Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Saturday, April 30, 2005
 
In the Wild, He'd Be Dinner

When the frightening roofing salesman comes, Tristan hides under the bed:

Tristan hiding under the bed


Badly.


 
When You Don't Post Right Away

When the missing Georgia woman appeared in New Mexico with a tale of abduction, I scented some fully-processed bovine food. But I didn't post fast enough, since she's admitted she was not abducted after all.

    Wilbanks, whose disappearance set off a nationwide hunt, called her fiance, John Mason (search), from a pay phone late Friday and told him that she had been kidnapped while jogging three days before, authorities said. Her family rejoiced that she was safe, telling reporters that the media coverage apparently got to the kidnappers.

    But Wilbanks soon recanted, according to police.

    Ray Schultz, chief of police in Albuquerque, said Wilbanks "had become scared and concerned about her impending marriage and decided she needed some time alone." He said she traveled to Las Vegas by bus before going to Albuquerque.
I'd recommend that her fiance be skeptical about her new story, too; I expect she's got something in her Sent Mail folder and IM archives regarding New Mexico or Nevada.

But I'm just the suspicious type. That's why I have tapped my own phone to see what my beautiful wife is plotting.


Friday, April 29, 2005
 
Headline: Heh

What are the odds of that?
    The legislation would limit the number of gambling boats in the state to 13 — and all the slots are spoken for.
The state limits gambling boats to 13. That's rich.

Of course, I oppose the legislation. It's arbitrary and capricious whimsy on the part of the government. 13, not 14. Why 13? Because that's how many boats currently exist or are pending.

As a good libertineertarian, I oppose all limits on gambling as long as it's not run by the state and favor removing the government's statewide monopoly (the lottery). As for fools who gamble more than they can afford, well, let the wiser help part the fools from their money. Letting fools suffer consequences from foolishness; it will help cure them of their foolishness.


 
Double Jeopardy and Three Strikes

I don't favor recreational arson and illegal gun possession, but I'm happy with this ruling:
    Defense attorneys argued successfully that state Supreme Court rulings dictated that Charles' 1983 arson and attempted murder convictions could be counted only as one strike, as they stemmed from the same attack. Prosecutors contended that the crimes were separate because Charles had committed arson to destroy evidence that he had drugged his son before setting fire to him.
The man lit his child on fire, and prosecutors charged him with arson and attempted murder. Same thing, but the single action led to two felony counts. This incident occurred 1983. If he tried that today, he'd also get felony counts of using fire in commission of a crime, leaving the scene of a crime he'd committed, possession of arson accellerants, felony child abuse, felony child endangerment, and possibly smoking during the commission of a felony. Needless to say, he'd fall not only under three strikes laws, but also striking out the side which probably demand summary execution.

This ruling would indicate that pissed-off prosecutors won't get automatic life sentences for the criminal whom they convict if only the prosecutors can find or stretch three felony counts to blanket a single crime.

Because you never know when blogging against law enforcement to incite changes in criminal laws , blogging across interstate lines, and excessive use of italics in blog posts might criminalized, and by a single act that doesn't neccesarily involve violence or wrongdoing, you might be eligible for life in prison.

(Submitted as an entry to Outside the Beltway's Beltway Traffic Jam, if only the trackback thing would work.)


 
Infighting

Apparently, certain segments of organized labor oppose environmentalism:
    Operating Engineers Local 520 in Granite City formed an informational picket Monday at the Jennison-Wright Superfund site on West 22nd Street over the use of non-union labor to clean up the site.

    The local began the picket about 7 p.m. and will continue its protest at the contaminated site until cleanup work is completed. That could take about three months. The cleanup is being done by Bodine Environmental of Decatur.
Cost-effective, efficient enviromental clean-up that allows the EPA to stretch its budget and clean more sites? Not if it costs union jobs!


Thursday, April 28, 2005
 
Spot the False Dilemma

Perhaps following the lead of Washington University protesting students, high school students staged a protriot when the school district superintendent fired their best friend, the principal:
    During today's three-hour protest, students chanted and walked through neighborhoods as well as taking part in fights, vandalizing cars and trying to break into a store as they walked along Chambers Road to the district's administration office, 1370 Northumberland in Bellefontaine Neighbors.
That, my friends, is a protriot: a riot in the guise of a protest. Get a couple of picket signs and apparently the media, or at least the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will overlook a little assault and battery, a little property damage, and an attempted breaking and entering as long as it serves a cause. Not necessarily even a good cause.

No, gentle reader, I just wanted to demonstrate my superior logic skills, gleaned from the several sessions of Philosophy 001 - Logic classes at Marquette University through which I did not sleep. Ergo, gaze upon the following passage and note the false dilemma:
    School officials say Ukaoma was dismissed because of poor performance. However, teachers, parents and students say the School Board is vindictive and that Ukaoma was the best principal the high school has ever had.
It is entirely possible that Ukaoma was both. Given how the student body is inspired by his presence and now his absence, I suspect such is the case.


 
Short Memory

Some dude in the LA Times thinks Google should buy a newspaper:
    It's only a matter of time before a Yahoo or a Google decides to buy an old media company in order to differentiate itself by offering high-quality, proprietary news. Or a company like Amazon could buy a prestigious newspaper publisher and reinvent itself as a portal, leapfrogging over those that treat news updates as a commodity.
Mickey Kaus disagrees and lists two good reasons why not, concluding:
    I'll invest kf's retained earnings elsewhere, thank you!
Professor Bainbridge calls it a provocative business plan.

I have one word for them:

AOLTimeWarner


 
Too Quick a Judgment

The "authorities" say it was an accident:
    According to the City of Los Angeles' Department of Animal Services, which conducted an investigation, the horse was running when it stepped on its own lead rope and broke its neck. Animal Services is ruling the death an accident.
Don't believe the whitewash. Ask yourself:

What had the horse seen that would drive it to suicide?


 
Book Report: The Weather of the Heart by Madeleine L'Engle (1978)

I bought this book from the local library's discard pile for a quarter because I recognized the name and because I recognize that I don't get enough poetry in my reading diet. Reading this book didn't really change that anemia.

The first poems in the book, including "Within This Quickened Dust", "To a Long Loved Love" (1-7), and "Lovers Apart", dealt with concrete images dealing with common themes in poetry. Their language was descriptive and evocative.

Unfortunately, she too soon declines to abstractions meant to evoke abstractions, particularly her love of God. She even evokes Emily Dickinson about three poems after I unfavorably compared the two. L'Engle's poems deal with similar subjects and have similar layers of abstractions twisting upon themselves, but when the poems start out bad, they end bad; with Emily Dickinson, they might be unfathomable, but sometimes a turn of phrase embedded within the poem can redeem the poems. Not so with L'Engle. Which made them easier to read, or more to the point, easier to scan and forget.


 
Senator Bond-and-Spend

Looks like "Republican" Senator Bond wants to spend lots of money, and those lots aren't enough:
    The Senate has opened debate on a highway bill that would send billions of dollars to Missouri and Illinois for key road and bridge projects over the next six years.

    "This bill is long overdue," Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., a lead sponsor the legislation, said as lawmakers began debate on Tuesday. "Our roads are deteriorating, (highway) safety is deteriorating."

    But even as he championed the legislation, Bond and other lawmakers said the $284 billion price tag was not enough to meet the nation's needs. And they vowed to include more money in the bill, even though the White House has signaled that $284 billion is the maximum the president would accept.
Jeez, spending lots of Federal money is good because it's spent in Missouri! How short sighted does Bond think we are?

Probably only as shortsighted as we actually are.


 
We Got Your Orwellian Right Here

Over at Q and O, McQ invokes Orwell describing Zimbabwe's plan to slaughter animals in national parks to feed the peasants. McQ says:
    Rather Orwellian wouldn't you say? Killing animals in "conservation areas?"
He overlooks the direct Orwellianism in this quote from a Zimbabwe official included in the post:
    "Killing of animals for any reasons other than conservation can be very disastrous," said one National Parks official.
You can kill some animals to save others because All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.


Wednesday, April 27, 2005
 
It's Humor, but It's Truth

Teachers' Union Suit Sparks 'No Bureaucrat Left Behind':
    Dubbed 'No Bureaucrat Left Behind' the new plan would address teachers' union complaints about unfunded federal mandates by removing the mandates, the funding and the federal role in public education.

    "When I read the NEA lawsuit," said Mr. Bush, "I realized that as long as we funnel education money through Washington D.C., we provide teachers' unions with an excuse for their poor performance. Blame Bush. Blame Congress. Blame the Department of Education. But if all the money is raised and spent at the local level, then taxpayers can hold the unions accountable."
If only. I suspect Bush would only offer to spend the same money on public or private schools, which wouldn't be the same thing.


 
My Hero

Security for the Paranoid:
    I use very long passwords for everything, even with the lamest accounts I have. I require my kids to use at least 14 character passwords on our home network and I'm considering issuing them smart cards. No one else, not even my wife, knows my network password.

    I don't just throw out shredded documents; I spread the shredded bits into my garden to use as mulch.

    I don't do it because I think someone is going to go through my trash to reassemble bits of my research notes. I do it because it's good security. I try to run my own network the same way I tell my clients to.

 
Public Benefits Trump Private Rights

At least California's Attorney General is not hiding his totalitarian instincts:
    "The weighing of public benefits versus private rights tilts heavily in favor of the public benefits," he said.
He's speaking about a bill to force ammunition makers to put unique identifiers or serial numbers on each and every bullet sold in the state of California. Let me just bullet point (hem) the problems:
  • He likens it to bills that established DNA laboratories:

    Lockyer likened the proposal to previous legislation that advanced law enforcement investigation efforts, such as funding for DNA labs.


    Except that funding DNA laboratories probably didn't issue unfunded mandates to private companies and, ultimately, consumers. But don't worry, there's government pork, too, since the state would need a new technological money pit into which it can throw good money after bad.

  • The bill will help solve crimes, but will not prevent crimes:
    "We're going to solve (more) crimes if this bill becomes law," Attorney General Bill Lockyer testified.
    You see, citizen, this will not prevent crime, but it will increase the case clearance rate after crimes are committed. If someone wants to shoot you dead and doesn't care or doesn't reason it out, those bullets with little numbers on them will kill you just as dead.

