Why Stop There?
So I understand that Judge Alito, should he become a Supreme Court justice, immediately use the superpowers granted by the robe to spin the earth backwards and turn back the clock, some estimates up to 70 years. Why stop there? I'm unclear why the opponents think that the justices would undo only part of the Constitutional recreation that has occurred...why wouldn't they turn the clock back 216 years and undo the Constitution? Why not 230 years and undo the Declaration of Independence? Yea, why not 790 years and turn back the clock on the Magna Carta?

Because the events of history are only important as guest stars in the drama that is the narrative of American History, where the eventual and sometimes lucky triumph of the common decent folk can only be corrected by the super-legislature courts with their supreme insight into what should be done, not what the Constitution's authors meant in their drive to restrain government power.

Instead of judges who base their abjudication on the Constitution, some people want judges who turn forward the clock by any means necessary, whether granted by the Constitution or whether checked by other, elected government officials.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:00 PM   0 comments

 
Has It Been That Long Since OJ?
From presiding over the most-watched trial in history to the Supreme Court.

We at MfBJN congratulate Judge Ito!

Eh? Alito you say? I thought they said Al Ito.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:46 PM   0 comments

 
Exactly How I Would Defend Favre
Jeff Goldstein defends Brett Favre's play choices.

Sort of.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:32 PM   0 comments

 
Ahead of the Curve

I oppose the Lewis Libby nomination to the Supreme Court.

Just in case NZ Bear ever wants to know.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   0 comments

 
Meanwhile, On Another Blog.....
Draft Matt Blunt 2008 makes a top ten list.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:31 AM   0 comments

 
Out of the Quagmire
April 1, 1945: United States Tenth Army invades Okinawa, Japan.

October 29, 2005: United States announces Half of U.S. Marines to leave Okinawa.

After sixty years of resistance, the Okinawan insurgents have thrown some of the American invaders out.

I fear we won't have enough boots on the ground to weed out the remaining insurgency and to help spread democracy and capitalism to the Far East. Can the ramshackle Japanese government, originally appointed by the US and later selected in a number of sham elections and creation of a faux constitution, handle its own affairs without falling into a bloody religious civil war? Will the native warlords and the militant people live together peacably to build a nation together?

I also fear that it sends the wrong message to other insurgents around the world that if they resist and carp enough, they, too, can cause US political will to crack and to force 7,000 American soldiers to cut and run to Guam.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Sunday Drive.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:06 AM   0 comments

 
This Urban Legend Brought to You By The American Dairy Association and Your Local Grocer
You know why they have expiration dates on yogurt? Because that's how long it takes the fruit in fruit yogurt to ferment. Dude, I know a guy --he's a friend of a friend to you--who bought a couple twelve packs of Dannon marked down because they were going to expire, and he put them in his fridge. A week later he's hungry, and its three days after their expiration date, but he ate a couple of them and got a buzz, so he ate them all. He got so wasted on yogurt that he blacked out and woke up in his backyard wearing nothing but his Playboy robe.

I guess the yogurt manufacturers put those dates on them so the grocery stores won't sell them to underage people. But if you want some cheap liquor without an ID card, you should look through the grocery stores' dairy cases for the old yogurt. Sometimes, you can even find stuff that's already expired.

Go ye forth, and pass it on. You know it's true, because it happened to a friend of this guy you know, and you read it on the Internet. That's double-checked accurate.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:52 AM   0 comments

 
By The Duties Invested In Me By The Hockey Whoopass Jamboree
The Los Angeles Dammit There's Demitras beat the St. Louis Blues last night, ergo here's the logo:

Kudos to Brandon for selecting someone other than the worst team in the NHL, which I did out of duty and obligation.

Long Winter Update: Yes, friends, that does mean that my three winter teams (Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Admirals, St. Louis Blues) are a combined 5-17, but the Milwaukee Admirals are on a 2 game winning streak, and the Green Bay Packers are about to begin their winning streak which will lead them to Super Bowl XL, so perhaps it won't be a long winter after all!


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:28 AM   1 comments

 
True Breeding Will Out
Proof positive that although you can take the son of a carpenter out of the city housing projects and can place him in an affluent suburb, you cannot teach him true civility, in two words or fewer:

Chadonnay bong!


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:28 PM   0 comments

 
Columnist Retires from Post-Dispatch, Two Readers Split on Reaction
Betty Cuniberti takes an oldster buyout at the Post-Dispatch, but manages to take a swipe at blogs on her way out:

Even in the era of the Blogosphere (no thought too vacuous to share), this is good work if you can get it. What knucklehead would walk away from a newspaper column?

Ms. Cuniberti sees no connection between the blogosphere she knocks and the friendly reduction in force that she's enjoying:

To cut operating costs, the paper offered an early-retirement buyout to folks over age 50 with five or more years on the job. It appears that some 40 newsmen and newswomen, whose combined service totals a staggering 700-plus years, are walking out the door. Just like that.

Of course, to a certain mindset (such as that of fifty-plus year old columnists with more than five years entrenched in the old time journalism business), declining readership at dailies leading to declining revenues leading to early retirements occurs spontaneously. Unconnected at all to the rise of this "Internet" and its commentators, many of whose I've found less vacuous than Ms. Cuniberti's.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:54 PM   1 comments

 
Two Headlines, Possibly Unrelated
Shields Expecting

Power play wrecks Shields' debut


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:51 PM   0 comments

 
An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Again
Vintage Base Ball Association.

Vintage Base Ball is base ball (yes, it was two words originally) played by the rules and customs of any earlier period. Ballists wear old-style uniforms, either the early long trouser and shield shirt, or a later style lace shirt and knickers, and recreate the game based on rules and research of the various periods of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The activity of vintage base ball can be seen at open-air museums, re-enactments and city parks and is played on both open grass fields and modern baseball diamonds. Some groups consider vintage base ball to be a new sport, but at its core, vintage base ball is a reflection of how baseball existed at an earlier time.

