Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
 
What Kind Of Blogger Are You?
Dustbury asks, sorta, and I answer in comments:
    I tend to be more of an eighth type of blogger, the search-phrase blogger, who derives most of his traffic for weird fetishes explainable only by combinations of seemingly random terms.
Sad, but true: Although I've been doing this rather steadily for 2.5 years, my beautiful wife draws more traffic because of her legs than I do for my wit.

You see? You clicked the link above because I sorta said "beautiful legs."


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 PM   3 comments
 
Some Libertarians Up There Love Me
A shout out to Kevin Craig for Congress, the official blog of the Libertarian candidate for Missouri's 7th District.

I was formerly listed as a Republican Blogger in the sidebar, but I see now I'm a Missouri blogger. Thanks, Jake (the Missouri Libertarian), for not pigeonholing me. Remember, although I've never had a Republican candidate for Senate at one of my parties, I did keep up drinking with the Libertarian candidate for Senate at my thirtieth birthday party.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:01 PM   1 comments
 
In Retrospect
How would it have benefitted the psyche of certain segments of the population if the National Weather Service had indulged Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and had hurricanes Keisha and Reanne hammered the Gulf Coast this year?


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 PM   4 comments
Monday, November 28, 2005
 
The Officer Feared For His Life
Sure, it was a deer, but it had big fangs:
    A St. Louis police officer fatally shot a deer on Sunday evening after it had apparently wandered from the Mississippi River to the construction area of the new Busch Stadium, authorities said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:04 PM   0 comments
Sunday, November 27, 2005
 
Noggle Asks, Drudge Answers
WHITE HOUSE PLAN IF SADDAM FOUND 'NOT GUILTY' (Drudge flash, so pardon me when it goes dark in the next 20 minutes):
    Senior Bush administration officials have considered the unthinkable: What if Saddam Hussein is found not guilty in his trial?

    "There will be more charges filed against him, and more charges after that, if needed... he has committed tremendous crimes," a top Bush source explained last week from Washington.
We at MfBJN speculated on this possibility: What If Saddam Hussein Goes O.J.?:
    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.
A fine beacon of rule of law, indeed.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:46 PM   0 comments
Saturday, November 26, 2005
 
No Blood for Wheat!
What, no moonbat conspiracy theories to fit this fact?
    With an improved trade environment and financing tools, Iraq has become the second largest buyer of U.S. wheat.
That, my friends, is agricultural imperialism at its worst: we're making the Middle East a dumping ground for our cheap, efficiently produced foodstuffs. Wouldn't it be better just to let them starve?


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:24 PM   0 comments
 
An Unamerican Thanksgiving
Coming from, of all things, the Macy's Day Parade, we have this stunning display of unAmericanism:
    During its live coverage of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, NBC did not tell viewers that a giant balloon had caught on a street lamp and injured two sisters.

    ...


    Sarah and Mary Chamberlain, 11 and 26, were hit by the debris. Sarah needed nine stitches to her head, and Mary, who uses a wheelchair, suffered a bump on her forehead.

    Their father, Stephen Chamberlain, called it a freak accident and said the family didn't plan to sue. He said his daughters are looking forward to the special VIP seating Macy's offered them for next year's parade.
But that's free money, and someone (else) has to pay! What is this country coming to?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 AM   0 comments
Friday, November 25, 2005
 
Military Deployments the Left Can Support
The War On Animal Abuse:
    U.S. troops found two cheetah cubs _ one of them blinded _ being forced to fight each other for the amusement of jeering children in this dusty, forgotten village.

    The soldiers of the U.S. counterterrorism task force for the Horn of Africa were in the region carrying out humanitarian work when they came across the three-month-old cheetahs "performing" at a restaurant run by Mohamed Hudle. The Djibouti-based task force provides intelligence-gathering help to countries in the region, tries to bolster cooperation and border protection, and mounts humanitarian projects aimed at improving the U.S. military's image among Muslims.

