Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Monday, March 31, 2008
 
Compare and Contrast: The Bush Years, In Two Cities
Aw, forget it. Just contrast 2001 New York and 2008 Washington, D.C.

New York:

Washington, D.C.:


Congratulations, D.C. You've got less class than New York.

(Link seen on Powerline.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:34 PM   0 comments
 
The Pot Calls The Kettle An Unimpressive Intellect
Here's a snippet from Al Gore's appearance on 60 Minutes talking about global warming skeptics:

Two things about this clip, particularly in naming the skeptics of global warming:
  • "You mean Dick Cheney?" he asks. Seriously, who's the vice president in his world? Al Gore throws this out just so that he can say the fighting words Dick Cheney and so the faithful can react appropriately to the invocation of the demon. Seriously. And then, "Mm-hm." Pompous (can't think of appropriate noun for Al Gore, sorry).

  • Secondly, who does this fellow think he is? Doctor Al Gore, credentialed climatologist? The only reason he's gotten the attention he's gotten for his position and the stepladder to the pedestal he's standing on come from having the titles Senator and Vice-President in front of his own name. So he's going to start demeaning them now?
Goofball. Pompous goofball. There, I have a noun for him.

Maybe he'll get pulled from the Democratic bench this year, and the Republicans can beat him again.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:23 PM   0 comments
 
Government Takes Care Of Its Constituency
In a shocking turn of events, governments lack perspective and priorities when it comes to spending tax money. Cities pay huge salaries despite fiscal crises:
    In Vallejo, a midsize city of 121,000, there were 292 municipal employees who earned more than $100,000 last year. But in Oakland, with roughly three times more residents, 1,333 city workers were paid six figures in the same period. San Jose, a city of almost a million people, had 2,312. And San Francisco, which serves as a city and county government for its 809,000 residents, had more than 8,000.

    None of the region's largest cities faces the imminent threat of bankruptcy, but all are weathering their own financial crises - even as firefighters and police officers often earn more than City Hall department heads.
You think that institutions that think they can spend themselves out of bad times or can spur development by taking out risky mortgages instead of reducing barriers to entry and regulation would foolishly line the pockets of the participants even when financial times are tight?

If not, you're obviously not cynical enough or you're trying to save your phony baloney job by diverting the attention of the citizens. How about a sports team to distract them?


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:50 PM   0 comments
 
At Least They Didn't Make Up The Language, Like Tolkien
Last week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a cover story on Easter about how it symbolizes rebirth amongst Christians. You can read it via Google cache because it has disappeared from the paper's Web site. Why?

Well, it seems that the vivid, meaningful anecdote about a woman who symbolizes a modern rebirth--a Christlike figure that the paper could savor--was sort of completely made up. The Post-Dispatch offers a note to its readers:
    On the front page of last Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we published the story of a woman identified as Virginia Gillis. She was featured in an Easter story in which she described in detail a past of victimization, homelessness and despair followed by recovery and repair.

    We have since learned that a number of the details in that story were inaccurate. Further, our verification procedures were not followed during the reporting and editing process. In short, this story did not meet our standards for publication.

    We apologize for this journalistic breakdown. We value the trust you place in us every time you pick up the Post-Dispatch or log onto STLtoday.com, and we understand that incidents such as this put that trust at risk.

    Last Monday morning, we were contacted by someone who told us that information provided by the woman in the story was inaccurate.
The note goes on to identify all of the facts that were wrong in the anecdote, including the woman's name and everything she told an enraptured journalist.

Of course, the paper doesn't really explain missing the theological explanation of Easter, choosing instead to cast Christ and the meaning of Easter as an Adonis figure, ignoring the interpretation that Christ died to cleanse the world of sin, and that Christ's death means capital punishment is wrong.

Perhaps newspapers should learn to avoid the common template, particularly in policy pieces but also used in this case, that requires a human interest anecdote in the lead position to humanize the sweeping pronouncements and paper-based interpretations that follow and should instead focus on actual reporting. They could shunt these pieces off to the human interest pages or editorial pages where they belong instead of casting them as news. However, that would probably require more effort and less creative writing on the parts of newspaper staffs.