Most vintage base ball clubs in the VBBA play the game of base ball as it was played in the late 1850s, 1860s and 1880s. Many clubs in the Midwest have adopted the rules recorded in the first Beadle's Dime Base Ball Player, published in 1860, which recounted the third meeting of the National Association of Base Ball Players.

Watch for upstart leagues, base ball and other sports, to form and to draw attention and attendance as the "big leagues" price themselves out of the market and out of the imagination of the public.


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

 
The Noggle 50/50 Rule of Music Appreciation
When attending a performance of an attractive young jazz singer performing scorching love songs, be sure to spend at least fifty percent of the performance gazing admiringly at your beautiful wife.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:21 PM   5 comments

 
Thank You, Amazon, For Timely Delivery
I'm reading reviews like this, a political essay using Civilization IV as a jumping off point, instead of playing my special PreOrder Collector's Edition.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:53 PM   0 comments

 
The Excuse I'll Use
Scantily Clad Model Upsets Neighborhood:

According to Hill and some of his neighbors, a camera crew for the men's magazine Maxim was taking pictures of a woman whose attire ranged from a billowing dress to pasties and panties. Some neighbors called police and tried to take pictures of the photo shoot as evidence.

Evidence. Right. Somehow, though, I suspect that most of those "some neighbors" answer to the pronoun "he."


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:32 PM   0 comments

 
Sic Semper Public Privatus
Another public/private investment on the brink of failure:

The financing for the Renaissance hotel complex downtown took years to put together, but the hotels' owners have only a few months to restructure their debt in an attempt to avoid a default.

The owners of the Renaissance Grand and Renaissance Suites owe bondholders $3.5 million of interest on Dec. 15, a payment that may exhaust the hotels' debt-service reserve. With that exhausted, prospects for making the next payment in June would be bleak.

Enter Steven Stogel, a St. Louis developer who helped to structure the original financing. Stogel has agreed to serve as an unpaid go-between in negotiations among the hotel owners, bondholders and other interested parties, including the city of St. Louis.

Municipal governments do tend to put their investments in particularly sketchy endeavours that lose money, like sports teams and other attractions, but unfortunately, they're investing in utopias, not looking at bottom lines.

The long-term answer to the hotels' problems, of course, is to attract more conventions to St. Louis. The city has attracted only half as many meeting-goers as planners expected when the hotels were built.

If you build it, they will come is not so good of an investment philosophy. Particularly since they'd have to travel down some awfully rutted roads to get there and once they got there would have to pay punitive taxes for the privilege.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:58 AM   0 comments

 
Dispatch from the Sad, Colorless World of John Q. Literal
I am so hungry I could eat a meal.


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

 
Who Is Coming To Edwardsville? Who? Who?
Congratulations to SIUE for landing the author of the immortal lines:

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away ?

That's right, Amiri Baraka is coming to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville as part of the Drumvoices Festival of Black Arts.

How proud SIUE must be.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:55 AM   0 comments

 
Wal-Mart CEO Wants Government To Mandate More Spending Power for Customers
Wal-Mart calls for minimum wage hike:

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said he's urging Congress to consider raising the minimum wage so that Wal-Mart customers don't have to struggle paycheck to paycheck.

Scott told Wal-Mart directors and executives in a speech Monday that he believes "it is time for Congress to take a look at the minimum wage and other legislation that can help working families."

Of course, as the millionaire spoke to other millionaires, he didn't urge their own philanthropy. He urged more further government-enforced philanthropy. A two-fer: he sounds good and he doesn't have to take any action other than advocation.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:46 AM   0 comments

 
St. Louis Cardinals Eat More Seed Corn
Cards' A Student program will be scaled back in '06:

Middle schoolers will no longer be able to participate in a decades-old program that provides free Cardinals tickets to students whose grades are equivalent to an A-minus average or better. The reason cited: fewer seats in the new Busch Stadium.

The program will be limited to high schoolers. And each student will be eligible for two free tickets to a game instead of four.

I participated in this program in the middle 1980s, and the free tickets to bad games helped a Milwaukee boy overcome his automatic distaste for the Redbirds.

So let's recap the Cardinals' recent moves to reach out to fans:

• Forced government funding for a new stadium, which triggered some resentment from taxpayers, particularly those outside the St. Louis area in Missouri.
  
  
• Changed radio stations to lower wattage KTRS, diminishing the ability of many fans to pick the game up for free on the radio. The Cardinals, of course, are happy to let fans pay to listen on the Internet.
  
  
• Scaled back a program that allows many lower income families whose children do well in school can attend ball games and that hooks fans young.

Together, these moves will diminish the fan base over the coming generation. But ball teams don't think in terms of generations and tradition. Instead, they think of short term corporate profits and the maximum value they can receive when they sell the franchise to the next short-sighted corporation.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:34 AM   0 comments

 
What If Saddam Hussein Goes O.J.?
An Iraqi court has adjourned the trial of Saddam Hussein until late November, and the recent death of one of his defense attorneys might delay the trial even further, perhaps into next year. Perhaps, as some commentators (Austin Bay, for example) have argued, Saddam’s trial has already taken too long. The West might well make an example of the Hussein trial to show Western justice to a people unused to the rule of law, and thinkers have begun making their historical comparisons.

Anne Applebaum and Wretchard liken the Saddam trials to the Nuremberg trials after World War II. The allies, for four years after the war, brought members of the Nazi regime to trial and recounted their malevolent deeds. But Nuremberg was sixty years ago. If we need historical trial analogies to banter about, we can find portents in more contemporary proceedings.

Ira Einhorn, a celebrity of the sixties lefthippie type, killed his girlfriend in Philadelphia in the 1970s. After Einhorn skipped bail and hid overseas for decades, a dogged investigator found Einhorn in France. A lengthy court battle ensued over extradition and the illegitimacy of an inabsentia trial. Einhorn returned to the United States in 2002, some 23 years after his crime. He's in jail now after a repeated prosecution, but he remains a touchstone for reminiscing radicals. Like Einhorn, Saddam faces trial for a crime committed 23 years ago. Although Hussein's crime exceeds Einhorn's by several factors of ten, time has rounded the moral outrages many people espouse to mere cluck-clucking or rationalization that at least Hussein made the trains run over dissidents on time.