  • Limited practical benefit:
    The proposal would provide investigators with a huge leap forward in their efforts to trace ammunition at a crime scene to the person who fired it. Though ballistics testing enables police to connect a bullet to the gun that fired it, its use in investigations is limited because investigators need to recover both the gun and the bullet to confirm a match.

    While bullets used in a crime may have been lost or stolen from their original purchaser, knowing who that person is will provide a starting point for investigators that they previously have not had, supporters say. Randy Rossi, the director of the firearms division at the state Department of Justice, likened it to "a license plate falling off a car when driven from a crime scene."
    So it's a starting off point for homicide investigations and nothing more, since the bullets might have been lost, stolen, or altered to remove identifiers. How many investigations are we talking about?
    Noting that California homicides increased to 2,400 last year from 2,000 the year before -- with 45 percent unsolved -- law enforcement officials urged senators on the committee to vote for the bill. Nearly three-quarters of the state's homicides in 2003 were committed with a firearm.
    In 2003, Californians committed 2000 homicides, of which 1500 were purportedly with firearms, of which 45% are unsolved, which would make one believe that this new imposition might offer leads in 675 cases a year or fewer.

    Once the kinks are worked, at taxpayer's expense, out of the system.

    I suspect the eventual success would match that of Maryland's ballistic fingerprinting program.
Never mind, though; ultimately, the goal is to drive all bullets and guns out of the hands of non-professionals and to ensure that those guns in the hands of professional law enforcement are safely in a security camera viewing room while the guns in the hands of the professional lawbreakers are pointed at the law-abiding.

California lawmakers are doing something!!!1!, which should get them in the paper and, occasionally, on the blogs.


 
That's an Interesting Way To Characterize His Fumbling

Pro Bowler Green arrested in domestic violence incident

Me, I hope this turns out to be nothing. So far, none of the stories give evidence that he did anything other than possibly hanging up a 911 call.


 
Oddly Reasonable

I don't normally read left-of-center blogs, but I find Blame Bush! oddly compelling....


Tuesday, April 26, 2005
 
Waukesha County Board Repeals Law of Supply and Demand

Laws of economics are more malleable than those of physics as far as Waukesha County, Wisconsin, are concerned, and municipal government bodies can repeal them at will:
    Hoping to control health care costs by slowing industry expansion, the Waukesha County Board today rejected a hard-fought plan for a new hospital in the county's fast-growing western region.
That's right; to keep prices down, Waukesha County wants to keep supply down.

Too bad it wasn't a sports facility of some sort instead of a health care provider, undoubtedly the government of Waukesha County would not only have approved the building, but would have made the citizens pay for it.


 
An English Treat

Concern over rise of 'happy slapping' craze:
    In one video clip, labelled Bitch Slap, a youth approaches a woman at a bus stop and punches her in the face. In another, Knockout Punch, a group of boys wearing uniforms are shown leading another boy across an unidentified school playground before flooring him with a single blow to the head.

    In a third, Bank Job, a teenager is seen assaulting a hole-in-the-wall customer while another youth grabs the money he has just withdrawn from the cash machine.

    Welcome to the disturbing world of the "happy slappers" - a youth craze in which groups of teenagers armed with camera phones slap or mug unsuspecting children or passersby while capturing the attacks on 3g technology.

    According to police and anti-bullying organisations, the fad, which began as a craze on the UK garage music scene before catching on in school playgrounds across the capital last autumn, is now a nationwide phenomenon.
Oddly enough, this fad probably won't catch on here in America. Particularly the right to carry states.


 
Rationalization

But, honey, look!

Vitamin-fortified danish


It's a vitamin-fortified danish! It's good for me!

I think I'll have two.


 
Book Review: The Official Rules at Work by Paul Dickson (1996)

I bought this book for $5.98 at Barnes and Noble because it looked interesting and because I had a gift card to blow.

It's a collection of aphorisms and "laws" coined by columnist, commentators, and humorists covering the workplace, and to be honest, covering working for the government in a lot of cases. It's a quick read, and a lot of the axioms and maxims provide crystallizations of core truths in a handy fashion that allow you to quip them. For example, I'm going to use It's easier to defend consistency than correctness as soon as possible.

Also, it was a quick read while I work on the longer fiction books that I'm reading. And to let you, gentle readers, that I am still literate.


 
Roeper on Tattoos

Roeper on tattoos:
    You can't call the tattoo craze a craze anymore, as it's been going on for more than a decade and it crosses all demographics.

    Still, one day it will ebb. Today's 10-year-old will become tomorrow's 20-year-old, who doesn't want to have anything to do with what mom and dad think is cool. I can see a college kid in 2015 saying, "My mother has my name tattooed on her neck. I mean, is she old-fashioned or what?"
I have no tattoos and never got a piercing. I saw Larger than Life which features a retired circus painted lady. Elderly, and covered with tattoos. That was the future tattooed people have embraced, and they don't know it.


 
Inadvertent Movement Member

Apparently, there's an insurgency of fiscal apathy in the Republican Party: the Not One Dime movement, wherein Republican contributors withhold contributions.

According to the MAWB Squad (and Captain Ed), this movement captures the frustration many feel with the Republicans in the Senate regarding judicial nominees. Sandy of the MAWB Squad says:
    You don't seem to be listening to me. We are not giving to the Republicans until they act like the majority party.
My own personal extra spending money (that won't be sent to the GOP to earn a new gold membership card) comes from my disgust not so much with how the Republicans govern the government, but how the government governs its citizens. I'm more upset with excessive regulation in broadcast, excessive spending in most endeavors, and so on.


Monday, April 25, 2005
 
What Cats Think

They hate you.


 
Governments Muscle Out Private Swimming Pools

Sink or swim: Neighborhood pools struggle to compete with public facilities:
    Chesterfield, Manchester, Ballwin, Des Peres and other West County communities have built elaborate aquatic centers in recent years.

    Those facilities are among the factors swamping some neighborhood and subdivision swimming pools, once the staple of the suburbs but now finding it tough to compete with the publicly funded pools.
You know, certain people condemn Wal-Mart for this sort of behavior. Local governments want to prove that their micromunicipality is as good as the next, so they waste tax money on these wet amusement parks and "invest" in a future of rising costs of maintenance for these facilities. Meanwhile, they raise our taxes to fund pension plans for police and government employees and to take care of other ongoing expenses for which the local government is short of funds.

All this to duplicate services offered by these private groups, local gyms, and the YMCAs.

When did the equation building waterparks = governance enter our civics textbooks? Probably when the governments found that they could just write it in.


 
Two Words that Don't Belong Together

Corset piercing.

Ew.

Although I don't mind corset Peircing, wherein a woman in lingerie extols Pragmatism. Philosophy majors have the strangest kinks, ainna?


Sunday, April 24, 2005
 
Time to Upgrade My PDA

Friends, Romans, and gentle readers who might or might not be men, the time has come for me to buy a new Personal Data Assistant (PDA). I bought my current PDA two years ago to support a trip to Milwaukee. I was taking a number of photographs and wanted a handy mechanism to capture details about each as well as blog entries that struck me while I was on the road. I'd once bought a miniature cassette recorder for the same purpose, but I realized soon that they would require transcription, a skill I lack. So I bought this PDA to help capture those thoughts and to provide me with instant access to the phone numbers and other data I might need while away from my desk, my computer, and my address book.

My PDA When I bought my PDA, it was top of the line, and I imagine its features are still quite enviable. Its memory is 80 sheets/160 pages of writable memory. This particular model is compatible with most styluses on the market, including the erasable and the non-erasable data transfer devices. Unfortunately, I prefer permanent encryption styluses in blue ink; once data is written with these styluses, the memory is consumed and cannot be re-written. In most cases, 80 sheets should provide enough usage for any number of lists, ideas, phone numbers, and other data.

This particular PDA, unlike others I've owned, does not have plugable memory cartridges that I could swap out after all memory has been filled.

Notice, too, that I have installed an aftermarket, third-party searching application that will immediately take me to the unused memory. Unfortunately, the original PDA didn't include that hardware, which proves that all of those hardware guys are in cahoots.
My PDA This picture identifies the need for the update; the wear and tear of daily use, wherein I thrust the PDA into my back pocket over and over again, has cracked the external casing. Although the external case hasn't failed to the point where the memory's contents would be lost, I don't want to risk a catastrophic memory failure, which would occur when I pulled the PDA from my pocket and its memory devices would spill out behind me, lost to the wind or the vagaries of a mud puddle I might have crossed.
My PDA This particular entry into my PDA's log denotes its age, as it became this blog entry. Circa 1993. Back before the earth cooled, and when blogging was not the means of controlling the world.

This particular PDA entry comes from the very trip when I bought this PDA, when it was shining and new.

Yikes, it also refers to an incident in 1996 where I drank champagne alone at Sybaris Fantasy Suites because I'd ended a relationship after booking the $400 a night room. I'd blush, but it's two-thousand and something now, and blushing is SO TWENTIETH CENTURY.
My PDA When I uploaded the information from the PDA to an eventual blog entry, a thought, and a reminder for a short story which I have yet to complete, the PDA entry in memory was marked as used, but unfortunately, that didn't free the memory for further use. This was a limitation of these old PDAs. Also, inclusion of the words "Insane Clown Posse" mark a limitation of an obsolete piece of technology.
My PDA Do I remember drinking Mint Juleps at Sutton Place with Jewel Accents? No?

Those must have been some effective Mint Juleps. The whole thing leads to some pleasant speculation and imagination, particularly to what someone named Jewel Accent must look like....