So I don't expect it. But at least the Post Dispatch acknowledged this systemic failure on its part.

But they're the ones who will frame the elections this year for a good portion of the St. Louis area, and I don't look forward to a number of pieces in the middle of April and November saying, "Whoops! Our story presented our agenda, but might have been inaccurate."


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:04 AM   1 comments
Sunday, March 30, 2008
 
Book Hunting: March 29, 2008
I wouldn't call it good book hunting. It was nominally the first garage sale weekend, so we hit a couple advertised in the Old Trees local papers. Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago when the people decided to throw their sales, it was 70 degrees on the weekend. Yesterday morning, it was 38 with a wind. So not many people were out, and nobody was happy about it.

Here's our take:

March 29 book
Click for full size


I got:
  • Space Wars Worlds and Weapons, a book of space weapons art from 1979. No doubt designed to tap into Star Wars's new popularity.

  • THX 1138, George Lucas dystopian first film on videocassette.

  • Two Garth Brooks CDs, Garth Brooks and The Chase.

  • The soundtrack for Dazed and Confused. Soundtracks for period nostalgia movies are better for collecting a number of period hits at cheap prices at garage sales. They're often better than hit compilations, since so many hit compilations get "hits" you've never heard of because they're cheaper than real hits. The movie guys, though, they spent the money and got the A-list stuff.

  • Adore by Blind Melon because I have only heard one Blind Melon song, and $1 for the whole album is cheap.
The son(s) got a stack of Dr. Seuss big boy books. My beautiful wife came away empty, figuratively of course because she's literally quite full these days.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:23 PM   1 comments
 
I Can Follow Directions, Dammit
So I acceded to the query by the disembodied drive thru voice and partook of the two hot apple pies for a dollar, but not without difficulty. For you see, the instructions are to open the box containing the pastry on the left side of the box:

Open the box here.


Oh, but no; if I opened the box on the left side, that would violate the instructions on the right side of the box:
No, open the box here.


I am not a dumb man; I understand that opening the box on one side would violate the instructions, because that would open the box in such a fashion that I was not opening the box properly. That is, if I were to open the box on the right side of the box, the box would be open by the time I got to the instruction on the left side; therefore, I would not correctly open the box on the left side, as the box would already be open.

No, verily, I could infer without any further written instruction that, to satisfy this short end user license on the box and to not violate the warranty of my apple pie, I must open both sides of the box simultaneously; that is, I would open both flaps marked Open here at once so that I would not merely break down an already open box by one of the motions. Fortunately, it was a small box, and I could break the structural integrity of the box on each side with only one hand, and it was thus that I enjoyed my nice cold apple pie knowing that I had correctly interpreted the directions and acted according to the box designers written and explicit intent.

Sometimes, my wife says I overthink things, to which I reply, "You certainly think that, and perhaps I am a bit deliberate in my actions at times; however, I do think that by taking a more reflective approach, I can suss out things and correct interpretations of disconnected and often unintended meanings to ensure that I do not have to learn by trial and error or failure, but rather by rational application of what Hercule Poirot called the little grey cells."


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:11 PM   0 comments
Saturday, March 29, 2008
 
O'Fallon, Missouri, Happy To Be Pimped
Geez, you lonely municipalities, so busy courting developers that you're okay when those same developers refer to your relationship as one of employee-employer?
    A last-minute change to a proposed tax deal has kept alive plans for a housing development on the polluted site of a former trailer park.

    Under the change, University City-based Highland Homes will get 13 years of tax abatement, not 20 as originally requested.

    The city "thought they were going to get pimped for 20 years," said Bob Shallenberger, co-owner of Highland Homes. "They're not."

    After the change was made, the O'Fallon City Council voted 7-1 to create a "community improvement district" to reimburse Highland Homes an estimated $2.2 million in property and sales taxes to clean up asbestos dumped at the site.
He only talks like that because he loves you, unlike the other municipalities.