Saddam Hussein's trial more closely resembles the trial of Slobodan Miloševic, originally indicted for war crimes in 1997. The former Yugoslavian leader stands accused of crimes committed in the mid 1990s. As his genocides fade from popular memory, the drive for justice fades as new threats and opponents emerge. Saddam Hussein, too, has been out of power for years now, and a trial could take years more. As the years and decades pass, will the outrage and moral anger flag? Will the pursuit of justice mellow, as all but the direct victims of the crimes forget?

We can draw simple parallels between the latest trial of the century and those trials of the century which preceded it (I mean, of course, the aforementioned Einhorn and Miloševic trials, not those of Leopold and Loeb, Sacco and Vanzetti, or Bruno Hauptmann, already lost to the eldritch antiquity of the early 1900s). However, Einhorn produced an eventual guilty verdict and retribution. The Milosevic trial might yet provide a guilty verdict and justice. I fear an outcome like the biggest trial of the century of the last portion of the last century.

What if Saddam Hussein comes to trial and is found Not Guilty? What if, instead of the Nuremberg Trials, we get the Nordberg Trial? I've not seen any speculation to that end, and some might claim the possibility is inconceivable. I can but proffer two letters: O.J.

Evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the guilt of O.J. Simpson, but a combination of sing-song defense attorneys and an aggrieved jury pool willing to believe rather incredible stories of conspiracy and the possibilities of isolated carelessness and incompetence led to a Not Guilty verdict. The verdict cheered segments of the population who felt oppressed by the legal system and disheartened segments of the population who thought that the legal system serves justice. Some people, including your humble blogger-narrator, recognize that the legal system serves its own rules and comes out with just results in most cases, but not all. In this case, it did not, and O.J. Simpson is free to play golf, get into amusing legal scrapes, dodge payment of his civil judgment, and find the real killers.

Is it so hard to imagine the same could happen for Saddam Hussein, or is it simply too frightening to contemplate? Saddam's defense is preparing its own conspiracy theories or their equivalents, where Saddam is a victim illegitimately deposed by a power-mad hegemon who wanted his oil and so on and so forth and ad nauseum. Perhaps rhyming sing-song won't be enough to persuade the jury or the judges, but perhaps Saddam won't need it. Given the ease with which Saddam loyalists have infiltrated the new Iraqi military, could they not infiltrate the judiciary? Could not someone be bought with militants' money to declare a mistrial or to ensure a Not Guilty verdict for a crime committed in the prehistoric era that was the early 1980s?

Other commentators bill the trial of Saddam Hussein as a shining court upon a hill, wherein denizens of the Middle East can see how justice is meted in the West, where the oppressed can see how the citizens and the rule of law work, where arbitrary decisions of an elite do not deprive individuals of life nor property without due process. If Saddam Hussein somehow gets a Not Guilty verdict upon the charges which prosecutors have levied against him, that will put Iraq and the United States in quite a bind.

At that point, Iraqi prosecutors can levy additional charges against Saddam Hussein, demonstrating that the rule of law as practiced in the West means that prosecutors can continue prosecuting and persecuting the accused with a plethora of laws and violations until such time as the target is found guilty or until the target is a broken and bankrupted person. Unlike a despot, to be sure, where actual threat to life and limb are quick and capricious, but no less a tyranny, the rule of law practiced by determined prosecutors can prove relentless to even those found Not Guilty.

Or perhaps Saddam Hussein will go free after a Not Guilty verdict, free to enjoy exile in a sympathetic European or Middle Eastern state or, worse, in Iraq to lead an opposition of sorts to the new government. Perhaps Saddam would age and die without returning to power, but his figure would remain sympathetic and iconic for his followers to illustrate that the Western rule of law is weak if it allowed such an evil man to remain unpunished.

Regardless of whatever dark potential outcomes one can postulate about a Not Guilty verdict for Saddam Hussein, one cannot ignore that this trial does present a sterling example for the Middle East of the rule of law and the court system we use in the Anglosphere. However, this trial has every opportunity to expose and highlight the flaws of our system. Although these flaws exist within the system, their exposure during the Saddam trial will elevate and reverberate and ultimately discredit our efforts to transform the Middle East. Because if Saddam is Not Guilty, in some light, we must be.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:26 PM   0 comments

 
Not The Press Release We Were Looking For
You know it's too late to sell when the company issues the press release entitled Savvis says CEO didn't expense lap dances:

Telecom carrier Savvis Communications Corp.(NasdaqSC:SVVS - News) on Monday said that its chief executive did not seek reimbursement for $241,000 in charges he allegedly incurred during a visit to a trendy Manhattan strip club.

That tab is at the center of a lawsuit filed last week by American Express.

The credit card company on Thursday filed suit against Savvis and its CEO Robert McCormick, saying they were two years late in paying charges McCormick rang up on his corporate credit card at Scores, a well-known New York strip club.

Gentle reader, please click the tipjar link, for my retirement is not forfeit.

Well, not really. I still have all those shares I exercised when I left the startup company I worked for. Oh, wait....


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:20 PM   0 comments

 
Meanwhile, Upon Another Blog
Draft Matt Blunt 2008: Phyllis Schlafly Looks Closer To Home


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:20 PM   0 comments

 
Where Will We Get Scotch Tape?
Wilma Kills 6 in Fla.; 6M Without Power

What do you mean, thats 3 Ms too many? Oh....


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

 
Pardon My Blue Color
But I am holding my breath awaiting a Spanish court's war crimes indictment of journalist-targeting Iraqi terrorists.

I anticipate losing consciousness long before we get any such officialesque sanction, much less disapproval.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:23 PM   0 comments

 
New on Draft Matt Blunt 2008
Matt Blunt Ex-Communicated, Not Allowed In Right To Life Club House

Libertarianish voters might think that's not a bug, it's a feature

Guiliani-Blunt 2008. I'd punch it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:22 AM   0 comments

 
Good News of a Sort from Nigeria
'More than half survive' Nigeria crash:

The wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in central Nigeria has been found, and more than half of the 117 people on board are reported to have survived, officials said.