    The troops provided medical treatment to the blinded cub, fed them both and tried to persuade Mohamed to hand them over to wildlife officials. They contacted U.S.-based cheetah experts as well as Ethiopian authorities.
Expending treasure and the blood of American troops to liberate the oppressed in the Middle East, feh. But dying to save cute widdle animals?

Bring. It. On.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:14 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
 
LILEKS PLEADS GUILTY TO OBSTRUCTION OF GEEKISM CHARGES!
James Lileks on Monday:
    As a wise giant said in "The Princess Bride" – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
James Lileks recants yesterday:
    And yes, I attributed the "Princess Bride" quote to the wrong hero. At least the number of people pointing that out exceeded the number of people who thought Vonnegut made some brave points. There’s hope. See you tomorrow.
I demand a special prosecutor convene a grand jury to determine why Lileks' story changed. He was holding out, trying to mislead Congress and the American people, and should serve time in a Federal prison like every other public conservative who makes a mistake!


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 AM   1 comments
 
At Least Sanford Wasn't On The Cover of an EA Sports Game
The Los Angeles Kings beat the St. Louis Blues last night, 6-3, so here's that logo again:
Los Angeles Kings logo


Once again, Brandon has smack to talk.

But unlike Machelle, I face up to as many Blues defeats as I can actually keep straight and adhere to the rules of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree and post logos in a timely fashion because if the Blues aren't ashamed of themselves, neither am I.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:04 AM   0 comments
 
Why I Don't Read Nick Mamatas
Two excerpts from the article entitled "Why I Write Horror and Why You Might Want To" in the November 2005 The Writer:

1:
    I learned what horror was when, for a school assignment, I read All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I had never read anything where anguish and the moral implication of the reader in the death of the protagonists were the goals of the story. Not that I was so sophisticated that I understood the effect; all I knew was that if everyone over at the United Nations would just read Remarque's nocel, we'd have no more war, as the world leaders would finally know what they're putting the world through.
2:
    If it [the theme of his novel Move Under Ground, which depicts Jack Kerouac saving the world from Cthulhu] sounds familiar, it's because that's the world we live in now, where, as I write this, the media has millions of us more concerned over the collapse of Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Anistan than we are over the mounting body counts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Horror is a genre in which the novel of ideas and the social novel are still alive and well.
Here I was trying to glean some insight into writing horror, and I get politics. Perhaps Mamatas even got around to comparing George W. Bush to Azathoth or Karl Rove to Nyarlathotep, but I didn't complete the article.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:32 AM   0 comments
Monday, November 21, 2005
 
Geek Checking Lileks
Lileks in today's Screedblog:
    As a wise giant said in “The Princess Bride” – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Lileks is a geek pop culture poser!!1!! It was the Spaniard who said that as the Dread Pirate Roberts' ship caught up with Vizzini near the Cliffs of Insanity, not the giant!

(Pardon me as I cling futilely to the cultural touchstones of my generation of geeks; as The Princess Bride nears its 20th anniversary, I realize a whole generation of geeks grew up after it.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:37 PM   4 comments
 
They've Got An Awful Lot of Coffee in Brazil
Frank predicted this story: "Brazil free school breakfast menu to offer coffee":
    Brazil's coffee industry has brewed up a plan to serve up to 1 million schoolchildren a free breakfast -- complete with a cup of java.

    Brazil's Coffee Industry Association (Abic) is seeking the support of 50 roasters to launch a pilot "Adopt-a-School" programme to feed breakfast to 1 million Brazilian school children aged 6 to 18.
It's best not to dwell upon what the Brazillian Rubber Industry Association provides the children in Rio de Janerio.

(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:31 PM   0 comments
 
If the Title's Right, Hire On Sight!
Forget the Most Holy and Exalted Overlord of Quality title I already got, I want this one:

Sr Anal Software Testing


Senior Anal Software Tester. Hopefully, that's anal-retentive, not some sort of Java-In-The-Butt application.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:27 PM   1 comments
Sunday, November 20, 2005
 
That Line Wrapping Around the Block Must Be For the New Harry Potter Movie
Keen insight from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Sylvester Brown:
    I'm convinced there isn't a politician around today with the chutzpah to challenge the powerful Bush machine.