Although I wouldn't say the description isn't entirely unfair; after all, through a CID, you're going to take money from the johns, formerly called "citizens," and give them to him.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 28, 2008
 
Author Wants Hydrogen Explosions, Electrical Fires
Auto companies are studying alternative fuel vehicles, but an author apparently wants them rushed to market without thorough study:
    "They're totally just dipping their toes in the water," said Sherry Boschert, author of the book "Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America."

    "It's good they're doing something, but it's the automotive form of greenwashing," she said. "They could be mass-producing these things."
Whereas this person thinks that Mother Gaia will only take those whom she wants due to poorly engineered accidents and defects, the trial attorneys across the country agree with her. "The faster these things are on the market, the sooner we can begin litigating," a spokesman said.

Additionally, Ralph Nader has dusted his consumer product deathtrap Mad Libs off of his shelf and licked his pencil. "Indeed, the sooner that big corporations begin rushing hastily engineered solutions to market, the better it will be for all of us."


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:04 PM   0 comments
 
Don't You Hate It When That Happens?
When you confuse two songs that have the same title and that came out near the same time? For example:

Duran Duran's "Notorious" (1986):



Loverboy's "Notorious" (1987):



It was the video for "Notorious" that I had in mind for some reason. Sadly, I didn't look 80s cool until the early 90s, and that made for some lonely times and few dates at college.

Another similar circumstance: Robbie Nevil's "C'est La Vie" (1986):



And David Lee Roth's "That's Life" (also 1986 -- sorry, no video). Both songs charted at the same time, but fortunately one is titled in French to alleviate the confusion.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:50 PM   0 comments
 
Lost and Found
Police say crime dropped in city

If you can identify it as yours, drop by the police station and pick it up.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:02 PM   0 comments
 
Irony
Orbitz is teamed with the movie 21 in a sweepstakes offering a trip to Las Vegas for winners.

The movie 21 is based on the book Bringing Down The House. In the book, and in the movie I would expect, the group of card counting MIT students are banned from casinos in Las Vegas.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 AM   0 comments
 
Diplomacy That Works
I recently got into an IM discussion with an old friend who's taken the blue pill. We were talking about how the United States coerces the world to watching Dallas and makes the world hate us with our aggressive military posture. He held up the fact that diplomacy worked in North Korea as an instance where the military didn't have to invade, and everyone loved the United States.

Yeah, it's a good example: build nukes, and the United States will give you things.

Looks like the diplomacy ain't working all that well either:
    North Korea underscored its anger over South Korea's tough new stance toward the communist country with the test-firing of short-range missiles.

    The launches Thursday night also came as the North issued a stern rebuke to Washington over an impasse at nuclear disarmament talks, warning the Americans' attitude could "seriously" affect the continuing disablement of Pyongyang's atomic facilities.
On the other hand, it did go about as well as the conversation, which included casting US soldiers as rapists, too, in all earnestness and intellectual rigor. That is about where the philosophical inquiry ended.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 AM   1 comments
 
Wait! Facebook Will Change Everything!
I suppose that Web 2.0 will change everything in this instance:
    Time may be running out for lawmakers hoping to pass a controversial civil union bill this year, but supporters are getting some untraditional help to boost interest: a "Facebook" army of more than 8,000 supporters.
This is meaningful because it supports the narrative and preferred mindset of the journalist. I mean, it's 8,000 names on an Internet bulletin board or Internet petition.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:20 AM   0 comments
 
Post-Dispatch Covers Bass Tournament
Sorry, it's a fishing expedition of another sort:
    They say it was the town's worst kept secret.

    "People were always saying, 'We saw them here. We saw them there,'" said Florence Streeter, who owns several rental properties in Valley Park.

    And Mayor Jeffery Whitteaker, people said, didn't help himself by refusing to answer questions about his relationship to his secretary last year, during a deposition for a lawsuit over the town's ordinances targeting illegal immigrants.

    Did he have a "social relationship" with the secretary, a lawyer asked him.
So how does that have direct bearing on ordinances covering immigration? Oh, yeah, trying to shame the mayor so he will back down.