Aw, crikey, those are carpet styles. Jewel Accent kinda looks like the things I step on when I'm stumbling from the bed to the bathroom at three in the morning. How exciting is that?
My PDA Yet, when I look upon the amount of memory remaining within my current PDA, I still have a lot of annotation to perform, a lot of shopping lists to jot, a number of spontaneous ideas to collect, and one or two friends whose numbers I want to keep handy.... I don't want to purchase a new PDA just yet.
Because just face it: I have PDA memories, written to disks the size of legal pads or pocket notebooks, from 1990 on. Using the PDAs that I'm used to, with the scratchouts and the incomplete sentences, I have captured memories and trains of thought that I can use for future blog entries, short stories, poems, and whatnot. Were I a slave to Bluetooth or its predecessors Mauvetooth and Aquamolar or other proprietary and since-forgotten file formats, I'd be file.sol with my personal history.

I expect, then, I'll select another similar PDA when I actually retire this one (in about 40 pages, give or take). Because although I dabble every day in the binary dits and dahs of digital communication, I still value the scratchings in the Noggle TTF that relate my current, older self to the thoughts I had last decade, last year, or only yesterday.


 
Winning Repeat Business

Nugget from this story: Skydiver Dies After Striking Plane in Fla.:
    Skydive DeLand, which organized the jump, said Saturday's accident was not common. The death was the second involving the company this year.
Two deaths this year by April, and the accident wasn't common? Brother, that's too common to us consumers.


Saturday, April 23, 2005
 
A Fool and His IT Budget

Firewall to zap XML viruses:
    Salt Lake City-based Forum Systems plans to announce the addition of the antivirus module to XWall on Monday. It will be available at the beginning of May, with pricing ranging from $5,000 to $40,000.

    The 5-year-old company is one of several companies that make software or devices for securing applications that use XML to format data or XML-based communications protocols, called Web services.
$40,000 piece of hardware specifically to block bad XML from coming into your company? Lord, love a duck, I though XML Schema Documents (XSD) did that.
    There is a need for XML-specific products, according to these companies and industry analysts, because traditional security products are designed primarily to inspect Internet protocols, rather than XML or Web services protocols.
Obfuscation is a virus, too. Those Web services protocols determine how XML messages are formatted, but they're still sent over common Internet messages that use the same traditional Internet protocols that your native firewalls block. If someone is triggering a denial of service using SOAP against one of your public Web services, you'll do the same thing you do when blocking a traditional DOS attack: You'll block the IP addresses from the incoming flood or you'll block/change the port number/URI of the Web service. No special XML-sniffing necessary.

But now they've expanded the service to include software that scans for XML Viruses, which are pretty common, hey?
    Although they have not seen viruses written specifically for XML, these applications are still not adequately protected, executives from Forum Systems and CA said.
The only adequate prevention is heat; that is, just burning money on an XML-virus-sniffing and firewall product is the only thing that can protect you from XML! And SOAP! And all the potentially-malevolent buzzwords you don't understand! After all, gentle reader, your organization is at risk!
    Forum Systems CEO Wes Swenson predicted that XML viruses will become common as people store Office documents in XML format and as developers use the Simple Object Access Protocol, which is written in XML, in tools for company-to-company communication.
The difference between XML files and Office document file types is that XML doesn't execute code in and of itself. Wrapped in SOAP, an XML document can trigger the execution of a Web service, but that's not an XML virus. Viruses need to run their contents to propogate, and if you've got an XML document that can propogate itself using SOAP, you've got a problem with your Web service.

But never mind that; spend the $40,000 and feel good about yourself.

    "When you do have an XML-based virus attack, it will affect mission-critical servers as opposed to e-mail server and Web servers," Swenson said.
The very words mission-critical indicate that CNET has passed on a press release as a news story. XML viruses don't exist, and cannot exist unless you've got an XML-consuming application that's poorly written and vulnerable to buffer overflow errors or, heaven forfend, runs code contained in XML messages. A DOS attack on a Web service will affect the servers hosting the "mission-critical" Web services, but you don't need this guy's product to deal with it.

But, hey, if corporations want it, let them have it.

Meanwhile, I am hard at work here in the lab to protect corporations from insidious ASCII text file viruses. Did you know that your company uses hundreds or thousands of these potentially hazardous files every day and that they can be transmitted through e-mail attachments or automatically copied from the Internet or across networks. And unlike XML files, ASCII flat files, particularly those with file extensions of .java, .cpp, or .vb, can contain malicious code that can take control of your desktop when executed.

Watch soon for the money-sucking Jeracor ASCII Virus Firewall, coming soon.


Friday, April 22, 2005
 
My Office, the Cat Product Advertisement Photo Shoot Set

Jeez, how can a man work with all this disruption?

Carnival of Some Cats
Click for full size


I guess that's why I wasn't working when this photo was taken at 6:30 pm one night this week.


 
New T-Shirt Design from JC T-Shirts

Behold, and buy:


Click to buy

 
Unpopular Canaries

Ladies and gentlemen, watch what the authorities do to child molestors, because they will eventually take those same measures with other offenders.

Because the crimes are so repellent, citizens will accept these measures and parents will clamor for them. But as the first item shows, once these rights are abrogated to protect the children, law makers and law enforcement officials will use those mechanisms to persecute other criminals who might commit the same crime in the future.

Sure, Westchester County only wants sex offenders to wear a bracelet; but sex offenders can take those off. Countdown to mandatory microchipping has begun.


 
The Other Creationism vs. Evolution

O'Connor Dismisses Ado Over Int'l Law:
    O'Connor, a Reagan appointee, participated in a lively one-hour discussion at the National Archives with Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer. She said if there is no controlling U.S. precedent or the viewpoint of states is unsettled, "of course we look at foreign law." "This is much ado about nothing," she said in response to a question by moderator Tim Russert of NBC. "Our Constitution is one that evolves. What's the best way to know? State legislatures -- but it doesn't hurt to know what other countries are doing."
Our constitution has a mechanism in it for evolution. It's the amendment process.

Any other evolution, a la reading the penumbras, emanations, and secret codes inherent in interpreting the rights derived from reading the third letter after every punctuation mark isn't constitutional evolution. It's judicial creationism.

(Link seen on Althouse.)


Thursday, April 21, 2005
 
Some Jokes Are Better Left Unmade

I bought a pair of Levi's 404 jeans, but now I can't find them.


 
Now That's Offshoring!

600 foreign software developers on a former cruise ship in international waters outside of Los Angeles. It's Sea Code.


Wednesday, April 20, 2005
 
Safer T&A Through Security Cameras

More women's bodies protected by security cameras:
    A San Francisco police officer is facing possible disciplinary action for allegedly using surveillance cameras at San Francisco International Airport to ogle women as they walked through the terminal, according to San Francisco Police Commission documents.
Oddly enough, he's in the most trouble because apparently it wasn't his turn at the cameras:
    Police share the surveillance system with several agencies. When the Police Department traffic substation is controlling a camera, none of the other agencies is able to use that camera, the charging documents note.

    Rossi allegedly spent a total of three hours manipulating six of the cameras.

    He ignored coworkers' warnings that he should not be using the cameras, saying "he did not care since he was not assigned to the substation he would not get in trouble,'' according to the charging documents.

 
Relativism

Ben Affleck demonstrates the relative worth of Jennifer Garner vs Jennifer Lopez:
    Affleck bought Garner a $500,000, 4.5-carat Harry Winston engagement ring — as compared to the 6.1-carat pink diamond ring from Winston which Affleck got for his former fiancée Jennifer Lopez.
Nothing says "I love you" like giving the second Jennifer a ring that's 73% of the one given to Jennifer I.


Tuesday, April 19, 2005
 
Implication: You Need a Shredder If You Recycle

Here's a feel-good story with a happy ending:
    At first, Charles Kulage suspected a buddy was playing a joke by calling to verify his address and then saying his $4,296 federal tax refund check had been found at St. Peters' recycling center.

    But it wasn't a joke. While sorting paper, a worker at the recycling center spotted the check Monday and saved it from destruction.
A happy ending until you consider how much attention workers pay to papers in the recycling bin.

This message brought to you by someone too paranoid for a shredder.


 
That's Not Junk Data

When you're testing and you see a dog breed called Dogo Argentino, you might think that you're seeing junk data since the Spanish word for Dog is perro.

But it's not; there really is a breed called Dogo Argentino.

Probably junk data that became institutionalized through repetition.


 
Another Right that Compels Someone
Senator Barbara Boxer of California has found another right which compels someone to act according to another person's will:
    Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, citing reports that pharmacists have turned away women seeking birth control pills, has introduced legislation that she says would protect American women's access to contraception.

    Boxer's proposal would require all pharmacies to fill all prescriptions or refer customers to someone who will, despite pharmacists' religious or ethical objections to the nature of the prescription.
Securing the right to birth control, you see.

Hey, Babbles, I got some other ideas for your brand of Federalism which is far too crashing, snorting, and bellowing to call "creeping Federalism":
  • Right to an Abortion. Compel all medical doctors to perform abortions on demand by anyone, even children, under the penalty of losing their licenses. Perhaps a phased-in approach to drive-thrus, too.

  • Right to Porn. Compel all bookstores to carry Hustler magazine. However, to protect the children, bookstores require ID to enter.

  • Right to Music with Swear Words. Compel Wal-Mart to carry the most "authentic" hip-hop music.

  • Right to Alcohol-Free Bars. Compel bars to only serve softdrinks and coffee so that they're better family destinations.
Senator Babbles wants to inject the Federal Government virus into every small business in the land to protect the helpless against those who own property and want to use it as they see fit.


Monday, April 18, 2005
 
Book Report: It by Stephen King (1986)

I inherited this book from my aunt, whose legacy filled my to-read shelves with horror and mystery novels. I'm growing to enjoy Stephen King and Dean Koontz, so their presence in my library is welcome. Stephen King is an American master, truly, whose books will be read hundreds of years in the future assuming 1) people still read books, and 2) all American texts have not been burned.

First of all, this book is a book without antecedent. Not precedent, but antecedent. When I tried talking about it with my beautiful wife during our evening rambles around the subdivisions in our neighborhood, she couldn't always understand what I was talking about when I referred to It. So I had to say Stephen King's It, like I was titling the miniseries and hoping the name Stephen King would draw viewers which the title alone would not.

