Another Dead President Heard From
Hey, all the cool news agencies are doing it. Why not MfBJN?

Hussein had problems with Bush Iraq policy

BAGHDAD(AP) -- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein questioned the Bush administration's rationale for the U.S. invasion and war in Iraq in interviews he granted on condition they not be released until after his death.

In his embargoed July 2004 interview with The Daily Mirror, Hussein said the Iraq war was not justified, the Mirror reported Saturday night.

Hussein "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as continuing the lucrative, er, punitive sanctions, much more vigorously, the Mirror's Peter Arnett wrote. The story initially was posted on the newspaper's Internet site.

"I don't think I would have gone to war," Hussein told Arnett a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion.

In the tape-recorded interview, Hussein was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. A sovereign leader should never justify; they should merely invade their neighbors and execute any dissidents," Hussein said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error that they should justify what they were going to do."

In an interview given with the same ground rules to the New York Daily News last May, Hussein said he thought Bush had erred by staking the invasion on claims he had weapons of mass destruction.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:00 PM   1 comments

 
The Persistence of MGM
A number of years back, I signed up for the MGM newsletter as part of a contest entry or something. Every so often, one of the newsletters hit my e-mail box, and I deleted it without reading it. Finally, I decided to save myself the step of manually erasing the unread by unsubscribing to the marketing missive.

I clicked through the unsubscribe link and entered my e-mail address. A thank you page displayed and assured me I would be removed.

Meanwhile, a pop-under displayed:



An invitation to subscribe to the newsletter from which I just unsubscribed.

Those kids at MGM are ever the optimists, ainna?


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:28 PM   0 comments

 
Thank You, Kelo
St. Louis proves that it owns all land, and private "owners" are just squatters. In its eyes, anyway.

St. Louis' redevelopment agency sued a convent, a saint, a nun and an elderly woman in a wheelchair who has a 999-year lease on Friday, seeking to use eminent domain to condemn a property in the Ice House District north of Soulard.

City officials hope the area will be a hip entertainment district one day, but first they have to remove stubborn landowners and tenants.

St. Louis city officials have no shame. Starting with Rodney Crim, Executive Director of the St. Louis Development Corporation (314-622-3400 extension 300), to Mayor Francis Slay (contact), the overreaching, power-mad political class is the blight upon St. Louis that no land seizures for hip venues will solve.

Stripping a convent of land for nightclubs. EVICTING THE ELDERLY AND THE INFIRM FOR NIGHTCLUBS.

Nightclubs that might not come, for a redevelopment effort that will probably fail.

No shame.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:29 AM   0 comments

 
Saddam Gets The Date Graphic
CNN, reporting on Saddam Hussein's execution, gives Saddam the dark date graphic saved for statesmen and celebrities:



Me, I'm trying to figure out how a tyrant gets this. Pinochet didn't when he died a couple weeks ago. Is this reverence reserved for cause celebres that one in the media would hope reflected badly on America, or the Bush administration?

I am so cynical.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:47 PM   0 comments

 
You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato, Post-Dispatch Says Victim
Police shoot 15-year-old. The headline leads one to think that just maybe the police do this routinely to keep in practice. Perhaps the officers were mistaken and were scheduled this week to shoot a 16-year-old, but they all look so adult these days.

Any precipitating circumstances. Not really, if you're a Post-Dispatch reporter:

St. Louis police shot and killed a 15-year-old after the kid jumped out of a fleeing truck and pointed a handgun at an officer Friday afternoon, said Chief Joseph Mokwa.

Just a normal kid in the street, cut down by an insensitive police force.

What, you accuse me of hyperbole? Here's how the Post-Dispatch characterizes the urchin in the last paragraph:

Mokwa said the truck had been rented in outstate Missouri, but police were unclear why the victim was inside it. Police were still seeking the driver of the truck.

Perps who pull guns on the police are victims to our friends at Lee Enterprises, apparently.


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

 
Riddle
Question: How can I tell if I'm going to get a new bunch of anonymous comment spam?

Answer: You get a Yahoo! Site Explorer hit for http://www.freewillblog.com from an ISP in India!

Okay, it's not much of a riddle, but most of the comment spam I've gotten in the last couple months comes through this avenue. I'd expect it's actually some poor Indians typing anonymous comments and hand-keying the captchas, but it's odd that they're very, very consistent in looking for blogs that refer to Free Will Blog.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:48 PM   0 comments

 
Another Wisconsin Community Prepares For War
We hope the last minute diplomacy works:

In the season of good will, the Mukwonago village president has approached the town chairman with a new proposal for a town-village boundary agreement, attorneys say.

After years of failed negotiations, Mukwonago Village President James Wagner has met for breakfast in recent weeks with Vernon Town Chairman Alan Kunert to discuss a possible permanent boundary, Village Attorney Shawn Reilly said Wednesday.

We all know how disputes between small Wisconsin communities often turn out: War.

But at least it breaks up the long winters.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:16 PM   0 comments

 
Discordance In Normalcy
In a story entitled Woman, 57, is shot, killed on her porch, we have these rich nonsequitors:

A neighbor said he had heard a gunshot about that time but didn't see anything unusual.

"This is a very quiet neighborhood," Capt. David Dorn said. "This is very unusual for this neighborhood."

Neighbor hears a gunshot. In this very quiet neighborhood. Nothing unusual.

I wonder what my neighborhood rates on the very quiet neighborhood scale.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:37 AM   0 comments

 
All Journalism Is Creative Writing Now
Kudos to AP, who found a way to turn Gerald Ford's death into a means to flog the Bush administration:

Former President Gerald R. Ford questioned the Bush administration's rationale for the U.S. invasion and war in Iraq in interviews he granted on condition they not be released until after his death.

In his embargoed July 2004 interview with The Washington Post, Ford said the Iraq war was not justified, the Post reported Wednesday night.

That takes skill and effort. Or lack thereof.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:35 AM   0 comments

 
Some Pretext Not Necessarily Better Than None
In Alaska, a woman suspected that a package had been delivered to her old residence by mistake, so she called the current resident. Current resident said he didn't know anything about it. So the woman called the state police, and they searched the man's home.

Sure, the troopers found a cornucopia of drugs in the man's home, but that leads me to think he might have been under suspicion and the misdirected package provided a mere pretext for a search. But still, we've lowered the bar to the point where suspicion of a misdirected package can lead to a police search warrant.

Aw, who am I kidding? The police do this sort of thing based on the uncorroborated tips of informants.

