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Musings from Brian J. Noggle
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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Twenty Year Trivia Turnabout Joaquin Phoenix had a brother, River Phoenix, who was also an actor. Compare/contrast this with trivia questions ca 1990. Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Bush Prepares the Keynesian Free Market Wrecking Ball Bush may tap strategic oil reserve as prices soar:
The Bush administration said it would consider lending oil from the nation's emergency stockpile to refiners that request it and the president of OPEC said he will propose a production increase of 500,000 barrels a day at the cartel's meeting next month. I mean, where does the government's meddling in free markets end? With increased home seizures when the housing bubble "bursts," so better to spur demand and keep the supply tight? Oh, no, you say? Why the heck not? Brian Ends The Foreign Policy Debate With a Witty Riposte I am a chickenhawk. I eat chickens. Are you a chicken? Monday, August 29, 2005
Book Report: Movies and TV: The New York Public Library Book of Answers by Melinda Corey and George Ochoa (1992) I paid $1.00 for this book last week at the J. I totally consumed it because I'm into trivia. Speaking of which, this book has the longest title of anything I've read in the last two years. This book is kinda like a FAQ, especially FAQs like a former employer wanted me to write back when I was a technical writer: Just make up some questions. Actually, this is a little different, as someone did ask these questions of the New York Public Library. The book focuses on movies, mostly classic movies, and television, mostly early television. Hopefully I have absorbed enough information to keep me competitive with MC Jazzy Pianist, the other anchor of the North Side Mind Flayers but sometimes a rival in non-official trivia events. So I now know where RKO studios went and who played Joe Friday's partner in the second television go-round of Dragnet (although I already knew that--perhaps I'm not keeping up after all). I did note an interesting confluence, whether real or perceived: a lot of long-running television series went off of the air in the early 1970s. A lot of shows seemed to run from the radio days through the new medium and right up until 1971 or 1974 or whatever. Someone could make a persuasive paper about how this reflects the changing of the guard from the "Greatest Generation" to the "Me-est Generation." No doubt more academically-minded people than I have tried. So is the book worth a buck? Of course not, Mike. Nothing to see here. Move along. Husband Pleads Innocent Somehow, some way, this blog is the number 1 search hit on Yahoo! for: when your husband thinks you are better than himI plead innocent, honey. Update: Certain elements of the household have shown me how, due to the unique nature of Yahoo! algorhthyms, this result isn't always number one on different computers, even different computers in the same house. Ah, well, obviously I've already had the incident purged from my record. Book Report: Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen (1993) I paid $1.00 for this book at the annual J book fair last Sunday. I've already read it. I like Carl Hiaasen. Perhaps it's because he doesn't write series (of which I'm aware), so he has something different going on in each one and can't just phone in a rehash of previous novels without any forward momentum on recycled characters. This book starts off too slowly, really, with a hodgepodge of characters with something happening, but little risk or empathy to drive me along. When an out-of-control philandering Congressman goes nuts in a strip club and beats a bachelor attending his bachelor party unconscious, his fixers have to deal with the aftermath: a customer infatuated with a dancer who recognizes the Congressman despite his disguise, a smalltime chiseling lawyer soon-to-be-related to the bachelor by marriage who thinks blackmail, a well-read bouncer who wants to get rich on fraudulent lawsuits, and a stripper who only wants to get her little girl back from her felonious ex-husband, and the ex-husband who wants more pills and a better buzz for more audacious wheelchair theft. It's a crime fiction farce of the Hiaasen mold, with the southern Florida landscape to explain the eccentricity and a social message hidden among the shenanigans. Man, 1993. What an innocent time. As I mentioned, the book starts jumbled and slow, but if you stick with it, you'll come to enjoy it. Although it's hopefully excused for its shortcomings by being early in Hiaasen's career, it's worth a buck. Sunday, August 28, 2005
That's a Big Pile of Unpaid Parking Tickets In a story entitled City worker surrenders to face drug charges, we have this novel means of immobilizing cars:
At Least I'm Not Jimmy Stewart You scored 52% Tough, 4% Roguish, 28% Friendly, and 14% Charming! You, my friend, are a man's man, the original true grit, one tough talking, swaggering son of a bitch. You're not a bad guy, on the contrary, you're the ultimate good guy, but you're one tough character, rough and tumble, ready for anything. You call the shots and go your own way, and if some screwy dame is willing to accept your terms, that's just fine by you. Otherwise, you'll just hit the open trail and stay true to yourself. You stand up for what you believe and can handle any situation, usually by rushing into the thick of the action. You're not polished and you're not overly warm, but you're a straight shooter and a real stand up guy. Co-stars include Lauren Bacall and Maureen O'Hara, tough broads who can take care of themselves. Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test. ![]() Saturday, August 27, 2005
