Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Friday, September 30, 2005
 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Favors Tax Cuts for the Rich
Well, not the working rich, who barely cross the thresholds with their moderately expensive houses and luxury cars that take them to the office every day. No, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch favors tax cuts and give aways, as usual, for the idle rich who have hundreds of millions of dollars for buying sports teams or developing properites and lavishing giveaways, commissions, and dinners on poor working journalists.

For example, how else can you explain this mention in a story about a group looking to buying the St. Louis Blues:
    It is possible the exclusive negotiating window could be extended past one month, and it's also possible the deal could fall through altogether. Checketts could be using the window to feel out the city about its amusement tax.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch insitutionally has harped on the city of St. Louis for not providing an exemption to the St. Louis Blues hockey club, by which of course they mean the well-funded corporations and partnerships and legal fictions that control the beloved on-ice team. The other publicly-subsidized sports teams in the area, or at least the ones the Post-Dispatch thinks are glamourous enough, have exemptions to the tax.

Note what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch does not:
  • It does not favor abolishing the tax

  • It does not favor giving tax breaks to mere citizens who pay income taxes, sales taxes, and other innumerable fees for the privilege of living in a city where the only paper is a government-licking pup and whose government is a corporation-licking toy dog that makes up for its lack of infrastructure with sports and entertainment venues funded publicly.
So it's obvious what the Post-Dispatch does favor. Tax exemptions and government giveaways to its friends. The Post-Dispatch is a corporation, after all, and its unwritten mission statement certainly identifies its goal to coddle other power brokers and corporate monstrosities.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:19 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
 
How Much Bias Can You Fit Into a Headline?
Brown Shifts Blame for Katrina Response
  1. Something went wrong with Federal Katrina response.

  2. Katrina response merits blame.

  3. Brown deserves the blame.

  4. Brown is trying to blame someone else for the blame which is rightfully his.
I would think "Brown Testifies Before Congress" would be a more neutral headline, but then again, I don't think neutral headline or unbiased journalism are redundancies.

Feel free to spot your own!


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 PM   0 comments
 
Who's Afraid of Kelo Backlash++
Lindenwood wants city to use eminent domain
    Lindenwood University officials want the city to use the controversial power of eminent domain to force out a heating and air conditioning business to make way for a new fine and performing arts center.

    Lindenwood President Dennis Spellmann asked city officials Tuesday night to consider using such authority to allow a redevelopment corporation, headed by Spellmann and two other university officials, to purchase a 4-acre site along West Clay Street near the northwest corner of West Clay and First Capitol Drive. The private university has already acquired about 20 acres for the project.

    The 138,000-square-foot, $32 million complex would feature a 1,375-seat auditorium for live performances as well as classrooms, rehearsal studios and office space. University officials hope to begin construction before the end of the year.
Local universities seem to have some sort of phallic competition regarding these venuews; UMSL has opened one which continues to struggle with low attendance and debt, but the president of Lindenwood wants the city of St. Charles to steal some land to give his university land to build another. Well, not the university, per se, but a redevelopment corporation run by him and a couple of other officials.

But he's been pushed to the end of the rope:
    Spellmann said he's avoided using eminent domain to acquire property in the past but thinks the university has exhausted its options in this case.
Spellman's damn benevolent to avoid using his power of stealing private property, but he's almost exhausted all options.

But Spellman fails to, purposefully I would suspect, to take the remaining legitimate option available to the university: Build his boondoggle somewhere else. Or don't bother. Two options Spellman doesn't include in his list of options for confiscating someone else's land for his own ends.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 PM   0 comments
 
That's a Misleading Headline
Leader of New Orleans Police Resigns
    Police Superintendent Eddie Compass resigned Tuesday after four turbulent weeks in which the police force was wracked by desertions and disorganization in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.
I'll grant Police Superintendent, but leader? I think not.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:05 PM   0 comments
 
Fortunately, the Audio Cassettes Were OK
Rita causes record damage to oil rigs

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 PM   0 comments
 
Boosting Male Attendance at Universities
Professor Reynolds overlooks the obvious when he comments on the disparity between males and females in universities:
    I like to walk around campus on nice days, and sometimes I take pictures. When I post them on my blog, people always comment on the number of women in them. But, in fact, that's a pretty accurate reflection of what college campuses look like these days. (Fellow photoblogging professor Ann Althouse has noticed the same thing.)
Reynolds quotes an article from USA Today which posits 138 women for every 100 men in college. Reynold speculates about the causes and possible solutions to the disparity, but he overlooks the "Jan and Dean" solution.

Universities can move more towards an equitable distribution of genders by promoting:

1.38 Girls for Every Boy

That would certainly increase male enrollment.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:25 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Columnist by Jeffrey Frank (2001)
I bought this book from the 80% off book store last autumn and found that it had migrated to the second rank of my to-read bookshelves, which means I buy too many books over the course of the year.

This book might have been written too early; it serves as the fictional memoir that tracks the rise of a William Safire/George Will syndicated newspaper columnist from his humble beginnings at a college newspaper in the late 1950s to the stagnation of his career and life in the 1980s. As it was written before the rise of the blogosphere, one can only speculate about how it would have played out if all the cool bloggers had read it.

I enjoyed the book, although not without qualification. Brandon Sladder is an oblivious user of people, obnoxious and socially climbing. He crosses women, he backstabs his employees, he alienates his "friends" and describes them in his memoir as too busy to confab with him. But we can laugh at his obliviousness and wonder if perhaps he does know but is putting a good face on it.

But as the book turns the final corner into the finish line, we discover that both of his wives have cheated on Sladder, who's a clod but cloddishness doesn't excuse adultery except to certain elements from amoral cosmpolitan areas. The final sex scandal, tacked on, seems too much, and the downfall of Brandon Sladder seems abrupt. Of course, given the voice of the book, it would have to be abrupt and inexplicable, but it shouldn't actually seem that way to readers of the novel.

And although Brandon Sladder, at the end, almost achieves self-awareness, he does not, and Jeffrey Frank does not yield any sort of redemption. So at the end, Brandon Sladder is as self-absorbed and oblivious as at the beginning of the book. Ultimately, that strips the book of its humor, as all along we weren't laughing with a character recounting his past flaws, but laughing at a lesser person. The end completely changes the tenor of all that came before it and ultimately made the book completely disappoint me.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:01 AM   0 comments
Monday, September 26, 2005
 
Hopefully, the Gods of Irony Are Sleeping
A European Space Agency mission, named Don Quijote, might practice deflecting asteroids.

Geez, does anyone else think that the result of the mission might be akin to a break in billiards, where a bunch of things go flying off in all directions, making previously not dangerous Near Earth Objects into killers?

