Musings from Brian J. Noggle: October 2004

Book Review: Judge Me Not by John D. MacDonald (1951)

I bought this book from my aunt at our semiannual yard sale, and I insisted upon paying her the whole blooming quarter because I don't want to have her come begging from money from us when Social Security collapses. Also, I like John D. MacDonald.

I have to admit that this is the most exciting tale of a City Manager I've ever read. Of course, the city manager and his assistant are going to rid a small town of the syndicate, which this book charmingly misspells as maffia because it was written before the Godfather came out. The Maffia don't want to go cleanly, and before the 160 pages elapse, murder, kidnaping, and other various mayhem erupts. Also, there's a fair amount of sex.

I grew up on these potboilers, or at least kettlewhistlers, and I've forgotten how much fun they are to read (and they're very instructive, too; for example, one can learn a lot about how to treat members of the opposite sex, particularly women of the night with hearts of gold). So I ventured to Downtown Books this weekend and bought a couple more.

I wonder if John D. MacDonald, churning several paperback originals a year throughout the 1950s and 1960s, could imagine how well his books would hold up so that some punk kid in the 21st century would read them and find inspiration.

I bet he didn't.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:23 PM 0 comments

Book Review: Interior Desecrations by James Lileks (2004)

I bought this book on the remainder rack at Borders for $1.00. It's by a relatively obscure columnist from Minnesota....

All right, all right, I bought the book full price, okay? Lileks gets his fifteen cents of my money. Not that he needs it with his following, wherein acolytes daily stoop at his altar and do whatever his voice commands them.

The book features photos of mod (er, sorry, slang from the wrong decade) rooms depicted in interior design magazines from the 1970s interspersed with Lileks' wit. Undoubtedly, most of them are outliers on the stylishness scale, but you've got to see them to believe them. Sure, it's a rip-off of an X-Entertainment feature from a couple years back, but hey, Lileks has the pull to get it into print.

That aside, I liked this book more than I liked The Gallery of Regrettable Food because man, I can remember what it was like in the 1970s. A lot of the rooms in the book were in finished basements or in attics turned into additional bedrooms. Who has those now? Out here in the suburbs, houses are carefully crafted to have no space into which you can expand.

Also, this book reminded me of my red velvet table. You see, when I was in middle school, my family received a houseware which was essentially a cable spool wrapped in a shaggy red fabric. It's a trailer park thing, you dig? When we moved into an actual house, we brought it along. I took it to college. I brought it home from college. I moved it to my apartment. Hey, it was a functional piece of furniture, of which I had a full eight in my apartment. Then it ran (or rolled) headlong into my wife, who has taste.

So I could relate better to this book because, quite frankly, but a birth a couple decades too late, I could have decorated like this. Actually, some of it's kind of interesting. So I might yet. Also, Lileks's text is shorter and more less linear than in TGORF, where he examined entire cookbooks in detail and each section ran on beyond its natural lifespan. With only a photograph to go on, Lileks' quick humor fits better. Also, I read it in a night.

And I have a collector's edition, which contains an incomplete word wrap erratum in the the author bubble on page 11. So run out and get yours before they correct it in the next printing. I read this book in Milwaukee, though, a city where no one can spell anything anyway, so this error was only one of many, many I encountered this weekend so I'll let Lileks off easily by not crippling his Web host with a Briantrickle from this review. Hey, it's almost the least I could do.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

Watch This Space

Here's a story in the New York Times: Ethnic Clashes Erupt in China, Leaving 150 Dead. What ethnicities?

Violent clashes between members of the Muslim Hui ethnic group and the majority Han group left nearly 150 people dead and forced authorities to declare martial law in a section of Henan Province in central China, journalists and witnesses in the region said today.

I don't think China will have a long term problem with Islamicism because it will take extreme measures early. So take some comfort, fellows, that Sharia law will never encircle the globe, for even if we cannot stop it, there are other competing civilizations that can and would.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM 0 comments

Book Review: Highlander: The Element of Fire by Jason Henderson (1995)

I bought this paperback (oh, the horror, the horror!) from the local library for a quarter. Heather and I, although we're upper middle class, we're the evil upper middle class who buy books second hand so the poor starving artists don't receive their pittances and from the library for less than the books are worth as sort of another tax break for us. Muhahaha!

So what you've got here, basically, is a book about immortals that was published ten years ago based on a movie that came out twenty years ago. Wrap your heads around that. Man, where was I ten years ago? Working as an assistant editor at a magazine and moonlighting as a produce clerk, which is where I was when I got the call that my father died. Man, that's a heavy thing to come up from a cheap little multimedia tie-in book like this, but wow, has it been ten years since that syndicated television show aired? Yessir.

This book, which might have been the first in the series, features the characters from the movie and the series and they run about, lopping off other immortals' heads, which really means that the immortals are only mostly immortal, but if you don't know the mythology of the bit before you pick up the book, you probably wouldn't pick it up in the first place, even for a quarter. But I digress....don't I?

Unlike the first movie and most of the episodes of the television series I saw, this book takes place entirely in the past, with an old immortal who thinks he's a god and who doesn't understand the rules of the Game, which to be honest I'm not entirely sure of, either. But he vows revenge on Duncan and Connor Macleod. 220 pages later, it doesn't work so well.

Sorry to ruin it, but the Highlander lives on to fight in other books in the line. It's not a bad junk read, a bit slow in spots, and I sometimes get the sense that the author has done just enough historical research to mention but not really give much sense of place. But the flaws with the book--that it's written with a definite sense of being adapted from television and lacking in proper setting and mood--come with the genre.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:33 PM 0 comments

Giving Capitalists a Bad Name

Special invective to James Mosby, undoubtedly what Ayn Rand would call a moocher, for this outburst reprinted in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch Business story entitled "Companies can call the shots on office space":

"It's an unfair playing field," said James Mosby, a vice president with the commercial real estate firm Colliers Turley Martin Tucker.

"There's a lot more office space than there are tenants ... I think it will swing back in the other direction in the future," he said. "But whether it's 12 months or 24 months, I just can't say."

Undoubtedly, Mr. Mosby and his firm desperately need corporate tax incentives and other handouts to continue constructing empty office buildings and parks. Still, Mosby plays to the Post-Dispatch's favorite type, that of the wealthy businessman or corporateman who only thinks it's fair if he holds the scarce resource and can demand exorbitant sums for it, preferably from the poor, widows, and orphans.

However, allow me to speak for my small cadre of small-time capitalists without offices downtown and without commission seats, luxury boxes, or connections with the ruling families of our community--and by small cadre, I mean me--when I say, "Shut up and scratch your own back for crying out loud."

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:18 PM 0 comments

Easy Target

I stopped reading an article entitled "Lawyers argue over $50 fee designed to replenish fund that helps poor", before I got to the "The Internationale". Actually, I stopped pretty much after the first couple of paragraphs:

What's $50 to a lawyer? A nice lunch or a designer tie?

For many lawyers, $50 amounts to not even one billable hour.

But a proposal to assess members of the State Bar of Wisconsin $50 to help pay for civil legal services for the poor has led to a pretty strong debate among attorneys.

Without the $50 assessments, the foundation that helps fund legal service programs will be broke and out of business soon, said Deborah M. Smith, past president of the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation.

I didn't make it to the part at the bottom where the socialism-loving journalist decides that she's going to kick in any of her salary to help out. But then again, as a crusading journalist out to reallocate the funds of other people, she's contributing enough just framing stories in a right-minded fashion.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:02 PM 0 comments

Goalie Is Juxtaposition In Hockey and Soccer

While I was in Milwaukee this weekend, the Milwaukee Wave indoor soccer team lost their home opener on Friday night to the Chicago Storm.

But apparently there's more to the story. Because check out this account of the Milwaukee Admirals hockey game that took place the very same night:

Wave goaltender Brian Finley played the entire game and turned away 31 shots by the Grizzlies. Utah goaltender faced 22 shots and made 21 saves.

No wonder the Wave were challenged; their goalie was playing hockey in Utah instead of playing soccer in Milwaukee!

I caught the Admiral game in Milwaukee on Saturday night and have to say that the kid handles skates, pads, and pucks pretty well. I wonder how he does on the turf.

Do you think this would be a good cover letter to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel with my resume and a value proposition that, as a junior sports writer, at least I can tell the sports and the teams that play them apart?

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:33 PM 0 comments

NO YOU CAN'T Fool Me

Just received this important message in my junk e-mail box:

A week ago, we sent you an email asking for help debunking anti-Bush documents. After receiving hundreds of responses, it become clear that all the documents were actually real: the Bush/Cheney DUIs, the Ken Lay letters, and even the bin Laden memo. For more information visit the documents page:

.

We also received hundreds of emails from concerned bloggers that eloquently expressed the problems with the Bush administration. And as we traveled across America campaigning for Bush, we learned more than we wanted to know about Bush's policies. We came to see that this administration is a catastrophe for most people.

As a result, we are abandoning our support of Bush and officially endorsing John Kerry for President. You can read more at the Yes Bush Can web site:

We deeply regret our misguided support and apologize for our previous email. This will be the last email we will send directly to bloggers. If you want to join us in supporting Kerry, you can find out more here:

.

Thank you for your understanding,

Yes Bush Can

I'd blame it on the Democrat counterpart of Karl Rove, but unfortunately this as diabolically genius as they can do. Diabolically third grade.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:03 AM 0 comments

All I Want For Christmas

It's not available on Amazon.com, so I cannot add it to my Wish List, but that should not dissuade you, gentle reader, for buying me a NES Controller Belt Buckle.

You're so thoughtful!

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

Electoral College Defended

Someone in a populous coastal state defends the electoral college:

What should an election system for choosing the president attempt to achieve? Certainly one goal is to reflect the popular will, an outcome that might (or might not, depending on how the system is structured) be achieved with a direct popular vote.

But as the founding fathers recognized, reflection of the popular will is not the only goal.

Another goal is to provide candidates with incentives to broaden their geographic and political bases and to steer toward the center rather than the extremes of the political spectrum.

This, the founders felt, would help reduce the sources of political strife and, in the extreme case, avoid civil war. They understood that passions and irrationalities can afflict mass decision-making under direct democracy.

(Link seen on Roger L. Simon.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:15 PM 0 comments

Too Much Adventure

A Japanese "adventure traveller" is the latest hostage threatened with beheading in Iraq, according to this story:

Japan scrambled Wednesday to win the release a 24-year-old Japanese man taken hostage by Islamic militants in Iraq, dispatching high-level diplomats to the Middle East and launching an appeal for his freedom on Arabic television.

