Musings from Brian J. Noggle: March 2005

Great Minds Think Alike

But that won't necessarily explain why I said something with which Professor Bainbridge might agree.

In a recent book review, I said:

These three novels are short; the whole book runs under 500 pages. But that's something else I remember: novels running under 200 pages each. Now, the publishers think you'll wilt if you spend $30 on fewer than 350 pages. Come to think of it, I would, too. Perhaps hardback publishers are pricing themselves out of the entertainment marketplace by keeping their book prices in line with that of video games.

In a post entitled Bloated Fantasy, the professor links to a piece that notes how fantasy has gotten bloated into long books and series:

Hear, hear! (Candidly, I even got bogged down for a while about midway through the widely - and appropriately - praised Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I'm very glad I eventually finished it, but a good editor could have lopped a few hundred pages off it without hurting the book one bit.)

I think what we see represents more the drive of the publishing industry, which needs longer books to justify hardcover prices and it needs long series to like readers into purchasing those expensive hardcovers than an inexplicable decline in good, terse writing.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:25 PM 0 comments

Robert B. Parker Interview

No wonder I have been getting Technorati hits for Robert B. Parker and Spenser. A blogger at Dumpster Bust has a three part interview with the author.

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

Keep That Penumbra In Your Trousers, Miss

Ann Althouse, on a ruling that regarding a landlord who wouldn't renew the lease for a trangender group because they were tranrestrooming, comments:

This is denying people the right to chose which sex to identify with when they choose whether to use the men's or the women's room.

I've forgotten. Do I have a penumbra or an emanation?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:46 AM 0 comments

Another Thing You Thought I Made Up

Hoover, the talking seal.

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

Simple Solution Continues to Evade Authorities

Loss of Amtrak would derail some travelers' only ride: If:

One of 170,000 passengers who use the Missouri Amtrak run each year, Breese may have to find another way if Blunt and the Legislature go forward with plans to cut the state's $6.4 million Amtrak subsidy. "It would really be inconvenient if Amtrak wasn't here," Breese said Monday afternoon as he and his wife, Clarita, rode the train from St. Louis to Jefferson City. Breese was returning home after a five-month stint in Kuwait.

And:

Ticket revenue is not enough to support Amtrak. The state kicks in $6.4 million to support two daily trains crossing Missouri, one from Kansas City to St. Louis and another in the opposite direction. They stop at eight cities along the way: Kirkwood, Washington, Hermann, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Warrensburg, Lee's Summit and Independence.

Without the state's support, the trains would cease to run, according to Jeff Briggs, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Wouldn't this problem resolve itself if only Amtrak raised ticket prices?

Oh, bite my tongue and perhaps my nose as well; Amtrak isn't a service, it's trainfare, and any increase in ticket rates would adversely impact the poorest among us. Like the poverty-stricken anecdote that kicks off the Post-Dispatch story who works as an IT contractor in Kuwait and earns substinence wages doing so.

By raising the ticket prices and covering its costs, Amtrak would ensure that some people could still ride the trains, but Amtrak is a government entity. Its goal is not to cover its costs. Its goal is to exist. Also, to get bigger and get more tax money budget if possible.

Also, kudos to the Post-Dispatch reporter for leading with the story of someone returning from the Middle East to parallel the contractor with military men and women serving in the area.

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

It's About Our Fair Share, Not Yours

Court rules telecommuter must pay taxes:

A telecommuter who lives out of state while working by computer for a New York employer must pay New York tax on his full income, the state's highest court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have wide implications in the growing practice.

The Court of Appeals said that computer programmer Thomas Huckaby who lives in Nashville, Tenn., owed New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent working at his employer's New York offices.

Huckaby paid tax on about 25 percent of his income over two years for the time he spent working in New York state. But the court upheld a state tax department ruling that all his income should be taxed. That amounts to $4,387 plus interest. However, the ruling could lead to much greater income for the state as it is applied to the growing field of telecommuting.

I would expect cities used to justify income taxes their non-resident commuters by saying that those people used city services and should pay their share for them, as though public goods were private services. The population accepted that.

Now, though, New York tips its hand. It's not about commuters paying for their share of services that they use; it's about New York getting what it thinks is its fair share of your income.

I truly look forward to the day that some innovative, unelected regulator determines that my telecommuting is taxable in his jurisdiction because my Internet communication hops through a server in his city or state.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:38 AM 0 comments

Malkin Favors Disbanding Internet

After all, that's what one could extrapolate from her For the Children rant attacking P2P networks:

I am all for protecting those "really excellent uses." And I am all for protecting software entrepreneurs and their right to create new products. This blog wouldn't exist without them. But there's a cloud of unreality hanging over the P2P debate. It's not just high-minded geek revolutionaries against Big Media/RIAA/MPAA who are benefiting from P2P. And P2P ain't just about trading your favorite tunes.

It's also about sickos and smut purveyors who have unprecedented access to an unimaginable volume of child porn--not to mention photos of children made available to child sex predators through indavertent file-sharing.

So technologies and protocols that allow workstations to network in a peer to peer fashion, that is client-to-client are bad and perhaps should be banned? What about server-to-server networks where clients can connect to servers to retrieve information? People who distribute questionable content can use those networks, too, and have for years. Should we ban those technologies and protocols? Well, no, because they're widely used and not under suspicion.

Perhaps the paradigm and the workings of the Internet are too advanced and too much a part of society to start burning now. But since we're in a pitchfork and torch mood, maybe we shoul ban other peer-to-peer communication systems that allow users to disseminate illegal content. Like the United States Post Office. Anyone, for the cost of a stamp, can mail child pornography to someone else!!!! Or the phone system--anyone with a phone can dial another user and can tell them a social security number or plot a crime!

Come to think of it, Malkin's not the first to want to prohibit P2P protocols and technologies. There's a very basic movement afoot to ban another personal communications device used occasionally for illicit means. The gun, and its transmission the bullet, are frequent targets for prohibition because some individuals use them with ill intent. Remove the tool, and you'll remove exercise of the ill intent, right?

I'm all for prosecuting people who commit crimes, but I draw the line at banning multiple use technologies that some individuals will use for ill because human nature leads someone to try to use everything for bad purposes.

Once you start, you have to draw an arbitrary and ever-more-constricting line at how much ill-intention use demands prohibition. Easy identity theft and copyright infringement don't make Malkin demand prohibition of P2P software, but alleged child pornography does. That's a couple people among millions of users, a rather small percentage indeed. What percentage of bar stools and pool sticks must be broken over malcreants in brawls before we ban them?

Ad absurdum or slippery slope? Slippery slope, I fear.

Update: Malkin responds to critics in an update to her post:

First, nowhere do I call for outlawing P2P or shutting down the Internet. Crikey. Reread what I wrote. It's in plain English: "I don't know what the legislative or regulatory solution is, or whether there is one." What I'm calling for is for users of this technology--especially parents--to take personal responsibility for knowing what they're sharing and what others are sharing on these networks. I also would like to see the P2P Pollyanas acknowledge that this crap is out there and take increased corporate responsibility for doing something about it.

Unfortunately, when concerned citizens sound the alarum and the klaxon blares, those elected officials in the legislature or those unelected regulators will react unpredictably, and often in the most simplistic manner possible so they can get back to the power lunches.

I guess one could find some call for parental responsibility in her original post, but in plain English, it looks more like a call for agitation and political action than a call for private citizens to monitor their childrens' computer use.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:02 PM 0 comments

Rigged

A survey of the 200 best walking cities, and St. Louis comes in at 103 and Milwaukee comes in at 135? Are you kidding me?

What, does St. Louis get higher marks for the extreme sport of dodging crumbling facades?

(Link seen on Dustbury.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:29 PM 0 comments

Biased Source Issues Report

Apparently, the IRS thinks people aren't paying their fair share:

Most Americans pay their federal taxes by their due dates, but there's still a yawning gap between what taxpayers owe and what they pay, according to the IRS.

That gap -- known as the net tax gap -- is between $257 billion and $298 billion, according to preliminary findings from a three-year study on taxpayer compliance released Tuesday.

"Even after IRS enforcement efforts and late payments, the government is being shortchanged by over a quarter-trillion dollars by those who pay less than their fair share," said IRS commissioner Mark W. Everson in a statement.

The IRS discovers the more people it audits, the more it can shake out of them. But only to get ~~its~~ their fair shares.

I am uncomfortable when the head of the IRS is determining what each person's fair share of tax burden is. I thought we had elected officials to do that, but what we really have is unelected enforcement agents who want more budget and more power.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:26 PM 0 comments

Australian Public Doesn't Favor Protecting but Does Favor Protection

Poll: Australia against Taiwan war:

Australians are against following the United States into a war with China over Taiwan, according to a new poll on Australian attitudes.

But the same number who oppose involvement in such a war -- 72 percent -- think Australia's alliance with the United States is important for Australia's security.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I am against a war over Taiwan, too. Ideally, this situation will be resolved peacefully as mainland China allows Taiwanese independence or Taiwan elects to rejoin a free mainland China.

I find it shortsighted and self-serving that the Australian public won't protect a free people from an aggressive and militaristic foe, but that the Australians would certainly expect us to jump in to save them from the same aggressive and militaristic foe. But that's modern Western thought for you.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:19 AM 0 comments

But It's For Homeland Security. And the Children.

Gettysburg College President Katherine Haley Will doesn't care for the Department of Education's new spending program:

A proposal by the Education Department would force every college and university in America to report all their students' Social Security numbers and other information about each individual -- including credits earned, degree plan, race and ethnicity, and grants and loans received -- to a national databank. The government will record every student, regardless of whether he or she receives federal aid, in the databank.

The government's plan is to track students individually and in full detail as they complete their post-secondary education. The threat to our students' privacy is of grave concern, and the government has not satisfactorily explained why it wants to collect individual information.

She's rightly concerned about the privacy implications, but I'm also concerned about the government overreach. Why, oh why, does the Department of Education feel the need to track every student in the country to the microlevel?

So it can perform its job more efficiently, of course. That job? To spend vast sums of tax money and acquire more power and budget for itself.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

Timely Insight

Gun scare closes part of Cincinnati airport:

Part of Cincinnati's main airport was temporarily shut down Sunday after a passenger passed through a security checkpoint with what appeared to be a gun in a carryon bag, authorities said.

Baggage screeners noticed an X-ray image that resembled a gun after the passenger had picked up the bag and left the checkpoint, said Christopher White, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman in Atlanta.

To rectify the situation, the TSA closed the airport and searched everyone beyond the checkpoint again.

Were this a novel, movie, or an actual plot, the bad guy would have stashed the gun somewhere beyond the checkpoint for an accomplice to retrieve later. Instead, it's an example of befuddled TSA grunts closing down an airport because they couldn't watch the X-rays in real time.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin comments and suspects it was a real gun.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

David Nicklaus Promotes Crony Capitalism

I've often said that David Nicklaus is the best columnist in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which doesn't mean I cannot disagree with him, especially when he embraces crony capitalism, like in the column today entitled "Missouri seems too stingy to be slick on luring jobs". Here's the lead:

The great economic war between the states has two kinds of combatants - the stingy and the slick.