I mean, they did name it Don Quijote, for crying out loud. Also, they have an aging population which weighs upon their economies that cries out for a radical solution.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:26 PM   0 comments
Sunday, September 25, 2005
 
Generation X Moves to China Grove
Holiday Inn Unrolls Gen X Welcome Mat:
    "It has lots of glass and is very open. We’re collaborating with a feng shui expert," Snyder said. "Gen X is very into looking toward the east."
Cancel our reservations for the Hilton, honey, its layout will anger ancient Chinese spirits and besides, you know how the temprapedic mattresses malign my chakras.

I'd weep for my generation if I weren't a part of it and close enough to know Snyder's kookier than we are.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:10 PM   1 comments
 
Because Taxes Are A Slush Fund
State set to roll out tire-cleanup fee:
    Lack of money temporarily let the air out of Missouri's program to find and clean up tire piles.

    But that should change soon. For the first time since January 2004, retailers will collect a 50-cent fee on each new tire sold in the state, starting Oct. 1. The money will support the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' waste-tire cleanup and enforcement program.

    Missouri lawmakers renewed the program this year when they passed a larger hazardous waste bill. Senate Bill 225 also created a 50-cent fee on the sale of car and truck batteries, to address broader hazardous waste efforts. That fee, which also goes into effect Oct. 1, covers batteries containing lead and sulfuric acid that are six volts or more.
Will they cut our taxes by an equal amount? Will they quit collecting the fee after they've cleaned up all old tires in the state?

How naive do they think we are?

They don't care so long as we continue to have spare change in our pockets and we continue to hand it over.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:10 PM   0 comments
 
Early Sign of Libertarianism, Sci-Fi Geekdom, or Both
Son of a gun, you know, all this time Mr. Mister wasn't advising us to carry a laser down the road that we must travel.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:06 PM   0 comments
 
QA Wins One
Battling Google, Microsoft Changes How It Builds Software:
    Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive, walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows.

    "It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its writers would never be able to make it run properly.

    The news got even worse: Longhorn was irredeemable because Microsoft engineers were building it just as they had always built software. Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it together into one sprawling program. Now, Mr. Allchin argued, the jig was up. Microsoft needed to start over.

    Mr. Gates resisted at first, pushing for Mr. Allchin's group to take more time until everything worked. Over the next few months, Mr. Allchin and his deputies would also face protests from programmers who complained he was trying to impose bureaucracy and rob Microsoft of its creativity.
Forget the bug jail; I want a bug dungeon, somewhere deep and dank to send naughty developers.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:03 PM   0 comments
 
BS Detector Alarum Klaxons
What's wrong with this story:Road-rage bullet hits tip of a raised finger:
    About 12:40 a.m., the 25-year-old man was waiting at 500 South for the light to change so he could get on the freeway, said South Salt Lake Police Capt. Chris Snyder.

    As he waited, a woman in what turned out to be a stolen car pulled up next to him.

    The two made eye contact, but there was something about the contact that made the man uncomfortable, Snyder said. The light turned green and the two cars entered the freeway.

    On the onramp, the man told police, the woman began to drive aggressively and sped up to pass the man. In doing so, she hit some traffic cones that gradually closed some of the southbound lanes, Snyder said.

    Somewhere between 2100 South and 3300 South, the woman rolled down the window of her car and yelled at the man.

    So he made an obscene hand gesture.

    That's when she apparently fired four shots at the driver's side of the man's car. One of the bullets hit the tip of the man's middle finger on his right hand, severing it. His index finger also was injured, but not as seriously.

    That bullet lodged in the man's windshield.

    The man tried to follow the woman, Snyder said, but lost her and so he went to seek medical help. He called for help near 6900 South and was taken to Cottonwood Hospital where he was treated and released.
So this woman whom the victim has never seen before yells obscenities at him, follows him, and shoots at him four times with a .357, managing only to hit the tip of his finger, after which he immediately pursues the crazy woman who just shot him until he loses her?

Why do I suspect any actual investigation will uncover more to this story?

Road rage? I think not.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:58 AM   0 comments
 
Local Government Pleased To Lose More Of Its Employment Base
Owen at Boots and Sabers covers the story of a yeast manufacturing plant's closing in Milwaukee's formerly industrial Menomonie Valley. The closure will cause the loss of 80 jobs, but the headline of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel focuses its headline on a by product of manufacturing: Aromatic era may be wafting away for good.

Yes, industry does tend toward the unsightly and to the unscently, but it tends to employ people at more than minimum or service level wages, union or not. But the powers that are commissioned (often not elected) see the loss of industry as an unfettered win:
    Red Star’s possible closing is sad, but it opens up another potential redevelopment site, said Laura Bray, executive director of Menomonee Valley Partners Inc., a non-profit group that leads redevelopment efforts in the valley.
Another development site for entertainment venues, like an expanded Indian casino and a Harley Davidson museum. These entertainment-style things, often called the signs of a big-league city by people who want more of them, don't pay as well as manufacturing jobs and don't build the community infrastructure and draw families to live in cities; instead, they draw infrequent visitors from the suburbs, divert tourist dollars from other venues within the city, and give the ultra-urban types--who want to think of their cities as big-league more than merely "home."

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Sunday Drive.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:33 AM   0 comments
Saturday, September 24, 2005
 
Public Service Announcement
Although it fulfills the requirements, namely:
  • It rhymes.

  • It refers to a cute animal.

  • It also refers to a sweet ice cream flavor.

  • It ends, twice, with the long e sound.
Chunky Monkey is a very bad choice for a pet name for your wife.

Because if I didn't warn you, gentle but unthinking sometimes male reader, you, too, might try it, to poor results.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:51 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: A Season to Be Wary by Rod Serling (1967, 1968)
I inherited this book, whuch collects three novellas from Rod Serling, whom we among the wise ancients remember as the man behind the Twilight Zone, from my aunt. I read it rapidly, as its writing is thicker than R.L. Stine; because the writing is richer, it engages the reader more and pulled me along better than a series of simple declarative sentences and frags that presented numerous opportunities for me to insert my own thoughts (mostly damn, this Stine book sux) into the narrative. But I disliked that book so badly, I'm ripping on it here and am failing to give Serling's book a fair hearing.

The book includes three novellas, as I mentioned, and all are of the Twilight Zone fantasy genre. In the first, a former Nazi officer hiding in Argentina desperately dodges Israeli agents and deals with his own aging and possible madness. In the second, a racial rabble rouser in 1960s Mississippi makes his living, livelihood, and gets his chicks by fanning the flames of racial hatred and inciting riots. In the third, a wealthy blind woman finds someone willing to sacrifice his eyes to give her 12 hours of sight.