    There should be. Especially now that President George W. Bush's administration is besieged with allegations and scandal. Critics claim the president manipulated evidence in a rush to war while key members of his administration are under investigations for spitefully blowing the cover of a CIA agent. Then there's the fact that more than 2,000 soldiers have died in a war that (according to recent polls) more than 60 percent of Americans feel has been mishandled. Heck, members of his own party are even circling wagons of self-preservation.
Must be that Muthra, Reid, Pelosi, Kennedy, Kerry, Leahy, ad al and et absurdum, just lack chutzpah. No, they've got chutzpah. Perhaps they just lack moxie.

Or their simplistic rhetorical backfilling falls upon American ears who understand principles or lack thereof.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:23 PM   0 comments
 
Deviation from Requirements Is Bad
Ask any QA or Project Manager, and they'll agree. So will the St. Louis region as it tries to stomach hundreds of millions of dollars in tax overruns because Metrolink light rail feature creeped and people continued to tinker with design after the development began.

But it's public money and public/private partnership, so nobody will get fired, which is the important thing.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:18 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Christine by Stephen King (1983)
I inherited the hardback edition of this book from my aunt, whose first anniversary of her death is coming up next week. As I continue reading these books, part of her remains with me, but fortunately it's her taste in books and not her unrelenting fury in the form of possessed books. Because man, that would be creepy, and if my books rose up against me, I would be in trouble, as I'm outnumbered several thousand to one.

But onto Christine. As anyone alive through the 1980s knows, Christine is a possessed old car. Since I'd only seen a single scene from the movie version, that's about all I knew. The story is more than a rehash of The Car, as it begins with a pair of friends who spot the car on the way home form work one day. As the more nerdesque of the two takes possession of the car, it takes possession of him, and it begins killing those who offended him.

It's a Stephen King, so it moves quickly as his masterful foreshadowing pulls you along. The story combines growing up with terror as many of his books do, and it's worth a read if you're one of the other fifteen fourteen other readers alive in the eighties who has not yet read it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:06 PM   0 comments
 
Spooky....Coincidence?
Speaking of Christine, St. Louis has suffered its own spate and spite of demonic vehicles with minds of their own killing and mayhemming: Demonic possession....or demonic passive voice?


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:00 PM   0 comments
Saturday, November 19, 2005
 
Geek Cred Compromised
From Overtaken By Events, we have a revelation that shakes the MfBJN Geek Cred to the core. Of the UK Guardian's top 20 Geek books, here's what I have read (books I've read in bold):

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92)
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54)
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54)
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47)
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 43% (44)
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38% (37)
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34% (35)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33)
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick 34% (32)
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31% (29)
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27% (27)
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson 23% (21)
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham 21% (19)

Yikes. That's 35%, although in my rather feeble defense, I have The Illuminatus Trilogy and Microserfs on my shelves to read. Take a moment, though, to reflect upon the recent nature of most of these books; my formative years and most intense teenage geekification took place before they were published.

Additional rationalization: I was an English major, so my directed learning and self-improvement impulses lead me to heavier works (although pound-for-pound, the Illuminatus Trilogy is up there).

Forget it; I am just making it worse.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:43 AM   4 comments
 
Query on the Blogoschism, Wherein Brian Joins the Navel Gazing That Only Appeals to Other Bloggers and Not Casual Readers
Does the whole Open Source Media imbroglio (briefly touched on at The American Mind), with its partisans shrieking that it's great and it's made a couple of mistakes but it's going to revolutionize the blogosphere and its antagonists mocking it as a means of funnelling venture capital and advertising revenue from the rich to the leaders of Open Pajamas Media at the expense of the lesser serf blogs in OPM....