Book Report: Deliver Us From Evil by Sean Hannity (2004) I received this book as a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law, so I feel almost bad about savaging the book, but since she doesn't read the blog any more, like everyone else but you, gentle reader, I will do so. For starters, when I opened the book, I thought I would hate it more than I did. Because I don't like the sound of Sean Hannity's voice. I can't fathom how someone with a voice like that could make it big in broadcasting whereas someone with a deep, soothing voice like mine toils away on a backblogwater like this, but there you go. So I prepared to trepid (to coin a verb from a noun like all the cool kids do) this book. I've found myself avoiding books of the current events polemic sort since I spend a lot of time reading blogs and commentary on the Internet. These books don't add a lot to the columns, to the radio program commentary, to the blog entries of writers who collect or stretch them. Nor do they expect a long shelf-life of backlist sales or continuing relevance. Face it, any of these books with the commentator's picture on the cover is designed to face outward on the book stores' shelves. The minute they're turned spine out, forget it. They're on the remainder shelf. But I digress. The point of the book is that appeasers of evil are themselves evil. That is, Democrats who didn't oppose the Nazis, the Communists, or the Islamofascists are evil. Hardly a novel idea, but Sean Hannity draws from voluminous sources, duly end-noted, to support his thesis. Unfortunately, my cursory glance at the end notes indicates that most of Hannity's support comes from other commentary making his same arguments. So it's just like reading a log blog entry. A year after this book was written, it's already showing its age. His roll-up of potential 2004 Democrat candidates for president, for example, was worthless in its handicapping and won't even merit a footnote in history, since history will pick better sources. Considering it collects common arguments, thoughts, and clichés, I will have forgotten this book by the time next Christmas rolls around. But, on the bright side, I didn't hear Hannity's voice in my head after a couple dozen pages. And the book didn't challenge me, like Sartre, Doestoyevski, or George Frost Kennan, so it didn't take too long. Sorry, Ms. Igert. It Pays To Specialize, But Sometimes Not Much Thieves specialized in taking change from unlocked cars, police say:
They didn't damage any vehicles, and it appears they ignored expensive stereos, preferring to steal cash and change, said Capt. Jeff Connor. "Their main goal was to gather all the change they could," he said. And they ignored vehicles with locked doors, he said. Carry a Liaision Down The Road That I Must Travel Just One Minute reaches its hand up the arrears of a French noun and pulls out a verb:
Countdown to the Memory Hole This story made a big splash in the conservative blog clique yesterday and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered it, but we can begin the countdown until it's forgotten: Girl's story of dad was a hoax, paper says:
Only now are they learning there was never any danger of that. The Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University's student-run newspaper, today will admit to its readers that the saga - of a little girl's published letters to her father serving in Iraq - was apparently an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a woman who claimed to be the girl's aunt. In fact, the newspaper will report today, the man identified as the girl's father was never in Iraq, and it was the woman who apparently wrote the letters and regular columns that were published under the little girl's name - and even impersonated the girl in telephone interviews. It also might explain how the students' ideology could have played a greater role in their ignorance if possible: students don't even have to temper their drive to improve the world by remaking it in their image. In real papers, editors, publishers, and the positions to whom student reporters often aspire have to at least genuflect to the concepts of circulation and shareholders, but school papers exist at the indulgence of the schools and don't have to even consider remaining palatable to customers. Here's a sample of the writing that "captivated" Carbondale, or at least the university students, or perhaps no one really but the paper itself:
So there you have my thoughts on the matter. Here are some others: Friday, August 26, 2005
Minutiae Crikes, I've got this mosquito bite on my neck like an inch from my jugular. You know that mosquito will be telling his friends about that bite, ad nauseum, for the rest of his life. Probably a week tops, unless he tries that stunt again, in which case I'll spill my own blood if needed to truncate his existence. Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Four Drug Minimum Lawsuit calls execution method cruel:
The suit on behalf of Johnston, 44, claims Missouri's three-drug method of lethal injection violates his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment. It was filed more than a year ago in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, and the court denied the state's motion to dismiss it as frivolous. One wonders what number of injections it takes to be humane. No Original Ideas Left for Movie Lawsuits, Either Court reinstates Terminator lawsuit:
Filia and Constantinos Kourtis claim that they came up with the idea for a character that changes shape for a 1987 movie called "The Minotaur." Dancing on the End of a Pin This distinction seems rather superfluous:
But the Jordanian government and al-Banna's family said he carried out a different suicide bombing in Iraq in which he was killed. The terrorist group al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Hillah bombing. The Smell of Unelected Legislatures In the Morning Someone loves them, and no surprise, it's the unelected legislatures themselves:
Phil Cherry, policy director at Delaware's Department of Natural Resources said the proposal, as it is currently written, caps emissions of carbon dioxide at 150 million tons a year starting in 2009. Under the proposed guidelines, emission reductions would be required starting in 2015, which would ramp up to a 10 percent cut in 2020. "The proposal is a draft and some of the details have yet to be worked out," Cherry told Reuters. He said that the document will be sent to power producers who will have a chance to comment on it formally at a meeting on September 21. Once a final agreement is reached, legislatures or regulators in the nine states will have to approve it. Well, what else can the rulers do when the unwashed, power-loving masses elect people of the wrong mindset? Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Good Governance 2005 Samples of good governance and bureacracy, August 2005:
Norman Mineta Determines Vehicles Are Too Inexpensive, and You Are To Dumb to Participate In Supply and Demand New fuel economy rules unveiled:
Minivans, which are currently bound by federal standards to get 21 miles per gallon, will be required to have a fuel efficiency of 23.3 miles per gallon by the time the program is fully implemented in 2011. The fuel economy of small SUVs would improve by as much as nine miles per gallon from their current standard of 19 miles per gallon, Mineta said. "This plan is good news for American consumers because it will ensure that the vehicles that they buy will get more miles to the gallon and ultimately save them money," said Mineta.