The book is not without its flaws. This comes from King's Epic period, which spawned The Stand and the beginning of the mercifully-split Dark Tower series. This book weighs in at over 1100 pages, and I hit the AKM (Anna Karenina Moment, wherein the reader realizes he's read enough to have completed one long novel and realizes that he's got the equivalent of one or more novels to go--and is tempted to read one or more complete novels instead). The quality of the writing doesn't suffer, really, but the quantity tends to overwhelm it.

The book deals with seven youths who confront an eldritch, foetid horror in Derry, Maine, in 1958, and when the eldritch, foetid, other-worldly horror resurfaces in 1985, the middle-aged children of Derry return to confront it again without the imagination of youth to protect them from unreality.

I survived the AKM and pressed on. King weaves a lot of detail into the setting, and even the minor characters take on three and sometimes three-and-a-half dimensions. Still, this adds bulk that wouldn't be afforded to a first-time novelist; agents and editors would bounce this proposal back from anyone but Stephen King. The main characters get their own sections and chapters and great detail. However, I'm not a first time King reader, so I was reading along trying to guess who wouldn't make it. Life, and King, are cruel that way; just when you get to liking someone, a monster rises from the depths and rips off his or her head.

Still, somewhere after page five hundred pages, the pace picks up and rushes toward a hundred page climax and forty page dénouement. Overall, I'm pleased with the book and even have the strange desire to see the 1990 television movie equivalent which features Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown--that man has actorial chutzpah.

Still, one has to wonder what Stephen King was thinking when he concocted the plot. Did he say to himself, what this book really needs to drive its theme home is group sex in the sewers among eleven and twelve year olds? Because I could have entirely left that little bit out without really corrupting the story.


 
Mad Libs Feature Writing

FanC a d8? Never fear, text messaging is here:
    Welcome to (INSERT TECHNOLOGY), the newest, easiest way to show someone you're interested. Simply (INSERT TECHNOLOGY USE). No more love letters, no more "baby, what's your sign?" and best of all, no more face-to-face rejection.

    "It's such an easy way to break the ice," Holstack said. "Approaching girls in a bar can be so intimidating and this takes the approach part out of the equation. The worst reaction I could have gotten was her not replying and I'll take that over her laughing in my face any day."

    Holstack, it seems, is not alone. With more than 30 million registered
    (INSERT TECHNOLOGY) users sending more than 30 billion (INSERT TECHNOLOGY) each month, it's clear that romance seekers like (INSERT TECHNOLOGY USER) will not be without a date for long. More than 50,000 people are registered for (INSERT TECHNOLOGY) in Missouri, with 8,800 in the St. Louis area alone, suggesting that many people are beginning to realize that their (INSERT DEVICE) can also be the key to a successful dating life.
Let's try some of these combinations from the past:
  • Poetry; write a sonnet; poetry; pieces of doggerel; Lord Byron; poetry; quilled pens.
  • Video Dating Services; tape yourself discussing what you want; video camera; video tapes; Mike Jones; video dating services; VCR.

  • Bulletin Board Systems; connect to a BBS computer and post; modem; bulletin board messages; John Smith; BBS Handles; modem.

  • Chat rooms; answer an age/sex check; AOL; chat conversations; STLDAD4CHIX; chat rooms; computer.

  • Instant message; type a message; IM; messages; janedoe@hotmail.com; IM clients; computer.

  • wireless text flirting; punch in the requisite letters, type in your destination phone number, and hit send; text users; text messages; SMS (short messaging service); cell phone.
Hey, I got a precognition!
    Welcome to Cranial Bluetooth Implants, the newest, easiest way to show someone you're interested. Simply pass by the attractive member of the desired gender identity. No more love letters, no more "baby, what's your sign?" and best of all, no more face-to-face rejection.

    "It's such an easy way to break the ice," Holstack said. "Approaching girls in a bar can be so intimidating and this takes the approach part out of the equation. The worst reaction I could have gotten was her not replying and I'll take that over her laughing in my face any day."

    Holstack, it seems, is not alone. With more than 350 million registered
    government-mandated implantees sending more than 30 billion Bluetooth thought transmissions each month, it's clear that romance seekers like 19897267 will not be without a date for long. More than 350,000,000 people are registered for tracking in the United States, with 800 remaining residents in the St. Louis area alone, suggesting that many people are beginning to realize that their proper thoughts can also be the key to a successful dating life.
Every generation rediscovers the uses of current technology in dating, and it's always the hippest thing about which to write.


 
Introducing PETBA

Ladies and gentlemen, I want a new organization. I want People for Ethical Treatment By Animals. Because I don't think it's right that people are treated this way by animals:
    74-year-old animal lover was found dead in her home after what police believe was a brutal attack by the woman's two mixed-breed dogs.
Animals shouldn't treat people this way. Join us next week when we splash some red paint on a chow to protest that breed's tendency to bite off the hand that feeds it.


Sunday, April 17, 2005
 
Bush's Plan To Turn Europeans into Biogenetic Mutants Thwarted

US sent banned corn to Europe for four years:
    All imports of United States corn have been stopped at British ports following the discovery that the US has been illegally exporting a banned GM maize to Europe for the past four years.
It's all part of the long-term Bush plan to alter the genetics of Europeans using genetically-modified corn to make Europeans lazy and unself-determined and to suppress their sex drives, yielding a lower birth rate so that Europe has to rely on radical, non-integrating Islamic immigrants for population stability. Ultimately, the Bush administration wants to generate a rationale for the Second Crusades which will begin in twenty years when Empress Barbara I invades Europe to liberate the Cradle of the Enlightenment from the Heathen.

That's why the United States, as a nation and a single entity, shipped genetically modified corn to Europe. Those who think it might have been a single company's error swallowed in the bureacracy are simplistic and lack the imagination for proper conspiracy-mongering.


Saturday, April 16, 2005
 
Who Are You Going to Believe, My PR or Your Damn Lying Eyes?

Spokesperson spokes:
    The TSA won't comment on the specifics of the reports until they are released, spokesman Mark Hatfield Jr. said.

    But, he said: "When the political posturing is over, rational people will see that American screeners today are the best we have ever had and that they are limited only by current technology and security procedures that are significantly influenced by privacy demands."
Handy thumbnail translation for those of you outside of the government:

"We need more money and less oversight to increase our productivity."


 
When Did Alternative Weeklies Go Nuts?

Three quick hitz from the last week's Shepherd Express, which we picked up in Milwaukee but didn't actually use to find activities downtown:
  • Something Doesn’t Add Up: Did John Kerry Win?


      Five months after the election of George W. Bush on Nov. 2, 2004, something still doesn’t add up.

      Although the election results have been accepted by the majority of the country, a nonpartisan group of university-affiliated statisticians and other experts found that something may have gone very, very wrong—so wrong that the wrong man may be sitting in the White House.

      This group, USCountVotes, looked at the exit poll results taken throughout Election Day by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. The exit polls indicated that Democratic nominee John Kerry would win by 3% of the popular vote. Nevertheless, George W. Bush officially won the national popular vote by 2.5%. This type of discrepancy is the largest to ever occur in a presidential election. Exit polls are conducted with those who have just voted—they are not a sampling of “probable” or “eligible” voters before the election.

    Five months after the election and a non-partisan but named group has analyzed the exit polls and determined John Kerry won the presidency. If only we could get the damn constitution and its means for determining the presidency out of the way. What's next for these people? In 2000, they wanted to selectively recount ballots from only certain areas; in 2004, they want to use exit polls instead of ballot counts. What's next for 2008? I'm less than eager to find out.

  • In a piece entitled "Destroying Dorothy: How a media tycoon got even with a Hollywood actress", the author poses this question:


      How much, if at all, was newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst to blame for the shocking fate that overtook the brilliant young Hollywood actress Dorothy Comingore?

    The author then spends two pages recounting what happened to Comingore, but the only evidence presented against Hearst is that she starred in Citizen Kane and that Hearst was rich and powerful. Ergo, or Ogre as the case may be, Hearst was behind it all. Because that's the only reason it could have happened.

  • But, on the other hand, I am what Media Musings columnist Dave Berkmann calls a blogosphere enforcer:

      You have to wonder—five years out, will any expression that a right-wing administration and its blogosphere enforcers object to be considered acceptable?

    I would bust Berkmann's kneecaps, digitally and metaphorically of course, were he worthy of the attention. Because columnists among real papers know they're inconsequential in 2005 unless the blogosphere either loves them or hates them. But Mr. Berkmann, I don't think of you.
Since 2000, a large number of publications have become largely unreadable, with every article and column somehow bemoaning the controlling force of the Administration in Washington. Harper's, Time, The Shepherd Express....

Funny how these sorts of publication laud more intrusion helpful participation from the Federal government in daily lives, whether through free health care that will determine who gets what care, to regulation that makes it harder for new pharmaceutical products that will help many come to market because it will harm a few, to what words the FCC will ban from television (whether it's racial epithets that are banned or swear words). Unfortunately, its the growth of this encroachment benevolent despotism that makes the occupant of the White House too damn important for daily life and for overemotionalism in daily, weekly, and monthly publications.


Friday, April 15, 2005
 
Hurling Epithets

When white bread isn't offensive enough, we have the following:

Cracker Bread



 
Summer of the Bird Attacks

Here in Missouri, we're not blessed with sharks, so the media needs to latch onto slightly more, um, mundane trends to carry it through the summer.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has seized upon just such a pattern of natural disaster with its second story in two days about marauding birds. Today's entry: Boy feels the effect of goose nesting season:
    Five-year-old Chase Standefer wanted to get a fishing lesson but instead got schooled about another type of wildlife.

    As he set foot on tiny Jolie Isle in Lake Saint Louis on Sunday afternoon with his stepfather, Robert Price, a nesting goose attacked the boy, causing a small but deep gash on his scalp.
I cannot wait for the in-depth local television news investigating if the birds around your house will attack you.

(First story about bird attacks here.)


 
AOL Is Funny

AOL is a funny animal. Hey, I'll admit I first got onto the Internet using AOL and that I still use AOL (I'm a Web application tester, gentle reader, so I use more browsers and operatings systems on any given day than you'll probably use in a year). But come on, some of their things are just funny.

Let's start with this scenario. You know how AOL always warns you that no one from AOL will ever ask for your credit card information, your password, and so on? Well, if your credit card information changes (such as a new expiration date), what does AOL do?