In retrospect, none of the main characters of the stories represent true protagonists, as each is relatively subevil in their own way. However, Serling presents them in such a fashion that we can sometimes feel the emotions they do and almost sympathize with them that way, and we're certainly interested in what happens to them. The third story, "Eyes", represents the weakest of the three, though, and really doesn't make one connect to any of the characters, but one still wants to know how the events turned out.

So I enjoyed and appreciated the book. I'll go out on a limb and say it's probably the best book ever dedicated to Sammy Davis, Jr.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:32 PM   0 comments
 
They Do The Jobs Americans Won't
Hiker stumbles onto pot farm in national forest:
    It began when a hiker in the Prescott National Forest stumbled across some interesting-looking plants Wednesday and notified authorities.

    It ended on Thursday, after a stakeout, with the arrest of a Mexican national from Los Angeles charged with marijuana production.
That's indeed code. For:
    Rodriguez-Martinez and the others were believed to be illegal immigrants, Jarrell said.
Look who's blurring the distinction between the Mexican nationals from Los Angeles and illegal immigrants. It's not the opponents of illegal immigration.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:05 PM   0 comments
 
Joseph Kittinger, Jr., Award Winner Brad Satchell
We at MfBJN hereby confer the Joseph Kittinger, Jr., Award upon Brad Satchell:
    An Australian surfer survived a shark attack by repeatedly punching a small shark he first thought was a seal, the second incident of its kind this month, local radio reported on Saturday.

    Brad Satchell, 44, was surfing about 120 meters (390 feet) offshore at the popular Scarborough beach in Perth, capital of Western Australia state, on Friday when he was attacked.

    "I actually had a smile on my face when I first saw the thing because I thought it was a seal," Satchell told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

    He said he turned his surfboard on its side to use as a shield when the shark, which he said may may have been a bronze whaler more than a meter in length, began to attack him. He was unhurt and paddled to safety.

    "I lifted my body out of the water and I just got my fists and I remember what I'd read in the paper. I just started punching and I connected with its head," Satchell said.
Gall as big as church bells.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:06 AM   0 comments
Thursday, September 22, 2005
 
Book Report: Killing Raven by Margaret Coel (2003)
I inherited this book from my aunt; I don't know if she read it, but I do know she bought it from a yard sale for fifty cents. Perhaps she enjoyed it, or perhaps she merely was hoping to sell it for more on eBay after I suckered her into the used book racket. The book's worth what she paid for it, but not what I gave up to get this book, but that goes without saying.

It's the second book I've read in the last two months dealing with Indian reservations in the southwest (Cyber Way was the first), and it's the best. It's a murder mystery set on an Arapaho reservation. A man's body is found near the local necking spot, and the investigators have to determine whether its related to the new reservation casino. Did one of the aggressive protestors pull the trigger? Or an organized crime figure?

An important aspect to the book is the dynamic between the main characters: a mission priest and the independent Arapaho lawyer with whom he shares a strong attraction upon which neither of them can act. As they go about their investigation through separate paths, the book handles their multiple points of view and their unrequited love very well.

Unlike some of the other series books I've read of late, I think I'd like to read more of this author and her series. The locale is exotic enough and the characters are real enough to merit further attention. Even a couple of bucks.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:00 PM   0 comments
 
Realization/Admission
Ladies and gentlemen, I realized today with some sadness that I don't have any right to publish posts like this one, nor to dub upstanding pillars (and soon to be a flying buttress) of the community "Keith Tkachubbs" because I have never laced up the skates, put on the pads and helmet, and taken a stick out to "do battle" on a sheet of ice.

As such, I have no authority to proffer my opinions nor to suggest nor speculate on how a team should perform.

I am a chickenhock, and I apologize.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:37 PM   1 comments
 
The Autumn Collection
Models show 'massive devastation' in Houston.

Thanks, but I don't care what Texan designers have cooked up to sell clothes this year.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments
 
Police Seek To Compound Tragedy with Arrests
Boy, 4, lived in filth — and died:
    When Ethan Patrick Williams fell off his bicycle in July, no one would have called the cuts and scrapes on his legs serious injuries. Four weeks later the boy, 4, died from an infection. Police say the boy had been living in filthy conditions, and they believe that squalor might have played a role in his death.
Because the police think that the squalor might have played a role, they did the only sensible thing: broke up a grieving family:
    Ethan's mother, Emily A. Altom, 25, and his stepfather, Michael D. Altom, 25, were charged Tuesday with voluntary manslaughter and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child. They were released Wednesday from the Perry County Jail on $15,000 bonds.
But let's get to the squalor:
    In a sworn affidavit, Cpl. Jason D. Kelley of the Perry County Sheriff's Department described the Altoms' trailer as unfit for any human dwelling. He described walls and carpeting as soiled and stained and said the floor and kitchen counters were piled high with clothes, broken toys, empty beer cans and rotting food.

    He said there "was not enough sleeping space for three children, and no crib for the youngest child." Kelley said the entire trailer reeked of "a foul offensive odor."
Friends, that sounds like the Noggle household to a critical eye. As for no sleeping space for the children, am I to assume they never slept then?

I always get a little queasy with stories about child abuse and neglect, particularly as they play out in the papers and in the affadavits. I realize that I Don't Have Children and Therefore I Cannot Understand (the Sheehanist religion), but building laws to defend the Children which depend upon arbitrary interpretations and impressions of public officials whose livelihoods depend upon prosecution seems like a couple of skips into tyranny. But of course, I don't have children, so I look at this like a rational man and not a parent.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:24 PM   1 comments
 
Great Moments in Keynesian Economic Theory
Five accused of stealing Missouri tax credits:
    Five people were indicted this morning on federal fraud and money-laundering charges for what prosecutors called a $10 million scheme to steal state tax credits.
This could have been avoided if the state only adhered to a policy of taxing businesses equitably, regardless of how the state thinks the businesses benefit either the state or the state's whims.

But that would deprive the state of its twofer: giveaways to its favorites and the ability to get tough on the crime its giveaways encourage.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:17 PM   0 comments
 
We Got Plans
N. Korea Accuses U.S. of Plotting Attack:
    In a second day of bluster after its disarmament accord, North Korea accused the United States on Wednesday of planning a nuclear attack and warned it could retaliate.
Let's make it clear, rest of the world: We have plans to nuke everyone, from North Korea to China to France to Great Britain to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Are we clear on that? Because we understand the nature of man and their collective nature, we are ready to destroy anyone who could attack us, no matter how probable our nuclear plans are to be used.

Because planning is easy, and being unprepared is bad.

So don't think you're special, North Korea, even though you're highest on our list of probable recipients of an unwelcome transfer of nuclear technology. We have plans for every contingency, I hope.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
 
Hard Not To Be Excited About This Team
Man, the St. Louis Blues are going all out to win back fans after the lockout:
  • The owners ensure fan loyalty and media coverage by announcing they want to dump the team.