The story seems to indicate that the woman got her Avon samples back, though. Well, she will, after they're done being evidence in a trial.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 AM   0 comments

 
Year's Reading In Review
With the last post, I'm calling an end to this year's enumeration of reading. 2006ish stands at 89 books, which is probably far less than I bought at book fairs.

These books include:

• The Empty Trap by John D. MacDonald
  
• The Executioners by John D. MacDonald
  
• Mine the Harvest by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  
• Johnny Mnemonic by Terry Bisson
  
• The Museum of Hoaxes by Alex Boese
  
• Suspects by William J. Cannitz
  
• Wild Pitch by Mike Lupica
  
• The Olympics' Most Wanted by Floyd Conner
  
• Peking Duck by Roger L. Simon
  
• 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg
  
• The American Private Eye: The Image in Fiction by David Geherin
  
• Sea Change by Robert B. Parker
  
• Pet Sematary by Stephen King
  
• Collected Stories by Franz Kafka
  
• Under the Grammar Hammer by Douglas Cazort
  
• The Wealthy Writer by Michael Meanwell
  
• Planning and Remodeling Family Rooms, Dens & Studios by Sunset Books
  
• The Brass Cupcake by John D. MacDonald
  
• The Substance of Style by Virginia Postrel
  
• Blood Relatives by Ed McBain
  
• The Hanged Man's Song by John Sandford
  
• Servant of the Shard by R.A. Salvatore
  
• Gerald's Game by Stephen King
  
• How to Break Software by James A. Whittaker
  
• Slightly Chipped by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone
  
• Warmly Inscribed by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone
  
• The Case Against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan
  
• The Stainless Steel Rat for President by Harry Harrison
  
• Bosstrology by Adele Lang and Andrew Masterson
  
• Bump & Run by Mike Lupica
  
• Blowback by Bill Pronzini
  
• Everybody's Guide to Book Collecting by Charlie Lovett
  
• His Affair by Jo Fleming
  
• Sharky's Machine by William Diehl
  
• The Baby in the Icebox by James M. Cain
  
• Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe
  
• Aftermath by LeVar Burton
  
• Expecting by Gordon Churchwell
  
• Poison by Ed McBain
  
• The Life of Charlemagne by Einhard
  
• Escape from Reason by Francis A Schaeffer
  
• California Roll by Roger L. Simon
  
• Ice by Ed McBain
  
• You Might Be A Redneck If by Jeff Foxworthy
  
• Existentialism and Human Emotions by Jean-Paul Sartre
  
• Vespers by Ed McBain
  
• Blue Screen by Robert B. Parker
  
• Lloyd What Happened by Stanley Bing
  
• Sinbad's Guide To Life (Because I Know Everything) by Sinbad with David Ritz
  
• Big Trouble by Dave Barry
  
• In Someone's Shadow by Rod McKuen
  
• Stars and Stripes Triumphant by Harry Harrison
  
• And Then She Was Gone by Susan McBride
  
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Rupert Holmes
  
• I Ought To Be In Pictures by Neil Simon
  
• The World's Most Infamous Crimes and Criminals
  
• RPG World Wolume One by Ian Jones-Quartey
  
• How to Break Software Security by James A. Whittaker and Herbert H. Thompson
  
• Barrier Island by John D. MacDonald
  
• The Golden Gate by Alistair MacLean
  
• Shopgirl by Steve Martin
  
• Executive Blues: Down and Out in Corporate America by G.P. Meyer
  
• Small Felonies by Bill Pronzini
  
• TV Now: Stars and Shows by Dorothy Scheuer
  
• The Priest-Kings of Gor by John Norman
  
• The Nomads of Gor by John Norman
  
• An Alien Heat by Michael Moorcock
  
• Unsolved Mysteries of the Past Reader's Digest
  
• Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain by Eric R. Delderfield
  
• The Way to Dusty Death by Alistair MacLean
  
• The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais
  
• The Night Crew by John Sandford
  
• Hundred Dollar Baby by Robert B. Parker
  
• Whodunits
  
• Assassin of Gor by John Norman
  
• The Spy Who Never Was & Other True Spy Stories by David C. Knight
  
• The Mystery Reader's Quiz Book by Aneta Corsaut, Muff Singer, Robert Wagner
  
• Nice Girls Do And Now You Can, Too by Dr. Irene Kassorla
  
• Emma by Jane Austen
  
• Sons of Sam Spade by David Geherin
  
• Ballroom of the Skies by John D. MacDonald
  
• Thunderball by Ian Fleming
  
• As Long As You Both Shall Live by Ed McBain
  
• Twice in Time by Manly Wade Wellman
  
• Word for Word by Andrew A. Rooney
  
• Selections from Stars! by Daphne Davis
  
• Ancient, My Enemy by Gordon R. Dickson
  
• The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Fourteenth Series by Avram Davidson (ed)
  
• Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith
  

I'll not trouble you with hyperlinks, gentle reader, but if you want any of the reviews, you can do a Google search using site:stlbrianj.blogspot.com and get what you want.

In review, this year's total includes:

• 5 John D. MacDonald books
• 5 Ed McBain books
• 3 Robert B. Parker (the new ones this year)
• 3 John Norman Gor books
• 2 Roger L. Simon Moses Wine novels
• 2 Alistair MacLean novels from the 1970s
• 2 Bill Pronzini novels featuring the Nameless Detective
• 2 David Geherin nonfiction books about crime fiction
• 2 Harry Harrison novels of science fiction
• 2 James Whitaker books about software testing
• 2 John Sandford novels, neither of which featured Lucas Davenport
• 2 Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone books about book collecting
• 2 Mike Lupica books
• 2 Stephen King books

So I guess I trend toward crime fiction, or at least I hover around crime fiction books I like. I read two bits of classical fiction (Emma and the works of Kafka) and some smart nonfiction (Existentialism and Human Emotions and The Life of Charlemagne).

This year, I can break my books down in my memory into several comfortable reading locatons:

1. In my blue recliner in the old Casinoport house, with a cat on my lap and a gas fire roaring.
   
   
2. In that blue recliner in the lower level of the new Old Trees home, listening to jazz with a cat on my lap.
   
   
3. On the sofa on the main level of the Old Trees home, in the early months of Ferris Drooler's life amid his frequent feedings.
   
   
4. In the living room of the upper level of the Old Trees home, after Dr. Fussamongstus has gone to bed for the evening.

Many of these books prompts a distinct memory that books in 2005 and 2007 will not.

Still, my collection of unread books is large and varied. I don't know what to tell you about 2007, D, but I'll probably read a bunch of John Sandford's Lucas Davenport novels and some Søren Kierkegaard.