A man identified as Shosei Koda, an adventure traveler from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, was shown pleading for his life in a video released to a militant Islamic Web site Tuesday and broadcast on national TV early Wednesday in Japan. Under a sign bearing the name of the radical Muslim group led by Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, the hooded kidnappers threatened to behead Koda if Japan did not withdraw its 550 non-combat troops from Iraq within 48 hours. That demand was immediately rejected by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Unfortunately, it's more of the same. Although this fellow's impending beheading is barbaric and deplorable, I'd hate to think that foreign policy of any sovereign nation is beholden to the fate of people who foolishly put themselves in harm's way for fun. I sympathize more with workers who put themselves in danger for money.

I'm saddened, too, with anyone who thinks that the foreign policy of a nation should change to spare the life of a single person. This thinking begets more kidnappings and more beheadings, but it elevates those who think it above those rabble in touch with reality; that is, those who recognize that uncivilized human nature is a dirty, base, and ultimately despicable thing in many, if not most, cases.

(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:40 AM 0 comments

The Sound of One Hand Washing the Other

The city of St. Louis is offering tax incentives to keep a heavy-hitting, politically connected law firm downtown: City offers incentives to keep Bryan Cave downtown:

The city of St. Louis is offering one of the area's oldest and most prestigious law firms up to $25 million in tax breaks to stay downtown. While the city frequently uses tax incentives to lure or retain businesses, the benefits extended to Bryan Cave exceed "to a significant degree" those that have been offered to other businesses in the past, according to a confidential letter obtained by the Post-Dispatch.

The city is hoping to lure the firm into a new building. In return, the city would give partial tax abatement for up to 25 years, cut in half the taxes due on equipment such as computers and furniture and provide breaks on payroll and earnings taxes.

Additionally, the city is considering using a consultant paid for by Bryan Cave instead of city workers to do the building inspections for the new property. Such a step has never been taken before in St. Louis.

Not that I am trying to tell St. Louis how to handle its business, but perhaps downtown would have more businesses coming to it if it abated that 1% payroll tax and spent its tax revenue on infrastructure instead of sports venues.

But I work in the real world and don't have an advanced poli-sci or urban planning degree, so what do I know?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:24 AM 0 comments

Impressive Passive

The St. Louis Post-Dipsatch once again deploys the passive voice creatively in a headline: Wal-Mart employee injured after man flees from store security:

Hendricks said the security officials were attempting to stop Taylor from leaving when Taylor put the car in reverse, allegedly causing injury to one of the Wal-Mart employees.

Man, what sort of style guide do they have down there on Tucker that says that injuries done in the course of a crime just happen spontaneously?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:19 AM 0 comments

One Issue

I am a one issue voter.

This issue.

You can believe Kerry would prove better for domestic policy, and you can almost convince me. You cannot, cannot, convince me that his foreign policy will protect America better.

That's the most important job of the president.

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

It's Not a Washington Post Award, But I'll Take It

Well, it's not a Washington Post 2004 Best Blogs - Politics & Elections Readers' Choice Award, but I will take it: Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Your #5 Yahoo! hit for make sex symbol.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 AM 0 comments

Future Trivia Answer

This will come in handy in some future trivia game:

Mantacore.

You're welcome.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:28 AM 0 comments

Cori Dauber: Apostate

Cori Dauber, the Ranting Professor, demonstrates apostasy:

Via Instapundit, rather than just link to the apology, I'm linking to Lileks wonderful response where, as always, you need to scroll down past the blather about his daily life -- unless you care about his trip to retrieve his daughter's Barbie -- but keep reading past the Guardian's apology because the section on Bill Maher and the Canadians is just too good to miss.

Obviously, Dauber does not embrace La Vida Lileks as she should. Why, since I have become an acolyte, I have found more meaning in my life. I clean house amid my paying home-based job during the day. I pilgrimmate to my local Target for household wares. I make snarky and sometimes clever turns of phrase on my Web site (thanks for visiting!). I seek to emulate Lileks in all aspects of my life.

Lileks' daily Bleats serve as a guide for my day-to-day existence.

To call it blather is to undermine my very being. How dare Dauber? How dare she, indeed!

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:58 AM 0 comments

Citywide Controversial Redevelopment

From a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled "Demolition gets under way on 108-year-old building":

Demolition of the Century Building downtown began this week, a major first step in the controversial redevelopment of the 1884 Old Post Office.

The first signs are evident. Piles of rubble lay on the sidewalk - the remains of what was a corner of the 108-year-old building.

You know, I've been a resident of the St. Louis area for well nigh eleven contiguous years now, and that description--rubble on the sidewalk and whatnot--sounds like how much of downtown St. Louis has looked for as long as I remember. Year after year, the same buildings with scaffolding, safety nets, or closed sidewalks to prevent the unused, crumbling buildings from killing passersby.

First signs of redevelopment? That's a good and optimistic way of thinking about it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:52 PM 0 comments

Important Take on International Finance

Bono, of the musical group U2, favors international debt forgiveness, which means he wants anyone who's loaned money to a third world country to allow the loan recipients to not repay the money because that will let the corrupt little cesspools to grow into, well, corrupt little cesspools that can borrow money easier.

Meanwhile, on the U2 single "Vertigo", Bono pays homage to and demonstrates his deep understanding of international finance by saying, "One, two, three, fourteen," in Spanish.

It must just be harder to perform calculations and enumerations in other languages.

Hey, I know it's a cheap shot, but I cannot afford an expensive one.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:07 PM 0 comments

Geek Out

A San Francisco magazine offers Dorkstorm: The Annihilation: The ten geekiest hobbies.

Although I score pretty highly, I cannot imagine mixing Collectible Card Games and Dungeons and Dragons in a single person, but then again I am one of the role players throwing four-sided dice in the bloody CCG vs RPG wars that used to take place at GenCon. I mean, for crying out loud, Collectible Card Games take the worst aspect of role playing games--rules lawyers magic users who thought the point of the game was their demonstration of arcane computations and recombinations of magic which invloved spending a lot of a gaming session flipping through supplemental spell books and outwitting the game master--and made that worst aspect a game into itself.

Oops. I guess that little screed probably detracted from my utter sexability more than my creepy Peace Gallery picture.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:53 AM 0 comments

Understatement

Anti-Bush violence in Oregon:

Someone smashed the windows of the Multnomah County Republican office in Southeast Portland on Thursday, perhaps the latest sign some Oregonians have tossed out civility in their zeal to put their man in the White House.

Civility? Civility? This is a little beyond using the improper fork for one's salad or even boorishness. This is barbarism and a descent from civilization. How large a step is it from smashing windows to physical violence or killing Republicans? Not large enough for my taste.

Fortunately, the Democrats in the area have issued strong words:

"But the fact is that the reason the Republican Party is feigning righteous indignation is because they don't want to talk about the 30,000 jobs lost and the 180,000 Oregonians who have lost health care," said Neel Pender, executive director of the state Democratic Party.

Because Republicans embrace vandalism and property destruction on all other occasions, Neel Pender implies as he uses the question about actual physical violence and destruction to hit upon Democrat talking points and excuses the vandalism because some people in Oregon don't have health care.

Unbelievable. No, I take that back. All-too-believable. This is the Teamster party, and this election's more and more seeming like a strike with the Rebublicans playing the role of the despicable, greedy management against the rough-hewn authentic proletariat who just happen to bring molotov cocktails to the picket lines.

(Link seen on Powerline.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:56 AM 0 comments

Looming War over Water Rights

Canada's starting the tough talk that will lead to war over Great Lakes water rights.

Canada's government has a large number of unemployed National Hockey League players and larger numbers of disgruntled fans and they have obviously need a foreign military adventure to divert attention. Invasion is imminent because they'll want to act before faced with the brutal United States spring and summer.

George W. Bush should take preemptive action now. Send the nuclear subs to Hudson Bay! Ferment the Western Provinces Alliance's rebellion! Before it's too late!!!1!!!

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:07 AM 0 comments

Welcome to Our Newest Watch List Member!

The Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker, who openly pleads for someone to assassinate George W. Bush:

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

Lovely. He's inciting assassins. I'm not sure how anyone can defend this column other than his domestic partner, whom Brooker might feed with the proceeds. He's the equivalent of a white man calling for jihad in that he wants someone else to martyr himself/herself for a greater good revealed only to him.

I am going to stop typing now, because the more I go on, the madder I get, and it's too lovely of a Saturday for that.

(Link seen on A Small Victory.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:37 AM 0 comments

Spurious Review: Natural Citrus Listerine

Ech, it's like washing your mouth out with some cheap malternative beverage watered down by a club down on Washington that won't let you in with tennis shoes, and my bathroom has fewer hot chicks with tattoos.

Also, it doesn't burn as much as the regular Listerine, which leads one to wonder if it's as effective. As with an actual dentist visit, one equates sheer pain with success.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 AM 0 comments

Book Review: Caught in a Trap by Rick Stanley with Paul Harold (1992)

Over a number of Guinnesses as we watched the snow fall on my birthday this year, which I spent in Milwaukee helping a friend move, we exchanged book reading recommendations. I suggested Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and my friend, who is a part-time Elvis impersonator and full-time Elvis lookalike, suggested this book. When my beautiful wife and I visited Florida this spring, we went used book shopping, which is our wont, and at The Book Exchange on Northlake in West Palm Beach, the book faced out and caught my eye. So I spent ten dollars on it, because my friend really wanted me to read it.

Well, it's not a hard read. The full title is Caught in a Trap : Elvis Presley's Tragic Lifelong Search for Love. The introduction says the author's goal is not to evangelize. The book is published by Word Publishing. You can guess which impulse won out.

Rick Stanley's mother married Vernon Presley after his wife died, so the Stanley brothers are Elvis's stepbrothers. That's his in onto the lifestyl of Elvis, as his family moved to Graceland when Elvis mustered out of the Army in 1960. Stanley became part of Elvis's traveling crew when he was sixteen, so he had some access.

Still, instead of a straight biography, we get an evangelist building a parable. Two brothers, one really talented and beloved, the other lower key but saved by his eventual conversion to a mid-seventies blue-jeans-and-tee-shirts denomination of Christianity. Stanley relates actual events in Elvis's life, but he adds pop psychological interpretation to Elvis's inner state that emphasizes his parable. He also interjects a number of biographical details from his life, which he sets up as a parallel to Elvis's except for the love of a good Christian woman which will ultimately redeem him from the world of the entertainment industry and the drugs. The final chapter takes place after Elvis's death, where Stanley comes out on his own as a legitimate evangelist speaker, loved by many because he used to serve the King and now serves The King.

The story and the parable and everything are an interesting read; it sounds as though the story would have made an interesting novel of some sort. Unfortunately, it's not a good Elvis biography as the man really only plays a bit role in the greater story the author's trying to tell.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:06 AM 0 comments

Little Pay Gap In St. Louis

A slightly slanted story in the St. Louis Post-Dipsatch lauds:

There's a bit of good news for beleaguered blue collar workers in St. Louis: On average, their pay trails their white collar counterparts' by just $3.73 an hour, the narrowest margin among large U.S. metro areas, Labor Department data show.