Preemptive Strike Thought, circa 2011, when Venezuela fields its first North Korean- or Chinese-provided medium range nuclear missiles capable of raining fire upon the entirety of the 48 contiguous states: Monday, August 22, 2005
Free Rhyme for Your Poetry Gentle poet, here is a bit of advice as you compose your next sonnet for your beloved: Unwarranted Snark The blood is running in the streets of Milwaukee: 4-homicide weekend pushes city to grim point:
Book Report: Caravan to Vaccares by Alistair MacLean (1970) I bought this book at the library at the same time as I bought Partisans, and for the same price. So pretty soon after I completed Partisans, I cracked open this book. It, too, presented a quick read with a typical MacLean plot. A caravan of gypsies has come to France, bearing dark doings and dangerous characters. A British layabout and a French Duc, as well as a couple of vacationing British hotties, encounter dark doings and dangerous char--oh, I said that already, didn't I? There's something familiar about MacLean's works when one has read a number of them, more than once. Since he eschewed series characters and instead worked with similar heroes, the books carry enough difference when looked at as a whole to remain engaging without becoming metronomic. So if you can pick it up for a quarter, I'd recommend this book. Maybe even a buck. Getcher Urban Legends Here Panera Bread, parent company of the St. Louis Bread Company and the name by which it conducts business elsewhere, was formed by an Egyptian cult, the Pane of Ra movement. This group believes that the consumption of bread prepares one for the afterlife, and that if one has bagels with hummus or some other concoction of cibatta and cream cheese, one can survive the journey. Sunday, August 21, 2005
Tasers Hurt Cops, Too Police chief sues maker of Taser gun:
The suit by Jacob "Pete" Herring joins more than 30 others from around the country that claim Tasers caused or contributed to injuries or deaths. More than 7,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide use the devices as a nonlethal alternative to firearms, according to company numbers. The suit by Herring, chief of police in Hallsville, Mo., says he suffered at least two strokes, loss and impairment of his vision and hearing, neurological damage, a head injury and "significant cardiac damage" after being shocked by a Taser M26 during a class on April 20, 2004. He seeks unspecified financial damages. And shocking each other in training, what the heck? Do cops hit each other with batons just so they know how it feels? What Would Leslie Fish Say? Angelina Jolie Grabs Monster-Mom Role, Teams with De Niro:
The film, like Zemeckis' previous movie, "The Polar Express," will use performance-capture technology to transform live acting into computer animation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The story of the Scandinavian hero of the sixth century who slays a beast will star Ray Winstone ("Sexy Beast") as Beowulf, who saves the Danes from Grendel the monster, portrayed by the always creepy Crispin Glover ("Willard," "Charlie's Angels"). Jolie, who played Colin Farrell's youngish mother in "Alexander," will again portray a maternal character in the film, taking on the role of Grendel's mom. Government Officials and Their Toys Schools spend big on recreation centers:
Contrast that with the new $50 million, jungle-themed recreation center that is nearly twice the size and virtually finished. "It's just awe-inspiring," said Lyons, who helps oversee the center's 42-foot climbing tower. Eleven large plasma screens line the wall of the "jungle gym." The gym features about 100 pieces of cardio equipment, some of which have individual DVD players. In the "tiger grotto," there is a swirling vortex, lazy river with waterfall, whirlpool and dry sauna. Towering above it all is a jumbo, Vegas-style display board that blasts music videos on "ZouTv," an internal station that plays music selections based on weekly Internet polls. It's one thing if an alumnus donates a pile of cash for the privilige of diverting students from their studies, but students, and that's all students, not just the "health-conscious" students who want "a gathering place to see and be seen," will have to cough up $150 a year to subsidize a meat market for college students who don't suffer from a dearth of gathering places to find the next one night stand or starter marriage. No, friends, this is what happens when our localish government agencies become high school cliques, and when expenditures are driven by the all-the-cool-people-have-them mentality. Suddenly, we're shelling out money for bike trails, rec plexes, and whatnot because all the other schools/counties/municipalities/states have them. Not because they're necessary government services, but because they're cool. I wish our leaders would grow up. Saturday, August 20, 2005
Book Report: Star Trek 10 by James Blish (1974) This book represents the last of the Star Trek paperbacks I bought at three for a dollar at Hooked on Books in Springfield, Missouri. I don't have much to say about it that I haven't said with the others (most recently Star Trek 9, oddly enough). Still, as I read it, I wanted to brag about it. This represents the 67th book I've read this year. Nyah nyah. I read a lot and therefore am better than you, at least in this regard, most likely. Book Report: Partisans by Alistair MacLean (1983) I read a large number of Alistair MacLean books in high school. Because we were poor, living in a poor community, my reading was indelibly guided by the reading tastes of the all-volunteer Community Library's volunteers and donors. Ergo, I read a lot of McBain, Parker, and MacLean because the storefront library had a large number of old paperbacks by its donors' favorite authors, some of whom became my favorite authors, too. Perhaps it's fitting, then, that I bought this book at the Bridgeton Trails branch of the St. Louis County library for a quarter as it sells off its books to make room for more Internet connections. So I happened upon a couple of Alistari MacLean books I'd read before and would like to revisit. This book, as its title suggests, takes place in the former Yugoslavia during World War II. A Royalist sympathizer helps to smuggle a group