As for my other 2006 goals, suffice to say I didn't do as well as I did on reading. But there's always tomorrow.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:07 AM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith (2006)
I bought this book at Webster Groves Book Shop for full price, gentle reader; yea, verily, I spent $13.95 plus tax on this book whereas I could have bought it online for the low, low price noted below or some smaller price at a chain bookstore because I live in a smaller town now (surrounded by St. Louis suburbs) and need to support the local merchants. Why, my very wife suggested I write down the ISBN numbers of books I was interested in so we could order them online, but I resisted, because I don't think that's playing fair to the small content stores we were frequenting that day. I did, however, put down most of the $60 in books I'd picked up since I already own thousands of unread books already.

But I did buy this one, especially since its back cover promised:

A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat--a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded--brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands.

That and the title promised me something the book was not.

For starters, allow me to say that the writing is good. It's vivid, it describes something that I haven't seen well enough that I want to see it. However, it's themetically vapid.

It sounds as though the book is designed so that it will describe a lot of encounters with bad men and thrilling pursuits in the wilderness. The first chapter itself lends itself to that, with an encounter with a drug-addled badman who, after a party on the beach, tries to throw a baby through a car window after an argument with the baby's mother (driving the car). After a brief search, the rangers find the man when he wanders back onto the beach and collapses of an overdose. This, the first chapter, provides most of the excitement of the book.

Afterwards, the chapters include incidents that serve as springboards into the author's opinion on environmentalism as filtered through the California state bureaucracy. The actual noir incidents occur in the flashbacks of reports to which author had access, and the book presents them in reverse order of their excitement. The author talks to someone who is following up on a cold case featuring a sheriff's deputy who might have killed his wife and buried her in the park. The author goes on into the history of his current station, scheduled to be underwater when they build a new dam, and then the chapter is over, with nothing resolved. He only talked to the guy opening the cold case and looking for the grave of the missing wife.

When the author has a woman claim rape from a miner in the park, and the miner is beaten within inches of his life by the woman's boyfriend, the author goes into the history of mining and the impact of the gold rush on the natural area around the park. Oh, yeah, the woman's boyfriend might be making meth in an abandoned mine. The author fills in the appropriate papers and turns it over to the sheriff's deputies, but he doubts anything will be done.

And so on, and so forth. About 100 pages in, I realized that the book I'd expected, based on the title and the back cover, were not forthcoming. I turned to the acknowledgements and saw someone told the author he could make a good essay out of his experiences. Hell, yes, he could have, but it's a heck of a stretch in a memoir termed noir and promising encounters with bad men. Instead, I was treated to a number of chapters describing the history of the particular park and a subtle indictment of civilization for impacting the beauty of nature.

Aw, screw it. Or so I think the author said about chapter 10 ("Weak as Water"). Following some reminisce of accompanying parents of a drowned boy to the site where he drowned (not actually the drowning itself, which the author was nearly present for, but the accompanying of the parents to the site later), the author writes chapter 11 about a trip to an abandoned camp of a miner who was ornery. Before the camp was abandoned. Never mind, the scenery is lush and the trip to the camp mildly exciting as we read about damming upstream and its impact on the whitewater river impacted by miners in the previous century. But the camp is abandoned. And then we get the unvarnished rant.

In chapter 11, the ranger gets Lyme disease and abandons his dentist and job, and not in that order. Or maybe in that order. Lyme disease mucks with the narrative, and I was skimming. I mostly skipped the Epilogue, whereing the Mighty Heroes of California Environmentalism blocked continuation of the dam (putting Sacramento at risk, but from the chapter where the author recounts his fruitless search for a missing woman and the history of a flood that threatened Sacramento, I know he'd rather Sacramento drown than The Wilderness be spoiled). Maybe it did. I don't even think I skimmed the last bit of the epilogue.

Well, there you have it. The book disappointed me greatly. I expected some dynamic tension of the ranger as a hallmark of civilization in the wild, cognizant of the folly of modern man and sentimental for the disappearing wilderness, but this fellow seems to root against civilization. Period. Also, let it be said that the Mariners trade paperback edition is on cheap paper and oddly enough smells of a freshly sharpened pencil every time I open it. I'm savaging this book especially on the account of the publishers who sent me into a genre I wouldn't like. I liked the sound of the book from its title and its back cover so much I almost bought the book next to it at Webster Groves Book Shop because it sounded similar, but with a different bent. But thanks to this book, I'm leary of dabbling in this genre again. I bought this book in late November and bought it a month later--that's phenomenal by MfBJN standards. But this one tome might have killed my interest in the genre of modern ranger novels.

In a personal note for Jordan Fisher Smith when he Googles himself: Dude, you write well, and I hope your Lyme disease is better. I didn't like your book.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:53 PM   0 comments

 
Finally, AP Gets Its Headline
U.S. Toll in Iraq Surpasses That of 9/11

Now, with that Grim Milestone™ out of the way, can we get on with continuing to win?

Not so that you'd know it from AP reports.

(Thanks to Ann Althouse for the direct link, since the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a different story linked from the home page with that headline, so I couldn't direct you there.)

UPDATE: James Joyner provides other useful metrics.


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

 
Life Imitates MfBJN Satire
MfBJN, September 2, 2006:

The two figures on the right; they're falling forward, arms splayed out and in a grimace of pain as though they've been shot in the back by unknown assailants while trying to flee.

Life, Christmas 2006:

A security guard for MetroLink is reported in serious but stable condition today with a gunshot wound suffered at the Delmar Station, police say.

It brings miscreants to quiet suburbs, offers a locus for gunfire, scares off the normal people, and costs tax money for subsidies. Is there anything light rail cannot do?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:02 AM   0 comments

 
Doesn't That Stray From Core Business Competencies?
Best Buy opens first China outlet

Because when you think of fine dinnerware, you think of Best Buy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:00 AM   0 comments

 
An Arthur C. Brooks Christmas Moment
I'm sure it's only tangentially related to the Albert C. Brooks-described mindset (Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism), but as I walked relatives out of our house after Christmas dinner, I saw that the house down the block with the "Invade Iran! No" bumper stickers and the "Invest in Peace Instead of War" yard signs had one of the local bus service's Call a Ride program vehicles out front.

Did someone call a taxpayer-subsidized, bureaucrat-operated van came to take one of the elderly or disabled guests home after Christmas dinner instead of, you know, taking that guest home?

I mean, damn.