As Quality Assurance professional who's extremely conscious of the contingencies required to successfully keep a tube of people aloft, I'm not encouraged that aviation in the United States has seen its safest three years in history nor am I comforted that we've not had a major airline crash domestically in years. Because when one of those birds comes down....

A fifty-fifty shot at survival in the rare event that an airline crashes? That brightens my flying mood considerably. Because an aircraft crash that is not an automatic death sentence is much better than an aircraft crash that is. No matter how rare they remain.

Update: Ah, man. Headline amended to 117 killed in Nigeria plane crash


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

 
Opposed
I oppose the Miers nomination.

And you gentle readers might have wondered if I even care about national or international politics given the recent topic matter on this blog. With the neophyte nature of this nominee, her closeness to the Bush administration, and the better choices available, I can't help but think she got the job for reasons other than she's the best choice.

See also:

• Truth Laid Bear call to a stand
  
  
• Truth Laid Bear current results
  
  
• Robert Prather seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths the sentiment
  
  
• John Cole is another sexist elitist

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:30 AM   0 comments

 
Post-Garage Sale Refrain
Those $30 Space Invaders and Asteroid cabinets must not have worked.
Those $30 Space Invaders and Asteroid cabinets must not have worked.
Those $30 Space Invaders and Asteroid cabinets must not have worked.

Because if they had, I would have had to buy them out of principle. So I didn't even ask, because of course the owners must have known the real value of working games. So I didn't heed the spontaneous stories in my mind that would have explained it....such as their belonging to the woman's ex-husband....and drove away.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 AM   1 comments

 
Not the Music I Would Have Chosen
But Nissan has placed The Cardigans' "LoveFool" under its new Altima commercials, with the chorus repeating:

Love me love me
say that you love me
fool me fool me
go on and fool me

Hardly something to fill consumers with confidence about a product.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:29 PM   1 comments

 
Chavez Hearing Voices Again, Pronounces Them Intelligence
US planning invasion, says Chavez:

Washington officially sees Hugo Chavez as an unfriendly leader Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, says he is in possession of intelligence showing that the United States plans to invade his country.

In a BBC interview, Mr Chavez said the US was after his nation's oil, much as it had been after Iraq's.

But he stressed that any invasion would never be allowed to happen.

Some circus is one clown short.


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

 
$17,000,000 Doesn't Get Much These Days
What can local and state governments expect for $17,000,000 in giveaways to large corporations to keep their plants open?

Not a whole hell of a lot:

Two years ago, Ford Motor Co.'s assembly plant in Hazelwood survived plans to close it after an intense state and community campaign persuaded the company to keep it open through 2007.

Now, the Hazelwood plant may be forced to run a similar gantlet after Ford rolls out a restructuring plan late this year.

Excess production capacity continues to weigh heavily on the automaker. The plant in Hazelwood, where about 1,450 people work, is among the company's most vulnerable facilities.

Never fear, though; the local and state governments are ready to spring into spending to throw bad taxpayer money after bad:

Still, it's too early to speculate about the Hazelwood plant's future, said Hazelwood Mayor T.R. Carr. He's a member of the Ford Hazelwood Task Force, the group of state and local politicians, business and labor leaders formed in 2002 after Ford announced it would close the plant.

"What is 'obvious' is not necessarily true," Carr said. "There are a lot of decisions that are up in the air for Ford right now."

The region needs to focus on building a business plan that will encourage Ford to bring a new vehicle to replace the Explorer at the Hazelwood plant, he said.

We've spent $12,000 per employee already to keep those employees working for a coouple of years; soon, we will have spent the equivalent of a full college education for each (in state tuition for public universities, but hey, it's an education). What equivalent amount of money will be enough? Masters degrees? Doctorates? Eventually, Ford will close the plant, and the money will be just as lost.

Not that it's the government's job to develop business plans, but I'll help, no consulting fees attached: you know what kind of business plan calls for spending more and more money on a failing proposition? A bad business plan.

Let's return to Carr for the most appropriate, although inappropriately so, metaphor:

"It's kind of like (Cardinal baseball player Albert) Pujols ... the game's not over, and we're going to stay at bat until we secure a future for this plant," he said.

Timely, sir, and it connects with the little people too unintelligent to see what bull you're selling.

Unfortunately, Albert Pujols' ninth inning home run in game five of the National League Championship Series only saved one game, forestalling the Cardinals eventual loss to the Houston Astros by a single game and a couple of games. Much like your business plan and next set of tax incentives will delay Ford's decision to close the plant for another short interval; but if it's in Ford's best business interest to close the plant, it will close the plant.

Perhaps it's time to let the air out of the Keynesian tires and abandon the plant on the side of the road.


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

 
Obviousnessity
What could make telephone conversations better? Commercials:

In a few short years, consumers can expect to make telephone calls for free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees, eBay's chief executive said Wednesday.

I assume that's how the advertising would work. Of course, carriers already make money on transaction fees--like charging you money for each call you make--but I'm not the one trying to make a press release out of an expensive acquisition that won't really revolutionize communications as much as one would hope to convince shareholders.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:10 PM   0 comments

 
You Don't See That Every Day
And you probably wouldn't believe it if you did:

Police said the woman had spent Monday at the house on Mimika, and on Tuesday morning she went on her way and homeowner went to work. The woman obviously returned, and broke out a kitchen window, unlatched it and tried to crawl through, police said. But the window had a second latch that permitted it to raise up only so far, and the woman became wedged and later died, police said.

In her struggle to free herself, her pants came off, police said.

Right.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM   0 comments

 
You Call That An English Degree?
My score: 13.333 out of 100.