Missouri has always been among the stingy. It tries to lure employers with its low-tax environment, and it might sweeten the pot with a few tax credits.

With that table-setting, he proceeds to explain why Missouri is lacking because it doesn't dangle large incentives before companies to make them relocate here or to keep from relocating elsewhere.

Nicklaus seems to argue that the Missouri state government should spend state tax money to buy businesses' loyalty, or at least their location in Missouri. While having businesses and employers in the state does affect the citizens positively with jobs and tax revenue for the state which could provide benefits to the citizens, it's rather circular to use the increased tax revenue to provide tax incentives to businesses.

Crony capitalism occurs when government officials favor certain businesses with sweetheart deals at the expense of others, and that's what tax incentive packages do; they give certain large (and powerful) companies advantages over the rest of the field, especially the businesses too small or inconsequential to inspire the state government's lust.

So pardon me if I disagree, Mr. Nicklaus. Although other states' governments enjoy squandering their residents' tax money to benefit the few (the employees who work for the company and the state's employees who get more money to spend), I don't think that the Missouri state government should competitively transgress against us taxpayers. Although Missouri might lose a couple big fish, ultimately it will benefit from a continued low-tax environment that encourages entrepreneurs to start their businesses here and to maintain their businesses here.

Even if our only benefit as citizens comes from the satisfaction in knowing that our state understands its limitations, almost.

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

Go Phish

Some phish scammers really don't put any effort into it. Check out this phish I received today and the domain that displays when I mouse over the "official" link provided:

Click for full size

I mean, come on, how about registering a second host name aside from your primary line of business, pornography, guys? Is a little effort too much to expect from confidence boys?

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:09 PM 0 comments

Freedom of Speech Defense for Conspiracy

LaShawn Barber is on Hugh Hewitt's side:

A man has been arrested for making threats against Michael Schiavo via the Internet. In that case, he shouldn’t be the only one. How many people have said or written such things about Schiavo in the past week out of emotion? Should they all be arrested?

What, this guy?

A man arrested in Buncombe County Friday was charged with threatening the husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the center of the right-to-die case gripping the country.

Richard Alan Meywes was arrested in Fairview by the FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, the FBI said in a prepared statement.

Meywes is accused of sending an e-mail putting a $250,000 bounty "on the head of Michael Schiavo" and another $50,000 to eliminate a judge who denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case, the FBI said. The FBI did not immediately identify the judge.

"The e-mail also made reference to the recent death of a judge in Atlanta and the death of (a) judge's family members in Illinois," the FBI said.

Yeah, who has not threatened violence in anger regarding the Schiavo case? Well, for starters, I would guess those who don't want the government to do extralegal things don't talk about individuals doing extralegal things, but that consistency is our hobgoblin.

(Thanks to John Cole for the link to the news story.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:38 AM 0 comments

Book Report: Three from the 87th by Ed McBain (1971)

I inherited this book from my Aunt Dale; I don't know if this was her personal copy or if she bought it to sell on eBay, but I do know that she liked Ed McBain, or at least owned one or more of his books; I remember in particular that I read her copy of Lightning when I was young and impressionable.

This collection includes, oddly enough, three of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels: Fuzz (1968), Jigsaw (1970), and Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here (1971). That's right, McBain (or Hunter, if you prefer) has been writing these books for fifty years now, and to a certain demographic, the books haven't aged too badly.

I mean, of course, to people from Generation X and before, these books have aged well. We remember computers coming into the fore in our lifetimes; before that, typewriters. Criminey, I wrote my first couple of college papers on an old Smith Corona before I could spring the thousands of dollars (with a loan, no less) for the 286-10 running MS-DOS 5.0 and LotusWorks that would last the rest of my college career). So these stories, which feature cops handwriting forms and typing on typewriters, remain relevant and undated to me. I pity writers now (myself included) whose crime fiction will seemingly be ever dated from this point on--what, he was typing on a computer and not just intuiting through the Gibsonterface?

These three novels are short; the whole book runs under 500 pages. But that's something else I remember: novels running under 200 pages each. Now, the publishers think you'll wilt if you spend $30 on fewer than 350 pages. Come to think of it, I would, too. Perhaps hardback publishers are pricing themselves out of the entertainment marketplace by keeping their book prices in line with that of video games.

But I digress.

These three novels represent not only McBain's deftness, but the power of the third person narrator. Because these books don't rely on a single character's viewpoint, McBain has more latitude to try different things than, say, a first person narrator writer like Robert Crais.

The novels appear in this book in reverse chronological order (hence, pardon me while I discuss them in the opposite order in which they appear in the book). Fuzz depicts a series of assassinations in the city perpetrated by the Deaf Man, who will become the 87th Precinct's nemesis over the years. This is his second appearance (I believe, and textual evidence supports it). Jigsaw features a couple of detectives from the 87th Precinct, supported by others of course, investigating a particular crime. Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here depicts a 24-hour period in the 87th Precinct, with two shifts of detectives dealing with the crimes that occur on their shift. The third person narrator allows a lot of latitude of who the author can include and exclude and even who can die during the course of the book. Authors who use the first person narrator shortcut its immediacy by including third person sections (see also Robert Crais and, I daresay, Robert B. Parker). McBain p0wns you.

The novels within the book do present an interesting artifact, though, as they depict life in The City (a proxy for New York) in the 1960s and 1970s. Wow, it did seem like a dangerous place to live....until this fellow named Giuliani showed up. McBain found something to write about afterwards, as his books don't stop with Giuliani's election, but I cannot help but read them in that context.

So would I recommend the book? Unabashedly. Although my wonderful and well-read mother-in-law has, on occasion, condemned Ed McBain as smut, I still laud the poetry interspersed with the gritty. Also, she was a high school teacher who had the public's morals to protect. Me? I am a poor boy from the ghetto who wanted to escape with his writing. I cannot think of a better example of the third person narrator in crime fiction series than Ed McBain. Any of them, or any three of them in one volume.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:31 AM 0 comments

Jack Cardetti Strikes Again

Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the Democratic Party, said Blunt's budget cuts would hurt children, older adults and vulnerable people who lack lobbyists to protect their interests in the state capital.

"He's especially ravaged the Missouri Division of Youth Services, a national model for how to take care of juvenile offenders and then turn them into productive citizens," Cardetti said.

What's he talking about? My governor, Matt Blunt, has apparently announced more cuts:

Gov. Matt Blunt has announced a second round of state budget cuts that will reduce state spending by $240 million and eliminate an additional 1,274 state jobs.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to say that Matt Blunt, boy wonder of Missouri, will be old enough to be president in 2008.

I don't want to gloat to my friends in Ill inois or Wisconsin, but Ha! In your face! A Republican governor with a Republican legislature!

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:16 AM 0 comments

From the Bookmark Collection

Well, it's Saturday, so I've got nothing better to do than to expose you to a representative of my well-used bookmark collection. It's really only a collection because the bookmarks are accumulating in the nightstand drawer, not because I'm actively seeking new and exotic bookmarks. If I were, I'd undoubtedly have better items than the collection of Amazon, used book store, and "here's a gift, send us money" unsolicited fundraiser bookmarks I've got. Still, some of the bookmarks merit comment, including this one:

This bookmark comes to us from 1985, and it's geared to students. Check out the fellow depicted upon the front of the bookmark. He's got a flattop haircut undoubtedly helped out with a liberal dose of gel. By 1985, we were moving out of the heavily-teased hair styles for the most part and into more natural looks. At least we were in the middle of America; perhaps the Flock of Seagulls thing persisted in pockets on the coasts (although the mullet has yet to go out of style in Jefferson County, Missouri). This kid's wearing a t-shirt with his own picture on it, the very latest thing available from the malls, and a pair of the oversized shorts they called jams. Me, I never had a pair of jams, although I liked to call the patterned oversized swimming trunks I acquired via hand-me-down-from-outside-the-family or parental garage sale purchase "jams" simply because they had a design upon them. This kid's also wearing a pair of untied Converse or some other non-Nike brand of high-tops, all the rage amongst the rural toughies in the area in which I went to high school. Toughies whom the urban toughs that I spent my early years would have eaten alive (and probably have in prison by now, or so I hope in the remainder of my adolescent revenge fantasies).

The text of this bookmark reads, "It's cool to be you!" The irony, of course, lies in that this self-esteem-boosting message lies on a bookmark. Cool kids, or at least those of the soc or jock or hooter/stoner mentality would not be privy to this particular boost. The very fact that this message appears on a bookmark implies that the adults-that-be, or at least the adults-that-were expected that young people with books needed self-esteem boosts to make up for the slights and the lacks of dates and for all the other various and sundry humiliations levied against those who preferred books to television and the assorted social and physical vandalism that represents the high school experience.... well, a simple I'm OK, You're OK from a bookmark wouldn't do a thing for a teenager, who would see through its facetiousness and condescensious consolation. I wouldn't have taken it seriously as encouragement had I owned this bookmark in 1985; since I got it sometime as part of a yard sale book purchase, where it was wedged between the incompletely-read pages of some adult book, it helped me even less than a "It's cool to be a middle-aged suburban subdivision dweller" bookmark more geared to my demographic.

Crikey, I hope no teenager has thrown a belt over a rafter as a result of the loss of this security blanket.

The back of this particular bookmark indicates that I'm not lying when I say it's circa 1985; as a matter of fact, the text indicates it's copyright, which I am no doubt violating terribly since you gentle readers could blow up the pictures, print them on the new-fangled photo-quality color ink jets whose abilities we could only see in movies in 1985 while we listened to our dot-matrix printers chattering away or the daisy wheels pounding on paper. Please, do not send me a nickel when you do so, for you'd just be an obvious plant from the copyright holder's lawyers.

The brand name, Tab-Marks, would indicate that this bookmark was the product of one of the big three book clubs of the era. Come on, Generation X, you know what I am talking about. The single sheet of full-color (not the Weekly Reader, you pre-addled baby boomleters) front and back distributed in class that allowed those of us who needed ego-booster bookmarks to choose from a menu of paperback books for a buck or two each. Arrow, Tab, and Scholastic fliers made the rounds at my elementary and junior high (although in Missouri, they call them middle school) classes. Kinda like Columbia House for kids, with nothing required to buy in the future.

It was always a big deal, as our family was rather, um, undercapitalized, to get to order books from these services. I did, on occasion; after a couple of weeks, I got some books that were mine and not the library's. Wholesome youth entertainment like Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary (I consider it a testament to the power of these book clubs, and the library, that I still score 8 of 10 on the Harry Huggins trivia quiz).

Do kids still get these circulars? We don't have children yet, so I don't know whether schools fit them in yet amongst the year-round fundraisers to which those pimping schools subject their students. Perhaps children of the twenty-first century don't need pencils to make checkmarks and ticks on full-color order forms when they can use their cellular phones to order the books directly from Amazon.com.