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

 
Recycling: A Waste of Time and Resources
Michael Williams embeds the episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit! that takes on recycling here. Click over there and watch it because I'm too lazy to embed 30 minutes of video on my blog.


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

 
Book Report: The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 14th Series edited by Avram Davidson (1965)
After reading Ancient, My Enemy, I was in the mood for some more science fiction short stories from the silver age of science fiction. This collection, apparently the 14th from the heydey of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine (now back in print, apparently).

Okay, the book collects 17 short stories into 251 pages of reading, not counting the introduction that explains why it's all relevant. It's good enough short stories, and as I look over the titles, I can remember them after a week. Only one, "The House by the Crab Apple Tree" by S.S. Johnson, will stick with me at all.

Each story also includes what I suspect is the original intro bio bit from the magazine. It's interesting how many of the writers really were journeymen, dashing off short stories for a tolerable existence. A couple of them are remembered today, but most aren't. Probably only one or two of them made a really comfortable life of it. Such is the life of a real writer who has to do it for a living and not some dilettante writing short stories for fun. Today, those journeymen are working as business writers, copy writers, and technical writers, so their fame and recognition will be far more fleeting than the sales circulars and software manuals they're producing as their life's work.

Don't get me started on the life of backwater bloggers whose daily hit totals have dipped under 100 again.

Thanks for reading, and come back tomorrow for more Christmas cheer the MfBJN way!

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:35 PM   0 comments

 
Not Like Herding Cats At All
Check showtimes near you for Yuri Kuklachev and his Moscow Cats Theatre:

In the current Cats Theatre show, Kuklachev makes a hilarious initial entrance. Standing in a small, low wagon, he is pulled on stage by a cat walking on its hind legs. The production's lone dog, also on its hind legs, pushes the cart from the rear.

When Kuklachev steps out of the wagon, the dog hops in and is pulled off stage by the kitty.

A 75 minute show of cats trained to do tricks. How can a culture that can train cats not dominate the world?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:17 AM   0 comments

 
Friday Hooch Musings
Everyone has covered this study already:

Moderate drinking may lengthen your life, while too much may shorten it, researchers from Italy report. Their conclusion is based on pooled data from 34 large studies involving more than 1 million people and 94,000 deaths.

According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

I have consulted my own Personal Liquor consultant, who notes that drinking is like an IRA; if you didn't contribute when you were young, you can contribute more each year until you catch up. Which explains why I'm on the 12 a day program. To catch up for my toddler years.

Meanwhile, we have this story: Alcohol consumers turn to the good stuff:

Indeed, the St. Louis area falls into the national trend of drinkers buying better.

"It's happening across all retail channels," said Barbara Insel, managing director of MKF Research of St. Helena, Calif. "People have become more quality conscious."

One paid muser muses:

Hagnauer theorized that the trend toward pricier alcohol might be linked to an increase in disposable income.

"A lot of it is the economy, but people are becoming more educated, too" Hagnauer said.

If one were a conservative sort of fellow, one would want to start up with some sort of line of snark that begins with "Oh, the disappearing middle class with its stagnating wages are suddenly buying $20 bottles of wine every night instead of a $4 six pack of beer? Oh, really?

But I understand this really only means a quality-conscious consumer needs better liquor to dull the pain of a continued Bush administration and that the better education is no doubt product of the compassionately profligate No Budget Left Behind act.

Which leads me, circularly, to my sixth drink of the morning.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:45 AM   0 comments

 
That's No Subservient Chicken
It's not Microsoft Bob, either; it's Ms. Dewey, a Flash presentation wrapped around Microsoft's new search engine.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:54 AM   0 comments

 
Coast Guard Backs Off Live Fire Exercises
I don't know what's more frightening about this story: Great Lakes live fire a no-go:

Bowing to pressure from a wide-ranging group of critics, the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday backed off from plans to permanently conduct live fire exercises on the Great Lakes.

• The Coast Guard holds live fire exercises and thought it would be fun to do so on waters heavily trafficked by civilians.
  
  
• The Army hasn't publicly said it would not hold live fire exercises in American cities.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:54 AM   0 comments

 
More Die Hard Analysis
Devoted reader Neil sends this link after debating the Top 5 Christmas Movies: Die Hard - The Greatest Christmas Movie Ever:

Here it is, the single greatest Christmas movie of all time — no joke, no doubt, no question, it's Die Hard. And before any quibbling begins, can we agree, in general, that it’s a good movie? Seriously. Step back from the Christmas assertion for just a moment and consider the film as a whole. Die Hard is a classic.

I haven't read such insightful, stunning analysis since my last college literary criticism paper.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:49 AM   0 comments

 
That Time Of Year: Annual Holiday Repost
Brian J. Noggle's Top 5 Christmas Movies:

1. Die Hard
2. Lethal Weapon
3. Die Hard 2
4. Gremlins
5. Invasion USA

(Originally posted Christmas Eve 2003.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:03 AM   4 comments

 
A Lesser Thompson
Via The American Mind, we get this news: Thompson tests waters for presidential campaign:

Tommy G. Thompson has formed a 2008 presidential exploratory committee and brought on political advisers in Iowa as he considers a possible run for the White House.

Thompson, 65, a Republican, is the former governor of Wisconsin and U.S. Health and Human Services Department secretary. He was governor from 1987 to 2001, longer than anyone in state history, and led HHS during President Bush's first term, from 2001 to 2005. A lawyer and business consultant, Thompson has a hand in several private-sector pursuits, many in health care.

I'd vote for him, but I'm not sure I'd send him money or volunteer for him.

After all, he's not my ideal Thompson.


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

 
Missouri Courts Would Inch Marriage Closer To Actual Indentured Servitude
Apparently, a recent Missouri court decision has determined that it's your obligation, after a divorce, to maximize your income to fund your court-anointed financial duties:

If you are well paid, a parent and living in Missouri, pay special attention to this column.

That's because a recent ruling by the Missouri Court of Appeals seems to invite local courts to compel divorced parents to seek work anywhere in the world if doing so would maximize the payments they could make in support of their children and ex-spouses.

In Payne v Payne, which originated in St. Louis County, the husband had been employed as an oil trader at the time of his divorce. Based on yearly earnings of $141,000, the court set child and spousal support payments totaling nearly $36,000 per year. Unfortunately for Mr. Payne, he lost his job shortly after his divorce.

Four months later, the husband asked the court to reduce his support obligations, contending he had been unable to find a comparable job in his field in St. Louis or elsewhere, despite search efforts that reached across the nation and overseas. To support himself, he had started an antique business but was generating far less income than he had earned previously.