of other royalist sympathizers into Yugoslavia from its ally Italy, where they can help the war effort of their friends the Germans and the leaders against the Partisans. One does need a bit of grounding in history, particularly World War II in the middle of Europe, to understand the overarching framework of the novel. Since it's less straightforward than the English versus the Germans, a reader might be forgiven for forgetting which group is the good guys and which group is the bad guys. Of course, as it's MacLean, the master of the suspenseful switchback, regardless of which group is the good guys and which group is the bad guys, the main character is either not on the side that he starts on, or he is actually on the side he starts on but is pretending to be a double agent to find out the real double agents, or.... Well, it's enough to say that MacLean books are quite romps in which anything can happen. But this book, with its slightly more obscure setting and almost esoteric historical plotline, doesn't work on all levels because of the unfamiliarity with the macroplayers. It also doesn't present a very clear picture of the problem that the group is supposed to solve at the end of the book. Take down the artillery on a Mediterranean island? Breach an impregnable Alpine fortress? Nah, just get into Yugoslavia. It strikes me more like a Star Trek device: We're traveling through the Adriatic, and something happened. Since it's MacLean, it's something complicated, but nevertheless the reader lacks a compelling goal to draw one along. Still, it's a pretty good book. Its writing style alone merited my enjoyment. British and mid-century in its character (although written later), it plays with longer sentences and more elaborate phrasing than contemporary suspense fiction. That alone carried me through the substandard (for MacLean) plot and characterization. Friday, August 19, 2005
Esoterica Two thoughts that struck me as amusing, but I'll probably be the only one:
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Perhaps the Goals Are Misunderstood Work-zone safety blitz still limited: Drivers say that new laws haven't reduced number of violations:
A camera-enforcement program to deploy Illinois State Police troopers in vans was supposed to have started this month, but officials are still finalizing contracts with equipment suppliers, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. The program may begin in September, officials said. The plan for the pilot project involves taking photographs from inside just two roving vans to capture the faces and license plates of drivers, along with the speed of their vehicles, in work areas on hundreds of miles of Chicago-area expressways and on the Illinois Tollway system. Tickets carrying minimum fines of $375 will be mailed to vehicle owners. Hidden cameras capturing drivers' infractions but distancing the infraction from the sanction? Give me a break. This is a revenue-enhancement program, not a safety program. And this is the reason why I'm going to fly to Milwaukee or travel through scenic Iowa on my way home in the future. Because I fear speeding through more than one of the Illinois "Construction Zones" (that is, the barrel storage technique that intersperses a couple barrels miles apart between construction zone signs) at a time and coming home to a mailbox full of budget-gap-closers from Rod Blagojevich. Noggle's Law Based on the number of Google searches that have lead to this post, I propose Noggle's First Law: Oppressive Bush Regime Dissident Round-Up Misses Virulent Bush Opponent An author insults one of his readers:
The author said he was a "virulent Bush opponent" who had given speeches denouncing the war in Iraq. "What I find fascinating, and it's probably a positive thing about the White House, is they don't seem to do any research about the writers when they pick the books," Kurlansky said. What a humpwit. Not only has he insulted the president based on common, cliché groupthink from the virulent Bush opponents, but he's risked angering whatever readers and potential book buyers exist in the majority that elected Bush. A pretty poor marketing decision, but perhaps he's just standing for his principles, which would seem to include not much beyond mauvais mots. (Link seen on Ann Althouse.) Thanks For Checking In Bobby McFerrin stops in to tell us he's going on vacation:
"I've got one week left, and then I'm done for a year," a weary McFerrin told The Associated Press during a weekend visit to UCLA, where he was accepting an award from the Henry Mancini Institute for his contributions to music. "I haven't had a sabbatical, I haven't taken a year off from touring in 15 years at least," said McFerrin, whose bright and bouncy ditty, "Don't Worry, Be Happy," seemed to put his name on everybody's lips in 1988 when it won Grammys for song of the year and record of the year. Wal-Mart Hands Its Critics a Spiked Club, Asks, "Please?" Insurer wants woman's crash settlement:
Brain damage forces her to use a wheelchair and limits her upper body movement to one arm and two fingers. It stole her memory and her ability to talk to her husband and three sons. "She'll ask about the boys, she'll ask about the cat," said her husband, Jim Shank. "Whenever I'm there, she thinks it must be a mealtime. We don't really hold a conversation." Now the Shanks face a new obstacle. Her Wal-Mart health insurance plan wants the lawsuit money to repay its costs. The paper throws in an obligatory response from a spokesperson:
Now that the broken story's broken, any doing-of-the-right-thing by Wal-Mart--such as not actually pursuing the suit or apologizing, will be reported as cynical damage control. If the papers follow up at all. Yeah, I'm so cynical, I sometimes don't even trust my own blog. Sunday, August 14, 2005
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Where Angels Fear To Tread When the free market cannot profitably develop a site, the governments step in:
Instead, they spend tax money and tax-salaried time playing businessmen. Meanwhile, look at the land for sale listings on Hilliker Corporation's Web site. See all of those properties on Woodson Road? Those are about 1/2 mile from the area in question (Google map; note the pin related to the intersection of Page and Woodson, the redevelopment site in question). The land prices and parcels are ripe for an entry-level developer wanna-be to get in and buy one or more for redevelopment or investment. I've had my eyes on the area since I lived nearby, for the reasons I've listed above. As I reach a time where I have some money for extraneous business ventures, I hoped to invest properties in this area, to help organically elevate Overland. But forget it. Bob Dody, Mayor, via signage, welcomes me to Overland every time I pass through. But his eagerness to team the government of Overland with large developers certainly doesn't welcome smaller outside concerns to invest in real estate (that he might later have to reallocate to THF, so sorry, here's a couple bucks) in his community nor does he welcome small businesses nor certain home owners to remain in their property in his community (although they're welcome to spend their just compensation on other property elsewhere in Overland, natch, until he or Sansone needs that, too). I'd like to wrap this up with a snappy, pithy conclusion, but I'm too disgusted. Book Report: The Best of National Lampoon #3 (1973) I bought this book at a garage sale or such, probably for a quarter. I'd hoped to turn it into a vast eBay profit back in the day when a small timer could hobbyhorse a bit of profit out of eBay, but those days are gone and the book made up a small part of the 16 boxes of unsold speculative books I had in my closet. I culled through them one final time to find books I might like to read before I get rid of the lot, and this one filtered out. You know, I've always found National Lampoon more amusing than funny. I even had a subscription to it, briefly, in middle school or high school because my mother, funder of all magazine subscriptions at that time, didn't realize it had the occasional boobies (please don't tell her now, for it would break her heart to know that she enabled her hormonal teenage boys in any way). I didn't get a lot of yuks out of it even then, and the boobies were marginal at best. This book collects pieces from 1971 and 1972. Unfortunately, that means that 50% of the topical humor applies to topics before I was born. A lot of Vietnam humor, which I don't find particularly amusing, much less funny. I could appreciate some of the non-political humor, such as Chris Miller's parody of a Mike Hammer story, but I've read my share of late sixties pulp to access it. So this book doesn't hold up well. Also, no O'Rourke and only a little Beard. Worth a glance or browse if you've got nothing else, maybe even worth a quarter if you're not over sticking it to that lying bastard Nixon. If it's too funny, you're too old. Book Report: Cyber Way by Alan Dean Foster (1990) Based on my previous experience with Foster, I bought a number of Alan Dean Foster books last May at Downtown Books in Milwaukee (including Codgerspace, The Dig, and Midworld). Like those, I paid $2.95 for this book, and I offer the same criticism: It reads like a stretched out short story. Foster does have a predilection for prediction though; in this book, written in 1989 or before, future police officers carry PDAs and hook into the Internet frequently. However, as he wrote the books before Netscape opened the World Wide Web, things have different names (mollyspinners and whatnot), but the intervening 15 years have not rendered the futuristic technologies obsolete; instead, life has developed along those lines, making the book very approachable in 2005. When an art collector is murdered in Tampa, the methodical detective Vernon Moody draws the case. The industrialist collector died in his art display room, and the murderer also destroyed a Navaho sand painting. Early investigations indicate that someone had argued with the collector about the painting on numerous occasions. The department sends the homebody moody to the southwest to determine the Navaho connection. Unfortunately, Moody not only finds a murderer, but a world beyond his imagination where sandpaintings and medicine men can tap into something more powerful than police. An enjoyable, imaginative short story stretched into a short novel with the addition of a lot of filler talk and speculation. Worth a couple of bucks undoubtedly, particularly if you appreciate Alan Dean Foster. Friday, August 12, 2005
Connecting the Dots, or Maybe a Dot and a Flyspeck, or Perhaps the Flyspecks Carl Icahn, in 1985, takes over Trans World Airlines.... Carl Icahn, in 2005, makes his move on AOL Time Warner.... Query: What does this fellow have against the letters A, T, and W? (Story seen on Professor Bainbridge.) No Business Like Anonymously-Sourced Government Leak Journalism Business Sources: CIA finds Iranian president likely not hostage-taker:
The officials insisted on anonymity, saying they did not want to speak for the CIA about its report. Another U.S. official said the tone of the report is that there is no evidence to date that the new Iranian president was among those who held U.S. diplomats hostage. The officials cautioned that the analysis is not final. Also, the next paragraph of the CNN report:
The two also said they saw the man they identify as Ahmadinejad many times while they were held, and that he appeared to be in a supervisory role. Mr. Green Espoused Iraq War Talking Points in 2004 Compare and Contrast: Mr. Green: "We've Got To Stop Killing People, Matt." Iraqi war protestor: Mother begs for end to killing. (Second link seen courtesy McGehee.) Rottweilers More Equal Than Poodles Bill would give underage soldiers a break: Lawmaker wants fines for drinking reduced to $5:
The effort by Rep. Mark Pettis (R-Hertel) to loosen underage drinking penalties for soldiers comes just six months after he wrote a bill that would allow 19- and 20-year-olds in the military to drink legally. Understand that this is not an incentive program or a veteran's affairs allocation of money; it's changing the law to apply differently to volunteers who passed muster than to those who would not or could not serve. That's right. Flat feet, poor grades, childhood diseases, or poor eyes would physically prevent some youths from enjoying this privilege right that their more able brethren could enjoy. So a select few would be more equal than the others of the age group. Also, once we start apportioning rights or diminished sanctions to soldiers, where do we stop? Drinking underage is a victimless crime, but so is soliciting prostitutes. So is using drugs. Keep in mind, gentle reader, I am not saying that our troops are all prostitute-soliciting, drug-abusing drunkards, but those who violate these laws, what's the principle that would stop lowering the sanction for them? There's none. As a libertarianish, I think the 21-year-old drinking age is senseless, and I think that Federal withholding of funds for states who don't impose state laws according to federal government dicta is unconscionable, but a new wrong won't make it right. Hollywood Sacrifices Domestic Movie Sales for Foreign Sales I've made that assertion before, but Junkyard Blog lists some coming attractions. Friends and countrymen, I ask: are you the target audience for these? I think not. Perhaps it's time for an alternate movie industry to emerge in the midwest, built on new video technology, new Internet distribution, and actors who'd work for points and not millions of dollars up front. The Unfree State Project Overthrow of the Flyovers:
Move. Yup, that's right. Determine how many folks you need to keep on the coasts & in Illinois to maintain a majority. Hold a lottery or something, and the winners get to invade the Heartland and swing the balance of power. Now some states would be easy to overthrow, due to their small population, Wyoming & Montana come to mind. Others, that voted more heavily for Bush, Utah & Oklahoma, would require a larger concentration of the coastal experts to move in, register, vote & move out. (Link seen on Dustbury.) Thursday, August 11, 2005
Outrage In New York City as Alternate Lifestyles Attacked Health officials urge New York City restaurant ban on fat trans It's unconscionable that New York City government would, in the interest of "public good," would ban transvestites and transsexuals from restaurants. That for the benefit of a greater number, the city would prohibit obese individuals who expressing their individual rights to expression by wearing opposite gender clothes or roles from attending restaurants and would further strip private property rights from restaurant owners to tell them which alternative lifestyles, of which weights, the restaurant owners can serve. THIS OUTRAGE MUST NOT STAND! THOSE WITH ALTERNATE LIFESTYLES MUST BE DEFENDED! Oh, wait a minute, I have transposed the headline: Health officials urge New York City restaurant ban on trans fats Well, the government banning alternate frystyles and usurping individual responsibility of eaters and private property rights of restauranteurs to ensure that The Children are as trim and svelte as our benevolent government leaders wish they were? Carry on. That's a Big Twinkie Police: Teacher, student had sex:
Kristen A. Margrif, a 27-year-old English teacher at Kingston High School, faces 15 years in prison on eight counts of sexual contact with the eighth-grader, Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene said. Going Against Type What's the difference between an Apple salesman and the typical Apple user? See if you can spot it. Concealed Carry Leads to Streets Running Red with Camry Blood Although they've often annoyed me, I've never considered this method of turning off someone else's car alarm when it goes off after reasonable hours:
David Owen Rye, 48, was arrested and booked for investigation of reckless discharge of a firearm and felony vandalism, Sgt. John Adamczyk said. Rye allegedly told officers he grabbed his handgun and went out to put a stop to the car alarm. Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Book Report: Star Trek 9 by James Blish (1978) As those of you who have revelled in these book reports know, I bought five of these old Star Trek books last autumn at Hooked on Books in Springfield, Missouri, at three for one dollar. As such, I only paid 33 cents for this paperback, and it was well worth it. Like the others in the series, it collects and short storiates a couple of episodes from the original television series because, back in the day, they didn't have the Internet to provide a resounding board for scifi fans to resonate. As a matter of fact, the introduction to this book describes the unexpected success of the first Star Trek convention. This book was originally published a number of years after Star Trek went off of the air and a decade and change before Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted. For crying out loud, it preceded Star Trek: The Motion Picture by a number of years. So pardon me while I repeat my awe at these books. They were old school fandom, werd. This book collects the following episodes:
But still, I grew up when these were the only things science fiction things in syndication, with Buck Rogers and (the original) Battlestar Galactica and Space 1999 only coming onto television, so the stories and the original crew--especially now that two of them have passed on. So I'll enjoy the books at three pages per penny, but not the actual shows AT A COUPLE BUCKS PER, you hear me PARAMOUNT?! Comparative Studies Jay Nixon: Friend of Liberty? Nixon questions use of traffic photographs:
The city of Arnold recently decided to install traffic cameras that will photograph license plates of vehicles running red lights. Creve Coeur is considering a similar program. But Attorney General Jay Nixon says the photographs won't provide enough proof to ticket motorists. "I think it's pretty clear these pictures can't be the sole or only evidence to cite drivers for violating state traffic laws," Nixon said in a telephone interview. "I have deep concern whether taking someone's picture rolling through a stop light is adequate evidence in and of itself to uphold a state traffic law." Mouse Roars Chavez: U.S. will 'bite the dust' if it invades:
I also want to laud CNN for putting this story in perspective:
Monday, August 08, 2005
False Dichotomy of Thinkers vs. Linkers Jay Tea at Wizbang! reminds us about Stephen Den Beste's categorization of bloggers as:
The lister type of blogger:
Brent Johnson Goes Into the Memory Five Hole The St. Louis Blues are eager to see Patrick Lalime, their new goalie, actually play a hockey game in the Blues uniform. How good is he?