Does this strike anyone else as a sincere, authentic recreation of The Alliance of Free Blogs versus the Axis of Naughty?

This new medium has indeed re-written things. History has repeated itself first as comedy, then as tragedy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:48 AM   1 comments
 
AOL Manufactures Friends For You
Some people, me included, were a little peeved when America Online added its advertising bots to all Buddy Lists this week:

AOL's making friends for you


I mean, it's bad enough we have full volume flash ads on the Buddy List window with the obligatory mouseover pop under ads and the insistent AOL Today or their equivalents, but now we get AOL adding things to our Buddy List. What's next? Removing other bots for its advertisers' competitors or banning screen names with product names in them? Or is it....the "Words In Your Mouth" campaign?!

AOL puts words in your mouth


How far fetched is this? Don't think about it, because it's not.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 AM   0 comments
 
If Called, I Will Serve
If my home state needs me, I will serve in the invasion of Illinois. That is, if Wisconsin and Chicago have a war over water, my side is clear.

And just in case you wonder, I would have had to come down on the side of Kilbourntown in Milwaukee's Bridge War because I'm from the northwest side.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:18 AM   0 comments
Friday, November 18, 2005
 
Headline on the Day
Reluctant victim sees priest get 20 years

No word on what the willing victims saw.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:50 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
 
Book Report: Bag Limit by Steven F. Havill (2001)
I bought this book at the Seasonal 80% Publisher Price Store in Springfield. Suddenly, it occurs to me that it wasn't last autumn....it was two years ago. Wow. I paid $4.00 for the book by the unknown-to-me author because I was in an orgy of spending.

Within the text, Sheriff Bill Gaston of Posados County, New Mexico, is enjoying the night air of his county when a car full of drunk teens strikes his parked car. The driver takes off across the scrub, but Gaston and his undersheriff--who's standing for election the following week--know where the boy lives, as he's the undersheriff's cousin. But the boy tries to flee again when the sheriff apprehends him at home later, and the boy dies as he falls into the path of a truck while escaping. Gastner wonders why the boy is running so hard to get away from the police for an accident that hurt no one.

The book definitively takes a retrospective, somber tone, as Gastner's planning to retire and this book might represent a conclusion to the Sheriff Bill Gastner series. I came late to it--this was the first I've read--and don't know the characters that well, but that didn't really hurt my experience. However, its meandering tone reflected a lot of time on the reminiscing and very little on the investigation of the crime. Perhaps the book is looking to be serious fiction with a crime in it, but it shouldn't be a series mystery then.

But it wasn't a bad book. It's one of several I've read this year set in the southwest (Killing Raven, Cyber Way, Appaloosa, and so on), so I'm beginning to want to travel down there and see how the books have captured the flavor.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM   0 comments
 
Take One For The Team, Taxpayers
Kansas City gets Super Bowl -- on one condition

You can guess the condition: Missouri taxpayers pony up to sissify Arrowhead Stadium by putting a roof on it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 PM   0 comments
 
Can Ball Cameras Be Far Behind?
Supervisors vote to require neutering of pit bulls, mixes:
    San Francisco supervisors unanimously approved a set of ordinances Tuesday requiring the neutering or spaying of an estimated 7,000 pit bull terriers and pit bull mixes in the city.

    The legislation, sponsored by Supervisor Bevan Dufty, also will set new restrictions on the breeding of pit bulls, requiring breeders to obtain a permit from the city. People found violating the requirement to have their dog neutered or spayed could be fined up to $1,000.
One must wonder if this particular law means all currently endowed male dogs must be disenfrankcized. One suspects, given how much respect San Francisco has for other tenets of the United States Constitution, that legal protections like ex post facto don't apply there either.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:25 PM   0 comments
 
When You Go Ad Absurdum, Go All Ad Absurdum
Maybe None: Is having a child -- even one -- environmentally destructive?:
    Knight is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, an informal network of people dedicated to phasing out the human race in the interest of the health of the Earth. Knight, whose convictions led him to get a vasectomy in the 1970s, when he was 25, believes that the human race is inherently dangerous to the planet and inevitably creates an unsustainable situation.