Of course! It throws up a prompt for you to enter credit card information:

AOL Billing


Why, oh why, would AOL expect its users to type their information into a prompt like this? Because they're AOL customers, that's why!

Back in the dial-up days of the mid nineteen nineties, AOL had trouble getting enough lines at its access numbers to accommodate the surging demand. Some people were leaving their computers connected when they weren't at the computer, tying up those precious lines. So AOL deployed the Idle Message, a message that popped up for every user fifty minutes after the user logged in; if the user didn't click OK to indicate they were still using the computer, AOL booted them. Many times, it kicked me off in the middle of a download. Handy.

Apparently, AOL's gotten more sophisticated and has set the message to determine when the user is not doing something. I assume such because it's called the Idle Message. I've never seen it, but I have seen this:

AOL Idle Message Off


That's right, since I have apparently turned off the Idle Message in my AOL for Broadband connection, AOL still pops up a message box to indicate I have been idle. The titlebar? Idle Message Off.

I think that AOL is trying to use paradoxes and irony to cause a rift in the space-time continuum so it can reach through to an alternate universe where its merger with Time-Warner was a good idea. It's only a working theory, though, and I might be wrong.


Thursday, April 14, 2005
 
Hewitt Sees Republican Coalition Crackup!

As he explains:
    ...there is rising anger among Republican activists and donors with the perceived dithering on judges in the Senate. It has been five months since the sweeping wins of November and three months since the Senate convened. But only one of the filibustered appeals court nominees has even cleared committee --a second might do so today-- and despite Majority Leader Frist's repeated declarations that he has the votes to end the filibuster, no clear schedule has been laid out that details when that vote will occur, and the MSM is doing its best to raise doubts about the reliability of Senator Frist's 50 votes. Reports of compromise discussions and senators' worries over "tradition" have become a staple of the political press.

    The result is that the GOP is in real danger of alienating a significant slice of its activist base --a base that has gladly contributed to the campaigns of new senators John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Jim Talent, John Cornyn, John Sununu, Norm Coleman, Lindsey Graham, Jim DeMint, Mel Martinez, Richard Burr, David Vitter, and Tom Coburn because it understood the need to add Republicans if the body was going to work. They gave to the individual campaigns and to the Senate Republican National Committee, and thousands volunteered long hours throughout the last two cycles.
Hewitt pooh-poohed the thought of the Republicans losing support because of substantive issues such as fiscal irresponsibility, excessive FCC fines and, coming soon, jail time for minor infractions of "decency," McCain-Feingold, Sarbannes-Oaxley, Medicare prescriptions, whistling past the Social Security graveyard, or any of the other hubristic party-in-power lapses.

No, in Hewitt's view, what is leading to this crackup is essentially a procedural matter in government. Whereas the non-rank-and-files Hewitt wouldn't be sad to see leave the Republicans worried about the content of the party's convenant with the country, Hewitt's worried about a particular comma in the fourth paragraph.


 
New Design for JC T-Shirts

Beware of Conservative

Click to shop



 
Government-Mandated Monopoly Hurts Consumers

Note the slant of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline: "Lifting of limits in Dallas could cost AA"':
    A push by Southwest Airlines to lift restrictions on its flights from Love Field in Dallas could cost American Airlines at least $250 million a year in revenue, including a 39 percent revenue drop on flights between Dallas/Fort Worth and St. Louis, according to an industry report.
You know, I think this increased competition would be good for consumers, you know, the little guy. But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is not his champion; it's the fierce cheerleader of government meddling in markets to benefit one company over another or over the citizen.


 
Make Yourself a Punchline

Today's lesson in how to make yourself a punchline in one lawsuit or fewer: "Woman sues store, claims she was attacked by bird":
    A Centreville woman claimed in a suit filed Wednesday in Madison County Circuit Court that a bird attacked and seriously injured her while she was shopping at a hardware store in Alton.

    Rhonda Nichols, 40, alleges in the suit that a bird flew into the back of her head while she was at the outside gardening area of the Lowe's Home Center, 1619 Homer Adams Parkway.

    Nichols is seeking damages against the store in excess of $50,000.

 
Cause and Effect, and Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet

Shocking new AARP study: Harder to swallow: Prices for seniors' brand-name drugs rising fast, study finds
    Wholesale prices for brand-name drugs commonly used by seniors rose an average of 7.1 percent last year, far outpacing the general inflation rate, according to a study released Tuesday by AARP.

    The association representing seniors found that the 2004 price hike marked the largest one-year increase relative to inflation in the five years that AARP has sponsored the study. The U.S. inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index, was 2.7 percent last year.

    "I don't see how it can incite trust in drug companies when they're seeing the same drugs going up in prices, so much higher than inflation, year after year," said David Gross, senior policy adviser with AARP's Public Policy Institute and one of the study's authors. "It's not like these are different or better drugs. These are the same drugs."
What, oh what, could cause price increases?

Painkiller Bextra pulled from shelves
Chicago Law Firm Files Bextra Class Action Lawsuit Against Pfizer
Merck Announces Voluntary Worldwide Withdrawal of VIOXX®
Idaho lawsuit filed against Vioxx
Schatz & Nobel, P.C. Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against GlaxoSmithKline plc
Wyeth to Pay $5.5 Mln in Two More Fen-Phen Cases
Indian passage of patent law slammed
US' Largest AIDS Group Seeks Improved Access to Life-Saving AIDS Drugs in Mexico
Beijing court hears wrangle on Viagra patent
Connecticut mulls drug reimportation
Pharmacists fault Maine drug reimportation plan

The obvious answer, to fAARP, is greed on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, not the increased costs of business spurred by increased government scrutiny, media hysteria, and class action litigation.

Instead of using its members contributions to agitate for nationalization of the drug industry--which is the pit at the end of the slope, gentle reader--perhaps the fAARP could buy drug patents or perhaps develop some pharmaceuticals on their own.

Oh, but no. That would require actual work instead of commissioning studies, holding meetings, and having lunches.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Beltway Traffic Jam.)


Wednesday, April 13, 2005
 
Real Men Aren't Afraid To Wear Pink

Someone asserts: "Pretty (cool!) in pink", which not only offers a bright shirt with the caption Tough Guys Wear Pink, but also asserts:
    What do baby blankets, bridesmaids, hip-hop artists and skaters have in common?

    Pink!

    In case you haven't left the house or turned on MTV in the past 12 months, pink is hot for guys. And girls are hot for guys in pink.
Reminds me of my grandmother's second wedding. I was an usher, blushing with the responsibility at 19. The wedding colors included pink, and the dictum would indicate I would wear a pink shirt. Acourse, as a poor boy, I didn't own any pink shirts and didn't have the fiscal wherewithall to readily acquire one. Besides, I don't like pink. So I said I'd wear a white shirt, of which I had plenty because in those days, you damn kids, grocery store baggers wore slacks, white shirts, and ties.

"Real men aren't afraid to wear pink," my stepmother manipulated.

You see, friends, real men (of whom tough guys are but a subset) don't follow the dictations of fashion magazines and newspaper columns. Why, every time I look at the style section of FHM or Playboy, I smirk. The guys down at Tap City would beat the cosmopolitan out of me if I tried to real the suggested clothing among them, and I wouldn't blame them; t-shirts should come free with proofs-of-purchase or should cost under $10 for a brand name advertisement or under $15 for saying something clever. They should not cost $30 to display a fashionplate of an upscale store and should never be worn under a sport coat unless you're Billy Joel or Billy Jack circa 1979.

You want to know what real men do? They do whatever they want, in a burly fashion.

If they want to wear pink, no one says a word. And if they think pink clothes are fru-fru, they don't wear them contrary to the prevailing winds of fashion. And they post blog entries about it.


 
Other Students Strike for Higher Tuition

Professor Bainbridge reports that, like Washington University students, some UCLA students are striking for higher tuition.

Who else suspects those who strike like this are also the sorts who would never bring a child into this miserable world, so they won't have to pay ultimately for their own success?


 
Another Camera Triumph!

Another surveillance camera triumph, as reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and posted at Power Line:
    According to the criminal complaint filed Monday in Hennepin County District Court, the victim boarded the bus at 7th St. and Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Six to 10 young males in the back of the bus surrounded him and taunted him, making repeated references to his race (the victim is white, the suspects black). When the bus stopped at 34th and Fremont, they grabbed him and pulled him off, the complaint said. They punched and kicked the victim, breaking his wallet chain and fleeing with the wallet, which contained $17.

    He ran to a nearby convenience store and called 911. He suffered scrapes and bruises to his face, forehead, hands and back, the complaint said.

    Video surveillance from the bus shows the group dragging the victim onto the sidewalk, according to Metro Transit police.

    "It was outrageous," said Metro Transit police Capt. Dave Indrehus. "The victim in this case was totally innocent, had nothing to do with these parties."

    The video shows that other bus passengers did not try to intervene, Indrehus said. "Quite frankly, I don't know if I would blame them," he said. "You may end up becoming a victim yourself."
Remember the benefits of video surveillance:
  • It's cheap.

  • It provides evidence.

  • It puts no law enforcement personnel at risk.
Doesn't help that poor kid much, though, does it?

Also, special kudos to the police captain for praising the non-intervention of the citizens on the bus. Keep 'em docile.


 
Washington University Socialdents Protest Low Tuition

The absurd protest at Washington University continues with more threats from the administration and with displays of inanity by the students. In case you're not in St. Louis and haven't been following the story, the students are protesting the low tuition at Washington University, where a year of tuition for undergraduates will only be $31,100 next year.

Well, not directly:
    Instead of disbanding, the students called for a hunger strike in support of higher wages for some campus workers.
One would hope that not many economic students are participating, since they know that higher costs lead to higher prices. Or should know it. Come to think of it, any student should know it, but I regret knowing what they teach in universities instead.


Tuesday, April 12, 2005
 
Random Junk Mail Quote of the Day

From an unsolicited packet, marked DELIVERY MONITORED! to appeal to paranoid occupants like me, advertising an air purifier:
    Oxygen is nature's beneficial element. It is what makes the sky blue. It is what nature uses to get rid of everything harmful on earth.
Well, oxygen is a key component in fire.