The courts decided that Mr. Payne had to continue working in his highly paid field, even if it meant relocating. The courts were going to dictate Mr. Payne's career and job choices, under the threat of jail time for contempt no doubt.

The lower court's decision was overturned on appeal, but still, this intervention of the courts on a citizen's career choice is galling and chilling. And frighteningly potentially prescient.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:54 AM   0 comments

 
Reflexively, St. Louisians Line Up To Shake Fists at AmerenUE
Thousands in dark after Northwest storm:

Residents of the Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm Saturday after the worst windstorm in more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least six people.

More than 600,000 customers in Washington and Oregon still had no power Saturday, and utilities said some might have to wait into next week for their lights to go back on.

Me, I blame those who have sought out the devil of electricity and who now are dependent upon its snug snake-like embrace for their own survival and happiness. Also, I curse the Tennessee Valley Authority some 70 years later for bringing power to those outlying areas that could not hold it through the slightest adversity.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 PM   1 comments

 
Office Party Hint
If you can pronounce Schlafly, you ask the bartender for another one.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:42 AM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Ancient, My Enemy by Gordon R. Dickson (1974)
Through some strange quirk of fate or ill-done packing when we moved, this book ended up on my to read shelves even though it became clear when I started it that I'd read it before. That didn't stop me from reading it again, though, so that counts as a testament to my enjoyment of Gordon R. Dickson's short fiction.

This book collects some of Dickson's work from the 1950s and the 1960s, including:

• "Ancient, My Enemy": A prospector on a distant planet who finds that one of the primitive members of the regressed native civilization has found him to be an ancient enemy.
  
  
• "The Odd Ones": A pair of intergalactic observers and philosophers who try to glean the meaning and morality of a pair of humans they encounter.
  
  
• "The Monkey Wrench": A Venutian ne'er do well hides from his socialite wife in a remote meteorological outpost and enters a risky bet with a former classmate.
  
  
• "Tiger Green": A ship and its crew become ensnared by a jungle and confounded by the natives who live in it. The four who resist a strange madness struggle to understand its source and save themselves.
  
  
• "The Friendly Man": A time traveller from the past reaches a distant future and finds a friendly man awaiting him. Suspiciously friendly.
  
  
• "Love Me True": A soldier faces trouble when he brings back a ferret-like pet from a distant planet. As he should.
  
  
• "Our First Death": The first death in a colony threatens to destroy it.
  
  
• "To the Bone": A human explorer finds an extraterrestrial vehicle on an outlying planet, only to have that vehicle destroy his ship and survival gear. The extraterrestrial intelligence underestimates the nature and ability of man at his most primitive.
  
  
• "The Bleak and Barren Land": A Colonial Representative, banished from earth and sent to a backwater planet, must handle the conflict between an advanced and inscrutable native race and the first shipload of authorized colonists on the planet.

A quick and interesting read, these stories remind me of my youth when I ate up simple science fiction stories like this. Again, like the last Andy Rooney book I read, this reminds me of the kinds of things that inspired me to become a writer. Perhaps if I spend more time with them, they'll inspire me to keep writing.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:35 PM   0 comments

 
Wine Marketers Targeting Children
BEYOND ANIMAL MAGNETISM: The lesson of critter labels: Drinkers judge wine by what's on the bottle:

Three Blind Moose, Four Emus, Funky Llamas. A menagerie of critter labels on wines has emerged in the past three years, all hoping to emulate the success of a certain Yellow Tailed marsupial. In 2005, these wines locked up $605 million in sales, and average sales of 77 new animal labels launched since 2003 more than doubled those of their non-critter rivals, according to ACNielsen. So, it seems, what's on the label does make a difference.

Put a camel on a pack of cigarettes, and you're targeting children. So I got some bad news for the wine marketing crowd when the Round All Corners Society picks up on this tidbit of research.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:01 PM   2 comments

 
Noggle Can Spoil A QA Party
When someone asks:

Can anybody define the test cases on mobile.

so he/she can use the answers in a job interview, Brian J. steps up to the plate:

Lynne, help a guy out!

To test mobiles, you should ensure that:
* Individual items move freely on their strings.
* If automated, the wind up mechanisms stores kinetic energy and the start/stop controls work.
* If musical, the correct notes play in a recognizable order.

You might have to test the mounting equipment as well to ensure it handles the weight of the mobile apparatus.

Some "real" "QA" "professionals" seem unamused.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:28 AM   2 comments

 
If You Want Me, I'll Be In My Backyard, Building A Big Boat
According to your various traditions, various deities have destroyed civilization for sins that fall far short of this:

Would Mustang Sally drive a station wagon? Maybe she'll get the chance.

The next generation of the Ford Mustang could include some previously unthinkable variants including a four-door sedan and a station wagon, according to a report in the magazine AutoWeek.

That does it. Anyone know the name of a good tattoo artist removal cosmetic surgeon?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:25 AM   1 comments

 
Border Guards Open Fire On Poor Oppressed Palestinians
Oh, wait, it was Palestinian border guards opening fire on rival Palestinians:

Hamas militants, angry that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was prevented from returning to Gaza from Egypt, burst into the Rafah crossing Thursday, sparking a gunbattle with the guards at the border terminal.

Never mind, that interrupts the official narrative and higher truth, that it's the damn Israelis that are the source of all conflict in the Middle East. Best we not consider this bit of information then. Carry on.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:22 AM   0 comments

 
City of St. Louis: "Can We Hold Your Bag, Mr. Wealthy Developer, Sir?"
Developer asks city to foot risk on office tower, mall:

A St. Louis developer is asking the city to back his purchase of the office tower that sits atop the St. Louis Centre downtown mall.

While it's not unusual for the city to award tax breaks for downtown projects, what's different in this deal is that the city would be putting it's "full faith and credit" behind the development.

Normally, if a project fails, it's the developer who's liable. In this proposal, taxpayers would be responsible.

The city of St. Louis can't afford to have decent schools or smooth roads, but it still feels the need to hump the leg of any developer that will contribute $1 private dollars against $10 public dollars for any cockamamie idea, like St. Louis Marketplace:

[Plan opponent St. Louis Comptroller Darlene] Green says there has been only one similar arrangement in the city's history: the 1992 financing of the now desolate St. Louis Marketplace on Manchester Avenue. That agreement is still costing taxpayers more than $1 million a year.

Mayor Francis Slay regretfully endorses bullocks:

Slay said he endorsed the plan reluctantly, calling it the only way to complete renovation of St. Louis Centre.

"This particular piece of property is a cancer in downtown St. Louis," Slay said of the office tower.