I hope one or the other is the case; I'd hate to think that no children spend rainy afternoons in overstuffed recliners with simple paperbacks extolling the adventures of anyone not named Potter. Mainly because my dream is to open a used book store, and to be honest, the Greatest Generation, who stocked their post WWII homes with New American Library editions of the classics, the few Baby Boomers not into free love and protests, and the few straggling, under-self-esteemed (apparently) Generation Xers are dying off faster than I can accummulate the wealth and stock to start the money-losing dream-come-true.

Remarkable, ainna, that bookmarks can jog as many memories and reflections, sometimes, as the books into which we stick them? So many people just jam notes, slips of paper, and bank privacy notices (hem, well, perhaps only for technical, business-related books, you see) into books because reading doesn't require the pomp and circumstance of true bookmarks.

Although, oddly, perhaps that would merit a better sign of books' ubiquitousness....

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:27 AM 0 comments

Don't Settle for the Lesser Symbol

Australian columnist Phillip Adams calls the Oscars a symbol of American hegemony. To alter the quote of a more famous Australian, that's not a symbol of American hegemony, this is a symbol of American hegemony:

(Link seen on Tim Blair.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:42 PM 0 comments

On the Other Side

Looks like John Cole isn't on Hewitt's side either.

I might describe this as a conservative crack-up, but I'm not a professional radio host.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:28 AM 0 comments

Blogwar!

Apparently, Instapundit is not on Hugh Hewitt's side.

Let's settle this like Floridians; one gets a box cutter, the other gets a gun store.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 AM 0 comments

On Hewitt's Side

Perhaps this fellow is a part of Hewitt's rank and file:

A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo," authorities said.

Michael W. Mitchell, of Rockford, Ill., entered Randall's Firearms Inc. in Seminole just before 6 p.m. Thursday with a box cutter and tried to steal a gun, said Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Although one would hope that "Hewitt's Side" is staffed by people who are generally smarter than to try to rob a gun store with a box cutter.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:17 AM 0 comments

Build a Meme Workshop

This morning, Weber and Dolan (teh best morning radio show evar!!!1!) asked listeners what albums they could sing from memory. I didn't call in because I would have filled the segment myself.

Not that you care, but here's a partial enumeration of albums I could sing end-to-end were they playing (although for many, I am taken aback when they're played on CD and there's no pause between the song at the end of side 1 and the beginning of side 2).

So, anyway:

52nd Street by Billy Joel
Glass Houses by Billy Joel
An Innocent Man by Billy Joel
Piano Man by Billy Joel
Greatest Hits Volume 1 by Billy Joel
Greatest Hits Volume 2 by Billy Joel
Scoundrel Days by a-ha
Hunting High and Low by a-ha
Stay on These Roads by a-ha
East of the Sun, West of the Moon by a-ha
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
Animals by Pink Floyd
The Wall by Pink Floyd
A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd
Flesh and Blood by Poison
Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich by Warrant
David Gilmour by David Gilmour
About Face by David Gilmour
Sports by Huey Lewis and the News
A Pocket Full of Kryptonite by The Spin Doctors
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
These Eyes by The Guess Who
The Return of Bruno by Bruce Willis
No Time to Kill by Clint Black
Repeat Offender by Richard Marx
No Fences by Garth Brooks
Greatest Hits Volume 1 by The Eagles
The Scattering by Cutting Crew
David Gilmour by David Gilmour
Weird Al Yankovic by Weird Al Yankovic
Dare to Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic

What can I say? I listened to these things over and over in my high school and college years. Note that none of these albums dates past 1994. Telling.

Now, you play. What albums could you sing every song on if that album is playing?

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:52 AM 0 comments

Hugh Hewitt Excludes Me

Hugh Hewitt, responding to something by Andrew Sullivan that I haven't and won't read, says there's no conservative crack-up occurring:

On this side, Andrew, the ABC polling team, Charles Fried and --sort of-- William F. Buckley and some additional, talented essayists. On the other side --my side-- the president, all of the leadership of the GOP in the House and the Senate, every possible GOP presidential candidate who has spoken on the issue, all but Boortz of the vaunted "Republican noise machine," and the rank and file.

Hewitt enumerates a large number of elected leaders and the only voters he names are the rank and file. That is, the dyed-on-the-sheep conservatives.

However, those elected leaders didn't get elected by just the rank and file. Bush was elected with a coalition of moral/religious conservatives, libertarian-conservatives, and hawkish Democrats. During the election season, I was pleased with how inclusive the Republican electorate was becoming. Now, after the election, it's condensing to its rank and file "Hewitt's side" is sacrificing government constraint and government fiscal discipline to legislate its morality.

Now that Hewitt and his side have gotten my libertarianesque vote in the election cycle, they're ready to excommunicate me from the Republican orgy. I, and some of the others not on Hewitt's side, will remember this next election cycle. When a third party candidate comes along with just enough strength to draw our protest votes and the Clintonocracy is restored to the throne, will Hewitt's side learn its lesson?

Probably not. But the last time we had a Republican legislature and a Clinton presidency, it worked out to the best for domestic policy. The Republicans wouldn't give Clinton what he wanted, and Clinton could veto what Hewitt's side wanted. Of course, the United States lost ground in foreign policy and international safety, but perhaps we need to toggle between good domestic policy and good foreign policy every decade or so to keep the republic as healthy as possible.

Which, unfortunately, seems only to be heroic measures at the end of the republic's life.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:20 AM 0 comments

A Technology Consumers Won't Embrace

Ever need to phone 7,000 people at once?

If you ever need to get in touch with several--or several thousand--people at once, Send Word Now has the software for you.

The New York City-based start-up is promoting a communication application at PC Forum that lets a user type a message on a PC that then transforms into a phone call to a few people, or a few thousand. (PC Forum is owned by CNET Networks, owner of News.com.)

Though the urgent message currently needs to be typed into a PC (or broadcast from a company's server farm), on April 7, Send Word Now will announce that customers can broadcast messages with a Palm handheld.

Wonder how companies will use this technology, huh? Two words: Phone Spam.

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

Brian Bows to Fark

For Fark linked to the story "Paula Abdul Charged With Hit-And-Run" with:

Straight up now tell me
do you really want to love me forever
oh oh oh
or am I caught in a hit and run?

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:32 PM 0 comments

Do Not Eat

A study commissioned by a number of environmental groups interested in regulating chemicals has uncovered, in a shocking twist, that your house contains things that the environmental groups want to regulate more (Study finds toxic chemicals in dust samples from U.S. households):

Americans are exposed to a variety of potentially dangerous chemicals in their homes from products such as computers, frying pans and shower curtains, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The study, called "Sick of Dust," found 35 hazardous industrial chemicals in household dust samples from 70 homes in seven states, including California. It was commissioned by nine environmental groups, including the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose.

"It literally brings home the fact that hazardous chemicals are in our daily lives," said Beverly Thorpe, international director for Clean Production Action, one of the study's sponsors. "We feel now is a prime opportunity to overhaul chemical regulation in the United States."

The researchers tested the dust samples for six types of chemicals, including pesticides and flame retardants. All the chemicals are legal, but many are known to be harmful to immune, respiratory, cardiovascular and reproductive systems. They said infants and young children are especially vulnerable to exposure.

I should have chipped in a couple dollars since this also proves a maxim of mine: Do not eat the dust bunnies.

I'd like to take a moment to elaborate on this thesis and enumerate some other things I don't think you should put in your mouth or slide down your gullet:

Dust brontosauri. If you're like me, your dust has clung together in much larger beasts than mere bunnies; these are probably worse and more toxic than mere dust bunnies, although they're just as cuddly and furry.
Color newspaper inserts. Although the richly-colored flame-broiled burgers look appetizing, and come to think of it, so do the vinylly-sided homes, the colored inks might, in fact, be bad for you. So I implore you to do what I do, stick to the healthy black inks and eat only news pages.
Charcoal briquette residue. Although the fine grey powder does provide a noticeable high when snorted, it also brings the risk of mockery and various and sundry cancers.
Windex. You know, Mai Tais just don't look right without a touch of something blue, but you should choose Boone's Farm Apple Wine Product instead of any glass cleaning product. Listen, Mr. Yuck was right.
Insect carcasses after the exterminator has left. I don't care if Fear Factor is your favorite television show, the reason that the bugs are now easier to catch is that their little bodies are pumped full of poison. If you break the record for ants consumed in an hour, it might be your finest hour, but it could also be your final hour. Chocolate covering is not an antidote.

Face it, the world is full of substances that could hurt or kill you, and the government cannot regulate them all. If you're really having that much trouble keeping toxic substances out of your mouth, perhaps you should consult with your psychoanalyst and see if he or she can get you promoted to the next stage of psychosexual development.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:24 AM 0 comments

Forget Taiwan

Same old story, underplayed as usual: Report: China Faces Severe Water Shortages:

China's already severe water shortages are worsening due to heavy pollution of lakes and aquifers and urban development projects with a big thirst for water, such as lawns and fountains, state media reported.

More than 100 cities have inadequate water supplies, with more than half "seriously threatened," the official Xinhua News Agency cited Qiu Baoxing, a vice minister of construction, as saying.

"The uneven distribution of the limited resource and serious pollution further deteriorate the situation," Qiu said.

In Beijing, for example, each resident has access to only 10,593 cubic feet of water a year, compared with the world average of 35,310 cubic feet, Xinhua said in a separate report.

That reminded me of an article I read in the November 1997 edition of The Atlantic Monthly entitled "Our Real China Problem" by Mark Hertsgaard (available online to subscribers here) which documents the impact of China's population growth and industrialization on China's environment. Excerpt:

At least five of the cities with the worst air pollution in the world are in China. Sixty to 90 percent of the rainfall in Guangdong, the southern province that is the center of China's economic boom, is acid rain. Since nearly all the gasoline in China is leaded (Beijing switched to unleaded gas in June), and 80 percent of the coal isn't "washed" before being burned, people's lungs and nervous systems are bombarded by an extraordinary volume and variety of deadly poisons. One of every four deaths in China is caused by lung disease, brought about by the air pollution and the increasingly fashionable habit of cigarette smoking. Suburban sprawl and soil erosion gobbled up more than 86 million acres of farmland from 1950 to 1990 -- as much as all the farmland in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Farmland losses have continued in the 1990s, raising questions about China's ability to feed itself in years to come, especially as rising incomes lead to more meat-intensive diets.

Also:

Beijing has so little water that Party leaders have questioned whether the city can remain the capital, according to Yu Yuefeng, the staff director of the Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Conservation Committee of the National People's Congress. With a nervous chuckle, Yu told me that the problem has eased in the past two years, thanks to higher than normal rainfall, but, he conceded, "This is a roll of the dice. We have to rely on the gods to keep the rains coming." In his privileged Party position Yu can afford to laugh. The problem is not so amusing for some 50 million people in rural northern China who must walk for miles or wait for days to obtain any drinking water at all. As for farmland, population growth has reduced the supply per person to about the size of one third of a tennis court.

That article appeared seven and a half years ago.