(Link seen on National Review's The Corner.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:19 PM   2 comments

 
Caption That Whiteboard
Dramatic recreation of detritus only mostly erased from a whiteboard in the conference room:



Ladies and gentlemen, start your captioning. Here's my first, to get you in the mood:

The human genome is safe from software engineers, as they fail to grasp basic Mendelian genetics.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:29 PM   2 comments

 
Because I Have Too Much Time On My Hands
Draft Matt Blunt.

Pop-Up Mocker.


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

 
Abashed Pragmatism
Man, bird flu needs Tamiflu. For four years, I've been stocking the Cipro for nothing....


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

 
The Secret The Tabloids Won't Share

Katie Holmes is pregnant with Nick Lachey's baby, which explains the breakup with Jessica Simpson.

I mean, for crying out loud, it's obvious. But the tabloids won't tell you because they're in bed with the celebrities they cover, regardless of whatever they tell you. And the stars' publicists won't let the tabloids reveal the real secrets.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:57 PM   0 comments

 
Why Do We Hate Them?
The street is, in fact, rising up and attacking popular propoganda's convenient targets: neo-Nazis:

A crowd protesting a white supremacists' march Saturday turned violent, throwing baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalizing vehicles and stores, and setting fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said.

When Mayor Jack Ford and a local minister tried to calm the rioting, they were cursed for allowing the march, and Ford said a masked gang member threatened to shoot him.

At least 65 people were arrested and several police officers were injured before calm was restored about four hours later.

Ford blamed the rioting on gangs taking advantage of a volatile situation. He declared a state of emergency, set an 8 p.m. curfew through the weekend, and asked the Highway Patrol for help.

Funny, but isn't this the reason why Hollywood changes villains in movies from actual threats in today's world--such as radical Islamists (think The Sum of All Fears)--to Nazis? Because the better-minded amongst us don't want hooligans and vigilantes to attack the people depicted in the movie as unrepentant evil?

Well, I guess Hollywood might be right about its impact on popular sensitivities, and it can rest assured that the themes it espouses don't deal with contemporary evils, but instead continue to dish propoganda which demonizes a movement which has caused sporadic violence but which was last a credible global threat sixty years ago.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:51 PM   0 comments

 
She's Got A Point
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "We never even watched that film.
And you don't recall, I said I hate Katherine Hepburn."
And I said, "Well, it was someone else then."


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:52 PM   3 comments

 
Legality Obstacle to Overcome for Law Enforcement
Another municipality says "Lights, Camera, Revenue!" Or it would, if it can only overcome a couple of obstacles:

The St. Peters project has two big obstacles - its cost and the possibility that tickets generated by the system could be thrown out of court.

Good to know law enforcement works as hard to circumvent the law as lawbreakers.


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

 
America Works Best When We Say Union Yes, Unless You're Union Worker
Lohr dispute heats up as strikers lose jobs:

A labor dispute at St. Louis city beer wholesaler Lohr Distributing Co. has turned uglier after Lohr told strikers that they've lost their jobs to permanent replacement workers.

The move complicates any settlement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents the drivers. They've been on strike for nearly five months.

Maybe a couple more instances like this will help fatcat union leaders remember that their slush funds are fatter when they manage to keep their union members employed, and perhaps some concessions might be necessary in that effort. A good job is a good job, and apparently Lohr like Northwest Airlines before it, didn't have any trouble filling those jobs for lesser terms.


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

 
The Value of Proofreading
Angels leave Colon off ALCS roster


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

 
American Airlines Extorts, Wheedles
It was bad enough I had to suffer through the American Airlines CEO's column in the September in-flight house organ, but now the company has commissioned a study to indicate that if it loses its government-enforced monopoly in Dallas, everyone will pay:

A push by Southwest Airlines to increase flights from Dallas Love Field could trigger a reduction of service by American Airlines to Lambert Field and a number of smaller cities in Missouri and Illinois, according to a study made public on Monday.

The study labeled Lambert as at "moderate risk" to lose a small number of American flights.

However, Gerard Slay, deputy director at Lambert, said he doesn't expect any impact, describing the study's discussion of St. Louis as a "what-if scenario."

American commissioned the study by Eclat Consulting Inc., an aviation-consulting firm in Reston, Va., in what has become a bruising battle over a federal law that limits direct flights by Southwest from Love Field to most of the country.

Here's how American will put the hurt on our particular region:

If American's hub at Dallas/Fort Worth were to shrink, however, there would be fewer connecting flights, resulting in reduced service to smaller communities that rely on the airline's extensive network as their link to the world.

Such a development, the study said, would hurt towns such as Kirksville, Mo., and Quincy, Ill. These towns rely on federally subsidized service provided by American affiliates that fly under the banner of AmericanConnection, the Eclat study said.

"Hub degradation would take place, making marginal routes unprofitable," said Eclat's president, William S. Swelbar. "Inevitably, those routes would be eliminated."

Of the 11 daily flights between Lambert Field and Dallas/Fort Worth, five could be lost, Swelbar said. While three of those five flights could be shifted to Love Field, travelers would see a reduction in the number of connection flights, he said.

So that's the loss of a government-enforced monopoly, increased competition, and a reduction in government-subsidized flights? American The impartial third party Eclat presents this as a nightmare scenario, but to me it looks like a dream come true. Now if the bloated, incapable-of-adapting carrier collapses before sucking off any more government "loans" and without pushing its employee liabilities off on taxpayers, I will awaken disappointed.

UPDATE As Mr. Hill notes in the comments, the threat or promise has been heard elsewhere. Google News helps prove the "reduced flights" extortion has been targeted to:

• McAllen, Texas
  
  
• Hell, all of North Texas
  
  
• Arkansas
  
  
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Flood the zone, AA, flood the zone.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:23 PM   2 comments

 
St. Louis Blues Answers Its Questions
With the departure over the last seasons (and particularly this last year) of its offensive players, many sports fans wondered where the Blues would get goals this year.

Tonight they answered the question.

In games against Chicago.