Twenty and a couple years ago, it was a shot in the arm for downtown St. Louis.

Deputy Mayor Barbara Geisman says, "Boondoggle or boondoggle; there is no nonboondoggle."

"Nobody wants to do this, but circumstances are such that we really have no choice," Geisman said.

The developer knows that downtown St. Louis is about at its saturation point for suckers, and that this development will only be a lottery ticket in case there's no honest money to be made. I guess to a certain type of entrepreneur, the tick type, you have to try to suck whatever blood you can from the government hound.

Still, maybe it's early, but here's my prediction: in 2030, the biggest landowner in the city of St. Louis will be the city of St. Louis as it's left with the derelict remains of its foolish and costly attempts to determine its own fate with sexy new sports teams and big, shiny, empty buildings at the expense of its infrastructure.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:57 AM   3 comments

 
Book Report: Selections from Stars! by Daphne Davis (1984)
I bought this book cheaply, I expect, at a book fair this year. But how they blur together. I don't know what I am suddenly into books about the pop culture of my youth, but I suspect it's as much a reflection of sentimentality and nostalgia as I age as hope for trivia infusion.

This book is a subset from a larger work apparently entitled Stars! which focuses on glamorous photos and stills of the movie makers of the day. This book presents a number of pictures, including some full color, with some suitably laudatory text.

Profiled stars include:

• Barbra Streisand
• Robert Redford
• Jane Fonda
• Dustin Hoffman
• Warren Beatty
• Jack Nicholson
• Faye Dunaway
• Al Pacino
• Diane Keaton
• Jill Clayburgh
• Burt Reynolds
• Meryl Streep
• Robert De Niro
• Brooke Shields
• John Travolta
• Sissy Spacek
• Harrison Ford

Most of these could count 1984 as their pinnacle, although I'm sure many would lie to themselves about their continuing relevance (Streisand, Fonda, Beatty, Dunaway, Keaton, Streep, Shields, Spacek). One I don't even recognize (Clayburgh). Only a couple remain draws to this day (De Niro, Pacino, Ford, maybe Nicholson, maybe Travolta). So it's a timestamped piece of fluff.

Funny, though, and probably only coincidental that these actors starred in a lot of overlapping movies. Or maybe those movies are what Davis thought we'd carry of the Disco years into eternity. With the exception of The Godfather and Star Wars, I think she would have been mistaken. Kramer Vs Kramer? Common, 50% of the population is getting divorced now. The Black Death had a smaller chance of killing you in the Dark Ages. Saturday Night Fever? Take some NyQuil and go to bed early. Shampoo? We've stopped lathering and repeating.

On the plus side, I get to mark one book down and move it to my to read shelf and I didn't have to spend much time on it. Which makes just that much more time for me to avoid War and Peace.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 PM   0 comments

 
It's An Honor Just To Have Been Nominated
It's easy to take the high road since I won Best St. Louis Blog.

Now where's the cash prize?


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: Word for Word by Andrew A. Rooney (1986)
I guess it's been two years since I've read an Andy Rooney book (see also Years of Minutes ca 2004). I've had a couple on my to-read shelf for about a year now, maybe a year and a half. Perhaps there's even an Rooneyesque essay in how long books remain on my to-read shelves. As a matter of fact, most have tenures far longer than the Andy Rooney books, even if it takes me another two years to read the (currently) remaining volume.

This book collects some of his paper columns instead of his 60 Minutes things, so it's (slightly) longer pieces and a period piece to some extent. Rooney's got his normal pecadilloes, and when he's griping about a United States president, it's Reagan. If you want to pigeonhole his politics, it's a bit Libertarian in its distrust of some institutions, but liberal in its desire to do something for the downtrodden. But the politics are so very simply presented that you can overlook them. As a matter of fact, Rooney lets on that his life is different from ours. He's a television/media personality with an office in Manhattan, a house in Connecticut, and a summer home. But his essays and musings focus so much on the minutiae of life that one focuses on them, too, and doesn't worry about the differences. Instead, we focus on our similarities.

Or we would. I imagine Rooney's falling out of fashion because he brings a WWII generation view on things that have left the WWII generation behind. Still, he's not a bad guy, and he shares a certain amount of worldview with me. Enough that I read his essays and I want to write some of my own, much like them. To share in the conversation and to make some normal guy nod his head in comprehension and understanding.

That's not how Joseph Epstein makes me feel.

Books mentioned in this review:

  You know, I've put these links on my site for some time now, and I've only "made" 8 cents. I put quotation marks around made because Amazon doesn't cut no checks for 8 coppers and no doubt bleeds the pennies away in fees of some sort or another. You all are some of the cheapest gentle readers in the world, or the most illiterate.

Buy a book and show me you care.

Bloody heck, show Andy Rooney you care.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:55 PM   1 comments

 
Some Might Call Him That
Former '24' prez turns covert operative

Sure, Dennis Haysbert played on 24, but to real fanboys, he'll always be "Crew Bridgeman" from the abysmal second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.


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

 
Glad They Got Something for Her
Nicole Ritchie, arrested and released on bail:

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departmentexternal link report, Richie was set free on $15,000 bail. She was listed in her police report as being 5-foot-1 and 85 pounds.

There's no jail that could hold her, as she could slip between the bars if she wanted to. So it's good they got bail for her.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments

 
Peer Pressure
African Union peacekeepers kill 3 in Darfur

Everyone was doing it!


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:35 PM   0 comments

 
As If Millions Of Sophisticates Suddenly Cried Out In Terror And Were Suddenly Silenced (I)
Monster truck rallies. In Paris.

Six of the world's most legendary Monster Jam® monster trucks had the fans at Bercy's Omnisport Arena on their feet throughout four action-packed performances in the tour's first-ever stop in Paris.

Grave Digger®, Hot Wheels®, El Toro Loco®, Slingshot, and the Superman and Batman monster trucks delighted the 20,000-plus fans at the Hot Wheels-sponsored Monster Jam. Grave Digger and the Hot Wheels monster trucks stole the show, earning multiple wins in the wheelie competition, the racing competition, and freestyle competition.

"We’re continually amazed by the enthusiastic support we receive at every European Monster Jam tour stop," said John Seasock, driver of the Hot Wheels monster truck. "Hot Wheels really supported our tour here in Paris, and I'm so happy to put together some wins for them here."

Oh, some Frenchmen must have spontaneously combusted for this degradation of their celebrated culture.

But, come to think of it, what exactly is that celebrated culture? Nothing but imports. I mean, the most famous painting in their fancypants museum was painted by an Eyetalian, wasn't it?