In other regions, the gap between blue and white collar hourly pay was as large as $14.12 in mid-2003, according to the data, the most recent figures available.

While there's no clear explanation for the smaller difference in St. Louis, it's likely evidence of a few trends and unique features of the area economy, experts said.

Credit the region's rich union tradition, economists say. And "we have several high-paying manufacturing companies here, like Boeing, the automakers and Anheuser-Busch," said Donald Phares, an economist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.

Blue collar workers in this region earned an average of $17.72 an hour in mid-2003. That put St. Louis near the top, above several areas with higher costs of living. In Denver, for example, blue collar workers averaged $15.55 an hour.

While that's nice, one with a less unionphilic attitude might hit immediately on these other ramifications first:

White collar workers are underpaid in St. Louis, which explains why young people get degrees and leave.
Manufacturers, with an eye on labor costs, won't relocate to St. Louis. Heck, it takes large "incentives" to keep the existing ones here, which means that the blue collared employees and the underpaid white collar employees (and the forgotten pink collar employees--whatever happened to them?) waste a portion of their taxable incomes keeping those manufacturers here. Oh, and fresh new ballparks.

Remember, friends, that every high price is a boon for some seller and every low price is a bargain for some buyers, and you too will understand economics and will be disqualified from journalism.

Also, please note my new favorite made-up epithet: dipsatch. Man, that just sounds like a nasty thing to call someone, ainna?

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 AM 0 comments

Hot Pic of the Day

Cute.

Elevating the discourse.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:00 AM 0 comments

Cardinals Coalition Update

Well, another conspiracy theory blown. Man, ~~if I keep this up, people are going to realize I'm a crackpot~~ once their cover was blown, the liberal sports establishment changed the script quickly, ainna?

Well, I guess we'll have to settle for beating the Red Sox in the World Series since those Yankees had early tee times this winter.

Which reminds me, I don't own any apparel with the Cardinals logo on it, and it's probably a little late to go looking for it this year. It's been almost fifteen years since I had a Cardinals shirt, although I did have possession of a Cardinals hat briefly in 2001 during a five hour rain delay (before the hat became a Christmas gift).

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:15 PM 0 comments

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

A new story on the Internet indicates Bill Clinton wants to be U.N. Secretary General.

Oh, my, think how much more palatable bad UN policy would be if only an American with the misplaced charisma of Bill Clinton were selling it. The United States in the ICC. American military receiving orders from foreign leaders. Global taxes paid by U.S citizens for the benefit of the third world--and the Eurocrats who administer them.

Thanks, but I prefer not to contemplate the impact of an American secretary general on American elections, particularly 2008 when Hillary Clinton might run. I don't want to think about Clinton and Clinton running the world.

I'll personally spring for a copy of Civ III so Bill Clinton can build the UN and call for Secretary General elections any time he wants to without ruining the world for the rest of us along the way.

(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:50 PM 0 comments

A Symptom, Or A Root Cause

By now, we've all heard about the survey that says Republicans have better sex than Democrats. Hidden within this story, we have another symptom, or perhaps a root cause:

Laura Bush will always be, in the public imagination, The Librarian. Even for Democrats, who like to fantasize that behind her smile lurks a curious, even progressive ally, their spy in the White House, reading with her Itty Bitty book light in bed late into the night.

Jeez, Louise, Democrats, fantasizing about Laura Bush in bed and she's reading? That's pathetic. What do you do when you get really wild? Laura, Jenna, and Barbara in bed reading?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:14 AM 0 comments

Humor, or Precognition?

The Best Way to End the Huge Partisan Divide is a Bloody Civil War by Frank J.:

For years now, the country seems to have been split down the middle, and its eating away at the soul of the country. Usually, you have one group get a majority which then pushes around the other side and makes fun of how their children look, but the old way seems so distant now. How can we return to the former status quo? As usual, war is the answer.

Now all Americans will be united and happy, because the liberals will no longer be defined as Americans and will be shot by BBs.

It's been a long time since we've had a civil war, but hopefully we learned plenty from the first one to make this one quick and efficient. It will be quite different, though. For one thing, it won't have a stark geographical divide. Friendly and enemy territory will have to divided on a house to house basis - or maybe even room to room. Also, a big difference is that one side has all the guns since both gun owners and the military tend to be in the right-wing. This should make things easy if planned well.

I would be laughing if I didn't think it was remotely possible.

Ban guns and try to make gun owners turn in their weapons and we'll find out.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:07 AM 0 comments

Cut the Guy Some Slack

So John Kerry is going goose hunting:

Kerry will be out hunting geese today but he's also out to bag more undecided voters.

Kerry adviser Mike McCurry says Kerry's Ohio goose hunt is aimed at giving voters "a better sense of John Kerry, the guy," and maybe win over swing voters who aren't sure they feel any connection to the Democrat.

Lay off him, wot? A man has got to feed his family.

Why, when I was a young man, my father was a carpenter/remodeler whose work fell off in the winter time, and the ducks, geese, rabbits, and occasional deer that my father harvested sustained his family through the hard months of a Wisconsin winter.

Why should it be any different for the billionaire Heinz-Kerry family?

Look on the bright side, at least Teresa won't have to worry about swallowing lead pellets, which was a morbid fear I had as a child because I didn't want lead poisoning as part of my meal.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:49 AM 0 comments

The Conspiracy: Revealed

Am I the only one to see the obvious in how the preordained baseball parable is playing out as designed by John Kerry's campaign team?

The humble Red Sox, from Boston and many of whose players went to foreign schools, go up against a swaggering challenger who is expected to win from the beginning of the baseball season all the way to the actual beginning of the ~~primaries~~ ALCS. However, the Bostoner came from way behind, when all had given up on ~~him~~ the team.

So tonight, when the Houston Astros beat the St. Louis Cardinals and advance to the world series, we'll have the Texas team against the Boston team. Undoubtedly, the Texas team will go up against the Boston team with a win at Fenway, but then the Boston team will win at Fenway, and will win three games in the red state in the heartland to defeat the Texans in Texans.

Yea, verily, the Boston team shall overcome the curse of the which has kept the Massachussetans out of power for so long.

Because that's the way the liberal sports establishment and Hollywood have written the inspirational story for consumption by the beer-drinking rubes in the middle of the country in order to alter the outcome of the presidential election, to energize the base in the Northeast and to depress turnout in Missouri and Texas. The sports establishment think they own us and will stop at nothing to get a new publicly-funded stadium administration in the White House!!!.

Dare I say it? Yes! A Vast Left Field Conspiracy!

And if the ~~endless litigation~~"election" carries on into February, watch for the Cowboys/Patriots matchup in the Super Bowl. With its preordained results!!1!

Excuse me, the helpful assistants here are helping me into a nice warm housecoat, but once I have it on, I won't be able to reach the keys to continue with my revelations.)

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

Cardinals Coalition Update

Cardinals lead Houston in NLCS 3-3.

That's right, I said lead Houston. Even though the Cardinals have only won the same number of games as Houston has, they're the Cardinals, fer cryin' out loud.

Quit your sissy snivelling, New York, and put your back into it. Losing by 7 in the 7th? Are you yellow?

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:37 PM 0 comments

Book Review: The Big Kiss by O'Neil De Noux (1990)

I was first introduced to O'Neil De Noux ten years ago (already) by my friend Stever. He also introduced me to Laurel K. Hamilton, to whom I have introduced my beautiful, but only lightly posting lately, wife. So Stever's gift lives on eight years after he moved to a better job with a better junkyard back east.

I probably read this book when Stever loaned me his collection, but I've been looking for them lately in used book stores. I scored this paperback on our recent excursion to Kansas City, and the fact that I paid two and a half bucks for a paperback should indicate what I think of the series.

Basically, Dino LaStanza's a new homicide cop in New Orleans, and he's quite the hotshot after solving the Slasher case (in a book prior to this one). He's feeling his age (he's ancient at 31) and it doesn't help--well, actually, it does--that he's seeing a younger woman. Like 22. Hey, I know the feeling. I'm ancient at 32, and I cannot keep up with my younger, more attractive, and more energetic wife.

LaStanza catches a whodunit murder--meaning anything which involves more than a percursory investigation--he's in the pressure cooker again because you're only as good as your last case. Except this victim is in the Mafia, and suddenly LaStanza's dealing not only with people who'd put a two .22 slugs in you for no known reason, but with his own Sicilian heritage.

The O'Neil De Noux books are tidy little police procedurals with grit, gristle, and some pretty steamy sex scenes in them. Although they're not Ed McBain, and although the book didn't live up to ten years' worth of idealization, it's a good, quick read. If you can find it. The book's out of print and it wasn't a blockbuster release even in 1990 or 1991.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:13 PM 0 comments

From Worse to Bad

Bad:

The world's whales, porpoises and dolphins have no standing to sue President Bush over the U.S. Navy's use of sonar equipment that harms marine mammals, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Worse:

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, widely considered one of the most liberal and activist in the country, said it saw no reason why animals should not be allowed to sue but said they had not yet been granted that right.

No accusations yet from either campaign on disenfranchising aquatic-mammal-American voters.

Although bear in mind John Kerry communicates with dolphins.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:57 PM 0 comments

Reminder

The James A. Igert Memorial Scholarship at Northern Michigan University accepts donations all year long.

Help a kid, preferably a veteran kid, study the sciences in the U.P.

That's Upper Penninsula to those of you from outside the north, and it refers to the fact that the state Michigan actually comprises two different penninsulas. For crying out loud, look at a map. I'm not making this stuff up.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:51 AM 0 comments

Accidental Insight

Truer insight into the municipal mind was never gained than the following line from a column in the Shepherd Express:

As strong feelings about preserving the City of Franklin's natural areas clash with the need for a tax base to pay for the amenities people need to live there, the peaceful setting this southern Milwaukee County suburb is known for has been disrupted.

Yep, it's not about an efficient, inobtrusive government and a low tax rate; it's about the amenities.

Municipal governments feel the need to compete with other municipal governments' water parks and whatnot, regardless of whether their tax bases can support such ongoing expenditures.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:48 AM 0 comments

The Microsoftization of Google Continues

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch runs this piece of insightful analysis about the new Google desktop searching application:

People who use public or work computers for e-mail, instant messaging and Web searching have a new privacy risk to worry about: a new free tool from Google Inc. that indexes a PC's contents to locate data quickly.

If it's installed on computers at libraries and Internet cafes, users unwittingly could allow people who follow them on a PC to see sensitive material in e-mails they've exchanged. That could lead to disclosure of passwords, conversations with doctors or lawyers, or viewed Web pages detailing purchases.

Spare me.