So this thing wants to pump ozone into your house to make your household air pure; it calls ozone "activated oxygen" and pretty much implies they're throwing in an extra atom of oxygen into when you buy an atom of O2. What the hey, have another quote:
    The electronic spark ozone air purifiers use an electric spark to produce ozone. The electric spark produces oxides of nitrogen that form an acid in the air which is corrosive and toxic. The electric spark can cause explosions and it can interfere with radio and T.V. signals.
I understand explosions can also adversely impact radio and television reception by themselves.

Perhaps I should read more junk mail. It's making my afternoon.


 
Ding, Dong, Ditch, and Do Time

Kids arrested in Port Washington, Wisconsin, for Ding Dong Ditch.

So make sure you're always on the stoop after you ring the bell, or they'll get you for Attempted Ding Dong Ditch or Conspiracy to Commit Ding Dong Ditch. And if that's not enough, they'll make subsidiary charges like Wearing Sneakers During Commission of Ding Dong Ditch.

Because everything changed on 9/11.

Okay, I am done now.


 
Contract and Constitutional Law Taught By Pacers Player

Professor O'Neal explains:
    Indiana center Jermaine O'Neal said the NBA's desire to put an age limit in the next collective bargaining agreement could be driven by racism.

    "In the last two or three years, the rookie of the year has a been a high school player. There were seven high school players in the All-Star game, so why we even talking an age limit?" said O'Neal, who was drafted out of high school in 1996 by the Portland Trail Blazers.

    "As a black guy, you kind of think that's the reason why it's coming up. You don't hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it's unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes?"
Heh. And that's a mean heh.


Monday, April 11, 2005
 
Spot the Absurdity

No, I don't mean the obvious absurdity of Illinois distributing scratch 'n' sniff cards so authoritarian figures can reference the scent of methamphetamine ingredients. No, look beyond it and find more subtle absurdity in the following:
    The cards, when scratched, would emit the odor of anhydrous ammonia, an ingredient used in the methamphetamine production process that smells distinctively like cat urine. They would be distributed, by the Illinois State Police and the Board of Education, to teachers, school employees and day-care center employees to help them identify children who have been exposed to meth, the bill says.

    "Most people haven't smelled meth," said state Rep. Michael P. McAuliffe, R-Chicago, who introduced the bill in late February, adding, "Not too many people know about this drug, and it's everywhere."

    McAuliffe said last week that despite the rapid growth in meth use and production in Illinois, few people can detect the signs of addiction or exposure, particularly exposure to children. Many children, McAuliffe explained, live in homes where meth is produced or smoked and absorb the smell in their hair, skin and clothes.

    "The teacher might say, 'How many cats do you have at home?'" McAuliffe demonstrated. "The student could say, 'We don't have any cats.'"
Which is more patently nuts?
  • The paradox of this statement: "Not too many people know about this drug, and it's everywhere."

  • The thought of a child's teacher sniffing the child's hair and, if the teacher thinks the hair smells like this card, the authorities launch a full drug enforcement investigation, possibly culminating in no-knock raids with weapons out.

 
Police Call 9/11

A Best Buy customer is handcuffed and taken to jail for paying with $2 bills, and the police call 9/11:
    For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."
That's right. Overly aggressive and inappropriate police behavior threatening to cause a stain on the public trust? Just call 9/11!

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

UPDATE: John Cole had the same thought.


Sunday, April 10, 2005
 
Book Report: Needlepoint on Plastic Canvas by Elisabeth Brenner De Nitto (1978)

All right, so I read this book; I even bought it, although I couldn't tell you if I bought it at a garage sale or very cheaply at a used bookstore. I bought it, though, because I've done needlepoint on plastic mesh before and will do so again before they stop me. Besides, once purchased, it was on my to-read shelves and represented an easy browse to removal. So I flipped through it enough to satisfy my interia criteria for having read a book, and now I'm reporting on it.

The book includes a number of projects one can do with needlepoint taking advantage of the new plastic mesh canvas which apparently came on the marketplace at about that time; the book lists several suppliers and brand names. Now, I walk into Walmart and just buy whatever cheap sheets my Walton cousins stock. But back in the day, undoubtedly this was the hot new technology, like .NET for crafters. The introduction chapter talks about the transition from fabric canvas, and I laughed out loud when I realized that I took for granted a two-step stitch--once down through the canvas and once up--to which fabric crafters, who were used to folding the canvas for a single-step stitch, would have to adjust.

Undoubtedly, Lileks could do a number on the patterns in this book, but I won't; I will, however, comment that my mother was a Creative Circle representative, and she used to hold Tupperware-style parties to sell patterns, yarns, kits, and whatnot to housewives. This was almost thirty years ago, in the early 1980s, and I remember a certain number of craftesque gifts exchanged and some crafty things around the house and the houses of people whom I visited. Is it just me, or is the number of home-crafted things in decline? I don't know many of my generation/peerage who sew or do crafts. Acourse, we're all geeks who spin yarns called computer programs and the assorted effluvia of the IT industry, so perhaps my perspective is skewed.

So what did this book gain me? I have a listing of other stitches I can use on plastic canvases. I don't think I'll use the patterns within it, nor did they particularly fire my imagination for projects. I did, however, finish book #31 for the year, and I still have the collection of Dick Tracy cartoons in reserve for if I fall behind my desired pace.


 
Step 3: (Government) Profit!

So we're driving north on Interstate 39 in the middle of Illinois when there arises from the plain an almost unearthly sight. Dozens of towers break the horizon, each with spinning blades:

Wind farm near Paw Paw, Illinois


I don't remember those spires from my frequent trips up the highway, and sure enough, they're new:

Step 1: Anything innovative that moves human progress forward.
Step 2: ...
Step 3: (Government) Profit!:
    It really wouldn’t surprise many La Salle County officials if a wind farm sprung up on someone’s property in the county within the next couple years.

    So in an effort to plan ahead and gather more revenue, county development committee officials Friday agreed to add a $25-per-foot inspection fee for all towers built in the county into its proposed commercial, industrial and multifamily building code ordinance.

    “We need to do something quick-like because they’ll be here before we know it,” said committee member Richard Foltynewicz (D-Ottawa).
Because La Salle County officials have seen the construction of a wind farm in neighboring Lee County, they've gotten ahead of the curve and want to implement the tax before they actually have anything to tax.

Oh, sorry, it's a $25-per-foot inspection fee. An arbitrary number that doesn't account for the amount of time an inspector would have to spend on the site nor on the actual productivity of the wind farm or profitability of the company collecting the energy. No, it's on the height of the windmill, which makes about as much sense as taxing a company based on the number of letters in its name.

So keep that in mind, gentle reader, whereas your elected officials want you to think they share your goals for cheap, renewable energy and less dependence on foreign oil, they really do, but they have their priorities. And the top of the list is getting more of that sweet, sweet tax money that will hinder progress and which will eventually come from your pockets.


Thursday, April 07, 2005
 
Calling All Fashionistas

We're waiting to know what to think: Where the current and former presidents dressed appropriately for being indoors while attending a solemn occasion such as viewing the corpse of a pope?


Wednesday, April 06, 2005
 
You Might Be a Felon If....

(Inspired by this book and with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy....)

  • If you have ever poured a cleaning agent or solvent down your drain without first consulting the Material Safety Data Sheet and EPA regulations....you might be a felon.

  • If you have ever told a law enforcement official that you have committed a crime, even if you were joking or being a smart ass.....you might be a felon.

  • If you have ever put a sack of potting soil in a flowerbed before checking with the Army Corps of Engineers to find out if you're on an officially-designated wetland.....you might be a felon.

  • If you have ever had trouble with a Federal form so you call their helpline and they tell you which box to check and you turn it in, but the helpline people were wrong....you might be a felon.

  • If you are a doctor and your receptionist's 1s look too much like 7s to a Medicare data entry clerk.....you might be a felon.

  • If you have ever displayed a pellet or BB gun in such a fashion that someone can see it.....you might be a felon.
If only it were a comedy routine and not the law of the land.


 
Heather's Wish List

Heather has a birthday coming up this summer. Want to know what not to get her?

Approximately 730 bales of styrofoam.

Don't say I didn't warn you if she unwraps that gift with your name on it.


 
Carter Not Going to Pope's Funeral

So Jimmy Carter isn't going to the Pope's funeral. Doesn't surprise me, actually, considering this story:

Secret Papal Election Set for April 18.

A secret election + Jimmy Carter in the area? Perhaps the Vatican fears Carter calling the election invalid and demanding international monitors and a straightforward crooked election of a tyrant.


Tuesday, April 05, 2005
 
The Bray Dissent

Missouri State Senator Joan Bray (D-University City) also dissents from Go Directly to Jail by wanting to make a felony crime in the state of Missouri to not disclose a criminal record when getting a mail order bride:
    Missouri men seeking a "mail-order bride" from a foreign country might soon have to disclose their criminal records and previous marriages to the prospective fiancee.

    A bill before the Legislature would require the full and accurate disclosure of such information. The measure would apply equally to a woman who sought a husband from another country. A violation would be a felony.

    The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, is an attempt to stop the abuse of foreign women who suddenly find themselves in a strange country married to violent men.
A ham-fisted attempt which probably wouldn't protect that many foreign women in a strange country married to violent men. But hey, felonies don't cost anything to legislate!


 
The Sensenbrenner Dissent

Apparently, congressman F'n Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) dissents with the themes in Go Directly to Jail as he wants to pass a law that mandates show a boob on television, go to Federal prison:
    Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner III, R-Wis., told cable industry executives attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. conference here on Monday that criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to enforce the indecency regulations.

    "I'd prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process," Sensenbrenner told the executives.
You know, perhaps I could support the concept if we extended the definition of boob to publicity hound, power-mad elected official.

Also, perhaps this explains Sensenbrenner's strong anti-immigration stance. He wants to save them from indecency on American television.