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

 
Book Report: Twice in Time by Manly Wade Wellman (1988)
Back in my eBay seller days, I bought a first edition hardback written by Manly Wade Wellman at a garage sale for next to nothing and sold it for quite a bit of scratch. So when I found another paperback by the author and tried to turn that one for some bucks. No dice. So I still have it, and here it is. So much on my to read shelves follows this pattern (see also the Chronicles of Counter Earth series and numerous Stephen King and John Saul titles). So it's here, and now it's read.

Manly Wade Wellman was an author in the science fiction pulps. This book includes a novel originally published in 1940 (the eponymous Twice in Time) and a bonus short story called "The Timeless Tomorrow". It also has a brief introduction, which I thought I'd read, but I got to the point where it said "If you like surprise endings, don't read any further." I mean, come on, you're going to give me the ultimate twist in the introduction because you take this author seriously as literature enough to strip that enjoyment from readers? Where does that mean you fall on the self-esteem scale, or where do you think the audience does?

So I stopped reading it, but I knew there was a surprise twist coming, so I figured out the surprise fairly early. I don't know if I would have otherwise, but the names and the very cover gave the game away.

A modern (ca 1940) man builds a time reflector to go back to Renaissance Florence. He does and falls into the clutches of an ambitious courtier who wants to use his new "friend" in his lust for power. Together under duress, they take on the d'Medicis.

The additional short story also deals with time travel, as Nostradamus learns he cannot only see the future, but can participate in it.

The writing style is the simplistic of the pulps, but without the transcendence of Hemingway or Hammett. It reminds me of much of my early fiction and probably too much of my contemporary fiction, probably. It's not bad, but the not bad is not a synonmym for good. And it's really not worth an introduction that talks about the book as though it was a literary triumph with which everyone is familar, even if they haven't read it.

That said, click the link below to buy it and send me a couple pennies for my effort.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:46 PM   0 comments

 
View From The American Quagmire
In today's news, an insurgent opened fire in a Chicago high rise today, killing several. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the crumbling infrastructure continues to pose problems as parts of the metropolitan area suffer from a loss of power in the feared Midwestern winter, where temperatures drop beneath freezing. Corruption remains a problem, as government officials continue to work with the insurgency. Authorities disrupted one plot to blow up a shopping mall but were powerless to prevent a dramatic explosion in an industrial facility.

Take a handful of incidents from across a country, dash in some weighted words, and blend them together nicely, and I guess you can make any kind of meal you want.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:53 AM   0 comments

 
Civics Lesson from David Nicklaus
He says:

Brace yourselves, St. Louis. The convention industry is about to start beating the drum for another major expansion of the city's meeting facilities.

There's no official plan yet, just a consultant's report. But that's how these things start. A consultant identifies a problem, and pretty soon officials get busy figuring out what they can build to solve it.

And if that isn't enough, I'd like to remind St. Louis that its football and hockey sports venues are now over a decade old, which means that they're one championship and the attendent goodwill away from being obsolete enough to require publicly-funded replacement.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:02 PM   0 comments

 
Nobody Remembers The Second To Market
The old adage which powered a large number of failed startups remains true. If you break into a new industry or make a new product, you have to be the first to offer it and build market share, or no one will think to buy your product when there's a dominant product already offered.

Case in point: Christian First Person Shooter video games. Super 3D Noah's Ark is credited with being the first.

And you cannot even think of what might have been the second one, can you?

There's probably an MBA paper in this anecdote somewhere.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:59 AM   0 comments

 
Forget Pearl Harbor
Harry Levins of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch rationalizes why the newspapers help Americans forget historic anniversaries:

The bombs had barely stopped falling on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when Tin Pan Alley produced a tune that was eminently forgettable, except for its title:

"Let's Remember Pearl Harbor."

But today, precisely 65 years later, demography has determined that very few of us still "remember Pearl Harbor."

Most of us have to be 5 years old before news events imprint themselves in our memory. And Census Bureau estimates drawn up last year show that only 26 million Americans are old enough to remember Pearl Harbor.

Funny. I think let's remember Pearl Harbor is less a directive to think back to where we were than it is to work at not forgetting the lessons of history.

Never mind, there's column inches to spend on Barry Bonds becoming a Cardinal.


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

 
A Hipster Test
A new scientific experiment to determine the nature of hipsters:

Apple Computer Inc. may be cool and hip with consumers, but it's anything but a trend-setter when it comes to good environmental policies, according to the activist group Greenpeace.

In its latest report on major electronics manufacturers, Greenpeace ranked Apple dead last on environmental issues because it still uses harmful chemicals in many of its products and because it does a poor job promoting recycling efforts for its iPods and other products.

If the hipster under study receives this news and changes to HP and Zune, he or she is genuinely concerned about the environment; if the hipster under study receives this news and continues with the Macs, iPods, and contributions to Greenpeace, the hipster only cares about appearances or his or her own creature comforts, with the money going to environmental causes as a sop to his or her own conscience. Or, I suppose, the person likes Apple stuff and thinks this is a cynical ploy by Greenpeace to increase donations by conscience-stricken materialist hipsters.

Aw, heck, I guess it could mean anything. I, Mr. Noggle, am a poor scientist. But that's why I got an English degree.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:58 AM   1 comments

 
Book Report: So Long As You Both Shall Live by Ed McBain (1976)
I found a pile of Ed McBain books at the Carondolet Y book fair this year, and I bought them. This book clocks in at 147 pages, so it's more like a novella than a novel, but it was a quick read.

The book deals with Bert Kling's marriage to the model, Augusta, and her kidnapping on their wedding night. The detectives of the 87th, along with Fat Ollie Weeks, beat the bushes, grasp the straws, work the informants, and ultimately find her just in time.

Even though I know the longer story arcs of these characters, I can still enjoy individual books pulled from the middle of the 87th Precinct series. It would be a neat endeavor to read them all in order. Someday, perhaps, when I get them all.

Sure, it's a short review. It's a short book. And you don't read these anyway.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: Thunderball by Ian Fleming (1961)
Mark Steyn has been talking about the old James Bond books and a new book about James Bond books, so I was inspired to draw this old paperback from my shelf. It had been a while (at least two years, since there are no book reports) since I read the first three Signet paperbacks in my library (Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Diamonds Are Forever), but I liked them enough to buy a couple more when I found them at garage sales.

Thunderball is based on the screenplay of the same name, so it's not a straight James Bond novel, I suspect. Still, the author has a lot of fun making cracks about the plot being like a B movie plot, so Fleming didn't take it too seriously. Much like the movie Never Say Never Again didn't take it too seriously when they remade it.