    "As long as there's one breeding couple," he says cheerfully, "we're in danger of being right back here again. Wherever humans live, not much else lives. It isn't that we're evil and want to kill everything -- it's just how we live."

    Knight's position might sound extreme at first blush, but there's an undeniable logic to it: Human activities -- from development to travel, from farming to just turning on the lights at night -- are damaging the biosphere. More people means more damage. So if fewer people means less destruction, wouldn't no people at all be the best solution for the planet?
One could apply Knight's sound--but hardly valid--logic to all of life itself, since every herbivore on the planet eats weeds and damages their life cycles, and every damn weed on the plant sucks nitrogen out of the soil and changes the environment.

Why stop at living processes? Why, rain erodes landmasses! Solar flares irradiate uninhabited planets! Novae char!

The only solution is to embrace nullity!

Anything less is inconsistency.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:17 PM   0 comments
 
Maverick Math
McCain: Pentagon spending 'unsustainable':
    Republican Sen. John McCain Tuesday said the massive Pentagon budget for the war in Iraq can't be sustained because of the need to replace weapons.

    "We have unsustainable defense spending," said McCain, a chief proponent of military acquisition reform. "Refurbishment or replacement sooner than planned is putting further pressure on DOD's investment accounts. We cannot sustain the number of weapons programs that are in the program of record."
However, Medicare spending and a new drug benefit are different. Whereas each dollar spent on a bullet or a bomb gets used up when that bomb or bullet is used up, each dollar of health tax dollars extends the life of someone who will need another dollar of tax dollars tomorrow.

The more they succeed, the more they cost. Unlike wars.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:10 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
 
Yahoo! Bomb
Apparently, this blog is the only search result on Yahoo! for:

"how to get your wife to agree to a threesome"

Buddy, shouldn't you have asked her if she wanted children before you married her?


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:54 PM   0 comments
 
Plucky Hero Faces Obstacle
Interesting narrative that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would seem to offer with a headline like this:

Eminent domain faces roadblock in Creve Coeur

Except that the poor roadblocked practice is the mechanism by which a local government seizes property from the little guy for things like the entertainment complexes about which the Post-Dispatch routinely crows.

Because face it, citizen, you don't buy ad pages like the casinos, sports venues, or go-cart tracks do.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:01 PM   0 comments
Saturday, November 12, 2005
 
Sign of the Apocalypse, Or A Good Idea?
Wine in juice boxes:

Vendange Shiraz

I guess I'll have an answer after I crack it open.

UPDATE: Less flavor than MD 20/20, but all of the class.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:05 PM   3 comments
 
Book Report: The Book of Lists #3 by Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Irving Wallace (1982)
Apparently, this book is only available in hardcover on Amazon for $55, but I bought my copy at the Carondolet YMCA bok fair for $1. So if I wanted to resell it, I could list it on Amazon for an exhorbitant amount, pay whatever monthly fees Amazon offers, and not sell it.

I read the first Book of Lists in high school, and I've always enjoyed the mixture of trivia and somewhat wry commentary; however, some decade after I read the Book of Lists 2 and The People's Almanac, I've noticed more acutely the leftward lean of the authors. I mean, I know they did The People's Almanac and its red cover in paperback should have been a tip-off, but I was a boy then and I'm a libertive now, so I'm probably more aware of it. Published in 1982, it's chock full of Reagan-is-evilism, and one must recognize that the book was written when Reagan had been in office under two years and had spent part of that time recovering from a gunshot wound. The book includes lists for the first things the environmentalists would ban if they could, for crying out loud. Blech.

Still, it's a good enough read as it contains enough trivia to help me keep ahead of the regular Trivial Pursuit adversaries and it allows for synthetic thought (Alcatraz closed in 1963? That's only 13 years before The Enforcer, which means the memory of Alcatraz would have been fresher to contemporary movie viewers than grunge is to current pop culture....).