If China wants to conquer, Taiwan might only be a starting point. If China goes the militaristic conqueror route, it will need clean land, arable land and fresh water. Which would worry me if I shared a frontier with China.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:42 AM 0 comments

The Hottest Thing Since

Apparently, entrepreneurs have decided that some people don't want to sing a la karaoke; they want to lip synch comedy routines:

Karaoke is soooooo 1990s. For those who'd rather make people laugh at their punch lines than cringe at their high notes, the new wave in participatory entertainment is Joke-e-oke.

The premise behind Joke-e-oke is that, at some level, everyone wants to be a comedian. It's a form of entertainment software that allows people, momentarily, to realize this ambition while emulating the classic comedy routines of their favorite comedians.

The idea for Joke-e-oke is simple. It's basically karaoke with stand-up comedy material. Many dream of the chance to be a comedian with killer material in front of a laughing crowd. With Joke-e-oke, people are able to live out their comedy fantasy of being their favorite comedian onstage, choosing from a list of stand-up comedy icons to perform. A built in laugh track is added, timed perfectly to accent punch lines.

Wow, those whacky entrepreneurs will try anything! But seriously, I think this will be the hottest thing since Movieoke, which is at least six degrees Kelvin above absolute zero.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 AM 0 comments

Red Herring?

How come I haven't heard Terry Wallis mentioned at all by those who want to save Terri Schiavo.

Granted, comatose ain't vegetative, but still, I would expect some comparison.

UPDATE: Because in this highly-complicated case in which most commentators have incomplete or inadequate knowledge, it's important to introduce more incomparable situations as direct metaphors for the possibilities. Obfuscation through opination. That's the other thing the blogosphere does best.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:02 PM 0 comments

Carnival of the Honkers

The first weekly Carnival of the Honkers is up at angelweave.

Hurry, for this will probably be the only Carnival of the Honkers, which makes it a blogosphere collectible.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:15 PM 0 comments

Mark Your Calendar

May 7: Free Comic Book Day

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

The Longest Yard

In San Francisco, high school athletic officials have banned the postgame handshake and goodsportsmanship greetings after girls' soccer games:

A series of ugly run-ins between girls soccer teams in San Francisco's high schools has prompted a ban on that proverbial act of good sportsmanship -- the post-game handshake.

Not only that, but "all soccer players will be barred from saying a single word to their opponents, opposing coaches or officials upon the conclusion of every soccer game," Donald Collins, the school district's high school athletic commissioner, decreed in an e-mail to all coaches and referees Monday.

So instead of winners and losers exchanging friendly or even perfunctory high-fives, "all soccer players will immediately proceed to their respective sidelines upon the conclusion of every soccer game," Collins commanded.

You know, one of the arguments against home schooling is that public schools help socialize children. There's your socialization, ma'am: socialized like inmates, not allowed to interact with those from different high schools to show that the participants understand the limited nature of the game and understand that although they have competed fiercely, they respect each other.

Just because a few girls didn't. So the schools will socialize to the lowest common denominator, which will always prove to be a half step above animal given human nature.

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

Outside What Box?

While declining to support a local sales tax increase for some communities in Wisconsin so that those communities could then spend the money, Wisconsin state senator Alberta Darling had some confusing praise:

"I applaud them for thinking outside the box, but I don't want to add another tax," Darling said.

Adding another tax is outside the box? A sales tax increase represents creativity in government in the suburbs of Milwaukee?

Pardon my skepticism, but that doesn't sound new at all. It sounds rather....common for government "leaders."

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:23 PM 0 comments

The Noggle Blitzed

You know, I don't normally play chess because most knowledgeable opponents recognize the Noggle Blitz for what it really is--a shortsighted attempt to take as many of the opponent's pieces as fast as possible while sowing confusion with those inexplicable queen-for-knight swaps.

Of course, I don't normally drink hard liquor either. But this Shot Glass Chess Set might make me take up both. Take a piece, do a shot!

I wonder what the blogosphere's resident chessophile would think?

UPDATE: Pejman says what he thinks.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:55 PM 0 comments

What Did You Think Would Happen, Casinoport?

November, 2004: Maryland Heights voters pass Proposition D, which charges wireless companies $1000 per communications tower (city press release announcing proposition here; results here and here; mayor does happy dance over his new revenue in city newsletter PDF here)

March, 2005: news in my wireless bill:

Attention Chesterfield, Manchester, Maryland Heights, Vinita Park, and Wellston MO Customers
Next month, we will begin collecting a City business license surcharge of 5.0 percent (5.5 percent in Maryland Heights) to recover the cost of a business license tax that the City claimes must be paid by Verizon Wireless. This surcharge will appear in the Verizon Wireless Surcharges section of your bill as the item labeled CITY BUS LIC SURCHG. This surcharge is a Verizon Wireless charge, not a tax, and is subject to change. If ytou have any questions or concerns about the City's imposition of its business license tax on wireless companies, please contact your elected City officials at 636-537-4000 (Chesterfield), 636-227-1385 (Manchester), 314-291-6550 (Maryland Heights), 314-428-7373 (Vinita Park) or 314-385-1015 (Wellston).

Some of us saw that coming and recognize that a business tax--even those the City wants to spend on beautification projects of all things--get passed onto the customers. Verizon's surcharge is very upfront; in most cases, these additional taxes designed to soak corporations just get rolled into price increases, and the consumer and city resident pays for them anyway.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:37 AM 0 comments

Not Quite The Victim

Agency says school chief bought less than $2,000 in gambling credits: Official embezzled $844,477, said he had gambling problem:

Gambling records at Missouri's 11 riverboat casinos indicate that a former northwest Missouri school superintendent who stole more than $844,000 from his school district bought less than $2,000 in slot machine credits or table game chips since 2001.

Ronnie Gene DeShon, former superintendent of the Pattonsburg School District, admitted in federal court earlier this month that he embezzled $844,477 over four years. He said he used to money to feed his gambling addiction.

But Troy Stremming, president of the Missouri Riverboat Gaming Association, said if DeShon lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling, it wasn't at Missouri's riverboat casinos. Gambling records at the riverboat casinos indicate that DeShon bought less than $2,000 in slot machine credits or table game chips since 2001.

I would say the embezzler played the victim card, but he wasn't playing cards at all. Instead, he pushed an obvious sympathy button to lessen his punishment.

Like this guy, I took money from my employer's account last year and deposited it in my personal account, although I understand this is less of an issue when you're self-employed. In case it's not, I want to document my addictions and disorders that led me to this sad low:

Sex.
Coffee.
Beer.
Sprecher's Root Beer.
Yellow Tail Shiraz/Cabernet.
Gambolling.
Napping.
Reading.

Does that press your sympathy button, or your envy button?

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 AM 0 comments

Universe in Danger as CNN Deploys Headline Paradox

Villain announced for 'Spider-Man 3': Thomas Haden Church will play unnamed nemesis.

So the studio identified the actor but has not identified the villain. Whomever the character is, undoubtedly Marvel Comics named it in one comic book or another.

I'll take Venom in the pool, please.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:50 AM 0 comments

Tomorrow's Anti-Gun Arguments Today

From this Haaretz article:

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Interior Ministry has begun placing restrictions on the use of weapons by Palestinian militants, Palestinian security officials said Monday, a step toward fulfilling a long-standing Israeli demand that the armed groups be dismantled.

A Palestinian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Interior Ministry has distributed a letter outlining weapons restrictions to hundreds of militants in the West Bank.

The restrictions limit militants to a single weapon, and bar them from loading the weapons or carrying them in public, the official said. He said the measure obligates militants to license the weapons with the Interior Ministry and forbids them from changing their serial numbers.

Many militants possess more than one weapon.

Watch for Feinstein or Schumer to start saying, "Even Palestinian militants can only have one weapon; why should US citizens be allowed more?"

(Link seen on Roger L. Simon.)

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

Worse Than International Law

I don't know how I feel about this hit:

Domain Name	uscourts.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address	208.27.x.x ? (ARIN - North America)
Language Setting	English
Operating System	Microsoft Win2000
Browser	Internet Explorer 5.5 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)
Time of Visit	Mar 21 2005 7:44:41 pm
Last Page View	Mar 21 2005 7:44:41 pm
Visit Length	0 seconds
Page Views	1
Referring URL	http://www.technorat...rl=Schiavo&start=200
Visit Entry Page	http://stlbrianj.blo...5_03_20_archive.html
Visit Exit Page	http://stlbrianj.blo...5_03_20_archive.html
Time Zone	UTC-5:00 EST - Eastern Standard EDT - Eastern Daylight Saving Time
Visitor's Time	Mar 21 2005 8:44:41 pm

That's someone with the Federal court system doing a Technorati search on the name Schiavo.

Pleasepleaseplease do not reach a precedent-setting judicial decision based on what the blogosphere says.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:55 PM 0 comments

But There Won't Be Smoking Allowed

Attorney: Owner has right to open adult bookstore:

Kleinhans and his attorney Grant Shostak argued the business application should be accepted under Crystal City ordinance.

"It's the law," Shostak said. "It is not the whim of this city government to determine whether a business license should be issued. From someone looking from the outside, it appears that if it is something the city likes then it will be issued. If it is something the city doesn't like, then it will not be issued."

"We took the city's ordinance and analyzed the zoning issues," Kleinhans said. "We studied it and did our due diligence. We have met all of the requirements according to the ordinance."

Peh, you can do with your property whatever the government wants you to do with it.

Perhaps Shostak should emphasize that smoking will be prohibited on the premises. City councils seem to like to ban that. Or maybe they don't appreciate voluntary smoking bans since those entrepreneurs prevent the city councils from doing something!!!1!

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:07 PM 0 comments

Post-Dispatch Gets It Right In Sidebar

Along side a story entitled Is your poker game legal?, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch provides a sidebar, Will you get busted?, which details numerous poker game scenarios and whether you can be arrested for them. In which, we find the gospel:

The game: Texas Hold’em with 20 of your closest buddies at someone’s home, each buying in for $25.

Is it legal? No

Will you get busted: Not likely, unless you’re playing with a bunch of suspected felons who already are under surveillance.

You can violate this silly law with impunity unless law enforcement wants a charge to hang upon you.

Al Capone got arrested for tax evasion. Piss off a cop or prosecutor, and you can get busted for cards with your buddies.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:00 PM 0 comments

Collateral Damage Audience

I don't think these people will sell to their target audience:

Underwear. It can say "I'm sexy." It can say "I'm confident." But can it say "I'm waiting for marriage?"

That's what Yvette Thomas is banking on. Her growing line of clothing, WaitWear, plasters slogans like "Virginity Lane: Exit When Married" and "Notice: No Trespassing On This Property. My Father Is Watching" on underwear and T-shirts, and is meant to inspire young people to abstain from sex until they tie the knot.

Yeah, I bet her $2,000,000 in annual sales come from people who believe what's on their new panties.

UPDATE: Radley Balko concurs.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:55 PM 0 comments

The Dogs That Didn't Bark

White House: Schiavo Bill Not a Precedent:

The White House said Monday that an extraordinary law allowing a federal court to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case was narrowly tailored and not intended as a precedent for Congress to step into battles over the fate of seriously disabled or terminally ill patients.

Mmm hm. Operative words are not intended.