Sunday, August 07, 2005
The Pangloss Is Half Full
(Inspired by this post by Pejman.) Book Report: Murder in the Wind by John D. MacDonald (1956) I bought this paperback book from Downtown Books in Milwaukee for $1.95, but that comes as no surprise to you, gentle reader, if you've paid attention to the book reports I've proffered. I love John D. MacDonald and had I not sworn allegiance to Robert B. Parker at an early age, you know I would be a paladin in the service of John D. MacDonald. But that explains why I have this book, but not what I thought of it. The book, like most paperbacks of the era, runs about 190 pages, unlike the unwieldy behemoths published today (to justify their $30 price tags). Working within these constraints, MacDonald provides an interesting riff. He spends the first half of the book detailing a number of separate travellers' lives, from the failed businessman moving back to New York to the agent at the end of his vengeance quest to the prison escapees. travelling north on Florida's west coast as a hurricane strikes. They're thrown into an abandoned house to weather the storm, with the results one might expect from the collision of Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Himself conflicts colliding. Brother, it's bad enough to collide, but when collisions collide, watch out. Still, within the compact framework, MacDonald spends the first 100+ pages on individual character studies discussing whose lives will come into conflict at the last half of the novel. That's okay if you're going to read the novel in a sitting or two, but if you're going to spread the novel over a week or so, you might find yourself at a critical moment wondering who is Stark? Who is Mallard? Are they even characters in this book? Heck's pecs, I don't know. But when the separate lives come together circa page 110, the book becomes unputdownable. Unfortunately, those first 100 pages do make the book seem as though a series of short stories lacked resolution which was grafted on, or as though a novella had been padded into a novel. Still, if you're a fan of MacDonald or if you're wondering what a cynic would have thought of Florida development throughout the fifties, you'd find the book enjoyable. I'd read one of MacDonald's shopping lists if he were to characterize each item on it. But this book probably only acted, for MacDonald, as a rough draft for Condominium. Thirty years earlier. Brother, if I am recycling my underread 2005 material, successfully, in 2035, I will consider myself a successful writer worthy of paladinage decades into the future. Saturday, August 06, 2005
Spurious Translation Chateau:
Friday, August 05, 2005
Who You Gonna Call? Baldilocks captures a thought I had as well. When the Russians are in trouble with another one of their submarine-anchor conversion projects, who do they call?
Hopefully, they called us in time for us to help out this time. Unintentional Synonym of the Day Extinct means the same as living in Italy? (Source.)
Blood Screening Allies Itself With Disease Headline: Reports: Blood screening helps West Nile fight Perhaps it's only helping West Nile by providing financial or logistical support, but we need to stomp out blood screening now if we're ever to conquer its friend West Nile. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Warning Parents Like It's 1999 Instant messaging: A threat to you and your kids?
Recent research shows most teenagers between ages 12 and 17 prefer "instant messaging," or IM, to e-mail in getting their message across. They cite IM's immediacy and its constant connection, especially to friends, as the reasons they prefer it to e-mail. Unfortunately, the same things that make IM appealing to teens also draw another crowd: malicious programmers, spam merchants and online predators. These sinister characters don’t use IM to keep in touch with each other; they use it to keep in touch with your kids. Scarier still, most parents don’t know it. Hey, I Can See the Shuttle Damage From Here! Environmental damage seen from shuttle No word on whether the eagle-eyed spotters can see:
(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.) Plan Your Travel Accordingly If you're going to the sold-out scrimmage at Lambeau Field tonight, be advised that WISN is reporting that:
For a scrimmage. Well, not just a srimmage. A Packers scrimmage. Suggested Slogan At Q and O, inadvertently suggests a slogan for the Democrats when he says:
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
One Businessman Responds I missed this last autumn when it appeared in the Washington Post as an advertisement funded by one man, but here is: You’re a Republican???
I am a Republican ... I am none of those things... and I don’t know any Republicans who are. (This story has been confirmed by Snopes.) Matt Blunt: The Man to Save The Libertarian Republicans Matt Blunt Endorses School Choice New at Draft Matt Blunt 2008! The Proof Of The Pudding Is In The Re-Entry As a member of the quality community in good standing (or ill repute, if you're a developer), I wouldn't get too excited about this headline: Unprecedented Shuttle Repair a Success:
Now the Starting Line-Up For your St. Louis Who?s: Starting at center, Trent Whitfield! Starting at left wing, Jeff Hoggan! Starting at right wing, Aaron Downey! Starting on defense, Eric Brewer! Starting on defense, Jeff Woywitka! And starting in goal, Patrick Lalime! Coach Mike Kitchen and the rest of the Blues remind you..... Jeez, who are these guys? Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Run Your SUVs Overnight for The Children! Are Earth ice ages created by stars?:
But new research suggests that the coming and going of major ice ages might result partly from our solar system's passage through immense, snakelike clouds of exploding stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Resembling the curved contrails of a whirling Fourth of July pinwheel, the Milky Way's spiral arms are clouds of stars rich in supernovas, or exploding stars. Supernovas emit showers of charged particles called cosmic rays. Theorists have proposed that when our solar system passes through a spiral arm, the cosmic rays fall to Earth and knock electrons off atoms in the atmosphere, making them electrically charged, or ionized. Since opposite electrical charges attract each other, the positively charged ionized particles attract the negatively charged portion of water vapor, thus forming large droplets in the form of low-lying clouds. In turn, the clouds cool the climate and trigger an ice age -- or so theorists suggest. Or we could admit that our understanding of the universe