Well, that's not much of an answer since it only restates the obvious.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:39 PM   0 comments

 
Urban Planning Yields Its Fruit
When "team of architects, urban designers and engineers charged with making the city's downtown shoreline more than just the space underneath the Gateway Arch" get together to spend the public's money, you know the result is going to be absurd:

"The theme of the design is really to put the people in contact with the river," said Diana Balmori, a New York-based landscape artist who led the design project. "As much contact as possible."

Her design certainly provides that - any more contact with the river would require a snorkel.

The vision is to have the riverfront extend into the river itself onto two groups of floating islands that reach into the water like a pair of giant butterfly wings. The islands, which would be connected by floating bridges, would feature walking paths, bike trails and even a swimming pool that would be converted to an ice skating rink in the winter.

Purple, green, red and yellow lights could illuminate the islands, with both island groups shaped in a curve mimicking the Arch. Eero Saarinen's monument would then be literally and figuratively reflected in the river.

The hope, Balmori says, is to bring people back to the river that played a defining role in shaping what St. Louis is today.

Balmoni said that whenever people find themselves surrounded by water, it's "magical."

Of course, the defining role the river played and the contact people had was industrial and logistical. Loading barges, unloading barges, and acting as a hub for agricultural and manufactured goods as they came into or left the middle of the country.

But urban planners who concoct revitalization plans around entertainment venues, sports teams, and shimmering parks on the hill might not know why these things continue to fail to revitalize urban centers. Perhaps they instinctively create money-wastrels that will fail, as their continued struggle against urban decay does keep the money flowing into the teams, the commissions, and the districts from which they draw their own paychecks.

You want to revitalize downtown St. Louis? Remove onerous restrictions on business, reduce taxation, and rebuild the infrastructure. You know, smooth streets, better fire and police and fire protection, and the other things only government can provide. But the governors, too, know that they don't get as many contributions from individual citizens as they do from the unelected Elect, nor do they receive luxury boxes and buffets for schools that maintain accreditation without a revolving door of administrators.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:16 PM   0 comments

 
Because Heather Didn't Have Any Work She Needed To Do Today
StuffOnMyCat.com


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:12 PM   0 comments

 
The Man Is A Punchline
Jesse Jackson:

Jackson said President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, is overseeing reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, and that he and others in the White House are using Katrina to push their political agenda. He said black, Democratic-leaning voters have been radically dislocated and are being kept in "permanent exile."

"Karl Rove is a political reconstructionist" who wants to "change the character" of Louisiana politics from the mayor's office to its congressional representation.

As if the Rove machine would try a simple diaspora when they could turn the dial to tsunami or earthquake and kill all Democrats in Louisiana.


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

 
When High School Spanish Fails You
Sure, I offended the leader of the client's parent company. But I thought surely the feminine version of CEO was CEA.

Who wouldn't?

UPDATE: Also, note that neither are actually pronounced like see-oh or see-ah. You have been warned.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:33 PM   0 comments

 
Remiss
He Who Is Not To Be Named Because He Got A Job And Doesn't Want To Get Googled is blogging again.

Maybe he never stopped and I am just late to the party.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:02 PM   0 comments

 
Too Much Information Alert
But if you must know, gentle reader:


You're Marilyn Monroe!

What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Link seen on Suburban Blight.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   1 comments

 
What I Want For Christmas: A Lead Carrying Case For My Cellular Phone
Missouri: State Spies on Drivers Through Cell Phones:

The Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones -- without their knowledge or consent.

Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the system which triangulates the location of each driver by monitoring the signal sent from the cell phone as it is handed off from one cell tower to the next. Each phone is uniquely identified and the information is compared with a highway map to record on what road each motorist is traveling at any given time. The system also records the speed of each vehicle, opening up another potential ticketing technology.

I don't know how trustworthy of a source this is, but apparently Radley Balko believes it. Even if this story isn't true, it's only a matter of time.

Makes the picture below more appropriate, no?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:55 PM   1 comments

 
My First Trip to New York, Short Version, Chapter 4
Here's a photo you never see anywhere else, a MfBJN exclusive:



I understand that the view was much better before former Attorney General John Ashcroft forced the park services to put the robe on.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:37 PM   1 comments

 
A Long Winter Indeed
The St. Louis Make Dos continue their tear through the NHL, going up by two goals twice on the San Jose Sharks before succumbing to a 6-7 loss in regulation. By the rules of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I am required to post the logo of the victor here, as Rocket Ted himself believes in the inevitable domination of his beloved:

Trash talking is encouraged, huh? Best I can say is that our goalie was better than their goalie; if Nabakov had seen as many shots as that guy currently occupying Freddie Braithwaite's number for the St. Louis Blues, statistically speaking the Blues would have won by a score of 12-7.


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

 
Taxation Litigation
More fun with government units suing each other to prevent funding cuts, with a twist: this time it's the courts themselves threatening to sue:

Chief Judge Kitty Brennan is telling Milwaukee County supervisors that they could face a lawsuit on court funding unless they restore judicial and court staffing that County Executive Scott Walker has pegged for elimination in 2006.

Perhaps I'm not really up on the Wisconsin constitution, but the way I thought it was supposed to work is the legislature raises and allocates funds with some discretion to the executive branch.

But I'm not a power-grabbing judge.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:18 PM   0 comments

 
My First Trip to New York, Short Version, Chapter 3


Old joke:

Young man: Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?

Older man: Well, if you're coming from downtown, you should take Madison Avenue up to 57th and hang a left. Oh, you could take Fifth, but it bogs down in the thirties and forties. If you're coming from the Upper West Side, you can take Broadway down to 57th if you're comfortable with Columbus Circle, or you can take Ninth Avenue down if you want a stoplight....

You know, even now that I've been to New York City, I still don't get the joke.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:39 AM   0 comments

 
The Great Magic Marker Felony
Magic Marker used in commission of felony:

Students at Kirkwood High School provided information to police that helped lead to the arrests of four teenagers in the scrawlings of a racial slur and a swastika at two schools, police said Friday.

Kirkwood Police Chief Jack Plummer said officers picked up the teenagers, one of whom is a juvenile, on Thursday and Friday on suspicion of vandalism and a hate crime, a felony. Plummer said officers sought one more suspect.