First of all, many companies closely monitor the stuff filtering through their computers, even those used by individual employees. Yes, Virginia, your computer at work isn't your computer, and you better believe that the creepy guy down in IT (to purloin the stereotype) reads everything you type into it, so don't do anything on it that you wouldn't want everyone else to see. Personal banking, hot e-mails to your wife and mistress, nothing. Expect that you'll get a temp or consultant working in IT who wants nothing more than to snag your credit card or passwords before moving on.

And come on, if you use an Internet cafe, library, or college computer lab for anything but the most mundane Internet browsing, you're already asking for the big hurt. Not only do you have to worry about an IT infrastructure staffed with transients (see above for risks involved with that), but you're also facing other anonymous users installing spyware. I mean, public computers are public.

Unfortunately, the author of this piece attributes these security risks with the Google desktop when the risks actually represent an inherent danger of the computing environments described whether or not Google's desktop has been installed.

Perhaps Google is on its way to being the next big technology company for media and the general population to nip in the flanks.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:29 AM 0 comments

Discriminating Taste III

Would you choose a wine because it was named after a sainted St. Louis Cardinals manager?

Baron Herzog Merlot 2001

Whitey Herzog

You're darn right you would if you were a real Cardinals fan. I'd like to point out it's red wine at that.

Go Cards!

More discriminating taste can be found here and here.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:15 PM 0 comments

Alcoholic Arithematic

Newcastle beers will will soon carry this warning label:

Responsible drinkers don’t exceed three to four units a day for men and two to three for women.

The key word is and, which indicates addition, so responsible drinkers won't drink more than three to four and two to three which is five to seven ~~tee~~total.

Cripes, I wish someone had read this story to me aloud, because I'd prefer the misconception of Responsible drinkers don’t exceed 324 units a day for men....

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:14 PM 0 comments

Book Review: Urge to Kill by Martin Edwards (2002)

I bought this book as part of my initial membership with the Writers Digest Book Club last year, and as all writers who subscribe to that book club want the cheap Writer's Market, and everything else is gravy.

This book looked colorful, and its paragraph description led me to believe it would inspire me in my quest to write suspense novels and mysteries. Well, at least it didn't take too long to read.

The book is a cross between a morbid coffeetable book, chock full of crime scene photos interspersed with movie stills, and an almost textbookish overview of crimes and their investigations. As a matter of fact, the author spends the introduction explaining that he's written textbooks. So he's a credible witness. Until he gets to the Firearms section of the Means to Murder chapter (chapter 2), which starts:

Firearms (other than crossbows, which are occasionally used as murder weapons) fall into two categories: smooth bore or rifled.

And a couple paragraphs later:

Single-shot automatics have to be loaded manually each time the gun is fired.

This section triggered enough doubt about the expert testimony that the author's presenting to look with a skeptical eye on any technical detail within the book, which pretty much rendered the author's claims to authority kinda moot.

Plus, it really only captures and distills the procedures and considerations given to a crime (particularly murder) that one would get from a number of years of Ed McBain, Thomas Philbin, and O'Neil De Noux. Of course, it includes the aforementioned photographs, so the actual text of its 190 some pages only really comprises 110 pages or so, but it's still textbook enough to lack excitement.

Perhaps I'll have gotten something from the page-long case studies in murders from Ted Bundy to the Unabomber to more obscure--to Americans--cases from the U.K. But probably not.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:09 PM 0 comments

Always Check the ALT Tags

As a Web software tester, I always check the ALT tags of images and, much to the chagrin of the developers with whom I work, I frequently take issue with non-parallel text, misspellings, or grammatical errors in the text that displays when a user mouses over an image.

Which is why you'll never see this in a site (or HTML-enabled e-mail) I've tested:

A fund-raising e-mail from a Democratic congressional candidate contained a hidden expletive directed at his opponent, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The expletive aimed at Republican Greg Walcher could be seen when recipients dragged their cursor over an image of John Salazar, who sent the e-mail to supporters Thursday seeking donations, The Denver Post reported.

Sheesh. But I expect the team who put together the piece wasn't concerned with quality.

(Link seen on Instapundit, who needs a link from me like he needs to find a penny on the sidewalk.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:49 AM 0 comments

Google Desktop Deemed Creepy

In a Tech Test Drive column, Mike Langberg finds the new Google desktop useful, but creepy. Why is it creepy?

Desktop Search does three things in particular that could compromise your privacy when someone else uses your computer:

First, the software keeps a copy of all your AOL Instant Messenger conversations. AIM, for many users, is like talking over the water cooler at work -- you say things you don't want preserved for posterity. Until now, AIM conversations with your buddies disappeared from your computer the moment you closed the discussion window. Desktop Search, however, makes a copy of AIM conversations and keeps them forever.

Second, the software keeps its own copy of all your Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail messages -- even after you delete them from within Outlook or Outlook Express. A confidential company memo, in other words, will still pop up during Google searches after you've emptied the Deleted Items folder in Outlook.

Third, the software keeps a copy of every Web page you visit and lists those pages in search results with the date and time of your visit. This even includes Web pages that are supposed to be secure from prying eyes, such as those run by online banking sites.

It's creepy because it shows you the sort of personal information that someone else's servers already store about you and gives you insight into how much information you're leaving scattered around the world.

The fact that it's available on your local machine shouldn't give you additional pause unless you're susceptible to the old ploy of letting a man with a thick Slavic accent whose car has broken down sit at your computer so he can send an e-mail to his mechanic. Or, of course, if your local machine is fundamentally insecure.

Nevertheless, I have given the edict to those machines that I administer that Google Desktop shall not be installed. Crikey, how about you do some organization of your materials and then use the Microsoft Find feature to fill the gaps, wot?

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:00 AM 0 comments

Give the Guy a Break

Okay, so as Ann Althouse recounts, John Kerry came to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and misprounounced braht as braat:

Now, I see in Chris Sullentrop's report in Slate, that Kerry actually did mispronounce brat:
Here in Sheboygan, during a "Kerry-Edwards '04 Brat Fry," Kerry adds to the litany [of regional mistakes] Friday by referring to the local food as a short-A "brat," the way you would refer to a spoiled child. "Brot!" yell members of the crowd. For good measure, Kerry makes the mistake at the end of his speech, too. "Before I get a chance to have some braaats ..." "Brots!!" some women near me shout in frustration.

For crying out loud! How inept do your people have to be, when taking you to a brat fry not to tell you "remember it's brot"?

Okay, so this mispronouncement highlights how Kerry's not really down with the upper midwest pleble, but look, it could have been worse:

He could have called it le Braaat.
He could have called it a "bratwurst sandwich."

Note: This hyperlink refers to an AP photo caption which says "Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., gets a grilled bratwurst sandwich at a campaign rally in Sheboygan, Wisc. Friday, Oct. 15, 2004. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)." The hyperlink doesn't seem too stable, so you might have to click next and previous until you find the photo. Link originally seen on Wizbang!)
He could have pronounced the city name She-boy-band.
He could have made a remark about he wished he could wash it down with an icy cold Budweiser.
He could have praised Mike Sherman, coach of the Green Bay Packers. Undoubtedly, that would have sparked a riot.

So you see, this proves that John Kerry is, as Esquire put it on its June 2004 cover, a political badass. Because he doesn't make as many verbal gaffes as he possibly could.

Not that you'd hear about it elsewhere than blogs or in a column in a small town paper in the region in which Kerry committed the gaffe, because unlike Bush, Kerry is smart, so these mispronounciations and other misstatements are trifling errata, not insight into his insipid chimpish simplicity.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:27 AM 0 comments

Reality, Meet Government

Here in Casinoport the municipal government faces a deficit and wants to raise taxes:

On Nov. 2, Maryland Heights’ voters will decide on several measures, including an increase in the business license tax, proposed by the City Council to address a projected longterm General Fund shortfall.

(Source: The October 2004 newsletter.)

Scientific analysis has determined:

Based on an analysis by the city’s Finance Department, if current levels of revenues and expenditures remain unchanged, the city will face a $4.5 million General Fund deficit over the next five years. Anticipated inflation and cost-of-living increases for city employees are the major forces behind the projected deficit.

You know, I am not an accountant, but if I had to point a finger at underlying causes for a budget deficit, I might look at:

The Aquaport, the city's water park which was constructed when funds were flush and now contributes ongoing expenses, even when funds aren't.
Maryland Heights Center, the city's community center which was constructed when funds were flush and now contributes ongoing expenses, even when funds aren't.
Redesigning the city logo because the old one was 19 years old. Not only did the city get less-than-free help from professionals, but it then had to apply this new logo to all buildings, vehicles, signs, and so on.
The new City Government Center, which will cost $21,000,000 if completed on budget. Again, this will undoubtedly increase ongoing annual expenses.

Thank you. I think a little foresight might have prevented this catastrophe, but the government is only doing its job, which apparently it has conceived of as spending all available taxpayer dollars and then demanding more.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:22 AM 0 comments

Musing

You know, an olive is really nothing more than a salty little grape, no matter what Athena told the Greeks.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 PM 0 comments

The Only Team America Review That Matters

Damn, that Sarah was hot. For a puppet.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:06 PM 0 comments

Sounds Like a QA Problem

You know who's to blame for this, don't you?

NASA's Genesis space capsule crashed in the Utah desert last month because a critical piece of equipment that was supposed to trigger the release of two parachutes apparently was installed backward, space-agency officials said Thursday.

Damn Quality Assurance! They should catch it when ~~the engineers put~~ the switch is put on backwards!

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:41 PM 0 comments

The Most Holy Newspaper Columnist Saith

James Lileks, in his Newhouse News column this week:

As a young and ambitious man, John Kerry famously asked: How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake? Good question. Perhaps President Kerry will explain how you ask someone to be the first person to die for a nuisance.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:27 PM 0 comments

When The Comedian Says, "But Seriously...."

A paid blogger, which is paid less than and is only as believable as a newspaper columnist, named Kevin Drum draws attention to insubstantive issues in the Presidential race:

Look, I don't think it's a transmitter beaming secret prompts into Bush's ear. But as these pictures from each of the three debates shows, there's very clearly something there. The White House can't just blandly write it off as a weird internet rumor when photos from three separate debates all show it.

So what's going on? The Bush campaign has denied it's a bulletproof vest but hasn't otherwise commented. Is it a back brace? A medical contraption? A secret security device of some kind? (If so, it's not a secret anymore.) Why hasn't the White House press corps asked Scott McClellan about this and demanded a straight answer? How can they allow themselves to be blown off about something this peculiar?

Shouldn't someone get a serious answer to this question? He is the president of the United States, after all.

Like a lot of us, Drum confuses earnest with serious, much like academic philosophers confuse authentic with virtuous, real with good, and other concepts that sometimes coincide, but not as often as earnest, authentic, and real people would have you believe.