  • The management ensures fan return after the lockout season by letting popular, productive, but expensive players leave through free agency or through trade. The team suffers, the fans suffer, but the books look slightly better for anyone interested in the team, which will look much worse on the ice and in the standings as a result.

  • One of the highly-paid star players doesn't care enough to get into playing shape before reporting to training camp, showing the fans how much he cares about playing his best hockey.

  • The team suspends the player, which means....nothing, really, except he won't participate in training camp.

  • The player files a union grievance for his suspension which, as I understand it, resulted not in a loss of money but merely in a loss of face.

  • The captain and and assistant captain of the team openly, publicly, and insubordinately question team coaches and management in their decision to suspend the star player.
Someone said hockey was back this year. This ain't hockey; this is cheap melodrama, some sort of working man against The Man mythbuilding where the oppressed working man and his allies are all millionaires, and The Man is putting one of their own down for not keeping in shape to do his freaking job. The passions are all misplaced, and we the fans know it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:38 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
 
Thankfully, I Can Sleep Tonight
without worry:

Chesney Says 'I'll Be OK' After Split


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:34 PM   0 comments
 
Headline I'd Like To See
Lynndie England plans to strip charges, put dog collars on them, and photograph them for your scrapbook


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:34 PM   0 comments
Monday, September 19, 2005
 
Book Report: Superstitious by R.L. Stine (1995)
Trust me, I am doing you a favor:

THE HUNKY IRISH PROFESSOR IS INHABITED BY THE 'DEMONS OF SUPERSTITION' WHO, IF HE DOES NOT ADHERE TO ALL SUPERSTITIOUS RITUALS, BURST FORTH FROM HIM AND KILL PEOPLE GRUESOMELY. TO FREE HIMSELF, HE MEETS, CHARMS, MARRIES, AND IMPREGNATES A GRAD STUDENT SO THEIR MALE OFFSPRING WILL INSTEAD BEAR THE BURDEN OF THE DEMON INFESTATION. ALSO, THE 'SISTER' HE LIVES WITH IS ACTUALLY HIS FIRST WIFE, SO HE'S NOT ONLY A DEMON-INFESTED USER OF INNOCENT WOMEN, HE'S ALSO A BIGAMIST.

If you had any inclination to read the book, I hope I've spoiled it for you.

I bought this book for $2.50 at the Y book fair a month or so back because I've read more horror in the last few years (see also my reviews of King and Koontz). I knew R.L. Stine's name as a young adult horror writer and thought he'd be worth a try in adult fiction. Blech, was I wrong.

What's wrong with the book?

  • Stupid, ill-drawn, underused characters, many of whom are included for no reason. Why does the book spend so much time on the small town cop in over his head? No freaking reason.

  • Sex scenes that are graphic, but pointless, and are also ill-drawn. Matter of fact, Sara eats an orange, Sara has the best sex in the world with Liam. How do you know? The third person, limited omniscient narrator tells you so!

  • Sing-song narrative voice.

  • Pointless details. Whole chapters that could have been and should have been cut because

  • Repetition. It's

      Chip's hand.
      Chip's hand.
      Chip's hand.
    If you don't get the point from this startling stylistic device at the end of the chapter in which the hand being Chip's hand is revealed, on the first page of the next chapter, we get those same three sentences:

      Chip's hand.
      Chip's hand.
      Chip's hand.


    To spice it up, a couple paragraphs later, it's

      Chip's hand, Chip's hand, Chip's hand.


    We get the freaking point.

  • Meaningless cliffhangers that--surprise!--turn out not to be what accompanies the crashing mental chord imagined by Stine as he ended each chapter. The man, falling from gunshot wounds? Playing a joke. The hot-breathed beast with red eyes that leaps out of the darkness? A golden retriever whose owner insists he's never done that before, nor will it again, because it only exists as the segue between one overblown, mostly meaningless chapter and the next.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate this book. I merely feel contempt for it. I read several passages to my beautiful wife as I was reading it, and the threats she made frightened me much more than anything within this book. As a matter of fact, the book is only tolerable because it's so bad and because it didn't take that long to read once I actually forced myself to sit down and read more of it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:40 PM   0 comments
 
Who's Afraid of Kelo Backlash?
In an era where citizen everywhere are complaining, post-Kelo, about eminent domain, it's heartening to see a few noble governments remain unafraid to seize private land to redistribute it as they see fit. Kudos, Manchester, Missouri, Mayor Larry Miles:
    However, Manchester Mayor Larry Miles said, "We're not going to have anyone holding up the project because he doesn't want to sell." He noted, "We have 35 residents who have agreed to sell and we would like to move forward."Butler, he said, is standing in the way of progress and change.

    The mayor said Pace Properties might have to use eminent domain to obtain all properties it needs that front on Manchester Road, except for the Eagle Bank site.

    Pace Properties seeks to build a $131.5 million shopping center on the northeast corner of Manchester and Highway 141. It is asking for $29.5 million in tax-increment financing from Manchester and about $17 million from a transportation development district. The center would have 476,719 square feet of commercial space.
It takes a really strong leader to cede the powers of government, and lots of tax money, to private land developers when citizens are standing up for their private property rights.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:28 PM   1 comments
Sunday, September 18, 2005
 
It Had To Happen Sometime, Gen X
You got old:

Motley Crue's Neil Breaks Hip at Concert

Sure, they're calling it his "leg," much like they call getting shot in the arse as getting shot in the leg or, more accurately but still as spinny, an upper thigh wound.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:59 AM   0 comments
 
Return to Dalton Heights
James Bond writer 'reinvents' spy:
    James Bond is to be given a new image as a younger character with no gadgets, a writer on the next film has told trade paper the Hollywood Reporter.

    Paul Haggis, who is working on the script for Casino Royale, said: "It's going to be good.

    "We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets."
Just like the time they made the movie James Bond into a modern 80s man. Or so I've heard; I've never actually seen a Dalton James Bond movie, but it took a return to the old form and to Pierce Brosnan to keep the franchise going for another decade or so.

This writer and the studios are willing to sacrifice the traditional Bond fan for a young, edgy audience that might not be there anyway. Like other entertainment businesses, such as sports teams, who might underestimate the traditional appeal of a franchise and the effects of altering/moving it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:37 AM   1 comments
Saturday, September 17, 2005
 
A Failed Google Search Leads To Hollywood Rumormonging
calvin and hobbes xxx

Who else could follow in the footsteps of Vin Diesel and Ice Cube but a young, tow-haired boy and his imaginary tiger?

Because I cringe at speculation about what else that particular searcher was seeking.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:27 PM   0 comments
 
Book Review: The World of Raymond Chandler edited by Miriam Gross (1978)
I paid $4.95 for this book at Downtown Books in Milwaukee one weekend when I accumulated a number of biographical pieces about Raymond Chandler. (See also my report on Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe earlier this year.)