The slurs were discovered Aug. 29 near the south entrance of Kirkwood High and at St. Paul's Lutheran School in Des Peres. Officers said the scrawlings, made in permanent marker, were a curse word, a racial slur and a swastika at Kirkwood, and a swastika at St. Paul's. The scrawlings included the phrase "the kings," a reference to a band the suspects like.

Well, then, it was permanent marker, so lock them all up for five years!

The magic hate crime designation multiplies every crime, no matter how trivial, into a felony. Say nigger, and it's free speech. Say kike while throwing a gum wrapper on the ground as you pass a synagogue, and you're penitentiary-eligible.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:33 AM   1 comments

 
Judicial Activism in Family Courts
Owen at Boots and Sabers has the story of an Appleton judge who assigns custody of a minor to an inappropriate institution.


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

 
Book Report: What's It All About, Charlie Brown? by Jeffrey H. Loria (1968)
I bought this book at a garage sale some aeons ago, and it languished in my eleven boxes of eBayable books that I'd held in reserve in case I accidentally opened a book store. As I prepared to divest myself of these investments, I picked over the collection one final time for books I might want to read, and I settled upon this book and probably several dozen others. Because at my pace, I am scheduled to run out of reading material on my shelves sometime in 2009, and we can't have that.

Whenever I go on vacation, I fill up the bag with quick read paperbacks. When we went to NYC last weekend, I packed this one, and it didn't disappoint. Short chapters filled with Peanuts cartoons make for a quick but interesting read.

The book contrasts the Peanuts gang with the kids today--from 1968, remember--and finds the kids today lacking. The Peanuts kids respect their elders, go to church, recognize the value of education, and love their families; kids today just want to get high and paint their bodies in San Francisco parks. So I thought I was looking into a book describing the epistemology of Peanuts, and I end up with a pre-Hannity conservative tome. Not that I am complaining; it's an interesting historical document for starters, and also an accessible book that relates art to philosophy in a non-scholarly way.

Perhaps the book proved more accessible to me than it would to someone of today's generation; I had a Snoopy electric toothbrush and remember wwatching seasonal animated television specials featuring Charlie Brown. Have newspaper comics faded in the contemporary age? Dilbert remains popular, The Boondocks remains controversial (but popular? Hmm...), and Day by Day gets blog attention, but who even reads the comics in the newspapers today? Pardon me while I project.

Also, the book sharpened some dulling trivia about the Peanuts gang. I mean, I'd forgotten Violet, but she was an important foil to Charlie Brown. And I know the ages of the kids--five years old or thereabouts. Any book that provides useful trivia is a good book, especially when it costs a quarter or less and takes a little more than a three hour flight to read.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:56 AM   3 comments

 
Declaration of Manhood

No necesito huevos de tortuga!

(enabled by Ace of Spades, the Robert Bly of our age.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:15 AM   2 comments

 
Conan the Barbarian Special Governor's Cut
Mongol General: "What is best in life?"

Conan: "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, to hear the lamentations of their women, and to protect their children from video games that depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel."


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

 
Sure, Tell Me I Am The Only One
Look me in the eye when you say that you have never taken a hazardous chemical cleaning or lubricating agent that you cannot pour down the drain and have to pay for disposal to an acquaintance's house and tucked it under their sink or set it on a shelf in his garage when he wasn't looking.

I guess El Guapo knows where he got that orange juice bottle full of olive-colored automotive coolant now.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:57 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: All These Condemned by John D. MacDonald (1954)
All These Condemned is very similar to A Man of Affairs; both deal with business affairs and backstabbing that go on in luxurious locations and someone ends up dead. In this case, it's a wealthy cosmetic company diva who enjoys toying with and manipulating her friends and employees.

MacDonald did something a little different with this book, wherein each chapter comprises the action leading up to or following the murder as seen through the eyes of one of the people at the lake resort of Wilma Ferris. With no single voice and the recursive nature of the storytelling--as each person retells a portion of it--the book becomes a cipher, hard to get into and almost plodding in its slow build-up to the climax.

Still, it's interesting to see MacDonald riffing with characters, timeline, and whatnot. But I don't recommend the book highly.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:56 PM   0 comments

 
ESPN Columnist Does Not See Shadow, Predicts Early Spring
At least for me:

9. The 0-4 Green Bay Packers will win the NFC North.

OK, the division might be the worst in the history of the league, but I envision the Packers going 8-4 or 9-3 the rest of the season. The Packers are not as bad as their winless record.

Had the Packers huddled and taken their time before their final fourth-down play against the Carolina Panthers, Brett Favre and the Packers would've finished off their rally and upset the Panthers on Monday night.

The Packers will win their next three -- vs. Saints, at Vikings, at Bengals -- and finish the season on a five-game winning streak -- at Bears, vs. Lions, at Ravens, vs. Bears and vs. Seahawks. In between those strings of victories, they'll grab a win on "MNF" against the Vikings.

Will the Packers still fire Mike Sherman after he leads them to a division crown? Probably.

Me, I will be happy if they just beat the Bears and will fall into ecstatic shock if they beat the Vikings. Anything else is gravy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:52 PM   0 comments

 
Long Winter Redux
According to the bylaws of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I have to put up the logo of the Detroit Red Wings because Quality Weenie has that team in the Jamboree, and the St. Louis Who?s lost this evening, 3-4, at The Arena Whose Corporate Sponsor Bailed, So It Has No Name Like Its Hockey Team Has No Ownership And Little Talent.

I really wanted to pick the Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL again, but none of the other hockey jamboree participants picked AHL teams, and I wanted to fit in. This is the price I pay.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:42 PM   0 comments

 
World Trade Center Graffiti


Good to see the people behind the International Freedom Center had alternate plans.

You can find this particular gem of wisdom on a dark Post No Bills temporary construction wall just north of the former site of the World Trade Center. In case the author of this simplistic moralism--a member of the reality hemp-based community--should find through Googlism his or her words immortalized here, allow me to point out some finer flaws with the point he or she is trying to make:

• It's Jesus's job to love everyone, not mine.
  