 
Book Report: Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything edited by Gene Healy (2004)

As some of you know, I recently bought this book on Amazon for like full price because its description indicated the book echoed themes I've raised before on this blog. And so it does.

Some people get a chill from horror novels. I'm working on Stephen King's It, and a killer clown in the sewers bothers me less than The Three Billy Goats Gruff did back in the day. When I want to self-impose fear, I pick up a book like this.

The book runs 150 pages, which includes extensive end notes. It comprises an introduction and six essays. The essays do tend to focus on crimes that companies or more powerful people could commit--environmental crimes, medical crimes, violations of business laws. Of course, these sorts of crimes would certainly interest the contributors to the CATO Institute, who put this book together. Although I'm not planning to do any industrial dumping, the implications of these new classes of crimes frightened me enough when I realized that charges for these crimes can apply to the individual as well as the corporation if a prosecutor or law enforcement official wants them to do so. Black magick.

Two other essays in the book deal with:
  • Project Exile, which allowed for federal enforcement of gun law violations; although I started the essay disagreeing with the premise that Project Exile was bad (hey, how could it be bad to keep guns from felons?), the essay convinced me. The government's goal is worthy, but its tactics are frightening. Spending federal money to hire federal prosecutors to prosecute essentially local crimes and do nothing else leads to creative, aggressive pursuit of the goal. High conviction rates don't necessarily mean success; they could mean creative application of the process and law in pursuit of the goal.

  • Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the Byzantine set of documentation that dictates how federal judges must impose sentences based on complex computations established by an unelected commission. The essay explains how this came about and its effects, including creative fact-bargaining and prosecutors holding back evidence from the trial to present during sentencing to increase the perpetrator's time.
The book didn't touch too much on layering--the prosecution of the same crime at many levels of government--although it did mention it. Also, it didn't touch on nonsense measures that outlaw things that offend vocal minorities, hate crimes, or the criminalization of non-criminal acts that criminals sometimes perform as precursor or part of another crime. Perhaps it's just as well this book didn't take on those topics; I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is.

Tone of the book is reasoned essay, unlike stream-of-consciousness screeds you get out of popular broadcast journalists who write political books. These essays build cases and take their time to get to the conclusion. Many of them are actually condensed from longer pieces. So it's not a quick read, but it's a thoughtful book, and since it's only 150 pages, it's a good week of reading.

Now I've read the book, I just need to be an influential about the ideas presented.


Monday, April 04, 2005
 
Cross Checking the Cross Section

Support grows for beefing up U.S. forces: Some see situations where volunteers may not be enough

The lead:
    The war-strained all-volunteer U.S. military has a growing manpower problem and a cross-section of Washington policymakers has proposed a solution -- increase the size of the regular military by 30,000, 40,000 or even 100, 000 or more.

    While just about all the proponents maintain they want to achieve the increase by offering recruits bigger financial incentives or through appeals to patriotism, lurking in the background is a possibility that for now remains anathema to all but a few. The military draft, which coughed up its last conscript in 1973, could make a comeback if recruiting doesn't pick up and if America's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan turn into long-term occupations or if the Bush administration's tough-minded foreign policy means military action in places like Iran or North Korea.
Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau, writer of this piece begins blurring the line early; the first paragraph is about increasing the size of the army, and the second draws its circle, shakes its depacapitated chicken, and reanimates THE DRAFT!!!

So while Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau, tries to confuse his readers by lumping those who want a bigger military in with those who want a draft, let me help by breaking them out:

Wants a Draft/Thinks Draft Might Be Necessary:
  • Rep Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont -- both military veterans -- want all 19-year-olds to do a year or two of national service.

  • "The argument for a draft is political hot air,'' said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank that supports a smaller role for the federal government.

    But he warned that if the Iraq occupation drags on, other foreign military operations are launched and a half-million more soldiers are needed, "I don't think we can get there without a draft."


  • But Phillip Carter, a retired Army captain who is now a lawyer, writer and commentator on military affairs, said there may be little choice but to reinstate conscription. "The all-volunteer model can't produce the numbers that might be needed,'' he said.

    He favors the national service idea, and says that in his vision those who opt for military service would only serve as military police, truck drivers or in homeland security posts.
Those Who Want Bigger Military:

  • Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. and Jack Reed, D-R.I., have proposed adding 30,000 soldiers to the Army.

  • Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has proposed a 30,000-person increase in the Army and 10, 000 to the Marines....

  • ...and Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, wants to add some 20,000 to the Army, 12,000 to the Marine Corps and 29,000 to the Air Force.

  • A bipartisan group put together by the Project for the New American Century, a group that reflects the thinking of the neoconservatives who have been so influential in determining President Bush's military and foreign policies, sent a letter to congressional leaders in late January. In it, the signatories wrote, "it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years."
So although many people have called for more military personnel, a far smaller number of people have called for a draft. Several quotable notables in the article say it will be tough to maintain or to elevate force levels. However, only one person in the article seems adamant that the draft is a real danger.

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau.

 
Who's Counting?

Tomorrow will mark the beginning of my third year with this blog.

Here's the first post as proof.

Two years of thoughtful commentary, witty insight, and modesty, and still the same eight readers.

Thanks, guys.


 
Lead Recall Effort for Alderman, Get Sued

A controversial St. Louis Alderman, facing a recall, sues the leaders of the recall effort for defamation:
    A petition to remove Bauer from office is gaining momentum, even as Bauer levels a $2 million suit against the organizers. Records show that Bauer himself has profited from development in the ward. While the deal appears not to have violated any rules, some of Bauer's colleagues frown on investing in their own ward because of the potential for conflict.
The alderman defends himself:
    For his part, Bauer says he is the target of a "civil conspiracy" spreading lies to besmirch his name.

    "There are some people who have a personal agenda - they want to prevent good things from happening in Dogtown," Bauer said.
A civil conspiracy? Is that the new euphemism for accountability to voters and elections in the parlance of the Elect(ed), who feel they should be above reproach?

I fully expect this lawsuit to be dismissed (SLAPPed down, as it were), but I imagine its headlines will have a chilling effect on some opposition as the lawsuit gets big fonts but the dismissal does not.


Sunday, April 03, 2005
 
Steyn: On Hewitt's Side!

As if there were any doubt, Mark Steyn is firmly on Hugh Hewitt's side and doesn't recognize the danger in which the Republican party finds itself:
    The notion, for example, that poor Terri Schiavo will cost Republicans votes in a year and a half's time is ludicrous.
It's not the principled stand on life that will cost the Republicans; it's the intrusion of the Federal government into a private matter, with eleventh hour legislation to move a single case to Federal court because the party in power in the Federal legislature did not like the outcome of the state courts.

No, I would have preferred to see Schiavo's husband turn her care over to her parents (hey, and I wouldn't have even condemned him for taking a million bucks for it). I'd rather Terry Schiavo continue her hopeless existence unheralded in a Florida hospice into perpetuity, in the obscurity in which most people with functioning brains toil. But if her guardian felt she would not have wanted to wither and die over the course of decades she would never know passed, then so be it; he could end the extraordinary measures continuing her life (a feeding tube is an extraordinary measure; if you doubt it, count the number you see on an ordinary day). But you know what? I and many like me recognized it's not our business. It's not clearly, obviously murder nor is it "forced starvation" it's not forced feeding.

But the party for whom I vote most of the time on a Federal level has determined that Terri Schiavo's life and death are its business. Therein lies the disparity, the cleft which shall yield a schism in the bloc that re-elected George W. Bush and has continued to send a Republican majority to Congress. It's not a culture of life versus a culture of choice, it's the culture of my business versuse the culture of "Hey, we're in power now, so maybe it is the Federal government's business since the Federal government is ours."

Call them the pro-Federal-Business wing of the Republican party. I won't call them theocrats because that's not the issue; from whatever source they derive their beliefs, I care not. I do care that they're using the mechanisms of federal government to impose them on everyone.

Supporters of the Republican Federal Steamroller (RFS, blogosphere, if you want a nifty abbreviation) chortle and ask me if I'm going to vote for John Kerry or Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008. No, I won't.

I will vote for the stronger foreign policy candidate for president in 2008. That's the proper role of the president; to handle foreign policy.

The real danger to your Republican hegemony comes in 2006 and 2008 for the legislative branch of government. Because quite frankly, I am so disappointed with what the Republicans are doing in Congress that I will probably vote for the Libertarian candidate, however nutso and unqualified. And if the loss of my vote leads to a Democratic Congress, perhaps the Republicans can relearn their lesson and return to small government, Contract With Americaesque stylings. At least a Republican president won't give the Democrat congress everything their socialist heart desires, so we won't be much worse off than we are now.

If the worst case scenario occurs, and I help elect a Democrat congress and the Republicans cheese off voters who don't recognize the proper role of the president to elect Clinton II (The Restoration), undoubtedly Hewitt, Steyn, et al., will blame me and my None-Of-My-Business-and-Especially-None-of-the-Federal-Government's-Business brethen for the potential disasters ahead--National Health Care, National This, National That, International Law, Loss of Sovereignity, and so forth--without recognizing the role they played as cheerleaders to the Absolutely-Corrupted-By-Absolute-Power bunch we sent to Washington in 2004.

No, all damnation will be reserved for the libertarian conservatives who just wanted the Federal government to handle national things. That the Federal government wanted to dictate what a single individual would eat--PVS or not--won't cross the minds of the small-government-conservatives-until-in-power legislators and their cheerleaders.

So be it. I cannot wait until 2006 so I can cast my vote.


 
Unspoken Footnote

Here's a piece of on-product advertising from Frito-Lay:

Lay's Stax Promo


The text:
    America prefers the taste of Lay's Stax® Original Potato Crisps Over Pringles® Original Potato Crisps**

    Taste for Yourself!

    ** Among those with a preference
Among those with a preference? You mean amongst the thirty people outside of Lay's who have heard of the canned Lay's? Wow, that's some bandwagon there.

In a related note, America prefers Musings from Brian J. Noggle to Pop-Up Mocker**

** Among those with a preference and who know what a "blog" is and who have heard of either of the aforementioned bottom-feeding blogs.