The road to this Republic's hell are paved with non-intentions.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:09 PM 0 comments

Book Report: Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War by Bob Greene (2000)

I bought this book for fourteen bucks in paperback at Borders (well, I used a gift card for part of it) because I like Bob Greene's work. As some of you might recall, I read Bob Greene's America last year. He's much better at columns and essays than at full length novels, it would appear based on this single sample.

This book chronicles the aftermath Bob Greene's father's death. Greene explores his relationship to his father and seeks a better understanding of the World War II generation as he interviews Paul Tibbets, the man who not only flew the Enola Gay but commanded the military force responsible for putting together the mission. So Greene weaves together the individually compelling stories in what, ultimately, proves to be a less than satisfying mishmash.

Greene wanders between his memories of his father's last days, his interviews with Tibbets, and the audiotapes that his father made to tell his children his WWII experiences as an infantryman in Italy in the war. Throughout, we get Greene's earnest voice, sometime plaintive and sometimes naive, discussing the events as they unfold. I've complimented Greene's columns and his collection of columns for their concision and transparent eyeballness, but he cannot sustain it in this longer work. And at the end, Greene gets to meet the two other surviving members of the Enola Gay crew as the three reunite in Branson, Missouri. We get to see they're older and that most people don't know who they are, and at the end of the weekend, the book pretty much ends. It doesn't build to a strong insight or conclusion of any real meat, and although a column doesn't have to, a book should.

So I'm ultimately disappointed. I look forward to more collections of his columns, if any exist, but have some trepidation regarding his other long works and his novel. But I'll try at least one, since it's on my too-read shelves.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM 0 comments

The Post-Dispatch Has A Big Mind

Obviously, it does not worry about consistency.

Dateline: December. Post-Dispatch fires reporter for blogging.

Dateline: March. Lead editorial: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Freedom in the blogosphere

Excerpt:

APPLE COMPUTER INC. - the cool dude of computer-makers, the friend of electronic innovation - has itself turned into a bully. It is going to court against Weblog writers, or "bloggers," who leaked inside information about company innovations to Apple's cult following of techies.

Make no mistake, gentle reader; this is the Post-Dispatch knocking corporations, not protecting the little man. Kinda like the Post-Dispatch trumpets labor actions by all labor unions but those striking against the Post-Dispatch.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:09 PM 0 comments

Moose Abuse

The Milwaukee Admirals lost to the Manitoba Moose last night. The Moose backstopper Wade Flaherty won the MVP of the Calder Cup playoffs last year when he led the Milwaukee Admirals to the championship. And the Admirals had their backup goalie in, so essentially it was last year's number one Admirals goalie against the number three Admirals goalie. What would you expect?

However, in accordance with the rules of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I must post the winning team's logo:

As well as a link to Your Moosey Fate, who had the foresight to pick the Moose in the jamboree.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:24 AM 0 comments

Book Report: Star Trek 6 by James Blish (1972)

Okay I read another of these. I bought 5-10 for 33 cents each at Hooked on Books in Springfield, and they're well worth it. Star Trek 6, like the others in the series, gathers together some of the episodes from the original Star Trek series and does them in a short story format. They're quick reads as they run about 130 pages each and, as paperbacks, they fit in one's pocket.

A couple of things strike me as I read them:

Wow, you mean there are episodes of the original series I haven't seen? I guess they made, what, 80 of them over three years; I just assumed that through the years of syndication, I had seen them all. I haven't. Which means there's probably a TOS DVD box set in my future.
Man, do you remember when paperback books had order forms right in the back? Have you ever encountered a paperback book that had its order form clipped out? Me either. Do they still do that? I remember the old paperback versions of Ayn Rand's writing actually had a card glued into the middle for information about the ARI, but I haven't seen a paperback with the order form in years. Of course, I haven't bought a new paperback book in years....

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:58 AM 0 comments

Possession by Law Enforcement Is 10/10ths of the Law

In the story entitled " $3.3 million in suspect cash is seized ", we encounter a hint of another way the federal government has eroded property rights:

Under federal law, the money was turned over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. If the driver can't provide proof he obtained the money legally, federal law requires that it be divided between Pontoon Beach police and federal agencies.

Understand that, citizen. The government can seize an amount of cash from you that it considers suspicious and can place the burden of proof upon you to convince them that it's your money; if you cannot convince them to your satisfaction, they get to keep it.

Sure, this story is about $3.3 million, but it includes other enumerations as well:

"We catch people with anywhere from $5,000 or $6,000 all the way up to a half million usually," said St. Louis police spokesman Sgt. Sam Dotson.

Carry five grand in cash on your person on your way to buy a car, and the government can take it from you. Sleep tight, citizens, in the bed you have at your government's leisure.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:40 AM 0 comments

Gratuitous

In an article entitled "Twist and Shout: Readers nominate the most-idiotic-twist endings.", Slate's movie guy offers an editorial comment:

One thing you can say for The Village that you can't for many of the movies with cheap reversals: !!! Whatever the film's absurdities (the redirection of flight paths is an especial giggle), the Shyamster was trying to explore, with sympathy, the age-old difficulty of separating oneself and one's family from a diseased society, be it crime-ridden, chaotic, and amoral or governed by rapacious, right-wing corporatists. (Well, the ultraconservative Shyamster didn't exactly focus on the latter, but it strikes me as the bigger threat right now.) The problem with The Village is that the Shyamster bungled the suspense and couldn't manage to come up with a cathartic payoff. Audiences felt rooked.

Dear movie guy: I don't give a pawn what you think about politics. I clicked the article because it looked like an interesting pop culture read. Your beliefs in politics, particularly your insertion without comment or development, matter not a whit to the story you're writing. It is gratuitous and doesn't make me think well of you at all.

But it does put you on Eric Mink's career path--from television critic to editor of the op-ed pages.

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

Iala Iacta Est

No Stopping Global Warming, Studies Predict

Even if people stopped pumping out carbon dioxide and other pollutants tomorrow, global warming would still get worse, two teams of researchers reported on Thursday.

Well, there you have it. Kyoto's useless. We're all doomed. Everyone can mow their lawns during daylight hours now.

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

Waste of a Bullet

US troops shoot dead Iraqi general: police

I mean, if he's dead, why waste the ammo?

On a serious note, we love the caption for the photo: "US troops have killed a number of coalition personnel. (Reuters)" Of all the things you could say about US troops, I guess that's one.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:26 PM 0 comments

Not What He Had In Mind

Sure, some of us have speculated that it's how we want to go, but this probably isn't what we've got in mind:

A French woman fatally shot investment banking mogul Edouard Stern "in the course of sexual relations," Swiss authorities charged yesterday.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:57 PM 1 comments

Book Report: Cold Service by Robert B. Parker (2005)

I actually ordered Cold Service from Amazon, so I'm a week late in reading it. But I read it in a single night, as is my wont. It helps that the books are thick, but the print is large and the most of the book is dialogue.

The plot basically recycles Small Vices and Pale Kings and Princes in that Hawk gets shot, almost dies, and when he recuperates, he and Spenser will pit the various organized crime elements against each other to get revenge on the gang who shot Hawk and the people whom he was protecting (some bodyguard--sorry, that's A Savage Place).

The same knocks I make on Crais novels I can make on Parker in the last couple of years. The plot centers on a favor for a friend instead of a case, it features a problem and not a mystery, and it features an ethnic gang of the month (Ukrainians). Still, I was partly raised by Robert B. Parker since I read the best of the Spenser novels in my fatherless formative years, so I give him a little more leeway for the books he phones in.

Still, I enjoyed the book well enough, but I'd prefer to see Spenser work on some cases, not some guerilla campaigns against organized crime.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:58 AM 0 comments

Warranty Violation

Imagine my horror this morning when I discovered that I opened my new toothbrush from the wrong end:

Wrong end opened

Jeez, I should have read all instructions carefully. By removing the toothbrush from the box handle first, I've not only violated the warranty, which means that if this toothbrush fails to clean my teeth effectively, I cannot return it to the manufacturer for repair, but also that I have actually diminished the effectiveness of the toothbrush whose toothcleaning power was actually activated by the upward motion of the toothbrush head through the OPEN THIS END side.

Not to mention this very blog entry will be used as evidence against me at the next hearing, making it harder for me to acquire and receive a license for toothbrushes in the future.

What a sucky way to start my day.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:19 AM 0 comments

Where'd Everybody Go?

So as I monitored my daily hits, I could have wondered why I was not getting any hits from my trackback to a VodkaPundit post in this post yesterday defending Kansas and attacking those who would attack Kansas. As Matt at Overtaken by Events discovered, the guest blogging author of the original post closed comments and eliminated all trackbacks.

Poor form, Peter.

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

That's One Big Insect

This headline would be much funnier with a hyphen: Family of protester killed by bulldozer-suing Caterpillar

What kind of caterpillar sues bulldozers, anyway?

(Link seen on Overlawyered.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:51 PM 0 comments

Preventing Carpal Tunnels

Remember, ergonomics are important. Fortunately, Ajax helps me maintain proper wrist angle:

Ajax the OSHA representative

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

Welcome, Fellow Felons (Unprosecuted)

Professor Glenn Reynolds, a little known blogger, writes in Tech Central Station:

Which means, in fact, the criminalization of almost everyone, too -- if you haven't been convicted of some felony or other, it's probably because no prosecutor has tried to put you away, not because you haven't committed one, whether you realized it at the time or not.

Or perhaps legislators just haven't passed the law yet, but give them a couple of days. Certainly, someone must do something!

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

Book Report: The American Zone by L. Neil Smith (2001)

I saw this book last winter at the 80% off book store before I saw its predecessor The Probability Broach; however, I found the first one and read it first and finally, five months later, got to this book.

This book is a short story stuffed with Libertarian policy. A couple of crimes occur, and the heroes interview a number of authoritarian straw men and shout them down with Libertarian reason. Then, on page 250, a member of the villains committing the crimes comes forward and explains to them what's going on in the plot and how to reach the climactic shootout where the bad guys die, the good guys are only injured, and an unexpected cavalry arrives.

I guess if you eagerly bought the book, this is kinda what you hoped would happen. However, I found the book tiresome to read without a plot, although the writing was simple and easygoing enough. But it's hard to overtly root for an ideology as the antagonist.

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

They Must Have Run Out of Tobacco Lawsuit Money

Newark, New Jersey, used homeland security grants to buy garbage trucks:

Newark used federal Department of Homeland Security funds to help pay for 10 top-of-the-line, air-conditioned garbage trucks — and a group of state lawmakers think that stinks.

Newark unveiled its new garbage trucks last month — and boasted that the financing had partly come from "Homeland Security grants."

Republican lawmakers yesterday blasted the city for "misuse" of federal money.

"It goes to the heart of credibility," said Assemblyman Joseph Pennacchio, who noted New Jersey officials have been lobbying for more anti-terror funds.

"You can't say we're buying garbage trucks on one hand and we're not getting enough Homeland Security money on the other."

Not to mention that it's illegal to buy garbage trucks with a Homeland Security grant, says the department.