  
• I don't hate the people of the individuals who destroyed the World Trade Center, et al. However:
  
  
• If someone wants to kill me or my people for some abstract reason, or even for an acute reason, I'd prefer that person be incapacitated or killed. No hatred involved.

But nice try. Now go back to work; I don't want my tax-funded State Department employees slacking off.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:17 PM   3 comments

 
It's Going To Be A Long Winter
According to the bylaws of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I have to put up the logo of the Detroit Red Wings because Quality Weenie has that team in the Jamboree, and the St. Louis Who?s lost this evening, 1-5, at Joe Louis Arena.

There you go. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:02 PM   1 comments

 
Development Will Occur Whether Unelected Officials Want It Or Not
Manchester mayor expects retail center will happen:

In a tie vote, the Manchester Tax Increment Financing Commission declined Tuesday to recommend that the city approve the Manchester Highlands shopping center project - and the tax increment financing plan that would go with it.

The six members of the commission appointed by city officials favored the Pace Properties Inc. project. The six members appointed by other jurisdictions, mainly St. Louis County and the Parkway School District, opposed the proposal.

Aldermen are expected to consider the commission's action at a meeting Nov. 7. Mayor Larry Miles said he expected the project to move forward anyway.

This isn't taxation without representation at all. It's reduction of taxation without representation, and although it does place a larger tax burden on the non-Elect amongst us who don't have the juice to impress municipal officials, it completely adheres to the founding philosophy of our nation. Also:

Some city-appointed commission members urged Pace to avoid using eminent domain to get land for Manchester Highlands. Doug Huff, vice president of Pace, said his company generally avoided its use.

As a mere citizen of a former representative democracy, where governments exercised emininent domain and other rights ceded to governments by its citizens, I supplicantly plead that Pace also not raise an army and compel me to shop at its little principalities scattered among the formerly free city-states that comprise what was the United States of America.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:14 PM   0 comments

 
Stopping Bob Greene Cheap Shots the Hard Way
Columnist charged with domestic battery:

Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member Neil Steinberg was arrested at his home late Wednesday and charged with striking his wife during an argument.

Steinberg was charged with domestic battery and interfering with the reporting of domestic battery, both misdemeanors, Northbrook Police Sgt. Tony Matheny said.

I've enjoyed Steinberg's column for years, but one thing I've disliked is when he's made cheap shots on Bob Greene, former columnist for the Chicago Tribune for a slightly sordid but legal adulterous dalliance with a teenager. Now he's got his own troubles and material for cheap shots from people who disagree with him.

There's a lesson to be learned from this, gentle reader. Unfortunately, it kinda eludes me, and I expect I, too, will continue to be snarky until my own wife beating comes to light.

Please, gentle reader, send me flowers when my beautiful wife puts me in the hospital.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:30 PM   0 comments

 
Democrat Two Step

1. Declare something a fundamental right:
   
   
   San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who became internationally known for his campaign a year ago to legalize gay marriage, said on Monday he considered wireless Internet access a fundamental right of all citizens.
   
   Newsom told a news conference that he was bracing for a battle with telephone and cable interests, along with state and U.S. regulators, whom he said were looking to derail a campaign by cities to offer free or low-cost municipal Wi-Fi services.
   
   Wi-Fi is a short-range wireless technology that is now built into most laptop computers and is increasingly offered on handheld computers and certain mobile phones. Local officials are mulling plans to blanket every nook and cranny of this hilly city of 750,000 residents with Wi-Fi access.
   
   "This is inevitable -- Wi-Fi. It is long overdue," Newsom told a news conference at San Francisco's City Hall. "It is to me a fundamental right to have access universally to information," he said.
   
   
2. Fund it with tax dollars--or do you want to roll back all civil rights and repeal the right to vote for blacks???!

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:26 PM   2 comments

 
Up Hill Both Ways
Back when I was a young man, we didn't have CDs or the Internet. If we wanted to play video games, we spent all night typing the programs in from magazines.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:24 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: The Night Spider by John Lutz (2003)


I inherited this book from my aunt; she paid fifty cents for it at a yard sale, probably to resell on eBay. She would have gotten a pretty good deal on a common thriller had she been inclined to read it. Hey, I liked it well enough. As some of you know, John Lutz is a St. Louis writer who sets his Thomas Horn novels in New York City. I thought it would be a fitting read for a St. Louis writer visiting New York City.

Thomas Horn has to come back to the force to investigate a serial killer who kills young, attractive, single women in high rise apartments by coming in through their windows. That's the plot, and it's a serviceable book. But I not only read this book for the enjoyment, but also the do nots I can apply to my own writing, and I picked up a big set from this book:

• Do not spend a lot of time, or start the book, with an intimate profile of victims. Their problems and frustrations will ultimately prove meaningless as they're killed imaginatively. Now, I have a lot of problems and frustrations, and I don't need the perspective that they're all meaningless because I might be killed imaginatively. Also, I think the trick wastes space and the reader's time.
  
  
• Avoid describing characters by saying they look like celebrities. That's a cheap shortcut. Who cares if the problematic and frustrated by (allegedly) attractive young woman looks like Helen Hunt? In a couple of pages she'll be deader than Helen Hunt's career.
  
  
• The psycho super Special Forces/black ops antagonist. Come on, that's been low-hanging fruit since World War I or World War II and accelerated by Viet Nam. How about a couple psycho super special vegans for once?
  
  
• Grafting on a Part II as an afterthought so to involve the rest of a special forces team who murder to cover for the psycho? Don't do it.

Even with those lessons, it's a decent enough book. If you're into suspense or St. Louis authors, you could do worse.


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

 
My First Trip to New York, Short Version, Chapter 2
Wherein Heather channels Homer:

Mmm, De Beers


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

 
My First Trip to New York, Short Version.
It's all fun until your hotel catches fire.




- posted by Brian J. @ 4:55 PM   3 comments