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:12 PM   0 comments
Friday, November 11, 2005
 
Governor, Philosopher
Headline of the day: Blunt asks for query into death

Hopefully, the government can find some answers, such as Is there an afterlife? Is there any purpose to life other than laboring to feed the gaping maw of government coffer?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:35 PM   0 comments
 
Great Moments in Fiscal Restraint
Talent's amendment could save Boeing C-17:
    Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., on Wednesday introduced a $7 billion amendment to a defense spending bill, aiming to keep open the St. Louis production line for Boeing's C-17 transport plane.

    Pentagon officials recently alerted Congress of their plan to stop buying the plane.

    The amendment by Talent authorizes the Air Force to buy up to 42 C-17s in the next few years. It also calls on the military to keep the line open until the need for more "lift" aircraft to deploy and sustain forces abroad is assessed.
Gee, I wish my wife would authorize me to continue spending money until we determined whether or not I really needed to.

Next time I am voting for the Libertarian.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:29 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
 
Old School Music Buyer
Yeah, why buy one song online for $.99 when I can go into an actual store and buy the song for $9.99 plus tax on an album which includes 17 songs I've never heard and might not even listen to once I've got the album ripped into iTunes?

I'm old school, baby.

(Now, please don't ask me why I bought a Bee Gees album in the first place.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:54 PM   2 comments
 
A Definite Referendum on Bush
As every other election today was some sort of referendum on how the public perceives Bush, this one must be no different:
    Today is the last chance for White Settlement residents to vote on a charter change to rename the city West Settlement, a controversial proposal that has drawn nationwide attention.
How is it a referendum on the president's aggressive strategy of fomenting regime improvement in the Middle East?
  1. It takes place in Texas.

  2. It's about progressives changing a name from White something to avoid offending tender sensibilities.
If the name changes, undoubtedly it heralds a return to Democrat super-majority in Congress and the impeachment of everyone in the line of succession who is not a Democrat. Cue the happy music!


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:49 PM   0 comments
 
City of St. Louis Says, "Good Luck, You're On Your Own"
Sign, downtown St. Louis:

Park Smart - Store your Valuables Out of Sight sign in downtown St. Louis
Park Smart - Store your valuables out of sight


I grieve this sign, for it announces that the city of St. Louis cannot protect your car from break ins and that it's easier to go after the potential victims to indirectly admonish them for making themselves available for criminal activity. I mean, sure, it's a good idea to store your valuables out of sight, and it's an even better idea to not keep valuables in your car and to keep your doors unlocked so the criminal element won't have to break the windows to look for their absence.

But why lament the powerlessness the city of St. Louis embraces by spending money on these signs? That's counter-productive. Instead, I offer if not my support, than my other suggestions for further signage, including:

Look Smart
Don't make Eye Contact
with the
Muttering Shambler

Dress Smart
Don't Ask
for It,
You Tramp

Drive Smart
Lock your Doors
and Don't Stop
Until You Reach Clayton

Because I, too, am a helpful city booster.

(Feel free to offer your suggestions in the comments.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:12 PM   1 comments
Sunday, November 06, 2005
 
Second Verse, Same as the First
By the rules described by the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I must once again post the Red Wings logo to placate Michelle and David, who selected that team whereas I selected the St. Louis Blues and that team, like all other NHL teams and a couple of high school girls field hockey teams, j.v. at that, continue to beat the Blues like a bongo at a San Franscisco coffee shop circa 1967:




- posted by Brian J. @ 10:44 PM   1 comments
Saturday, November 05, 2005
 
Cronyism in the White House
Say a politician wins the presidential election and then installs his little brother as attorney general. Would never happen, ainna?