Perhaps this book could better be called The England of Raymond Chandler; twenty years after his death, it collects a few essays but a number of interviews and memories from people who met him in England in the year or so before he died. Perhaps I only think that because the book's longest piece, "His Own Long Goodbye" by Natasha Spender, chronicles in excruciating detail the shape he was in in London in the late 1950s and how the writer of the piece and her friends helped him survive England. All right, it's probably accurate in its detail of his failing health, his end-of-life melancholy and suicidal tendencies, but it's not what I wanted to dwell on about Chandler.

Some of the essays do discuss Marlowe and the evolution of Chandler's writing and his storied past, so it's worth it if you're a big fan of the man, but to the casual reader who likes hard-boiled mysteries, it's a bust.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 PM   0 comments
Friday, September 16, 2005
 
Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful
The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners:
    A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

    Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".
Come on, fill in your own tag lines. Soylent Morning Rose Blush....is people!


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:05 PM   0 comments
Thursday, September 15, 2005
 
Book Report: TV Superstars '83 by Ronald W. Lackmann (1983)
Yes, I am a grown man, but I read this Weekly Reader book some two decades after its expiration date and about two decades after I should have stopped reading Weekly Reader books--heck, I am sure by 1983 I was out of Weekly Reader books and was probably already into Agatha Christie or thereabouts, but I justify my reading on the following:
  1. It's short and counts as a whole book.

  2. It's chock full of trivia about things everyone else has forgotten.

  3. The rest of the damn world feels perfectly comfortable reading a series of books published by Scholastic, so why shouldn't I read something by Weekly Reader?
The book's what you'd expect: a piece of fluff-and-puff written by early eighties PR flacks, talking about all of their clients' beginnings. Performers who played nice characters were exactly like the characters they played; performers who played the villians were nothing like the characters they played. Everyone got starts in summer stock, doing the same plays for different community theaters until their big breaks. However, only one lists a rather racy film in her repetoire. Perhaps her publicist also included The Bitch, but the author couldn't print the bad word.

Most of the superstars of 1983 television have faded to ephemera, many of their television shows unremembered. Peter Barton, featured on the cover, was in The Powers of Matthew Star. Byron Cherry was Coy Duke in that one forgotten season when Tom Wopat and John Schneider walked off of the set of The Dukes of Hazard. Most of the shows from 1983 producing this crop of superstars lasted one or two seasons. Hopefully, the superstars had good financial planners, or else some of them are panhandling in California even now.

Who could have foreseen, deep in Reagan's first term, that the superstars who would have "careers" would include Scott Baio, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, and Tony Danza?

Regardless, I found the book slightly interesting and will retain some of its trivia for use in future North Side Mind Flayers matches. Also, the book held some geneology secrets for me, as some rumor has it that I am related distantly, through a series of failed marriages, to Phillip and Nancy McKeon--both of whom were superstars in 1983 and perhaps even the spring of 1984.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:48 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
 
New Studies Refute Dr. Martin
New studies indicate that love is, in fact, a sixties-style action show judo chop to the back of the neck.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:16 AM   1 comments
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
 
New Heights in Senatorial Inquisition Rhetoric
Herb "The Helmet" Kohl stands upon the shoulders of giants during the Roberts confirmation hearings when he echoes philosopher William Martin Joel during a harangue.

Semator Kohl:
    Justice, after all, may be blind, but it should not be deaf.
Billy Joel, from the video for "Keeping the Faith" ca 1983-1984:
    Your honor, they say justice is blind, but I sure hope it ain't deaf.
(Quote first seen on Ann Althouse.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:07 AM   0 comments
Monday, September 12, 2005
 
The Devil You Know
Oh, sure, some tech snobs liken Bill Gates and Microsoft to The Devil and the AntiChrist, but face it, you pasty-legged, Macintosh-huffing zone dweebie, when Steve Jobs introduces the iPodPeople, a music player with the ability to download music, photos, OnStar service, debit card, and other software protected by GUID and DRM which you can implant directly into your freaking head, you'll line up around the block for the outpatient surgery.

And feel good that you're helping overturn the Microsoft hegemony.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:06 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: American Diplomacy 1900-1950 by George F. Kennan (1960)
I read this book, its ninth printing from 1960, starting in February. I got bogged down around the time where Mr. Kennan began discussing what to do about the Soviet Union since I know how it turned out, but I buckled down and finished it last week.

The book starts with a brief recap of some of America's oversights and missteps in foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century, including the Spanish American War, missteps in China and the Orient (which is what they called Asia until 1960 or so), World War I, and World War II. It also proffers some plans for how to deal with the Soviet Union, including a brief history of Russian communism and its relationship to the native population.

Wow, it's an intelligent book written by someone with a slightly different point of view, but I never felt like throwing the book. Perhaps I've spent too much time in the contemporary slums of political thought, but at no point did Kennan offend me with his politics. He explains his logic and frames his arguments on historical fact and his interpretation of him. One suspects one could have a discussion about the policies of containment versus confrontation without raising one's voice--or maybe one could, if one remembered how gentlemen did it.

However, as a lifelong diplomat (and future ambassador to the Soviet Union), Kennan's approach sees diplomacy as the end-all, be-all of international relations. As such, he would prefer that military force only be used at the behest of the diplomats and only as a sort of mailed-gauntlet slap at an international cocktail party. Undoubtedly, he would fit into the sort of philosophy that perplexes Mark Helprin:
    f you must go to war, do not do so hesitantly, with half a heart.
Instead, the stiffening of sinews and making like tigers might offend Kennan's sensibilities or protocols of restraint, but that's the nature of war. It is a last resort, it is very bad, and it must be prosecuted to its end.

Kennan argues passionately for engagement and containment with the Soviet Union, which ultimately worked to end communism. However, one must ask upon reviewing Kennan's lessons from this book, originally a series of lectures, can we apply these lessons and these techniques to current rivals or enemies--China and non-stated organizations formed around radical Islam and other aggrieved groups. I would hesitate in trying, for the Soviet Union was a Western power, based in Western thought and philosophy, which we can easily understand. Modern and future opponents are not.

Oh, and if you're wondering, I bought the book for a quarter at some yard sale or estate sale in the midterm past (probably after 2000). Occasionally I do try to elevate myself through reading, and this book helped.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:55 PM   0 comments
 
Bucci Joins the Ranks of Cat Bloggers
See for yourself.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 PM   0 comments
 
Government Entities, Claiming Poverty, Spend Money in Attempt to Get More Money
Schools fear 'tax giveaway':
    "This is so complicated that a lot of people will not get it," said Patrick Lanane, assistant superintendent and chief financial officer for the Lindbergh School District in St. Louis County.