The story, for those of you who don't know and probably don't care, is that SPECTRE (not Spectra, that was Battle of the Planets, silly!) has stolen a plane with a couple of nukes on it and they're going to blow them unless they get ransom. The West looks for SPECTRE and thinks about paying, but Britain sends James Bond to Bermuda just in case it's there. It is.

A quick read (188 pages) and, apparently, a piece of British history. Shorter and more engaging than a Clancy, anyway.

Books mentioned in this review:

   
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:45 PM   0 comments

 
John McClane, Escorting a Prisoner Back From Brazil, Smirks
Brazil Cancels Flights at 3 Big Airports:

Virtually all takeoffs from three major airports in Brazil were canceled Tuesday night after an air traffic communications system broke down, making it difficult for controllers to communicate with pilots and creating air travel chaos.

Hey, it's [almost] Christmas!


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:04 AM   0 comments

 
Sometimes Taxes Just Ain't Enough
Milwaukee Public School seeks "donations":

Is it worth $300 a year for your child to go to the Milwaukee High School of the Arts?

A group of parents involved with the Milwaukee Public Schools' specialty school is answering yes and has sent all the school's parents a letter asking them to donate or raise that much per student to strengthen arts programming there.

Although the $300 is not a fee or a requirement, the campaign is about as close as a public school can come to making parents pay extra for activities that are part of the regular content of a school's program and may be unprecedented in MPS.

Hey, how about firing a couple junior-level administrators?

No, instead, since the normal year-round student-centric fundraising isn't doing it, how about making them come up with "donations." We can be sure that students will continue to be chosen for this specialty school on talent, but it might not continue to be artistry in the future.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:04 AM   0 comments

 
Headline of the Day, You Can Say That Again Edition
Agency closing ends era in U. City Era ends with closing of agency
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM   0 comments

 
Like the Man Said
Robert Frost:

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

As Robert Frost was from New England, of course he wouldn't initially think that ice and snow were threatening enough to end the world. But he never lived in Missouri.


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

 
Waiting for the Rioting
Crass commercial use of the image of a religious icon? Let the riots begin!

Plastic charge-card consumerism and yoga-minded, organic-eating activism — they seem to clash.

But there they are, fused in new Visa credit cards bearing such images as a meditating Buddha and sunlit hands folded in prayer.

Oh, wait, I guess we hold some religions and their adherents to a higher standard.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:49 PM   0 comments

 
Found Humor
From an e-mail to Instapundit regarding game systems:

I'm you're[sic] typical colelge[sic] guy, but bringing it home for thanksgiving[sic], every member of my family played it and loved it.

Three grammatical errors in one sentence. Typical colelge guy, indeed. Sadly.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:56 PM   2 comments

 
In 360 Degree About Face, Wisconsin Governor Doyle Urges Higher Taxes
The headline: Doyle urges uniform sales tax rules: Governor, top aide say they will push national standards for third time. Sounds good, right? Why, the lead even makes it sound like he wants to level the playing field:

Gov. Jim Doyle and the top deputy he appointed Friday said Wisconsin must join the list of states that have agreed to uniform national standards for sales tax collections and promised to try a third time to get it through the Legislature.

Level-up the playing field, that is:

Doyle and Michael Morgan, whom the governor Friday named secretary of the state Department of Administration, said it is unfair that Wisconsin retailers have to charge 5% state sales tax to customers in their stores while those who buy over the Internet rarely have to pay the sales tax.

Wisconsin consumers don't pay a sales tax on Internet purchases, and Doyle thinks that's unfair to Wisconsin retailers.

Right. Doyle thinks that's unfair to the Wisconsin state government which loses out on all that sweet, sweet tax revenue slush.

I mean, those commissions commissioned to recommending higher taxes don't just pay for themselves.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 AM   0 comments

 
Why Can't All Educational Professionals Emulate This Man?
A man, robbed by a juvenile who snatched his cash as he turned away from an ATM, displays empathy worthy of an educational professional:

Gallagher laughed. "I'm a substitute teacher," he said. "I deal with these little monsters on a daily basis."

How come no districts have snatched him up as a full time teacher?


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments

 
The North Shall Rise Again
Obviously, I've chosen my side: Bears-Packers Rivalry Now Classified As "Civil War":

In a major decision by NBC, the long-standing rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears will now be referred to as a "Civil War".

The Oval G flies over my house.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:19 PM   0 comments

 
Heart Attacks in Pleasantville, New York
Leno, other comedians sue over joke books:

It's no laughing matter to Jay Leno.

The "Tonight Show" host and NBC Studios have sued humor editor Judy Brown and her publishers in U.S. District Court, claiming that her collection of joke books has profited from material filched from his standup routines.

Leno and other comics, including Rita Rudner, are seeking unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against Brown's 19 books -- mainly compilations of jokes by comedians including Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Rivers and Jerry Seinfeld, according to the lawsuit.

The publishers of Readers Digest have all just keeled over, so it will be up to their estates to settle the coming claims against them for the rehashed material served up in the magazine's sundry user-submitted humor features.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:17 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Ballroom of the Skies by John D. MacDonald (1951, 1968)
I bought this book for $3.00 from Hooked on Books. It's gotten easier to tell, since Hooked on Books has begun marring the inside front covers with large labels attesting to the fact. It's perhaps slightly less risable than stamping the page edges, but not much.

It's one of MacDonald's science fiction efforts (he calls it science fantasy, but it's the same difference). In a world not too far in the future, after the First Atomic War, India has risen into prominence in the world, vying with Irania and Brazil for power. As tensions escalate, a United States diplomat tries to engage calm tensions, but they get to him. His assistant investigates and finds that a dark conspiracy of alien forces with psi powers are fomenting tensions on earth, and he has to discover why.

Which he does. MacDonald's science fantasy books are somewhat less than his crime fiction, and let's be frank, this is an old example anyway. But the book was engaging and moved along fairly well. After working on Emma for a couple weeks, it was nice to run through a book in a couple of nights.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:20 PM   0 comments

 
Dueling Headlines
Now appearing on the front page of StLToday.com, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch online presence:

Snow shouldn't be a problem for College Cup:

It figures to be cold for the NCAA College Cup semifinals at Hermann Stadium, but the field should be clear and the games will be on.

NCAA soccer semifinals at SLU postponed:

The NCAA men's soccer semifinals scheduled for today have been postponed because of the weather and will be played Saturday morning.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:00 PM   0 comments