and its component parts have great glaring omissions, and realize that humanity acts in its best interest given its best knowledge at the time it acts.... Nah. BIG OIL! BIG PHARMA! (Anything but BIG LAWYERS! BIG IDIOTS-DEMANDING-PUBLIC-POLICY AND BIG GOVERNMENT!) Book Report: The Precipice by Ben Bova (2001) I bought this book last autumn at a clearance book store for $5.00 because 1.) I have a fond memory of an old Scholastic copy of Ben Bova's Escape and 2.) I have a fond college-era memory of Cyberbooks. So I opened this book as a break from the suspense I'd been reading lately, and.... I was underwhelmed. Sure, I see that this is Book 1 of the Asteroid Wars, which unfortunately means that there's some greater arc that the book will set up and that some plot lines will be unresolved at the end of the book, unfortunately. When my brother was in the Marines, he gave me all of his basic training reading material before he shipped off to Hawaii. This reading material comprised numerous books one or one and two of a trilogy, but never a book three....unless it was to a separate trilogy with no preceding books to set the plot up. So I have some experience with this sort of thing. Besides, every trilogy or whatnot begins with Book 1. So I got in on a ground floor opportunity here. The premise: As the world runs over the "greenhouse cliff" (the Precipice), a space industrialist bucks cutthroat competition and overregulation to use a fusion drive to go to the Asteroid Belt to claim resources that can help the Earth alleviate its disaster. Sounds kinda stock, with a topical interest whose political ramifications made me put down the book after a couple of pages once before. But I soldiered on this time, friends, For you. Unfortunately, to accommodate its arc (and its past, which I will hint at now and later), the book spends the first half (200+ pages) on the political and corporate wrangling leading to the funding and the initial reaction to the prospect of the mission. Major yawn, and it was only through discipline that I really made it through. After the midpoint of the book, when the industrialist and his plucky pilots and capable geologist steal his ship to go to the Asteroid Belt without the approval of the government, the pacing picks up, and we're in a rollicking science fiction book instead of some sort of corporate drama set tomorrow. Lester Del Rey, who was clawing his way out of his grave to beat Ben Bova, settled back to rest. Unfortunately, after 180 pages of a good science fiction story buttressed by 250 pages of corporate wrangling. I found the end unsatisfying because of the extensive lengths Bova went to make the villain available for future novels in the series. And while researching the book for this report (read: Clicking around on Amazon on related links), I discovered that the industrialist, Dan Randolph, is the subject of a long-running series of novels by Ben Bova. So perhaps I'm not privy to the nature of that series, nor of the significance of this book in that particular pantheon. Perhaps if I had bought the last ten years' worth of Bova work, I'd be satisfied with the book and would recognize its position in the constellation, and admire its beauty as part of the whole. But I'm too steeped in the world of suspense series, where the books are discrete units that build upon one another, and although later books might refer to earlier works in the series, one doesn't have to read earlier books to understand the significance, and the current book does not have cliffhangers and hooks into the next or the next several for resolution. So this novel got better as it went on to the new reader, but I don't expect to buy the remainder of the series nor of the preceding series unless I can get them for a buck or less each sometime after I've diminished my stack of to-read books. The Hundred Dollar Opt-Out Of course, we know about this, but I see fit to remind everyone that the United States Census Bureau, designed to enumerate people in the various states and districts, has expanded its mission to collect a wealth of information, including:
One cannot find irony in a wasteful, intrusive federal program designed to provide statistics to support and encourage further wasteful, intrusive federal programs; it's the profligate consistency that is the hobgoblin of bureacratic minds. If you're concerned about your privacy, don't worry. You don't have to fill it out if you get one. Title 13 Section 221 explains the opt-out procedure:
(Added to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.) Two Things One Should Not Read Back to Back Spectator's Hockey Trade Rumours Plame Flame Thread Because your first thought, too, might be Valerie Plame to Calgary? Government Official Thinks More Government The Obvious Solution The Milwaukee Public Museum's savior knows the solution to problems with the cultural institutions in southeastern Wisconsin: Not enough government:
"Every one of them is struggling," Finley said. "We've got to come up with a way to support them because we can't afford to lose any one of them."
Give me a break. It is all about new taxes spread throughout a wider area to fund perks for Finley and his ilk and to increase their visibility within the power circles of the community. When you see how he's turned around the museum--with extra taxes and extra costs--think what he can do as governor. He probably is. UPDATE: Owen of Boots and Sabers agrees with my sentiment. Childhood: Not Yet Illegal, But Soon In California, a child has hit another with a rock. As it is in California, common sense does not figure into what happens next:
But that day a rock she says slipped from her hand struck Elijah Vang, 8, in the forehead. A 911 call led to Maribel being arrested by Fresno police officers, handcuffed and taken to Juvenile Hall, where she stayed for five days before a judge released her on the condition she wear an electronic ankle bracelet. On Wednesday, Maribel is scheduled to go on trial in Juvenile Court on felony assault charges. Authorities say the rock-throwing incident was too serious to be treated lightly. Monday, August 01, 2005
Beads and Furs Just Didn't Cut It Headline of the day: Money will fund riverfront development plan How much more can the St. Louis Post-Dispatch insult its reader? Also Good For Handling Illegal Pit Bulls Local terror fighters think big: A homeland security grant wish list including an armored carrier reflects a worst-case scenario.:
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To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."
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