To the lower governments, Federal tax dollars represent a fungible slush fund for whatever they want to buy. And there's always more, minus the Federal government's sizeable vigorish, of course.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:50 PM 0 comments

More Separate But Unequal

Waiter, there's a nose ring in my soup: Wyoming may ban facial piercings in restaurants

As if the hair in your salad wasn't bad enough, a city health inspector in Cheyenne, Wyo. said there had been "several cases" of tongue rings and other facial jewelry found in the food in the city's restaurants.

It was enough to persuade the Governor's Food Safety Council to recommend banning facial jewelry for restaurant workers who prepare food -- perhaps becoming the first state in the country to do so.

No word on brooches, pendants/necklaces, or earrings, many of which are more dangly and eligible to fall off. No, sir, instead, we have a state government moving at lightning speed to ban something based on anecdotal "evidence."

Unfortunately, we expect nothing less.

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

Gratuitous Slap

Guestblogging at VodkaPundit, someone whose blog I don't bother with slaps the state of Kansas. Why? Because it's there.

Face it, Kansas is a plain-Jane. It's "I Like Ike" and Bob Dole country. It reminds me of my mosted hated food - mayonnaise - pale, bland, uniform in consistency and boring. There's no ocean, no mountains and its population is hardly a model of diversity. And it's always going to be that way. A simply mediocre, generic kind of place, totally devoid of bathos, highs or lows.

Unwarranted. really, but undoubtedly it made the author feel better about herself and the state in which she lives.

How are you supposed to answer an ad statum attack?

Update: Dustbury's thoughts.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:32 AM 0 comments

More Separate But Equal To Destroy

Now that a judge in San Francisco has ruled that banning gay marriage invokes the magickal separate but unequal curse, I humbly suggest some other institutions which could use a judicial takedown for promoting separateness but equalness:

Juvenile courts, which provide separate justice for youths which should have equal weight to adult punishment somehow.
The Chinese New Year, which presents a separate numbering system and celebration that's almost like the Gregorian celebration.
State governments, which present different laws based on geographic location. All laws should be standard across the Fatherland.
Gender-restricted bathrooms, which although numerous laws have mandated that facilities offer equal numbers of pots to piss in for men and women, women's bathrooms often have lines out the door. Certainly, separate but unequal; oyez, oyez, all bathrooms shalt be unisex or boththesexes from this day forward throughout the land!
Salary caps in professional sports, which enforce parity on sports teams, but a parity of pay, not of skill or performance.
Political news coverage, which has proven to be three times friendlier to Kerry than George W. Bush. So it must be eliminated as it's separate and unequal. Or made separate and equal under the divine guidance of the judiciary.

Unleash your inner Diana Moon Glampers!

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:40 AM 0 comments

Another Surveillance Camera Triumph

Remember, friends, cameras cannot keep you safe; they can only provide prosecutors and law enforcement officials with leads and evidence after the bad guys do bad things. Control desk failed to notice assault on camera:

A video camera, which is supposed to be monitored by two guards in a command post, shows the two arriving in the holding area between two courtrooms, according to a law enforcement official who viewed the tape.

The video shows Hall guiding Nichols, whose hands are still handcuffed behind his back, face-first into one of two open cells.

Hall releases one cuff and turns Nichols around to unhook the remaining cuff, which is dangling from his wrist. She uncuffs him so he can change from a jail jumpsuit into street clothes.

The muscular, 33-year-old Nichols then lunges at Hall, knocking the petite, 51-year-old woman backward into another cell. Both disappear from camera view.

Because there is no audio recording with the camera, it is unclear whether Nichols shot Hall or caused her severe head injuries by hitting her with his fist and knocking her to the concrete floor.

Two to three minutes later, Nichols emerges from the cell, holding Hall's gun belt and police radio. He picks up her keys from the floor and locks her inside the cell. Nichols then goes into a nearby cell.

A couple of minutes later he emerges, dressed in civilian clothes. He locks the door behind him and saunters calmly out of the holding area, carrying the gun belt, according to the law enforcement official who viewed the tape. Nichols appears to know exactly which key to use to unlock the holding area door and enters a vacant courtroom on the eighth floor.

The camera silently recorded it all. Remember this whenever your local law enforcement tells you that its new cameras will make your community safer. They will not.

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

What Good Is a Criminal Record?

San Francisco has determined that having convictions on your record might make people think less of you. So they're all in favor of removing criminal convictions:

A young woman arrested for prostitution shared a harrowing tale of leaving her suburban home in the Bay Area and working for a sadistic pimp.

She escaped when her pimp was sent to prison. Now she is back with her family, working part-time and attending college. The poised and articulate 23- year-old wants her criminal past cleared so she can enter the field of her dreams: nursing.

A San Francisco program called Clean Slate may be the answer.

Using a little-known state law, the Clean Slate program run by the San Francisco public defender's office got more than 1,500 criminal cases cleared last year. Another 2,227 are being processed.

The cleared cases -- all committed in San Francisco -- range from lesser charges such as prostitution and petty theft to more serious offenses including attempted rape, drug dealing, assault and vehicular manslaughter.

No harm, no foul. Harm? Eh, no foul either.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:35 PM 0 comments

Today's DotCom Boom Punchline

FogDog.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:07 AM 0 comments

Too Little, Too Late

Sen. Paul Sarbanes won't seek reelection

Too damn little, too late. When your name has been attached to a piece of legislation designed to hobble corporations and to transfer wealth from publicly-owned companies to accounting firms and the government, you've been in office too long. When your legislation is used as a perjorative amongst well-informed people (SOX you!), your retirement comes too late.

That McCain-Feingoldin' Federal-power-mad, doin'-somethin legislator. May he retire in piece and not inflict current legislators with his lobbying.

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

Because They Already Memorialized Dead Homeless People Last Week

More feature writing from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Whatever happened to Evelyn West?, which eulogizes a famous stripper in St. Louis from the 1950s:

Officer William Comeford filed his report - death apparently from natural causes - and returned to business as usual.

He ignored the clues that this 83-year-old woman once had been famous. They could be found in the stacks of provocative photographs all about her quarters; three bedrooms stacked with boxes that made it impossible to walk through the rooms. Some contained the outfits she donned backstage and then discarded onstage to the cheers of hundreds each night.

So last Sunday, it was sepia-toned love for homelessness. This week, it's a page on an old, forgotten stripper. What's next for the hard-hitting reporters at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch?

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:43 PM 0 comments

Missouri Citizens Have Too Much Power, Missouri Legislator Determines

Bill would forbid ‘harassing' requests for documents:

A bill introduced last month in the Missouri House would, if approved, allow government officials to reject so-called harassing requests for public documents.

But a loose definition of the bill's wording by government officials who process the requests could hurt even well-intentioned residents, some say.

House Bill 391, the proposed change to Missouri's Sunshine Law, would allow a public governmental body to refuse any "vexatious" request for documents.

The bill defines a vexatious request as "any request for documents which is frivolous, repetitive or unreasonable and made for the primary purpose of harassing a public governmental body or any member of a governmental body."

In other words, any requests by citizens who oppose the goings on on the government.

The bill's sponsor, Shannon Cooper, R-Clinton, did not return repeated phone calls from the

for this story.

Of course not. The whole point is that the plebes cannot understand the subtleties of ruling them, so why confuse them with information or argument?

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:20 PM 0 comments

Big Business and Big Labor

Local government works for big corporations; however, apparently in Des Moines, the local government also obeys the dicta of big labor. After all, they threw out a low bid for a city contract probably because the low bidder used non-union employees:

Des Moines City Council members rejected saving $500,000 on a water detention basin project, turning away all bids because the lowest was too low.

The savings would have been large enough to nearly pay for last year's decision to restore power to 4,200 streetlights that had been turned off in a cost-saving move.

"I respect the council members because I know they have a tough job, but this was" wrong, said Thelma Saxton, whose family owns Saxton Inc., which employs non-union labor.

Officials of Corell Contractor Inc. of West Des Moines and a lobbyist for the Central Iowa Building and Construction Trades Council contacted council members before this week's vote and asked them not to hire Saxton. Corell employs union labor.

Iowa laws do not require cities to use union labor.

Silly newspapers. Laws are for fools, and government sweetness is for corporations and unions.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:05 PM 0 comments

Easter Bunny: Too Religious for Commerce

Apparently, the Easter Bunny is too Christian for some malls:

The Easter Bunny is a vanishing breed.

Not that there's a shortage of 6-foot white rabbits carrying baskets of colored eggs. It's just that Mr. Shopping Mall Bunny is becoming more politically correct.

The bunny at The Gardens mall Easter egg hunt last weekend — oops, make that just plain "egg hunt" — was called Garden Bunny.

"The name just complemented The Gardens of the Palm Beaches," mall Marketing Director Jeannie Roberts said.

Saturday, Baxter the Bunny is available for photos at the Mall at Wellington Green. At Town Center in Boca Raton, Peter Rabbit will hand out goodies and pose for pictures.

"Because we're such a multicultural community, it's good just to remain neutral," mall General Manager Sam Hosen said.

Unfortunately, the lack of diversity training has led to the ignorance which leads some cretins to identify Christian biblical origins for the Easter Bunny. Perhaps they think it stems from an old tradition enumerated in Deuteronomy or Leviticus. Golden calves, bad, but chocolate rabbits are okay.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:33 PM 0 comments

Report: Industry Group Wants Government Money

Group: U.S. losing competitive edge:

Leaders of high-tech companies said the United States risks losing its competitive edge without significant new investments in education, research and development and the spread of broadband technology.

Whose investment?

They also called on Congress to increase basic research funding and make permanent a research and development tax credit; promote broadband development, in part by minimizing regulations; enact a U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement; promote cyber-security initiatives; and continue to take steps to reduce frivolous lawsuits.

You know, I cannot think of any personal problem I have that couldn't be helped with buckets of free taxpayer money. Except for perhaps this distaste I have for spending tax money to benefit businesses.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:10 PM 0 comments

Mmm. Doughnuts.

Ajax wants doughnuts

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

My State Legislator Coddles Corporation

I'm very disappointed to see that my State Senator has decided that a local company needs handouts to stick around:

But the battle between Missouri and Illinois could be just heating up. Express Scripts would get an estimated $35 million in incentives from Illinois to move its headquarters across the Mississippi River, a Missouri state senator said he has learned.

To keep the company in Missouri, Sen. John Loudon, R-Ballwin, said he has introduced an 11th-hour bill to improve Missouri's menu of economic incentives. He filed the bill March 1 after meeting with St. Louis County officials.

"There is very real competition from other communities throughout the country that are making inquiries into one of our fastest-growing companies," said Denny Coleman, president of the St. Louis County Economic Council. "The array of incentives programs we have here are not as strong as our competitor states."

I don't remember reading much about the preeminence of corporations in this country's founding documents, but they certainly get a lot of attention and support from the governments, ainna?

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:12 PM 0 comments

Bureaucrat Explains Economic Theory

Martin Braeske, planning supervisor for the St. Louis City school district, explains how finance works as he discusses the sale of schoolhouses:

The use of historic tax credits to restore the properties has been a factor in the bulk of the sales, Braeske said. "With schools like Emerson, developers need the credits to make the deal profitable, and they have to preserve the historic elements of the schools to qualify for the credits, so it's a win all around," he said.