Unfortunately, although he highlights something and says it's interesting, he really doesn't add anything to the story. Unlike yours truly.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:13 PM 0 comments

VodkaPundit's "Associate" Will Collier: Heretic

Stephen Green, who rumor has it was banished from St. Louis for making a remark about the Chicago Cubs that could be construed as anything other than an insult, allows a guy to use his blog to ~~utters~~ promulgate more heresy:

No drinking-related discussion would be complete without a link to the pride of New Orleans, Chris Rose, who's my personal favorite newspaper columnist. Check out his take on the Presidental debates, and marital relations (trust me, it works).

Green's "associate" has contradicted the blogma that James Lileks is the Most Holy Newspaper Columnist, both regular and extra syndi.

I'd say he should be stoned, but he's already half way there in an airport in Florida even as we speak.

Friends, don't let him plea for mercy with the admission

I once bought a broken Donkey Kong, Jr. arcade game for $35. It took another $12 and about an hour to fix it (it's since been traded for the sweet Asteroids Deluxe that graces my den). Makes me just chuckle in an evil fashion at anybody who pays two grand for one of these.

Yea, verily, for I have looked in the Most Hallowed Tome of the Revered and have found his name lacking. Of course, mine was, too, but I had been removed during an audit after changing ISPs. What's Green's associate's?

Except he's a witch. Or a heretic. Scroll back up and see; I've been on Killer List of Video Games so long in my "research" that I have forgotten what I was accusing him of.

UPDATE: Someone using the name "Stephen Green" in an e-mail has taken umbrage at this post:

Will Collier wrote that piece, not me! And we're up two games to nothin'.

-S.

Upon further review, I have determined that the post on VodkaPundit has been attributed to this "Will Collier" fellow, but as I replied to my e-mail correspondent, I have never seen Stephen Green and Will Collier in the same place. Of course, I have never seen Will Collier or Stephen Green in person, so perhaps I have seen them together and have not known it. But don't confuse me.

Ergo, I have corrected this piece inline in red.

The rebuttal from the e-mailer claiming to be Stephen Green, and indeed the post itself raise two more scandals:

The e-mailer said And we're up two games to nothin'. revealing that he is a Yankees fan or is trying to slander Stephen Green as a Yankees fan. Don't confuse me, I am doing old-fashioned investigative muckraking blogournalism here.
If Will Collier has the Asteroids Deluxe, Green is sacrificing some geek cred by not immediately enumerating his video game collection. Sure, he's got a new wet bar we all covet, but that cosmopolitanism cred, and the exchange rate for pure geek creds is low.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:52 PM 0 comments

Cardinals Coalition Update

Cardinals lead Houston in NLCS 2-0.

Tonight, the Cardinals won and the Yankees did not. Get used to it, New York.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:58 PM 0 comments

Finally, Some Optimism from the Democrat Ticket

In this op-ed piece by John Edwards, the vice presidential candidate explains why residents of middle America have reason to be optimistic if they vote Kerry-Edwards.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:25 PM 0 comments

We Had To Destroy the Republic In Order To Save It

Stephen Green reflects on the Democratic Party's national strategy:

If Drudge has it right, then the Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to do its damnedest to turn our fine nation into a banana republic.

To these guys, winning office is more important than the sanctity of elections. Holding power is more important than the Constitution. Much as I despise at least half of what most Republicans stand for, they don't seem nearly as willing to trash the system they're trying to run. Too many Democrats, especially at the national level, just don't care that our system, our nation is far more important than any single election.

I could mention the Lautenberg Trick in New Jersey. Or Gore's ballot shenanigans in Florida. Or the voter-registration fraud currently going on in Colorado, Nevada, and elsewhere. Or the Democrat's successful call to bring election observers into this country. Bring them in from where, Venezuela? Hey, no big deal sullying the reputation of the world's oldest continuously-functioning democracy, just so long as we can make the Republicans look bad, right?

He forgets to mention Missouri's decision to run a dead Democrat for Senate in 2000. Which, I believe, Al Franken approved of based on his comments in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

In some cases, I think it's beyond a simple lust for power; with naked ambition, there's some calculation. I think that at the base level, some vocal members of the Democratic party and some moonbat fringes of Left thought just must rule the Others in the lesser tribes; the rubes from the middle of the country, the undereducated (which means those who think differently), and those who have that dreaded Christian religion.

Because they're Ubermensch, although undoubtedly there's a nicer term that they use when discussing it amongst themselves.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:24 PM 0 comments

Classical Education Shifts

From this column by Bryan Burwell in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we find how educated allusions have shifted:

Who could leave with the Cardinals and Astros engaged in a highly entertaining, emotionally draining contest that had more lead changes and mood swings than Sybil?

Do you think he means the oracle or the Sally Field TV movie?

What? You don't know what either of them means without clicking the links? You damn whelp, go read IMAO or something. Get offa my lawn!

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:36 AM 0 comments

Kerry Admits He's A Crook

-- MfBJN Exclusive -- Must Credit MfBJN --

Here's telling quote from the debate last night:

KERRY: I want you to notice how the president switched away from jobs and started talking about education principally.

Let me come back in one moment to that, but I want to speak for a second, if I can, to what the president said about fiscal responsibility.

Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.

Help me while I explain the "Interviewed by our WoT allies like Sudan" logic behind this bombshell:

The president is fiscally irresponsible, although he really only gets to spend the money given to him by the legislature, which includes the Senate, which contains 98 state representatives who show up to vote on spending bills. But George W. Bush has truly not vetoed any spending, and he has not squeezed the great self-interested bureaucracies that he heads to offer rebates.
John Kerry is fiscally irresponsible, at least in the vast volume of public spending and programs and giveaways he'd implement if President. Undoubtedly, he's voted for gratuitous spending as a Senator (even though he's tried to balance the social programs with unequally small cuts in military programs).
Tony Soprano, a fictional character, is a criminal.
Therefore, when George W. Bush (fiscally irresponsible) lectures John Kerry (fiscally irresponsible) about fiscal responsibility, it's like Tony Soprano (criminal) lecturing John Kerry (?) about law and order.

Irrefutable logic that seems to have fallen and struck its head while taking photographs of a demonstration in Iran.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:05 AM 0 comments

Cardinals Coalition Update

Cardinals lead Houston in NLCS 1-0.

Come on, Yankees, let's just sweep the respective series and we can start your beating next week. How does that sound?

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:38 PM 0 comments

Wednesday Night Poetry

While you await the much anticipated lottery drawings this evening, stop by American Digest to read a couple of poems by new poet laureate Ted Kooser.

It beats 1700 of Emily Dickinson's collected poems.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:41 PM 0 comments

Good Software Takes Time

In a piece entitled "Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To It", Joel Spolsky explains how good, robust software needs time:

To experienced software people, none of this is very surprising. You write the first version of your product, a few people use it, they might like it, but there are too many obvious missing features, performance problems, whatever, so a year later, you've got version 2.0. Everybody argues about which features are going to go into 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, because there are so many important things to do. I remember from the Excel days how many things we had that we just had to do. Pivot Tables. 3-D spreadsheets. VBA. Data access. When you finally shipped a new version to the waiting public, people fell all over themselves to buy it. Remember Windows 3.1? And it positively, absolutely needed long file names, it needed memory protection, it needed plug and play, it needed a zillion important things that we can't imagine living without, but there was no time, so those features had to wait for Windows 95.

I would disagree with the first sentence though; to experienced people working in the software industry, this might come as a surprise, but to many people in the software industry, good software is software that goes out on schedule or satisfies the terms of the contract; quality and usability don't figure in.

(Link seen on American Digest.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:28 PM 0 comments

Book Review: Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters by Bill Sammon (2004)

My beautiful wife gave me this book for no particular occasion. THIS JUST IN (since she's watching me type this): she heard Bill Sammon on KMOX radio and thought I would like it, but I repeat it was not for my birthday or Christmas or anything.

And then she read it before I did.

I can only imagine the glee with which the historians of the future will dig into the plethora of primary secondary sources for the politics of our time. Tomes such as Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden, Slander, Treason, Stupid White Men, and other commentary by pundits, comedians, and know-nothings, or the books written by the disgruntled government officials, or whoever wants to make a quick buck off of the suddenly bestselling venomous tome collection.

Future historians will find this book more useful, as it tells the story of the Bush administration, particularly in the run up and execution of the Iraq war, and presents the narrative as the Bush administration would want it written. Sure, it's lightly partisan, particularly in the choice of verbs to connect a quote to a speaker who disagrees with the Bush administration, but it's not invested heavily in name calling or scoring cheap points. The book explores how the straight ahead style of the administration often confounds its self-appointed betters.

It's an encouraging book, and it's inside baseball in some places, but you're a political junkie anyway if you're reading this blog. So read the book if you'd like. Enjoy it while it's relevant, before it becomes just one more book in the stacks in some university library where it will end up.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:26 PM 0 comments

Pickup Lines That Never Worked For Me

Hey, baby, care for some excessive palpation ? (Link SFW.)

Let's see how many people click over to an almost-unrelated post on Ann Althouse's blog with that lead-in.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:53 PM 0 comments

Election 2004 Guest Commentary

In an effort to broaden the commentary here on MfBJN, we've sponsored a roundtable-style discussion of Election 2004:

GOZER
Subcreatures! Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveler, has come! Choose and perish!

RAY
What do you mean, choose? We don't understand!

GOZER
Choose! Choose the form of the Destructor!

PETER
Whoa! I get it, I get it. Very cute! Whatever we think of - if we think of J. Edgar Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us, okay? So empty your heads. Empty your heads. Don't think of anything. We've only got one shot at this.

GOZER
The choice is made! The Traveler has come!

PETER
Whoa! Whoa! Nobody choosed anything! Did you choose anything?

EGON
No!

PETER
Did you?

WINSTON
My mind's totally blank!

PETER
I didn't choose anything!

RAY
I couldn't help it. It just popped in there!

Enjoy your president, America. He just popped in there.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:44 AM 0 comments

Your Data Or Your Life

Maybe I'm just a simpleton working in the very self-important IT world, but when I read Charles Cooper's latest column, "Access to Tom Ridge or bust", I found it a little hard to worry that the Department of Homeland Security is spending too little (for the IT industry's taste) of its limited resources on protecting data:

Industry executives have long complained about the lack of attention given to an issue that rates more important than the occasional photo op.

There's a pattern here. Both previous cybersecurity czars, Richard Clarke and Howard Schmidt, urged the government to move faster to combat the threat to the nation's information infrastructure. But whatever progress has come has been at a snail's pace.

You can understand why the administration is not circling the wagons. Unlike Iraq or the economy, the state of the nation's Internet infrastructure won't be on many people's minds when they enter the voting booths Nov. 2. Out of sight, out of mind--unless, of course, the entire kit and caboodle comes crashing down because of an attack.

Until then, the Bushistas can continue to pursue a policy of benign neglect while pretending to be doing important work. It's great politics, and isn't that what this is really all about?