    "Be careful, be quick or you will miss one of the most important tax giveaways that will happen in a person's lifetime," Lanane said. He and others believe that some outstate school districts are getting far more state aid than they deserve.
Thank you, Mr. Lanane, for looking out for the interests of taxpayers. No, wait, pardon my while cynicism realism settles in: You're not afraid that these other school districts are getting too much; you're afraid that your district isn't getting as much as you think it deserves.

But never fear, our government officials are on the case:
    School and business leaders in the St. Louis region feel so strongly that they have begun a campaign to raise $100,000 to pay for studies of the accuracy of assessments in 10 counties, said Glenn Koenen, of the West County Chamber of Commerce. The studies would be completed early next year.
Raising that money to educate students? You forget the purpose of government, citizen, which is to get more money for government, even if it's from a higher government and its gains are at the expense of other governments in outstate Missouri.

(Link submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:45 PM   0 comments
 
Monday Morning Reading
The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

To which I would add a seventh: Biometric identifiers. Sure, it does price some timid criminals out of the market of cybercrime, but it also increases the risk to the innocent or the protected. After all, whereas the serious criminal who really, really wants to get in only had to guess your passwords and PINs, now he or she needs your body part.

(Link seen on /..)


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:15 AM   0 comments
Sunday, September 11, 2005
 
Deferred Debut of the Packer Flag
I know, you all expected that today would mark the day of the Packer flag's annual debut.

But not on September 11, brother; my flag brace holds a different flag today.

I won't forget.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:03 PM   0 comments
 
Cheaper Than Eminent Domain
Look out, Crestwood: a private consultant hired by the city has told the city that it has to renovate a privately-owned mall or lose tax revenue. Of course, he couched it in waivers and wherefores, but what do you think the local government heard?
    While he proposes redevelopment, Melaniphy [the consultant] doesn't advise Crestwood on whether the city should use public funds for the project. That's something the city and Westfield will have to iron out, he said. "If financial assistance can be used to keep a Macy's or a big anchor store, the board should at least listen and see if we can accommodate that," Robinson [Crestwood's Mayor]said.
Translation: The government should use tax dollars to ensure that it continues receiving tax dollars. Serve the citizens? No, modern government serves itself first.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 AM   0 comments
Friday, September 09, 2005
 
SPAMIS Update
SPAMIS, that Microsoft-hating, anti-spam group whose very mention has brought most of my traffic (Google-driven as it may be), has issued another communique, an unsolicited e-mail message which concludes: 
    [SPAMIS NOTIFICATION]: 
Fully "READY" to Begin Increasing Public Service Announcement
Emails to 20 Times the Amount of Internet Users by 25 Times the 
Current Sending Rate & Speed When a Certain Activity Transpires.  
[CURRENTLY IN WAITING FOR THIS ACTIVITY TO TRANSPIRE]
Of course, as I've read too many mystery novels and have watched my share of film noir, I automatically assume that the means something of extortion, but perhaps I am simplistic in thinking that perhaps this SPAMIS group is threatening to send MORE SPAM unless Microsoft comes through with....???

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:56 PM   0 comments
 
Real World a Harsh Mistress
Perhaps the striking Northwest mechanics should contemplate crawling back to their wife and begging her forgiveness:
    David Pounds, a 22-year mechanic, said he was thinking of changing careers, maybe selling cars. He's had job interviews, but hasn't had any offers.

    "People are reluctant to hire a guy on strike," he said.

    He has also had trouble finding a job that pays as much. Union mechanics made $70,000 a year on average. "The last company I interviewed with, the compensation was a joke," Pounds said.
The last company he interviewed with was probably not relying on government handouts to remain almost solvent, but that's unrelated, no doubt.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:45 AM   1 comments
Thursday, September 08, 2005
 
Like a Star Putting On Sunglasses
Nuke Reactors on Campuses Keep Low Profile:
    For University of Missouri tailgaters, the name of the new parking lot down the hill from Memorial Stadium is little more than a curiosity: Reactor Field, a nod to the nearby nuclear research reactor.

    The nation's largest university-based reactor keeps an intentionally low local profile, despite its cutting-edge research into promising cancer drugs.
Nothing says "incognito" like naming a facility used by thousands of unknowledgeable, transient sports fans after the "low profile" nuclear reactor which is plainly visible from Providence (name of road redacted for security reasons).


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments
 
Any Excuse Will Do
New Orleans Begins Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes:
    Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.
Confiscate weapons before a forced migration of peoples. Sounds familiar....

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:33 PM   0 comments
 
Hopefully, This Means Layoffs
Katrina could cost 400,000 jobs: CBO:
    The damage from Hurricane Katrina could include up to 400,000 lost jobs and slower U.S. growth, a congressional report said on Wednesday, as President George W. Bush sought $51.8 billion in fresh aid for the disaster zone.
If the Congressional Budget Office is so sure of the number, perhaps that's the number the Federal government plans to lay off.

Otherwise, they're just pulling smoke out of their arse.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:00 AM   0 comments
 
Campaign Finance for the Unreformed - Germany
Here's one of the other things you get when government pays for political advertising:
    A fringe German anarchist party has outraged national television audiences with its election campaign television spot -- a video montage of booze-fuelled chaos, syringes and men cavorting with topless women.

    ...


    Rather than offer any presentation of policies, the party's campaign spot spliced together scenes of debauched revellers smashing furniture, pouring beer down each other's throats and groups of couples kissing and groping each other, all set to a frantic heavy metal soundtrack.

    As an officially registered political party, the Hamburg-based APPD, which sells t-shirts on its Web site that proclaim "Arbeit ist Scheisse" ("work is shit"), is entitled to free television air time for its advertisements.
Of course this group is approved. Although embarrassing, it is no real threat to the established order. Anything else simply isn't government-approved.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:55 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
 
Book Report: The World's Best Dirty Jokes by Mr. "J" (1976, 1979)
If future archeologists unearth a copy of this tome, they will undoubtedly think that the 1970s were a repressed period. I mean, this book collects some jokes that might have been considered dirty circa 1948, but in the 1970s, mildly off color words weren't shocking enough to cause startled laughter in joke listeners, much less joke readers.

This book was originally published in 1976, but I purchased a special 1979 printing at the YMCA for a buck. Let that be your guide. I bought it at a fundraiser at the Young Man's Christian Association in 2005. Jeez, I knew better dirty jokes in 1979, and I was in elementary school.

It's hard to belive that only a couple of years later, local radio personality Frank O. Pinion released the definitive dirty joke book--which I read surrepitiously during my middle school years. The book featured the famous Willy Nelson joke, which I remember and can recite to this day. But the contents of this book--The World's Best Dirty Jokes, I remind you, gentle reader--I have already forgotten.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments
 
Irishman Known For Playing British Man Says Something Disparaging About US in France
So what?