That is, to comply with the government regulations, "private" developers need tax breaks from the government to buy the buildings for "free enterprise" reasons. Meanwhile, everyone else continues to pay taxes unabated because they're not businesspeople or bureaucrats. A winner for all the people who matter.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:08 PM 0 comments

Spending Tax Money is the Only Assurance of Integrity

Democrat state politicians are upset that Matt Blunt isn't spending state tax money to fly himself around the state:

But state Democratic Party spokesman Jack Cardetti asserted that Blunt is once again showing "a lack of integrity" by allowing campaign donors to wield inappropriate influence in his administration.

"Special interests picked his Cabinet, and now they're taxiing him around the state to further curry favor with him," Cardetti said.

According to the Missouri Democrat party, if you don't forcibly take money from taxpayers to spend on your own convenient travel plans, you lack integrity.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:50 AM 0 comments

Sun-Times Double Team

Both Richard Roeper and Neil Steinberg spend some of their columns today pooh-poohing blogs.

Roeper:

And of course, blogs. By law, every story about the news business must include mention of the blog as the way of the future.

The media landscape is changing, and that's a positive thing. We're supposed to be living in a democracy in which all voices have an equal opportunity to be heard. The more platforms in the public square, the better.

Still, we need to keep a sense of perspective. The new media doesn't yet have a fraction of the clout, power, success and influence still enjoyed by the old media.

Steinberg:

On Feb. 14, 1978, President Jimmy Carter and his guests spent an evening in the White House watching "Citizens Band," a movie about a CB vigilante named Spider who roams the airwaves pouring abuse on those whose conduct falls short of his lofty standards of radio etiquette.

I thought of the CB craze while watching an excruciating CNN "Inside the Blogs" report on a blogger -- someone who keeps an online diary -- who was accredited and given access to a White House press conference, making him "perhaps the first blogger to cover the daily press briefings."

Yowza. Though they also let in a turkey at Thanksgiving, CNN found this particular entrance highly significant, perhaps some kind of turning point, and as the protracted, painful segment unfolded, the reporter tried to present the usual piranha frenzy in the so-called "blogosphere" by actually scrolling down, on air, blocks of verbiage on her computer screen. "It's hard to read," she said as the text flew by.

Is it ever. So why was CNN fooled? I know producers have time to fill, but they stumbled onto a common misperception that deserves note. Stuck as always in the jail of the present moment, we mistake White House or presidential involvement for a sign of importance or respectability.

Wow, the blogs as citizen's band radio. I posted a comment of that stripe years ago one some blog, but it's lost to the ether. A little Google searching shows that a high number of other people have had the same insight. On the other hand, not many of us have twice-a-week columns for a major metro tabloid.

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

Book Report: Star Trek 5 by James Blish (1972)

You damn kids want to know what old skool geeks did before DVDs, before VHS, and even before BetaMax? In the dark, dark days of the early 1970s, after the original Star Trek series disappeared from the airwaves and the animated series offered the only respite (the movie which revived the franchise was 8 years off in 1972, Star Wars the sci fi savior was 5 years off, and the next Star Trek Series a whopping fourteen years off). James Blish, a sci fi writer/hack took the episodes from the original series and published them in a series of books. That's right, you damn kids. Before they had DVDs, they had books, and geeks read. Not just books on development, but science fiction. In books.

I was first exposed to this series in high school, right before Star Trek: The Next Generation came out. So when I found a number of these books (starting with this one) at Hooked on Books priced at three for a dollar, I bought a season's worth of Star Trek for a buck sixty-seven. You can't beat that at garage sales for old videocassettes, werd.

This book runs 135 pages, roughly, and features seven stories. I remember many of the episodes, so I'm really drawn along. One hour episodes, condensed into 15 page stories, translates into some quick and easy science fiction reading. Granted, if you're not familiar with the original series and its characters, perhaps the book won't hold the same appeal for you. But you're a damn kid anyway, and I want you off of my lawn!

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:11 PM 0 comments

Brian Likes the URL String

In my capacity in software QA working on Web applications, I know there's no easier means of havoc than to mess with the URL string sent to the Web application. Looks as though some "hackers" have discovered the same with a university application, um, application:

The ApplyYourself code had a bug such that editing the URL in the "Address" or "Location" field of a Web browser window would result in an applicant being able to find out his admissions status several weeks before the official notification date. This would be equivalent to a 7-year-old being offered a URL of the form http://philip.greenspun.com/images/20030817-utah-air-to-air/ and editing it down to http://philip.greenspun.com/images/ to see what else of interest might be on the server.

But I bet the company saved a bundle of money by avoiding the whole quality assurance thing.

(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:54 PM 0 comments

Mmmm. Fuzzy Chicken

Save Toby.

Toby is the cutest little bunny on the planet. Unfortunately, he will DIE on June 30th, 2005 if you don’t help. I rescued him several months ago. I found him under my porch, soaking wet, injured from what appeared to be an attack from an alley cat. I took him in, thinking he had no chance to live from his injuries, but miraculously, he recovered. I have since spent several months nursing him to health. Toby is a fighter, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, on June 30th, 2005, Toby will die. I am going to eat him. I am going to take Toby to a butcher to have him slaughter this cute bunny. I will then prepare Toby for a midsummer feast. I have several recipes under consideration, which can be seen, with some pretty graphic images, under the recipe section.

As a poor young man in Milwaukee in the middle 1970s, I ate a lot of rabbit. My father had a string of traps in the city parks and sometimes shot rabbits right out of his car. We ate so much rabbit my father called it "Fuzzy Chicken." Say what you will, but we never went too hungry when my father was between jobs.

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

Eye Witness Shocker!

Italy Foreign Minister Disputes U.S. Claim:

Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday that American troops killed an Italian intelligence officer in Iraq by accident, but he disputed Washington's version of events, demanding a thorough U.S. investigation of the shooting and that "the culprits be punished."

Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told parliament that the car carrying the intelligence officer and an ex-hostage to freedom was not speeding and was not ordered to stop by U.S. troops at a checkpoint, contrary to what U.S. officials say.

So Fini saw this how? Was it the intricate network of Italian spy satellites, or was he on the scene masquerading as an Iraqi farmer?

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

Punish the Suspected

Here comes the intersection of gun rights and terrorism, and shockingly, they want to limit gun rights for our security: U.S. let terror suspects buy guns, feds say

Dozens of terrorist suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

People suspected of being members of terrorist groups are not automatically barred from legally buying guns, and the new investigation, conducted by congressional officials at the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had taken advantage of this gap on a regular basis.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement officials and gun control groups have voiced increasing concern about the prospect of having a terrorist walk into a gun shop, legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon and using it in an attack.

So now law enforcement officials and gun control groups want to prevent people on secret, unlisted watch groups from buying guns. Not people convicted of a crime, but a group of people who used to be called "presumed innocent." If Congress passes legislation to prevent suspects from buying guns, watch for more suspicious people on secret watch lists. Anyone who wants to buy a gun, for instance, could be suspected of wanting the gun to commit a crime.

Some slippery slopes are so steep that they're vertical drops, werd.

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

Brian Doesn't Cry Like a Baby

A reminiscience spurred by Richard Roeper's column today:

Funny you should mention that, John. I, too, have noticed these bullet hole stickers. They're not nearly as widespread as "Support Our Troops" ribbons, but they're definitely gaining in popularity. You can buy stickers that will make it look like your fender, trunk or even your windows have been pierced with single bullet holes or multiple bullet holes. I've also seen the stickers on motorcycle helmets, as if the wearer is saying, "I've been shot!"

From one Web site hawking the stickers: "Imagine your friend spotting a few bullet holes on his new car after a long day at work; he may just cry like a baby."

Hell, I've lived in the city. I don't need simulation. On February 20, 1994, I came out from eight hours of slinging produce to find a couple of nice pass throughs between the driver side window and rear passenger window of my father's car where a couple of small caliber rounds had passed through the car. I drove home with a cold bracing wind blowing through the pebbled windows and got the dual pleasure of dealing with my stepmother's misplaced wrath and filing a police report. On my twenty-second birthday. Not the height of hillarity, but I didn't cry like a baby.

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

I Got Nothing

Since I don't have anything witty or insightful to say today, perhaps you should just go read the Chicago Tribune's Steve Chapman in his column "The illusions of the minimum wage", which begins:

Asking Democrats if they favor an increase in the minimum wage is like asking Martha Stewart if she'd mind sharing some decorating ideas. There are few things they'd rather do, and Sen. Ted Kennedy thinks it is high time.

The Massachusetts Democrat is offering a measure that would boost the wage floor from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over the next two years. He notes that it has not been lifted since 1997, during which time senators have gotten seven pay raises. "If the Senate is serious about an anti-poverty agenda," he said, "let's start by raising the minimum wage." Republicans, meanwhile, might accept an increase of $1.10, as proposed by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

It may seem like an inescapable truth that if you increase the amount employers pay their lowest-wage workers, you will have fewer poor people. Money, after all, is what they lack, and a higher minimum wage means more money to those in the worst-paying jobs.

In fact, this is one of those obvious facts that turns out not to be a fact at all. The available evidence suggests that raising the minimum wage doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

You see, the gentleman can sound kinda smart about things when he's not la-dee-dah about foreign policy.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:26 PM 0 comments

Deep Cover Investigative Journalism

Norville to Anchor From 'Home Confinement':

Now HERE'S a good excuse for working at home. Deborah Norville will anchor Monday's program of "Inside Edition" from her home on Long Island, N.Y., to try to give viewers a taste of what Martha Stewart's home confinement is like.

Muhahahaha! I laugh with almost hysterical tears. I work from home, so I sometimes don't leave the house for weeks. You want to know what it's like?

It's maddening, but I like madness. It keeps me company and walks on cats' paws.

Seriously, what's next? Deborah Norville drives her own car so viewers know what commuting is like?

(Link seen on Tim Blair's site.)

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

Were I a Cynical, Suspicious Man

If I were a cynic, or a hopeful writer of suspense fiction, I might make something different of this story: Italian Journalist Rejects U.S. Account.

Okay, we have these salient events:

Sympathetic "journalist" disappears, "kidnapped" by "insurgents."
Releases a tape making normal coerced political demands, which doesn't differ from her normal uncoerced political demands.
Her government "negotiates" her release, which involves paying ransom money.
Upon her release, she claims the United States military "targeted her"--but missed--with 300 or 400 shots--after which her car looks like this, but
The only casualty is the Italian intelligence officer that acted as the bag man, who took one round to the temple, almost execution style; everyone else in the car miraculously survived.

And when the heat cools off and the journalist "recovered," she would retire to Switzerland with her Iraqi lover on their ill-gotten loot.

I would title the book Ill Manifest.

Update: Real-life mystery writer Roger L. Simon offers a plot.