Oh, spare me. If my bank loses my data and takes a couple of days to restore from backups, I'll be fine. Even if they lose all the money we have in the bank, our Just In Time earning habits ensure we won't lose a lot of fiscal inventory. Uf the supply chain management of gas facilities prevents me from fueling my truck, I have a bike. I can walk. I can understand the four way stop concept if the stoplights go out, and if some stupid utility company put Internet-ready (that is insecure-already) flow controls that will leave me in the dark, I have pressboard to burn.

But if some jihadist cell streeams over the southern border and snipes, nukes, bombs, or otherwise kills me for the greater glory of its own fevered death fetish, I don't have to worry about enduring temporary discomfort, ainna?

Self-appointed technomessiahs need to gain a little perspective and learn the difference between life and their livelihoods before lamenting that not enough chow is put in their federal trough. To blame it on the Bush administration's political concerns is crass.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:48 AM 0 comments

Read It and Geek

The Book of Ratings grades Dungeons and Dragons monsters. For example, the blink dog:

These intelligent, teleporting, other-dimensional fox terriers are the natural enemies of displacer beasts. I love that Gygax had this whole magic-spewing ecosystem going on. Of course blink dogs are the natural enemies of displacer beasts! And esophagus monsters feed on the tender leaves of the rare-but-majestic elf ficus! It all fits together! Anyhow, blink dogs are chaotic good, which means that they're one of the few creatures in the Monster Manual that don't exist solely to guard treasure and draw blood. Instead they can aid the party, provide information, and look really surprised when you kill them to search their spleen for emeralds. C-

(Link courtesy Brock Sides at Signifying Nothing.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:16 AM 0 comments

I Blame Myself

The Packers have not won a game since I got my jersey.

Astros fans, contact me via the link at the left to find out how you can send me tons of free Cardinals paraphernalia in hopes of transferring the curse to baseball.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:03 AM 0 comments

Tales from a Red State

From Bill Sammon's book Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters, the "Fly Boy" chapter about Bush's landing on the USS Lincoln (you know, the much maligned Mission Accomplished flight):

"If it wasn't safe, the president of the United States would not be doing it," Fleischer said. "And I remind you it's done every day, many times a day, by navy pilots whose mission is to fly on an aircraft carrier."

But not all such landings were successful. Just one month earlier, a Viking skidded off the deck of the

. The two pilots were rescued and the navy was investigating the cause of the mishap.

I remember the incident. Lt. Matthew Wilder is the son of my insurance agent.

Whom do you know to thank?

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:48 PM 0 comments

Ads I Don't Like

For no other reason than because it's my blog and I wanna, I'm going to lay upon you, gentle reader, three advertisements or advertising campaigns that really get on my nerves.

Dry pits win.
I can't remember what antiperspirant company put out this weird line of print ads (and it serves them right, my proud ignorance). But if you've been reading a men's magazine of any stripe--Playboy, Maxim, or Esquire--for the last year, you've seen this abominations. In a romantic setting such as a nice restaurant, riding on a horse on a beach, or lying on a carpet before a crackling fire, we espy an attractive woman (a different one in each ad, just like in James Bond films) canoodling with what appears to be an armpit with strange, three-toed feet). In each instance, this bizarre creature is seated, so he's bent, and the feet are where the ribcage should be, and where the arm should be we have no head, just a flat spot like the damn thing's not only hairy in the front but decapitated.

Jesus and mary chain, what the hell kind of bad acid trip in a muddy-field rave inspired this thing? I mean, I can understand a tendency to want to appeal to the average schlub who knows he doesn't look like those eighteen year old pretty boys who pout their way through the pages between the cheesecake on the front cover and the table of contents, but good God, man, who identifies with an anthromorphized armpit? I mean, this set seriously creeps me out.

I mean, when the armpit has its fun in its one night stand and romps off with the next hot model in the next exotic locale, stranding the heartbroken previous hot model who thought she could tame his untamed but dry armpituous nature alone and unfortunately pregnant because he used the line not only am I dry, but I am sterile, you've got to wonder what will those poor children look like?
AAA Insurance.
You might have heard the radio commercials in the "Why would you pay for insurance you're never going to use" campaign. Lord knows I have. Whomever, whoever, or whatever wrote these ought to be handling a run for office somewhere. "When you have AAA insurance, along with a AAA membership...." you get insurance you can use for free towing, discounts when you show your card, and so on.

What the wet sprocket? With the purchase of bleach and bread, I can make a sandwich, but I'm not using both for it. How on earth do they expect to convince a rational person to purchase their insurance by hyping the AAA membership, which is $105 a year for the Gold plan last I checked? Who can trust a vendor who tries to sell you the falcoing insurance for a lot of money to give you the separate advertised features thrown in for a little extra?

Apparently, they're targeting undecided voters, too.
GMC Trucks
Built professional grade, huh? Perhaps you've seen the particular commercial where they tout the individual, 4 inch galvanized steel bolts they use to bolt their truck beds to their frame. They illustrate this by linching a pulley with a single one of these bolts and winching a truck to the ceiling with that pulley while a guy in a lab coat, undoubtedly an underpaid Quality Engineer who should only have faith in the tests and never in the products tested, stands underneath the truck while it's creaking on the line and single bolt.

Then, with the music coming up but before it cuts to the still featuring the latest financing package, a truck roars into the frame at probably thirty miles an hour and skids to a stop, fishtailing it forty degrees over a very stern Professional Driver. Closed Course. Do Not Attempt caption that does its best textual impression of James Earl Jones warning you about skidding in your automobile. Personally, I've never gotten the whole idea behind using footage of the vehicle out of control to sell a car, but I work for a living.

Message: Don't try some small fry fancy maneuvers while driving unless you're a professional; however, standing under your truck while it's swinging from the rafters on a single bolt is a perfectly good way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Chumbawamba, how many half-gassed suburbanites have to die while trying to impress their hemi-having neighbors before this commercial carries the appropriate number of antilitigatory warnings that if you consume hyberbolic acid, you could have a bad trip?

Thanks. I feel better now, but not much.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 PM 0 comments

I Thought So

Here's what passes for hard-hitting investigative journalism here at MfBJN. Our crack~~head~~ staff contacted our sources looking for insight into John F. Kerry's plan:

Click for full size

I had to get a screencap because I understand that thirty seconds after I click Publish Post, George Soros will go the extra $75 to buy that domain.

You want to know the length I will go for a gag? It's obviously less than a single domain name registration. There you have it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:07 PM 0 comments

Cardinals Coalition Update

Red alert

With no apologies to Catalano, the Cardinals nation wants Yankee meat.

Don't wuss out and lose to the Boston Red Sox to avoid your destiny, pinstripers. You have an appointment in ~~Samarra~~ Busch Stadium.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

Fill In Your Own Conspiracy Blanks

From various sources including Associated Press and the New York Times (links courtesy of Boots and Sabers and Little Green Footballs respectively), we get the dramatic fevered imaginings of a few:

In the hopes of elevating this line of thought from the absurd to the....well, there's really nowhere more absurd to go as a serious story. So I will do my best to mock it.

The real reasons for the bulge under Bush's jacket:

It's the wind-up key. Because President Bush, unlike other candidates in this particular race, actually shows up for the job for which taxpayers pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, he had to send his wind-up body double to the debate. And it didn't do to badly. It certainly looked less mechanical than, say, Al Gore.
Missouri is a right to carry state. Since Bush can't feel the comfort of cold steel in leather in Washington DC, which he frequently visits on the people's business unlike his opponent, Bush wore a piece to the debate. He wore it McClane-style so as to not frighten the undecideds in the audience nor to stir controversy with the press should his jacket fall open to display it. Undoubtedly, they would say he was trying to intimidate Kerry and pander to the NRA.
It's where the mechanical arms attach.

To manipulate oil prices, to violate the civil rights of every man, woman, and child in the world, to start wars just to watch them burn, and to conduct his other maniacal schemes, Dr. Octobush has devised a set of extra chimp arms to help him do all the evil that he does more easily. They attach via a special clip wired directly into his brain.
Man, who knew how small devil wings folded up?

Hey, feel free to add your own. We're on the Internet for crying out loud. It's all tRuth.

(Note: Capital R truth does in fact differ from capital T truth, but it's more accommodating to those whose personal feelings differ from the real world, so it's capital E bEtter.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:40 AM 0 comments

Dang, You're Old

As a reminder, Chuck Norris becomes eligible for Social Security next year.

Now, to quote the eminently quotable Eliza, "How do you feel about that?"

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:17 AM 0 comments

Talking About My Vaccination

Michelle Malkin asks a question about vaccines:

Why on earth does the U.S. get virtually all of its flu vaccine supply from just two manufacturers?

Short answer: Because the government hasn't nationalized it yet and left us with a single inefficient source.

Sure, some people might accuse me of wanting children to die; this is not the case. I do, however, not want the remote federal government to use its vast bureaucratic power to do its best to employee middle managers with poli-sci degrees whose goal is to perpetuate their own employment and budgets and save the children, only one of which they're really good at.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:41 AM 0 comments

No Live Blogging Here

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not live blogging the second presidential debate, although I have watched about twenty minutes of it too much (which, oddly enough, was about twenty minutes). I am voting for Bush, and every time Kerry opens his mouth, I start spitting and cursing and quite frankly, I cannot afford the bib cleaning bills.

I don't dislike Kerry as a person, because I don't know him. And although I can snark a bit here among friends, I don't think he's necessarily a lying, conniving coward. I have no way of knowing. He's never started a bar fight and run off while I got pounded.

I do know that almost everything I hear him attack George Bush for, particularly in domestic agenda, blurs the division of government powers laid out by our Constitution and sometimes even blurs the line between government and private life, and if we elect someone who thinks that the President, not the Congress led by the House of Representatives, spends tax dollars or that the only the George Bush's obstinance and not understanding of economic and human nature principals holds up drug reimportation schemes, well, I guess we'll be ready to elect someone who's willing to nationalize industries to protect the children and are ready to dismiss the Congress to save money better spent on unelected bureaucracies run by appointees of Our Glorious Leader.

Some people impugn Bush and his administration for their simple devotion to protecting the country from threats abroad and for enforcing the ill-conceived lawa passed on by the too-comfortable and too-protected-from-the-consequences-of-their-actions legislators. But I, almost alone it seems, recognize that the executive branch of the government, including the President, only has those powers granted by the legislature.

And when I hear a legislator, or an alleged legislator whose absence from the legislature has not matched the legislator's willingness to forego pay that we taxpayers like to give to practicing members of that hallowed profession, when I hear that pseudo legislator bloviating about the president spending money, or running a deficit, or cutting anything, I....well, I've explained what I do.