Is it any coincidence he's not a member of our national security or foreign policy team? No, I think it's the lack of credentials.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:56 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
 
The Certainty of Leadership
Nothing is as comforting as the certainty of leaders. For example, we can cull the following list from the story entitled Roundabouts are coming - and traffic flow may never be the same:
  • city officials say

  • officials believe

  • traffic engineers say

  • "They are definitely gaining in popularity," said Larry Hagen of the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida.

  • The proliferation of roundabouts could do more than ease traffic congestion, some hope.

  • proponents say

  • some roundabout advocates hope

  • "I'd like to see us go like France," Russell said. "They've got about 25,000 now."
But perhaps I too-easily mock leadership. After all, there's some definitive certainty in the article:
    Columbus Circle, built in New York City in 1904, is considered the country's first traffic circle, and was followed by hundreds more, mostly in the northeast, Russell said. Now, in some parts of the northeast, transportation officials are working to get rid of the circles and replace them with signalized intersections or updated roundabouts.

    "We're currently initiating a program where we're attempting to eliminate as many as possible," said Brendan Gill, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. "Essentially, they're antiquated. They're not built to handle the volume of traffic we're currently handling."
But it's hard to blur and soften the edges of those sentiments, wot?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:00 PM   0 comments
Monday, September 05, 2005
 
Book Report: The Power of Judyism by Judy Tenuta (1991)
I bought this book at the Carondolet YMCA book fair. I spent a $1.00 on it, but I justified it on these factors:
  • It's a stated first edition.

  • It's a signed stated first edition, with the inscription "To Stevie - My favorite stud-puppy--bend over! Love, Judy Tenuta".

  • In the late 1980s, I thought Judy Tenuta was kinda hot.
So I picked this book as my most recent nonfiction reading material. It's 212 pages, but those pages make judicious use of white space, drawings, and photography that proved that Judy Tenuta was kinda hot in 1991, in a disturbed sort of way. Hey, I was in my late teens. Disturbed but hot would continue to feed my tastes for another half decade yet. She's also got another luminary of the era, Emo Phillips, in some of the photos. Hey, where did he go? You know, I thought he had a cult following when I was clicking through Hot or Not profiles and saw a lot of chicks born in 1985 continued to appreciate emo. But I digress.

The book, coupled with the last book by a comedienne I thought was hot in 1990 (Rita Rudner, Naked Beneath My Clothes), defines the difference between humor and shtick. Judy Tenuta, with her Love Goddess persona and accordion, represent one, and Rita Rudner, with her musings on life and pointed pauses with lips pursed, represents the other. One translates well to books, and the other doesn't. One ages well, and one does not--I cannot imagine Judy Tenuta running around with the same observations and act now that she's about to trip 50; however, Ms. Rudner can continue with her observations and pursed lips without missing a beat.

I also thought Judy Tenuta was kinda amusing ca. 1990, too, but come to think of it, I don't know I ever saw any extended performance. I think I saw some promos for MTV or VH1 featuring her, but no specials. Otherwise I might have skipped this particular purchase, which depicts how one should worship her and participate in her religion, Judyism. She inserts observations and jokes about commoners and celebrities as they relate to her, but ultimately, it's only one note played on a variety of instruments and called a symponme.

Not to say that the book was totally meritless, as its value as an artifact of history and my personal life (remember 1991 B.C.--before Clinton?). Still, nothing in the book made me laugh out loud or really chuckle. I didn't rush to my beautiful wife to tell her what Tenuta said. Nor, probably, will I ever. But she was kinda hot in 1990. For someone almost my mother's age.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:34 PM   0 comments
 
Geekstacy
A comparison of sizes of science fiction ships and stations.

Ahhh....

(Link seen on Ace of Spades.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:04 PM   0 comments
 
In A Slightly Related Note
'Transporter' carries holiday weekend.

Did you know that the Transporter drives an Audi? I do, and I've never seen either movie; I did, however, see the trailer for Transporter 2 and noted that the Audi logo on the grill of the car was visible no fewer than 9 times in the two minute trailer.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:48 PM   2 comments
 
He Had Five Years To Prepare
Hillary Clinton: "This time, you won't get away with only having been in office for eight months, Mr. President."
    With many blaming the growing scope of Katrina's devastation on the Bush administration, Sen. Hillary Clinton called yesterday for a 9/11-style probe into how the federal government responded to the crisis.

    "It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared," Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a letter to Bush asking him to set up a "Katrina Commission."

    "The slow pace of relief efforts in the face of a mounting death toll ... seems to confirm that our ability to respond to cataclysmic disasters has not been adequately addressed," she said.
On the other hand, if she does become president, imagine the fun her opponents will have when conducting "non-partisan" commission-based and tax-wasting inquiries like the one she proposes here.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:35 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Devil's Code by John Sandford (2000)
Since I didn't group it with the Prey novels I inherited from my aunt (Easy Prey, Chosen Prey, and Naked Prey), I overlooked this book until now, and it worked its way to the back of my "to read" bookshelves.

The book centers upon a series character named Kidd who's a computer hacker. The book is five years old, but it's weathered fairly well; Sandford keeps the specifics of the technology to a minimum. Ergo, he's not made laughable mistakes in the world of 2000 which computer people would spot and it prevents early obsolescence of the book. Also, Kidd gets out of the basement and doesn't spend a whole lot of the book hacking. Instead, he's social engineering, reconnoitering, and breaking and entering. So it's more gripping, less dated.

The plot: a former associate of Kidd's has gotten killed after inadvertantly poking into some conspiracy among NSA or near-NSA types, and he left a message for Kidd just in case something were to happen to him. That something does happen, and Kidd's skeptical. However, Kidd finds himself listed as the member of a non-existent hacker group identified as a high priority target for law enforcement, they force Kidd to investigate and retaliate--not so much out of his sense of vengeance, but his instinct for survival.

It's a serviceable book, better than the Prey series where the main character, Lucas Davenport, field marshals a team as they deal with political pressures and solve high-profile cases. Still, Kidd depends upon a support network, so he doesn't fit the lone wolf archetype in suspense novels. He's also a Democrat, like Davenport, whose political asides tend to run to the sniggering at the Republicans. The asides don't detract from my enjoyment of the book, but I am aware of them.

So it's worth a buck or two in the used book store, certainly. Perhaps even five on the remainder table, and perhaps I'll explore the other books in the series once I get through the hundreds of volumes remaining on the "to read" shelves.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:03 PM   0 comments
Sunday, September 04, 2005
 
Paranoia Shidoshi Bows In Respect to Mayor Nagin
Brother Paranoia Shidoshi Ray Nagin saith:
    "Today was a turning point, I think," he said. "My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. ... I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out. I don't know. If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened."
A marvel of paranoid thought which I admire.