Already did, my fellow young people. Already did.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:41 PM   0 comments
Friday, November 04, 2005
 
Safety Warning
When out for a romantic evening with your spouse, choose "If You Wanna Be Happy" at the karaoke bar at your own risk.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:55 PM   3 comments
Thursday, November 03, 2005
 
Another Public and Private Partnership Triumph
In Oakland:
    It's official. The deal that brought the Raiders back to Oakland 10 years ago is an unmitigated disaster. At Wednesday's news conference announcing the extinction of personal seat licenses, city and county officials smiled bravely.

    And why not? It's better than crying.

    As it stands right now, Oakland is clinging to the Raiders with a hope and a prayer, neither of which have proved to be an especially effective tactic in dealing with Raiders owner Al Davis. The team's lease on McAfee Coliseum expires in 2011, which means it has until then to complete one of the greatest marketing turnarounds in the history of the NFL or the team will almost certainly leave.

    As Davis said at the news conference, "We have a deal we can live with -- at least for the next five years."

    Now there's a rallying cry.

    The facts are these: Personal seat licenses, which were supposed to painlessly and effortlessly retire the $200 million bond issue used to spiff up the Coliseum-Arena complex, were the worst idea since drafting Brigham Young University quarterback Marc Wilson. The licenses not only weren't selling, they were less popular than the Denver Broncos. Even the stopgap idea, proposed by several pundits, that the Raiders should take the 10-year licenses and turn them into lifetime licenses, wasn't going to fly.
So a professional sports team has screwed its fans with the "Personal Seat License," nothing more than a convenience surcharge on the convenience surcharges inherent with buying season tickets, and has screwed its host city with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

And the cities come back for more.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:30 PM   0 comments
 
Profit Tax On Media Companies!
An era of record movie prices, record newspaper prices, and record cable television rates coupled with increasing revenue?
    Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media company, reported an 80 percent increase in third-quarter earnings Wednesday and raised its stock repurchase program to $12.5 billion from $5 billion in an effort to meet shareholder demands to lift its slumping stock price.

    The New York-based company, whose properties include the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, CNN, a major cable TV company and Time magazine, posted net earnings of $897 million versus $499 million in the same period a year ago.
Time to levy a federal punitive tax on these businesses! After all, what's good for the oil companies should be good for the media companies who cheerlead immoral (even if rendered not illegitimate by faux populists in the legislature) profit confiscation and redistribution, ainna?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:28 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
 
Sensitivity Note
To spare the feelings of afflicted persons, this blog shall hereafter refer to the little Irish men in green with pots of gold as Hansensdiseaseachauns.

Thank you.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:20 PM   1 comments
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
 
Book Report: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King (1999)
I inherited this book from my aunt. She might have read it, she might not have. Almost a year after her death, I cannot remember whether she particularly liked Stephen King amongst her reading within the horror genre.

This book chronicles the story of a nine-year-old girl who gets lost in the Maine Woods and is stalked by something called the God of the Lost. She has only her wits--inflated through the magic of fiction--and Tom Gordon, her hallucinated rendition of the Boston Red Sox reliever.

Pretty much, that's it. It's a short story for King--a mere 210 pages--but it moves along quickly and draws the reader along with its simple Girl against Nature (and Girl against Supernatural, or maybe Girl against Herself) conflict and its long paragraph descriptions. King could probably write a shopping list and make it compelling and enjoyable reading. As it stands, his hike one day inspired a story that kept me preoccupied a couple of nights.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:35 PM   0 comments
 
Burning Villiages, Saving Villiages
Senator Harry Reid has confused them again:
    "I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Democratic leader Harry Reid said.

    Taken by surprise, Republicans derided the move as a political stunt.

    "The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," said Majority Leader Bill Frist. "They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas," the Republican leader said.

    Reid demanded the Senate go into closed session. The public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed, and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.
UPDATE: Just to be clear, and more pithy, always beware the elected official who, on your behalf and for your own good, does things behind closed doors or without telling you what it is. One would almost expect the elected official to add, furthermore, that it hurts him/her more than it hurts us.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:10 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."