the wife of an industrialist, the wife of an aviator, a college student, someone responsible for birth control promotion, a queen, an union organizer, a feminist academic, and a journalist?

This sounds more like Ten Women Who Made A Young Columnist Able to Do A Simple Job She Likes and Sleep with Whomever She Likes on Her Way To Marrying Well. This isn't Ten Women Who Changed History. This is Ten Women Who Enabled Sex and the City.

The only members of the list with which I agree are Elizabeth and maybe, maybe Eleanor Roosevelt. But jeez, if you want to hit women who have changed world history, here's a short list of world-wide (and now dead) heavy hitters from the top of my head:
  • Dido, the original, not the pop singer, you damn kids.
  • Elizabeth I, okay, she was tough.
  • Joan of Arc, kept the French from surrendering and speaking English.
  • Boadicea, who led a people.
  • Cleopatra, who ruled an empire.
  • Mother Theresa, who arguably helped a lot of people.
  • Susanna Rowson, who had the best-selling book in early America, until
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote an abolitionist novel that outsold it.
At least the writer of this piece didn't pick Viola de Lesseps, for crying out loud.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:35 PM   0 comments
 
The Black Card

Snopes has a wonderful right up on the American Express Centurion card. It's so exclusive, it's by invitation only, and it carries a $2,500 annual fee.

I want one. Please hit the PayPal jar to the left. Thank you, hordes.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:10 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
 
Punk'd

Wizbang! points out that the story in this post about a guy who wore a devil costume to see The Passion of the Christ was a spoof.

But it can't be. I saw it on Fark, so it's gotta be true. Next you're going to tell me is that the things in their photography ontests are faked.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:49 PM   0 comments
 
Keep Perspective

Via the Ranting Professor, I came across a bit in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (registration required, but go ahead and tell them you're Bud Selig) about how the coastal upperclass media types view members of their audiences who are not from those silly little states across which you can drive in an hour.

Yummy bits:
    Questions are not being asked. Meanings are not being interpreted. Certain neighborhoods are not being visited. Certain lives are not being explored in a meaningful way. And, through the prosecution of basic journalism, agendas are being set that do not reflect the way the other half, without the bulging 401ks, lives.

    For instance, how many people on air or in print came from families that had walked a picket line? How many know how to bait a hook or gut a deer? (I'm bad at both.) How many have felt the economic insecurity that stalks the working poor? (And I'm not talking about the few weeks at college on the Ramen noodles diet.)

    How many have had real experience with the criminal justice system, who have had home visits from social workers, who have scrambled to call the probation office, who know the awful taste of government cheese?

    My feeling about the growing social distance was reinforced most personally during the investment of Wisconsin by the national press. I traveled with the Howard Dean camp, and there saw again how the elite media outlets employ people who, when they dip into smaller places away from Dupont Circle in Washington or the Lower East Side in New York, treat it as some sort of anthropological adventure.
It's not just the media who do this; it's any condescending person who thinks that New York, D.C., or Boston is the center of the whole universe, not just the condescender's. By the same token, we must remember, too, that our Midwestern experience is not the end-all be-all, even if it's down to earth and touch with physical reality. As individuals, we should keep some open minds toward all kinds of experience, even if it's Ivy League education; just recognize that each experience offers perspective which might provide insight into different situations. It's always a good idea to mix a cleric in with your fighters and magic user when you go dungeon-crawling.

And another point: USDA cheese doesn't taste awful. It tastes like cheese.

Thank you, that is all.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:42 PM   0 comments
 
Voyeurism

For those of you who, like me, enjoy seeing a little tail in windows, click here.

Not safe for work if you work for a big corporation that totally bogarts Admin rights on your PC, werd.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:33 PM   0 comments
 
They Gave A Demonstration, But No One Came

A mother whose daughter was killed by a drag racer wants vengance to deter future teenagers from acting stupid:
    The mother of accident victim Megan Landholt urged a stiff prison sentence for a teenage street racer who pleaded guilty Monday in the collision that killed her daughter in south St. Louis County last year.

    Barbara Landholt said she wanted to make an example of the driver. She told Judge David Lee Vincent III that Jeremy Ketchum "and people like him cannot go on and think that this is not a big deal. We have a chance to set an example here. A message has to be sent to the drivers of these cars."
I don't want to knock this woman's pain, but kids getting into their cars on Saturday nights don't read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or their court dockets to keep up with the consequences of their actions. They don't think about their actions, much less the consequences. Automobile accidents, death? That happens in another school district every couple of years.

So putting the guy who killed your daughter in prison for a long or short time won't do much for the greater good, and it probably won't save another daughter from a drag racer, drunk driver, or cell-phone yakker. It will, quite frankly, end the life of another, albeit dumber, kid, and maybe that's just retribution. Iit's not, however, an example since not many are paying attention.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:38 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
 
Lite Posting Because We Sucks

So go read Hockey Pundits instead.

(Link seen on The Patriette.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:54 PM   0 comments
 
Maybe They Ought to Make It A Felony

Looks like someone's got the bright idea that cops ought to pull over people who are not wearing their seatbelts as a primary offense. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that some institutionally-important, but realistically-challenged hack explains:
    "Enacting this bill is the single most important life-saving and deficit reduction measure you can take this session. It costs nothing, but will save much," Healing said in prepared remarks to the Senate Transportation Committee.
That's a bit frank, isn't it? After all, we could make the world safer if we only made driving without a seatbelt a felony, but that wouldn't exactly produce revenue, would it? We could make the world much safer by putting private citizens--you know, the only ones who hurt themselves--into straight jackets and feeding them Ritalin.