Speaking of which, I haven't posted much about Katrina, neither denigrating foolish government idiocy on one hand or grasping, needling mewling from dependent citizenry on the other hand. And if the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me you will all know what happened.

I will have gotten too busy doing my freaking job to find a blog entry form or a television camera.

(Although I'd seen this story all day, it was Baldilocks's entry that I saw last before I couldn't take it any more and had to post.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:09 PM   0 comments
 
Lessons from Katrina
Friends and family plan on the cellular phone? Hell, no.

If you and your spouse or you and your friends have contracts with different companies, you'll also be on different networks. Ergo, you'll have redundancy so that if one cellular network goes down, you're not dependent upon it and can call for help if the second cellular network remains operational.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:17 PM   3 comments
Saturday, September 03, 2005
 
What Didn't Need To Be Said
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch points out the obvious: Katrina dwarfs our Flood of '93:
    Water was the enemy in both disasters, but observers say the Midwest's Great Flood of 1993 pales in comparison to what is unfolding now along the Gulf Coast.
It also pales in comparison to the disappointment I experienced when my lunch at the downtown Thai place was listed as two iconic flames' worth of hot on the menu, but wasn't very hot at all.

But I see how some local observers could mistake the scale of some upper middle class West County St. Louis being forced from their homes with the destruction of an entire city and devestation of parts of three states. Still, I'm sure the end result will be the same: hubristic and federally-funded reconstruction and further overdevelopment in disaster-susceptible areas.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:17 PM   0 comments
 
Now That's Thorough
Relatives file wrongful death suits:
    Relatives of five people killed July 28 in a fiery wreck on Interstate 44 in Eureka, near the Six Flags St. Louis amusement park, have filed wrongful death suits in St. Louis County Circuit Court.

    The suits were among 1,400 filed in the county last week, before a new law capping damage awards in civil cases took effect.
The situation:
    A dump truck loaded with rock and driven by Thomas Miskel, of Imperial, smashed into the back of Huckaba's 2000 Dodge Caravan, shoving the minivan into four vehicles and across a frontage road before the wreckage erupted in flames.
How many suits? Five: one for each victim of the single accident.

The plaintiffs?
  • The driver of the truck, natch.

  • Bourbeuse River Hauling, the company that owns the truck.

  • H & H Freight Services, which provided the contract driver for Bourbeuse.

  • Millstone Bangert Inc., the company that hired the truck to deliver the rock to its construction site.

  • Kenworth of St. Louis, the mechanics who worked on the truck and should have known it wouldn't stop in time.

  • Six Flags, for apparently building a theme park nearby which people would look at or attend.

  • The state of Missouri for its poor design of the highway.

  • The city of Eureka, for not stopping traffic backup at the highway exit where the accident occurred.
Why not sue Dodge, for not making fourth, fifth, and sixth brake lights? The parents of the driver, for bringing a child capable of such evil into the world? The painting contractor who puts the lines on the highways and the makers of the asphalt for not providing enough traction for stopping?

Perhaps those are defendants for another day.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:48 PM   1 comments
 
Book Report: Hark! by Ed McBain (2004)
I bought this book at the Carondolet YMCA for $4.00, but it's in almost new condition, and I hadn't read this book, and Ed McBain died this summer. So again I set aside my normal reluctance to spend that much money on a book.

Hark! is a Deaf Man book. There's no other way to put it. Normal crime goes out the window in this book, as the Deaf Man again taunts the boys (and girl) of the 87th Precinct with a set of clues about what he plans to do, knowing that they won't be able to stop him. Or so he thinks.

As always, these books include a lot of details in the lives of the characters. McBain kept up a tight schedule on publishing these novels, particularly in the last couple of years, so we can forgive him for what might have been an increased serialization of the private lives--although the books always had some of that. Something else striking about this book is that it refers to actual contemporary political figures--Bush and Blair--, contemporary musicians--the John Pizarelli trio--, and contemporary events--the war in Iraq. His earlier books used common nouns or made-up details, which has preserved their longevity and readability into the present. For example, a veteran returning from "the war" proved a relatively malleable archetype: it could have been Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, or the current wars depending upon the decade in which the reader encounters the book. By naming specifics, McBain has limited the future reach of these books.

But one can become as morose as Travis McGee lamenting that not only is the concept of reading books becoming meaningless in man's blithe march into media-mandated illiteracy and technologically-enabled idiocy, but with Ed McBain's death, the potential number of 87th Precinct novels (or at least those for which Evan Hunter is responsible) has become finite and the actual number of books I have not read will now slowly tick down to zero, much like life itself.

Man, that's depressing. I think I'll while some of that time away mindlessly by playing Civilization.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:31 AM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Empty Copper Sea by John D. MacDonald (1978)
I paid a whole $3.00 for this book at the Carondolet YMCA Book Fair last weekend. It's a lot for me to pay for a book, I know, but this one is a stated first edition. So I threw it in my box. As you know, gentle reader, John D. MacDonald is one of my favorite authors, and to get one of his first editions for only three dollars, well, I'd make that purchase any day of the week. Because of my love for JDM, I didn't evaluate the book coldly, rationally, like a true book collector, otherwise I would have noted the pen scribbling--hopefully by a child--inside the front and back cover and perhaps the slight molding on the spine. But since I'm thrilled to have this first edition for my collection and not for investment purposes, it will do.

An old seafaring acquaintance of Travis McGee commissions the salvage expert to find and return his good name. Captain Van Harder was found passed out aboard the ship he was piloting after its owner fell overboard. Although he battled and conquered drinking demons in his youth, no one believes him that he only had one drink on the job, and his license and livelihood are revoked. McGee travels to the gulf coast of Florida with his friend Meyer to investigate the disappearance of the owner. As his business was on the rocks, could the owner have slipped a mickey to his captain and friend to stage a disappearance to Mexico? It certainly looks that way.

I cannot really say anything bad about this novel without trying very hard, so I won't bother. I paid $3.00 for a book I'd already ready and might already own and I read it the same week I bought it. Let that guide your thinking about my opinion of the book.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:49 AM   0 comments
Thursday, September 01, 2005
 
Inappropriate Metaphor of the Day
From a fundraising plea junk mail from the Alzheimer's Disease Research Program of the American Health Assistance Foundation, of whom I've never heard before and to whom I will never send any money whatsoever:
Major news in the research on Alzheimer's:
Researchers funded by Alzheimer's Disease Research including TWO Nobel prize winners--have made breakthrough discoveries that may signla the end of Alzheimer's reign of terror!


Alzheimer's reign of terror? Lord, love a duck, poorly written, poorly metaphored... I say we make it a trifecta by making it poorly funded, too.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:32 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."