Hasn't it occurred to any other voter but me that the entire reason John F. Kerry enjoys his $200,000 income tax bracket is because he's supposed to be a Senator? Come on, the really rich in America aren't paying income taxes, they're paying capital gains, if anything at all. Oh, but Senator Kerry as Supreme Leader would exercise powers not granted to the Constitution to repeal the tax cuts granted to the "richest" Americans, and at the same time he's lambasting that these people get tax cuts while President Bush hasn't single-handedly created five million jobs.

Pardon my misunderstanding of economics as a small business owner, but galdern, "Senator" Kerry, but when you're wanting to soak those who make two hundred thousand dollars a year and "Big Corporations," who's going to hire the unemployed? Last I looked in the want ads, I didn't find many $30,000 a year junior technical writers or $25,000 printers looking to hire five million people. Not even two and a half miillion each. So where do you think the capital is going to come from to keep the economy going?

Oh, I forget, the government will have us all working in its Bureau of Pharmacology, where we can work ten hours a day turning the manual pill-presses to grind out some acetylsalicylic acid to cure any ailment our citizens--who'll return to the time-honored tradition of dying before they're sixty--have.

I'd say a pox on ya, Senator Kerry and his idealogical counterparts, but I am still trying real hard to merely pity you instead.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:59 PM 0 comments

I Don't Think That Will Help

With a story like this one, you knew the misplaced modifiers would be fun. And so they are:

Los Angeles County health officials have sent letters urging producers and directors to use condoms during filming, and vaccinate actors for hepatitis A and B.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:22 PM 0 comments

My Senator, Hard At Work

Looks like Jim Talent, R. MO, is putting his, erm, talents to work on issues of national importance: lighting the Gateway Memorial Arch pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month:

108th CONGRESS

2d Session

S. 2895

AN ACT

Swell. One of my two Senate representatives, purportedly of the small-government party, has wasted his time, his staff's time, and other taxpayer-funded time not to mention sundry expenses to turn this idea into law.

And that's before we get to purchasing a large number of pink light bulbs or pink cells and paying maintenance people to implement them.....

But that Jim Talent, he's sensitive.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:09 AM 0 comments

Truer Words Were Never Spoken

Lileks, from his Newhouse News column yesterday:

The next time America is attacked, people will not want someone who can calculate pi to the 48th digit while reciting Latin maxims on the nature of war. They will want someone who says, "Hulk smash." Inelegant as the sentiment might be, Hulk-thought works better than Captain Nuance striding into the United Nations waving resolutions and chastening editorials from

I feel clever in likening the purpose of a robust military in foreign policy as the same for criminal punishment:

Deterrence. Opposing states are afraid to attack, because if they do, they will suffer consequences.
Retribution. Oh, yes, Hulk smash.
Rehabilitation. After Hulk smash, Hulk elevate people's standard of living in the defeated country and leave behind something akin to a republic.

Perhaps I am too simplistic; after all, we're talking about nation states and not individuals. But one would have to argue that nations are more than the sum of their rulers, and some rulers would disagree, even though Louis XIV's time has passed. Some rulers just don't know it yet.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:15 AM 0 comments

Make the Connection

Another internal consistency pointed out, courtesy MfBJN: Remember this nugget in the first debate between Kerry and Bush?

I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren‘t willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing.

How about someone directly contrast this with 1994's Agreed Framework, wherein the Clinton administration exchanged fuel for promises that North Korea would scrap its nuclear program.

John Kerry wants to apply the unsuccessful Agreed Framework to Iran.

But at least that foreign policy type is consistent. Consistently bad.

But hopefully, perhaps to them, a Republican administration will come along after a short failed Kerry era to take the fall for Iran's nuclear weapons.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:00 AM 0 comments

We Need A Kitty Door

If only we put a kitty door on the shower enclosure, Ajax would not have to go over the top when he wants to take his daily shower:

Click for AUS (Ajax of Unusual Size)

Life is going to be a lot more interesting when he gets older and starts crashing into things as he tries to make those gravity-defying leaps to the highest points he can find.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:03 AM 0 comments

Mishandled Metaphors

Meanwhile, back in the Seattle Post-Intelligence, columnist Thomas Shapley decries an ad from a candidate for Senate. George Nethercutt, the Republican challenger, includes in the advertisement Senator Patty Murray from this immortal exchange:

"He

's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful," Murray told them.

Shapley tut tuts the despicable practice of using someone's words against her and opens a can of whoop metaphor:

By that standard, fighting crime by trying to figure out what drove Gary Ridgway to murder 48 women is excusing him of the crimes. Sorry, that Doberman won't hunt.

Perhaps Shapely took a Doberman hunting when he went crawling through the brush with John Kerry and a trusty shotgun while deerhunting.

(Link via National Review's Kerry Spot.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:56 PM 0 comments

The Counterfeiting-Proof Fifties Work!

Apparently, the new design has made the fifty dollar bill impossible to counterfeit, so the counterfeiters have had to turn elsewhere.

Apparently, in Georgia, they're now counterfeiting dimes.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:11 AM 0 comments

Free PUNchline

Red Hair Ring.

Write your own joke around it. Jeez, do I have to do everything?

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:02 AM 0 comments

A Sincere Offer of an Honest Trade

Friends, Romans, and those with differing political philosophies: I offer a sincere, heartfelt trade to you.

I shall not extrapolate the vandalism and thuggery of a few criminals galvanized by their support of John Kerry as a property of the whole Democrat party or anyone with liberal sympathies if:

People on the left do not extrapolate the actions of a few vandals and thugs as being an insurgency of the entire populations of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Do we have a deal?

No? I didn't think so.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:14 AM 0 comments

Here's a Slogan For You

Sam Adams Light: The taste of NA beer, but with alcohol in it!

Note to the fellows at Tap City: Last two of a sample twelve pack, I swear.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:10 PM 0 comments

Steve Jobs and Michael Dell ARE IN MY HEAD!

Dell Computers and Apple Computers are trying to brainwash me. Here's how:

In the course of my self-employed Pat-Verbeek-of-Software-Testingdom, I have cause to use an eMac computer and a Dell workstation to test the various and sundry applications that clients pay me innumerable (as I explain to the auditor) dollars to test. My main workstation has a standard keyboard, with the slight rise and the stadium keying layout, where each row rises a little above it. The kind I've used since I got my first Packard Bell in 1990. The natural shape one can even remember from Commodore 64s and Apple IIs, and probably even abacuses.

But the eMac has a concave keyboard; that is, it's curved, with the tops of the keys actually turning toward your fingers like flowers to a star.

But the Dell workstation has a convex keyboard; that is, it's bowed outward, like its keys are employing centrifugal force to fling my software-destroying fingers into space.

And you might think it's nothing but some sort of Substance of Style-ing to be neat-o, but friends, I can tell you what they're doing--they're doing Pavlovian and Skinner tricks on you, and you're the dog and chicken. Apple, dog, and Dell, chicken. Pay attention!

You see, if you use one of these freak keyboards as your primary interface with the greater intelligence that is the Internet, Blogosphere, and Return to Zork, you'll grow accustomed to the unholy shape beneath your fingers. Then, when you're forced to use a different computer, that is, not a Dell or not a Macintosh, you'll think it weird, inconvenient, and slightly uncomfortable. All because you'll have to use a normal keyboard.

So forget Bill Gates; he's trying to rule the world in an honest, straightforward fashion. Dell and Jobs are conditioning you, man. Rise up! By an old keyboard at a yard sale for a buck and use it. Or you will be a lifelong ~~customer~~ lackey of one of these aforementioned diablolical geniuses.

I beg of you.

(Why, yes, another part of my s.e.P.V.S.T. lifestyle is drinking a lot of coffee, sometimes two or three pots a day. Why do you ask?)

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:52 PM 0 comments

The News Eric Mink Avoids

Courtesy of Allahpundit, we find this analysis of current events in Afghanistan courtesy to someone closer than Tucker Boulevard:

Three years after the Taliban were chased out, Kabul has returned to the real world. The streets are jammed with cars, the shops are full of goods. Last year Afghanistan's economy grew by 30 per cent. The weirdest thing about Kabul under the Taliban used to be its unnatural silence. Now it's as noisy as anywhere on earth.

This week, though, the move back towards teeming normality has received a perceptible check. The host of restaurants that have opened up here (I remember only three during the Taliban days, all disgusting and utterly predictable as to the menu) are empty.

And:

This is not Baghdad. The Americans and their allies are not unpopular here - except in the east and south of the country, where there has been fighting - and they are regarded as guarantors of Afghanistan's stability. The West is seen as essentially benign. At the international donors' conference in Berlin last April, $8 billion in aid and investment was pledged over the next three years: about as much as the Afghan economy can absorb.

There is no equivalent here of the stories you hear every day in Iraq, about people being insulted or mistreated by American soldiers; no suburbs, towns or cities are attacked with the latest American weaponry. If Afghanistan gets safely through this week, it will be a remarkable success story.

Eric Mink probably has enough cosmopolitan stuporhuman skill at seeing through reality to the fantasy beneath to ignore these hopeful signs. Still, I think he would waste even less of my time were he still in the clique that lauds Desperate Housewives for lifting a leg on the American Dream, wittily and intelligentsially, of course.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 PM 0 comments

Speaking of Packer Partisanship

Packer Nation, note that St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Jeff Gordon has spoken heresy about the most revered Favre:

How can doctors really tell if free-spirited Brett Favre has suffered a concussion?

Summon the Wisconsinquisitors!

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:48 PM 0 comments

When Television Critics Attack!

Former television critic and now the peter principled head of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page Eric Mink asks a vital question:

Why would anyone who is concerned about the safety of his family, the security of our country and the fight against Islamist terrorism favor Bush?

Because Bush is responsible for 9/11:

Speaking in Des Moines last month, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that electing the wrong person in November could increase the danger that "we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set. . . ." Bush owns nine months of that mind-set.

It's not fair to blame Bush for those attacks, although six of the 10 "missed opportunities" to stop them identified by the 9/11 commission occurred on his watch. But it is fair to hold him responsible for the rigidity of his White House bureaucracy and the lackadaisical attitude toward al-Qaida, both of which made America more vulnerable before Sept. 11, 2001.

Is Mink admitting he's unfair? He starts the second paragraph of that quote with "It's not fair to blame Bush for those attacks" and puts that admission among:

"Bush owns nine months of that [pre-9/11] mind-set."
"six of the 10 "missed opportunities" to stop them identified by the 9/11 commission occurred on his watch."
"it is fair to hold him responsible for the rigidity of his White House bureaucracy and the lackadaisical attitude toward al-Qaida, both of which made America more vulnerable"

In other words, Eric Mink is unfair.

Eric Mink must be a fat lady:

The U.S. military won a stellar victory in Afghanistan in 2001, but Bush failed to follow through on the pursuit of Osama bin Laden and, much more important, failed to fulfill commitments to secure and rebuild the country.