Update II: Baldilocks, who deploys a Ludlumian title for a post in The Sgrena Gambit, indicates that the car depicted above might not be the car alledgedly shot 300-400 times.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:36 PM 0 comments

Homelessness Rediscovery Watch

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch waxes romantic about homelessness in its Metro section today: For two men, it was a place to call home.

Even now, more than a month later, the discarded bits of their lives litter the ground around the little green bench — a few twist-off beer caps, a couple of dozen cigarette butts and some scraps of candy wrappers half-buried in the March mud.

For the better part of a year it had been their bench, and even on those rainy nights when they would leave to take shelter under the roof of a nearby bus stop, they would always return. There was no address, not in the strict sense of the word, but for Morris White and Kerry Smith, it was the closest thing to a home they would know for much of 2004.

They arrived for the first time in the late spring, when the city air was warm and clean, and the sweetgum trees were heavy with new leaves.

I don't understand. I thought homelessness was bad, but here the Post-Dispatch sepia-tones the story of two men who preferred to live on the streets to living with their families or in homeless shelters with their pissant regulations.

If these homeless people don't care to change their condition, why should I? Why should tax money be spent on them, other than it's free?

I doubt the Post-Dispatch wanted to raise these questions.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:54 AM 0 comments

St. Louis County Excited to Seize Tax Money from Employees

Well, that' how I would have titled this story, which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled "St. Louis County lures 300 jobs from Alton":

Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. will move 300 jobs from Alton to Creve Coeur as part of a deal with St. Louis County that could net the company up to $4.2 million in tax breaks.

Those workers will move into a new 10-story headquarters building just off Interstate 270 and Olive Boulevard, where they'll be joined by 200 employees from Clayton and a dozen or so from Chesterfield, under the deal unveiled Friday.

You see, the corporation is getting $4,200,000 in tax breaks, but the St. Louis County Executive says:

"Of course I'm excited," said County Executive Charlie Dooley. "When someone tells you they're going to move jobs someplace else, you take it very seriously. We need to do this to expand our tax base and keep our tax burden low."

That expanded tax base isn't coming from the company, dear friends. It's coming from the employees who will have to travel further to work but will have to buy lunch in Missouri instead of Illinois, expanding the St. Louis County sales tax base. It will help, too, when they gas up here, since they can pay for our roads more cheaply than they can pay for Illinois roads.

Remember, St. Louis County government serves itself and its corporate juicers, not the residents. If you don't believe it, buy a house where developers will want to build a strip mall in 2014.

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

Book Report: A Century of Enterprise: St. Louis 1894-1994 by Rockwell Gray (1994)

This book represents another picture book I inherited from my aunt, and if the used price on Amazon is any guide, it might have been her biggest eBay score. But she lacked a certain follow through on the whole online auction thing. So I've got it now, and I thumbed through it, looking at the historical photos of business in St. Louis and reading the flattering paragraphs accompanying the photos. The book was, as a matter of fact, underwritten by one of the enterprises whose start is depicted in the book. Of course that company and all others in St. Louis are praised. Lavishly.

So the book provides interesting photographs, and some trivia and insights, including:

The smile was invented in 1948.
It's a wonder turn of the century families were so large considering how ugly the women were.
The years since 1994 have been harsh for St. Louis business, since most of the grand corporations lauded in the book--Edison Brothers, May Company, McDonnell Douglas, Pet, Inc., Sherwood Medical, and so on have been bought out or have otherwise left the area.
Those who have the juice now in the city of St. Louis have always had the juice in St. Louis.

Still, an enjoyable experience, once again a short one since it was mostly photos, and something I'll share with the more historical members of my family. And, dear readers, if you offer me what they're asking for it on Amazon, I'll share it with you, too.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:07 PM 0 comments

The End is Nigh

On September 30, 2005, Teddy Ruxpin became self-aware:

The teddy bear sitting in the corner of the child's room might look normal, until his head starts following the kid around using a face recognition program, perhaps also allowing a parent talk to the child through a special phone, or monitor the child via a camera and wireless Internet connection.

Therapists from the future undoubtedly provided the venture capital for this innovation.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:28 AM 0 comments

Book Report: The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time by Ty Burr (1999)

This book represents another picture book I inherited from my aunt. Not that it meant much to her; she probably bought it at a yard sale to sell on eBay, and I might well have been at the yard sale with her, egging her on.

It's a compendium of 100 of the best movies from 1894-1994, as determined by Entertainment Weekly and Ty Burr. It contains the requisite mixture of classics and foreign films. Man, you know, the last foreign film I saw was El Mariachi, and prior to that it's limited to Jackie Chan and kung fu flicks. I didn't even see Crouching Estrogen, Hidden Misandry even though my wise and benevolent mother-in-law recommended it.

But books of this stripe are good browsing material, even if you're not a tabloid fan or if you don't care for anything lighter than The Atlantic Monthly for your magazine reading. Books like this are quick espresso shots of trivia information, information I hope to put to use at the next North Side Mindflayers Trivia Night victory.

Plus, if you're a trivia smart aleck like me, you'll look for flaws in the book. Like that the cover contains a still from Rebel without a Cause, which didn't make the book. Or that the still of Han Solo confronting Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars was not from the original, but from the 25th anniversary re-release (in 1997, which was beyond the five year cutoff of the book).

So it's a good enough book, a quick one-night flip through, and it won't kill as many brain cells as, say, watching the French language liberated sexuality movies.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM 0 comments

Book Report: Treachery by Bill Gertz (2004)

My beautiful wife bought me this book, whose full title is Treachery : How America's Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies, for Christmas, because the message of the season is Peace on Earth and this book details, in part, why that ain't happening.

Gertz compiles the evidence that other countries, including Germany, France, Russia, and China, are arming rogue countries. I don't know that I would have ever called these nations our friends, contrary to what Tom Clancy would have had us believe, so I'm not plussed by this information. It's all pretty damning, and it's the stuff I get daily on the blogs I tend to read. But to the uninitiated, and to those who don't get their daily dose of human nature writ large on the international scale on the Internet, I'm sure the book was an eye-opener.

Gertz is a good, methodical writer and has a lot of access to insights and insiders to tease out information about national security and to present compelling calls to action with that information. So if you've got a hot and sexy wife who buys you things, I cannot emphasize enough that this is a good book to receive.

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

Still Learning

My wife likes musicals.

Top Secret, while it includes singing, is apparently not a musical.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:05 PM 0 comments

Great Minds Think Alike....And Sometimes I Think That Way, Too

I just ordered this book after Instapundit flogged it:

Go Directly to Jail : the Criminalization of Almost Everything.

That's a live horse this blog continues to beat, hopefully unto death, after which I will continue to strike just so it doesn't arise as some undead nightmare. No pun intended, but I'll take it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:55 PM 0 comments

Forget the Articles, Send Me More Naked Women E-Mail

Playboy sends me this junk mail teaser:

On the eve of the re-issue of R.E.M.’s last eight albums on special-edition CD and DVD, front man Michael Stipe spoke openly with Playboy.com about the band's early days, his disappointment over last November’s elections and why R.E.M. never called it quits.

Which is different from his other interviews, where he had to speak guardedly in case the editorial staff at Rolling Stone, Esquire, Spin or Gentleman's Quarterly were members of the Bushtapo.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:30 PM 0 comments

End of Week Snark

Another coming of age story for young men results in charges: Teacher Accused of Sex Abuse:

A Braxton County middle school teacher is in police custody after allegedly confessing to sexual misconduct with five of her students.

The number could increase, as she could not be sure of an exact number because she was wearing a bag at the time.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:22 PM 0 comments

Rolled a 1 on a d6

Archaelogists uncover three coffins, mummies behind a secret door:

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered three coffins containing mummies behind a secret door that was hidden behind 42-hundred-year-old statues.

They didn't even need an elf with them, werd.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:23 PM 0 comments

Book Report: The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais (2005)

This book is the latest in the Elvis Cole novels by Robert Crais; he released it just last month. As a later Elvis Cole novel, it features all the hallmarks of the Cole novels:

A woman character who falls madly in love with Cole, who is oblivious because
Cole is pining for Lucy Chenier, and that's going badly, meanwhile
He takes a case for personal interest instead of for, you know, pay, because this time it's personal! which leads to
A major character getting shot and dying, and another surviving but weakened by the aftermath.

So the book covers all of those bases. It's readable, and one can overlook certain consistencies with plot amongst the novels and certain, um, non sequitors with the plot of this book. Crais does dial back his use of the third person narrator so that more than half of the book uses the first person voice of Elvis Cole.

When a strange, tattooed man is murdered, his dying words claim that Elvis Cole is his son. Cole, who never knew father, wonders if this is the man and if not, why the dying man would make the claim. So Cole investigates, dredges up some long fallow crimes, and pines for Lucy Chenier.

I am finally done with the series, which is a blessing and a curse; now I have to stand before my bookshelves when I finish a book and pick another one from the hundreds of volumes on my to-read shelves. It was so easy to just resignedly pick up the next Crais novel, and now I am stuck with my indecision.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:14 AM 0 comments

Officer, It's Not What You Think

Fark links to the story Teacher Has Sex with Pupil While Baby in Car: Cops with the unfortunate summary:

Teacher arrested for having sex with a two-year old in back seat

That's preposition abuse if I ever saw it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:06 AM 0 comments

Automotive Shopping Advice

A review of the Lincoln Town Car BPS, courtesy of Business 2.0:

When choosing an armored vehicle, it's important to keep in mind how badly someone wants you dead. This will affect your purchase. If your assassin is an amateur -- perhaps some punk with a .38, which fires a 158-grain, round-nose lead bullet at a velocity of 850 feet per second -- you'll probably be just fine in an aftermarket armored sedan or the one offered by Cadillac. In fact, even if your enemy comes at you with a .357 Magnum -- a serious weapon capable of spitting metal-ripping charges at up to 1,395 feet per second -- you'll probably escape without a scratch in one of those sedans. But if someone really wants to kill you, you'd better be riding in the 2005 Lincoln Town Car Ballistic Protection Series.

Excellent.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:56 AM 0 comments

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sides Against Seniors

In a story entitled "Between a rock and a hard place", the St. Louis Post-Dispatch must choose between tax spending government bureaucrats and senior citizens. And it chooses the government spenders:

Two changes in tax exemptions offered to Illinois taxpayers will mean a decrease in local funding for school districts.

Districts rely on property taxes for a significant part of their budgets.

For the Collinsville School District, that decrease is expected to total close to a $800,000 revenue shortfall for next year.

"We're not alone with this. All school districts are affected - some more and some less," said Superintendent Dennis Craft. "But we did not expect this (cut in funding) to this extent."

The decrease stems from two exemptions. One, called the Homestead Exemption, is offered to senior citizens. The program increased the reduction amount from $2,500 to $3,000 on property assessments.

Another program, called Senate bill 1790, or owner-occupied exemption, increases what can be omitted from property assessments by as much as $1,500 from what was originally set at $3,500. This means that homeowners can potentially pay less in taxes because their property assessments are decreased. Seniors who own a home can take advantage of both exemption programs, saving as much as $8,000 from their home's assessed value.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:08 AM 0 comments