Saturday, April 02, 2005
 
Call Europe the Amusement Park Socialismland

Pensioner ordered to cut the grass
    A pensioner who took his daughter and son-in-law to court to force them to cut his grass has been forced to do it himself.

    Paul Mueller, 72, argued he was too old to cut the lawn at the house he shared with daughter Karin and her husband Peter Hoffer.

    He went to court to get them to take on the job at the house in Bonn, Germany.

    But the plan backfired when the court ruled that the pensioner should be responsible for cutting the grass.

    If he fails to do the job, his daughter, 43, is allowed to hire a professional gardener and make the old man pay the bill.
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I suppose I could do both: I could laugh at the absurdity of this silly Eurocrat idea, and cry because I realize by the time I am 72, the situation could be such in this country that I might have to sue my own damn kid to mow the schnucking lawn and lose.


 
An Anatomy of Bad Lawmaking

From a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled "Chain reaction", we have this illuminating look at poor lawmaking:
  • Concerned citizen John Q. Everyman gets an idea.

      That's what Connie Davie of Creve Coeur thought when she saw dogs tied outside, all alone, day and night, in every kind of weather. In fact, she thought, as images of the lonely, pathetic-looking canines kept creeping into her mind, surely there is a law against such obvious abuse.

      Curious, Davie called her local police department to find out just what the law said.

      It said nothing. There was no law. As long as a dog has access to food, water and shelter, the law was happy.


    Note the shading of story; a dog chained in a yard is subject to obvious abuse; the community must sanction the owner. Also, let's understand the nature of this John Q., shall we?

      Or volunteering for Stray Rescue of St. Louis. Or walking Eddie and Sherry, the dogs she fostered for Stray Rescue and ended up keeping.

      But, she said, "I saw a need in my area for a law that addressed this issue of tethering." Animals were suffering.

      And when animals are suffering, Davie acts.
    This particular citizen is an active volunteer for an animal advocacy group. One doubts that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would wine-and-dine a Missouri Synod employee advocating schools to allow Lutheran youth groups meet on campus after school, but an animal group volunteer who agitates is just a plucky normal person.

  • The council drafts an ordinance to apply to everyone.

      "I worked with Beth for three to four months drafting an ordinance that we thought would be enforceable. I also worked with our police chief, Don Kayser, since he would be the one who'd have to enforce whatever we came up with," she said.

      "When I first met with the police chief, I told him I didn't expect the police to be cruising around looking for chained dogs. And I told the city council that I didn't expect the police to be the dog gestapo. But if someone calls to report that a dog is being mistreated, the police need to have the leverage to act on it."


    You see, the law is not designed for an instant enforcement; tether a dog, go to jail. Instead, it's designed as a means by which to punish those select people about whom the neighbors complain, or whom the police want to punish. If cops see a tethered dog, they're not always going to make an arrest. A good discretionary law, subject to arbitrary enforcement.

  • The legislators pay attention to detail to craft exactly the ordinance they intend.

      Davie smiled when she recalled that the final draft of the ordinance had a mistake in it. "It said that a dog could not be tied out continuously for more than six hours. It was supposed to say eight hours, because we wanted to take people who work into consideration. When one of the council members pointed out the typo, another council member said they'd be happy if it said we couldn't chain a dog outside at all," she said.
    I cannot bold this paragraph enough. They made an error in the final legislation they passed, but that's okay, because one legislator would prefer to take all tethering rights from dog owners altogether.

  • Satisfied that she has altered her local community's laws, John Q. Public returns to normal life.

      Davie still is amazed at the relative ease with which the ordinance passed. So much so that she has decided to broaden the battlefield.

      She wants to get a similar measure enacted in St. Louis County.


    So she wants me, and all St. Louis County residents, to adhere to her personal aesthetic standards of animal ownership. But wait, it's not just me:
      Davie is hoping that others will join her crusade, not just in St. Louis County but in other municipalities.

      "What we did in Creve Coeur has been done in at least 59 other communities across the country," she said. "It's becoming kind of a movement, I think."


    John Q. wants the entire world to adhere to her standards.
There you have it. An animal rights advocate uses anecdotal evidence and emotionalism to hand law enforcement a law it can enforce at its whim. Whom will it impact the most? Law abiding citizens who own dogs but cannot afford thousand dollar fences but don't want to leave their dogs in their homes while they're at work. While they might have provided their tethered dogs with water, food, shelter, and amusement for the periods when they're at work, they'll have to give up their dogs or violate the law (I bet they just violate the law).

The more laws you make, the more lawbreakers, particularly when the laws target trivial misdeeds that many people do without mens rea or particular ill effect. I wonder what our society will be like in twenty years or thirty years when everyone knows that they're already breaking laws....what could one more crime mean?


 
Brief Movie Review: Hostage Starring Bruce Willis

Like Die Hard with a kid.

If you can watch a child in a Bruce Willis movie crawling through HVAC ducts without saying, "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs," well, you're a more polite movie goer than I.

It's different from the book by Robert Crais, but just as good. For what that's worth.


 
A Record To Stand The Ages

According to a nugget in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols did not strike out in spring training. An almost unheard of occurrence:
    He is the first player to go an entire spring without a strikeout since the Milwaukee Brewers' Eric Young in 2003. The Chicago White Sox' Joey Cora accomplished the feat in 1993 in 72 plate appearances. Outfielder Luis Saturia was the last Cardinals player to go all spring training without a strikeout in at least 20 plate appearances. He did so in 2002; however, he was reassigned before the end of camp.
No other player in Major League Baseball has done that since the year before last and no Cardinals spring trainee attendee has done that since two years ago. And that Cardinals player was demoted to the minor leagues.

If local sportswriters could have it, we know which Cardinal they would elevate to the papacy.


 
I Won't Win The Lottery, Either

New pope will hail from cardinals

So that puts those of us who are not Catholic and advanced members of the clergy out of the running. I was hoping to be a Cinderella story myself, a dark horse candidate who would bring a sort of everyman's perspective to the papacy. Ah, well, at least I can console myself with my acelibacy.

I don't know what's more frightening; that reporters need to write entire eighth-grade-report style stories on succession in the Catholic church, or the idea that some people impacted by this knowledge might not have it.

 
Micromanagement

Blagojevich orders pharmacies to sell contraceptives promptly.

The Illinois governor also told fast food fry clerks to clean the frier, grocery store utility clerks to restock the bags at the end of the registers, and for the sales clerk at the department store to stop standing around and to straighten her area, for crying out loud she's lucky she has this job with her being late three times this year and calling in once every three weeks.

UPDATE: Furthermore, Blagojevich ordered pharmacies to bundle unused flu vaccination doses with every purchase of a contraceptive.


 
Senator Jim Talent's Solution to Crime: Federalize It

After all, he's federal legislator, so he cannot be seen by the public as Doing Something!!!! on local law enforcement problems. So he gathered up a news conference with local law enforcement and spake:
    Sen. Jim Talent, calling methamphetamine "the No. 1 law-enforcement problem facing Missouri," on Friday outlined a federal plan to increase funding for police and prosecutors and restrict sales of the over-the-counter cold pills used to make the powerful narcotic.

    Speaking at a news conference at the St. Louis County Police headquarters in Clayton, Talent called the Combat Meth Act the most comprehensive anti-meth legislation ever proposed.

    The bill - sponsored by Talent, R-Mo., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. - would direct $20 million to train police, hire prosecutors and fund programs that help children injured in drug labs. But the bill's focus is restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in scores of cold remedies.
It's a big problem facing Missouri, so Talent (a name, not necessarily a noun) wants the federal government to gather federal tax dollars, take its cut off the top, and then pass those federally-taken tax dollars to the states to spend as they see fit. Well, maybe pass the money back to the states, if the states jump through the new federal hoops correctly, probably including passing legislation to make it possible to charge someone with DUI for wearing aftershave. But I digress.

My senator co-sponsored this bill with Dianne Feinstein. That says it all.

They're doing something to make America better and stronger by setting up a vigorish that will fund administration of the tax money redistribution and by making more innocuous behavior (buying too much cough medicine) criminal. The America they're strengthening is the federal government. That America and the amalgamated citizens and states of America are often not the same thing.


 
But He Still Killed Susan Gutweiler

From the sound of it, the case against Leonard Little was a little weak:
    On Friday, the only defense witness that Rosenblum called was Ladue police Officer Keneth Andreski, who was Stork's backup when Little was arrested and was standing five feet from the defendant when Little was given the sobriety tests.

    Stork had testified that Little was windmilling his arms and unable to stand on one foot. Andreski said he didn't recall seeing Little swinging his arms or holding them outward like airplane wings to keep his balance.

    Andreski said he didn't recall seeing Little swaying or using the Mercedes for support, as Stork had told the jury.

    Also testifying Friday was Sgt. Darin McClure. Under questioning by prosecutor Mark Bishop, McClure said he administered a breath test at the arrest scene on a portable machine and it showed that Little had been drinking. McClure said also he smelled alcohol on Little's breath.

    Under Rosenblum's questioning, McClure said Little wasn't stumbling, swaying, losing his balance or smelling of alcohol at the Ladue police station, where he was taken 18 minutes after the traffic stop.

    "Nothing in this case is consistent with intoxication," Rosenblum said.
Well, that's the flipside of fame and the law's engagement with you. On the first offense, you leave a mother dead and get a slap on the wrist; from there on out, every cop who pulls you over will try to railroad you for DUI.


 
Were I To Vote, I Would Vote for Frost

Cardinals Differ on Who Will Succeed Pope

Pujols is said to favor Matthew Arnold, whereas Matt Morris and some of the relief pitchers back Percy Bysshe Shelley. Jim Edmonds publicly espoused Anonymous, which proves he was either joking, is daft, or has some weird Californiaesque buddhist leanings.


 
Girding Up

Clinton Supporters Gear Up Against 'Swift Boat' Tactics

Fortunately, this still leaves her exposed to deep water navy tactics, including submarine warfare.


Friday, April 01, 2005
 
Unintended Consequences, Again

Biometric security at work:
    Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner's finger to get round the vehicle's hi-tech security system.

    The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system.
(Link seen via Signifying Nothing and The Liquia Blog.)


To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."