Because apparently he feels our commitment to Afghanistan has ended and he's writing the post-mortem. Notwithstanding the coming elections there, notwithstanding our continuing partnership with the Afghan people, and notwithstanding that Afghanistan will soon surpass its condition before the war if it hasn't already. Perhaps Mink expected that, two years later, Afghanistan would be a trendy gentrified urban hotspot.

Ah, screw it. I don't have the tolerance to refute Mink line by line.

Go read it yourself if you have the stomach. Meanwhile, I think I'll go back to reading Emily Dickinson and demonstrating unabashed Packer partisanship.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:19 PM 0 comments

I Meant Guinness Draught

Republican representatives have forced a vote on Chuck Rangel's bill to reinstitute a draft and voted it down 402-2. Of course, activists who like the sound of that particular drum when they beat it disagree with what the legislative defeat really means:

But congressional Democrats and activists elsewhere denounced the vote as an empty exercise that trivialized what many Americans believe is a real possibility.

"They have used gamesmanship to give a false sense that there is not going to be a draft. Nobody wants a draft. But if you don't have the manpower to confront the need, then there is no option," said Bobby Muller, founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, an international organization that addresses the causes and consequences of war.

Some might think that these fellows are remarkably disingenuous (depending on what that word means--remind me to look it up later--suspect it's a synonym for pelfiful).

I, on the other hand, applaud the intellectual consistency in the position. Namely, that a legislator's vote or record of votes has no bearing or reflection on the secret plans or inclinations of that legislator. Especially when a legislator runs for a position in the executive branch.

Because that's one of the arguments for a Kerry presidency featuring military strength and, you know, that archaic concept of I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States without the asterisk and footnote except where conflicts with the directives of the United Nations as formulated by France, Germany, Ghana, Syria, or China.

(Link seen on Ranting Profs.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 AM 0 comments

Et Tu, Wisconsin?

Protesters attack Bush Cheney HQ in West Allis.

(Link courtesy of homie Sean Hackbarth.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:49 AM 0 comments

Some Good Things Just Don't Go Together

Just like sex and a Sunday afternoon in late November, where the temperature hovers around twenty degrees in the sun, at Lambeau Field watching the Green Bay Packers and God's Gift to Wisconsin Brett Favre throw for a couple of touchdowns with two or fewer interceptions, some things that are good individually don't combine to make something better.

Just like caffeinated ginseng beer.

In a word: Ew.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:55 AM 0 comments

John Edwards Goes Negative - On Me

According to this Drudge Flash, John Edwards has decided to forego negative attacks on the president and to carry it directly to the electorate:

ABC'S BOB WOODRUFF: "He has avoided the kind of negative attacks that can make national news, although recently, he has stepped up his rhetoric."

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC) (clip of a speech): "I'd say if you live in the United States of America and you vote for George Bush, you've lost your mind."

Now that he's begun publicly questioning my mental fitness (without even reading this blog), I have contacted my attorney to determine if his allegations are actionable.

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

Lyrics Misheard by Emily Dickinson

Jane's Addiction, "Been Caught Stealing":

We sat around the pile.
Sudden Pelf.
Sudden Pelf and
Waved it into the air!
And we did it just like that.
When we want something,
We don't want to pay for it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:15 AM 0 comments

Thank Goodness for Concealed Carry

Emily Dickinson, Poem 551:

There is a Shame of Nobleness --
Confronting Sudden Pelf --
A finer Shame of Ecstasy --
Convicted of Itself --

A best Disgrace -- a Brave Man feels --
Acknowledged -- of the Brave --
One More -- "Ye Blessed" -- to be told --
But that's -- Behind the Grave --

Crikey on a cracker, if ever there's a time for footnotes, explaining to this forelorn and slightly half-baked poetical sojourner what the devil Pelf means is it.

I have but one vow: if I'm ever confronted by a sudden Pelf, the damn Pelf will get the worst of it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:44 PM 0 comments

Good Question

Courtesy of triticale - the wheat/rye guy:

If our action in liberating Iraq is creating so many new terrorists, how come all the actions taken in response to it are carried out by militants and insurgents?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:08 PM 0 comments

Renaming the Hamlet Test

Some IT shops within the greater St. Louis area have learned to fear the Hamlet test, wherein a software tester (whose identity shall remain hidden to protect him from the raging hordes of developers seeking revenge) pastes the entire contents of Shakespeare's Hamlet into a text box to see what happens when he tries to commit it to the database.

Well, those same developers should prepare themselves for the next generation of the Hamlet test: Hamlet in Klingon.

Unicode includes Klingon letters, ainna?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:01 PM 0 comments

Meanwhile, Further Down The Slippery Slope

In Minnesota, a 17-year-old prewoman (because girl is sexist nomenclature, donchaknow) is running for mayor. The biggest obstacle, aside from being only a write-in candidate and being unable to vote for herself:

Even so, state law says candidates must be eligible voters and at least 21 years old when they take office.

The plucky little prewoman remains undaunted, because she can tell which way the wind blows, and apparently the wind is the only constant in civic life in the twenty-first century:

Feehan-Nelson said that if she receives the highest number of votes but is not certified, she is prepared to take the matter to court.

"I doubt the judge would be able to say no to the popular vote," she said. "The people's right to choose prevails over (state law)."

Isolated incident? A small stone begins an avalanche.

(Link courtesy of The Spoons Experience.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:08 PM 0 comments

Brian Misses Hockey

Emily Dickinson, Poem 544, circa 1862:

The Martyr Poets -- did not tell --
But wrought their Pang in syllable --
That when their mortal name be numb --
Their mortal fate -- encourage Some --

The Martyr Painters -- never spoke --
Bequeathing -- rather -- to their Work --
That when their conscious fingers cease --
Some seek in Art -- the Art of Peace --

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:35 PM 0 comments

All I Have To Say

At least the Packers aren't peaking too early.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:55 PM 0 comments

The Next Logical Step Down The Slippery Slope

State Representative Frank Boyle of northern Wisconsin gives insight into the proper role of the citizen:

Boyle told the board he first met Leggate in 1984 when she was a secretary at City Hall. He said she costs the state $24,000 every year she’s in prison and she needs to get back into the work force and generate tax revenue, especially with the state facing a deficit in its next budget.

This person, a convicted murderer sentenced to life, should return to society so that she can generate tax revenue.

Government seizes private property to whomever it thinks will generate the most tax revenue for it. What logically stops it from next using its citizens in the best, most revenue-enhancing way?

More on the outrage at Boots and Sabers.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:27 AM 0 comments

Further Tales of Psuedobachelorhood

Courtesy of Spoons.

While the mice are away, the cats will play...with Spoons, who has nothing better to do.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:45 AM 0 comments

Another Helpful Error Message

Here's a friendly error message courtesy of Amazon.com:

Browser Bug?

Attention: There appears to be a bug in the web browser you are currently using. Here are some ways to get around the problem:

To return to the page you were previously on: --click the BACK button on your browser's navigation bar until you reach the desired page.
To checkout --click on the shopping cart icon at the top of the page and proceed through the checkout process using the standard server (instead of the secure server). You can phone or fax the credit card information to us.

Your Web browser is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.

Error handling by blaming the user and the user's Web browser. Swell, Amazon. Undoubtedly, your developers have convinced your project managers that this is acceptable, when it's clearly not.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 AM 0 comments

Book Review: Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer
by Jerry Kramer / Edited by Dick Schaap

I bought this book for a dollar at the cheap bookstore in Springfield (you know, the one on Glenstone. Come on, people, work with me here; the name's not important, the six for five dollars hardbacks in the very back are). As the football season geared up, I thought this would be a worthy read, and hey, it was. Packers partisanship aside, it's a good book.

The book chronicles the 1967 football season from the point of view of the veteran guard. He kept notes and recorded his thoughts on tape every day from the training camp through the end of season. It reminded me a lot of Blue Fire: A Season Inside the St. Louis Blues which I read last year; however, the two differ in that instead of a sportswriter, the point of view is all player.

So in our daily capsules, we get inside the concerns of a 31 year-old football player, slightly afraid that he's losing a step to the younger players. We're coming fresh off of the Packers second consecutive NFL championship and their win in Super Bowl I. Kramer's got lots of outside investments that he worries over, and he mentions from time to time what's he's reading during the season. But the book does focus on the Packers, playing with Lombardi and with the loss of Paul Hornung to the new New Orleans Saints expansion team.

As I mentioned, the book's told in a diary style, with each day having its paragraphs or pages whether Kramer goes hunting or participates in the Ice Bowl. This makes it easy to read in short chunks, although the pace and voice really make it entertaining enough to read in larger doses.

Since the book chronicles an era before my birth, part of its charm lies in its details about a world I'd never know. Green Bay and Milwaukee described in the late 1960s and no mention of the War in Viet fucking Nam, man. Which differs, strangely, from the football season 2004, where the whole world's talking about that war. One does get a point of contrast between some aspects of the game then and the game today--no agents, limited free agency, and so on. And on the field: well, let's just give this some eighties kid perspective: the Jerry Kramer's biggest concerns in the opponents he needs to block are Father Murphy, Webster's adoptive father George Papadapolis, and Officer Moses Hightower. That's just weird.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:14 AM 0 comments

Question

Is

fighting

?

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:17 PM 0 comments

Don't Do Us Any Favors

Those of you who didn't start watching the debates at 6:30 on CSPAN missed their interview with the University of Miami president and her remarks from the lowered microphone that she'd arranged classes, other acadaemic stuff, and a voter registration drive to get students more involved in the carnival that took place at University of Miami yesterday.

Donna "I Am Not Bowzer" Shalala.

Former Secretary of Health and Human services under William J. Clinton.

Former head of University of Wisconsin (Mad).

Organizing voter registration drives.

Thanks, Shalalala.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:31 PM 0 comments

With So Many Words, How Could You Pick Just One?

Thomas Eagleton opines in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a piece entitled IRAQ: One word says it all: disaster:

We do not need to recount yet again the history of the war in Iraq. It will go down as one of the most ill-conceived military undertakings in our history.

It doesn't really get better from there. Instead, the former senator and even more former vice presidential candidate to George McGovern (for crying out loud) pontificates on how history will judge Iraq because Eagleton's got the long range vision. Which he demonstrates by savaging George W. Bush politically and talking about the short term impact of the war.

Beg your pardon, Senator, but I disagree. I see differences between this war and the telewars of this century held up for cheap political points by forgotten (and hopefully, soon-to-be-forgotten) senators.

I expect that history will judge the Iraq war much like it judges the Spanish-American War, The Mexican-American War of 1848, the Mexican incursions in 1910, or more recently the invasion of Panama; a small war remembered by a few historians and unfortunately not many citizens. Or history will judge the Iraq war like the reckless Iwo Jima incursion: a small battle with its own costs in service of a greater war. But history will not, no matter how hard some self-appointed men of history try, judge Iraq as a carbon-copy of Viet Nam.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:11 PM 0 comments