Jeez, just what I need, the ability for a cop to pull me over because he thinks he saw me without a seatbelt. Speed can be measured from outside the car. Driving without a brakelight, ditto. But seeing whether the people in the car are wearing seatbelts is not something easily seen from someone outside the car. It's an excuse to pull people over, and a damn lot of work for a cheap ticket.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:49 PM   0 comments
Monday, March 01, 2004
 
Vote Mom for Unfree Markets

Gee, Thanks, Mom, for sending me this unenlightened e-mail forward:
    >A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it's a free market.
    >
    >
    >A toy company can outsource to a Chinese subcontractor and claim it's a free market.
    >
    >
    >A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim it's a free market.
    >
    >
    >We can buy HP Printers made in Mexico. We can buy shirts made in Bangladesh.
    >
    >
    >We can purchase almost anything we want from many different countries BUT, heaven help the elderly who dare to buy their prescription drugs from a
    >Canadian (Or Mexico) pharmacy. That's called un-American!
    >
    >
    >And you think the pharmaceutical companies don't have a powerful lobby?
File this under When AOL Members Vote!

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:15 PM   0 comments
 
Lest I Forget

Visit GDay Mate. That Australian's got a set o' Information-systems-industry-venom sacs on him.

I'm almost surprised I haven't seen Steve Irwin holding him by the arse on Animal Planet.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:10 PM   0 comments
 
World Stops, Briefly

Holy Toledo, and Santa Akron, but the SFGate Web site has a reasonable column on't. Jennifer Nelson explains how the reaction to The Passion of the Christ shows the media's disdain for Christian religion.

Excerpt:
    No matter what your religious affiliation is, the story of Jesus Christ is an interesting and compelling story of human behavior. I am not Jewish, but I would love Hollywood to produce a major motion picture about Hanukkah, which commemorates the victory of the Jews over the Hellenistic Syrians and is an important lesson in religious freedom. But if such a movie were made, do you think the Hollywood elite would wrinkle their noses and ask, "What would propel Spielberg to make a movie about Hanukkah?" I don't think so.

    In the end, Gibson, who is a conservative Catholic, spent $30 million of his own money to tell a story he believes is important. Every week, movies are released that some filmmaker feels is significant. So, in the spirit of the message on bumper stickers I see on Volvos in Berkeley, "If you don't support abortions, don't have one," if you don't like Gibson or his religion, don't go see his movie.
Johnk yeah!

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:34 PM   0 comments
 
Protest Too Much

So Jean Boutros Boutrous Aristide claims says U.S. forces kidnapped him because they wanted him out of power. United States officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Scott McClellan have issued denials. How stupid is that?

A more appropriate response would be for Donald Rumsfeld to stand behind a podium and say, with all appropriate hand gestures:
    Question: Did the United States Special Forces kidnap Jean-Boutros-Boutros Aristide?

    Rumsfeld: You need to ask yourself this question instead: Do you think that the United States armed forces and their special forces have enough technology and expertise to perform an operation of this nature. Look at Aristide. One day, he's the unpopular ruler of an oppressed country, and then suddenly he wakes up in the savannah with just the clothes on his back and a cell phone with which to call everyone he knows to complain, to ask for cab fare home, or to plead for some anti-lion underwear. Do you think that the special forces within our country can insert into hostile territory, infiltrate a tyrant's security, tranquilize or otherwise stun him, extract him, fly him half way around the world in a matter of hours, and deposit him into an environment that is both alien and hostile to him. Do you imagine Iranian clerics shocked to find themselves nuzzled by caribou in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or Fidel Castro coming to alone on a road on the Isle of Wight, or Kim Jong-Il awakening one night in a Philadelphia crack house, surrounded by gang bangers. What, do you think Aristide's departure was a trial run of some sort? Are you all planning to be the next Tom Clancy with these plots?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM   0 comments
 
Maybe God Only Saw Fit To Strike Him With Gummi Bears

In Indiana, a college kid decided to wear a devil costume to a screening of The Passion of the Christ. In the self-aggrandizing manner adopted by college students everywhere, the kid explains himself thusly:
    When asked what he hoped to accomplish by his actions, Wendell said he likes doing things to get a reaction. He was also inspired by a biography he read about the Marquis de Sade.

    De Sade was an 18th century writer who caused scandals with his libertine behavior in pre-revolutionary France. De Sade was once arrested for desecrating the Holy Eucharist to see if God really existed. Wendell said his stunt was along the same lines.

    Wendell, an atheist, said, “If God really existed, He would have struck me down for dressing as the devil.” He also wanted to prove “that Christians aren’t as forgiving as they portray”. Wendell says his actions were also partially due to a genuine dislike of Mel Gibson.
Buddy, maybe God didn't see your hijinks as worthy of the amperage involved in a lightning strike and had a more fitting punishment for you:
    Once inside the movie, Christians began pelting Wendell with Gummy Bears, Ju-Ju Bees, and popcorn. Management got involved after a 75-year-old woman, Hazel Meyer, poured a 64-ounce Coca-Cola on Wendell.
(Link seen on Fark.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:26 AM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."