I'm not all of a sudden defending adultery, but I also don't care for blackmail or extortion or public shaming for litigious advantage, which is what we're talking here.

Of course, now the secretary's suing for getting fired after the relationship ended, which is why the paper is covering it. But the leading anecdote really highlights shoddy legal work.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 AM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Mischief by Ed McBain (1993)
Even after reading McBain for 20 years, I'm always amazed that I come across books that I don't seem to have read. Granted, he wrote them over the course of 50 years, sometimes more than one a year. If I tried to read all of them and all of the Evan Hunter books and Smoke books and whatnot, it would take a whole year. Of course, given how many there are, I might have forgotten this one and only think this is the first time I read it.

This is a Deaf Man book, so the cops of the 87th Precinct dial up the dumb. They find the Deaf Man's clues inscrutable until such time as it's too late for them to stop the plan. I knew from the first clue what he was talking about, and I don't live in Isola. But the cops who normally act rationally get a whiff of the Deaf Man, and they live down to his characterization.

Also, this book has a lot of unrelated subplots. The best of his books have a main crime and a subplot with some character soap opera within them. This book includes the Deaf Man's plot, a murder mystery, an abandoned elderly case, Eileen Burke's dealing with her transition to the hostage negotiating team, and Kling dealing with the breakup with Burke and meeting Sharyn Cooke. That's a pile of stuff packed into one limited space, padding the book out to 350 pages and sort of scattering attention.

Don't get me wrong; the writing is still excellent, but the potency is diminished.

I will probably read this book again; either I'll pick it up at a book fair for a buck and forget about reading it now, or I will actually collect all of them and read them all in chronological order for fun.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:58 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 27, 2008
 
Ignoring Another Cautionary Tale
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is beating its breast and rending its garments that the latest, biggest public-private partnership is falling apart now that the private corporation, the St. Cardinals (holy enough to lose the Louis) has what it wants (a stadium, tax breaks) and hasn't given the city what it wanted (a cool and trendy business/residential development called Ballpark Village. Stories: So, does that tell the city and other municipalities to perhaps stay out of these boondoggles? Heck, no! What kind of government would it be if it learned its lesson and will limit itself to actual government duties? It's going to get back in the saddle and participate in bigger, more expensive boondoggles in the future.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
 
George Bush Now Responsible For Wandering Children
Mother of toddler found wandering lost husband to war:
    A Belleville woman charged with letting her 2-year-old son wander alone in 40-degree weather wearing only a diaper is the widow of a man killed while serving in Iraq.
If you don't have enough bad news to report about Iraq, it's good to see the creative writers who run the newswires can tie so much bad news back to Iraq.

So we can see the real costs of war, of course.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:45 PM   0 comments
 
Cautionary Lesson? What Cautionary Lesson?
Collinsville Holiday Inn up for sale:
    The beleaguered Collinsville Holiday Inn will officially go on the auction block May 13 as officials hope to move the property off state books in time for summer.

    The announcement Wednesday is likely one of the last in a tortured history. Part of a large economic development program in 1982, the hotel was built with more than $13 million in state loans that were never repaid. It has been a boondoggle for state treasurers ever since.

    The owners repeatedly claimed financial hardship and refinanced their loans. In 1995, they had tried to buy the property outright for a negotiated sum of $6.3 million, but political infighting in Springfield killed that deal. The debt now has grown to more than $32 million.
That was 1982! Now, the governments who meddle in land use more aggressively 25 years later have just mandated failure right out of their 5- and 10-year plans.

Now, back to the normally scheduled borrowing to help private developers steal land from its rightful owners for another strip mall with promised chain stores designed to reflect and retain the neighborhood's unique flavor.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:41 PM   0 comments
 
The Number One Clue You're Not Eligible For Manhood Anyway
If you tell a pollster that you feel pushed around by the world, you're probably not much of a man to start with:
    Many men believe the world is now dominated by women and that they have lost their role in society, fuelling feelings of depression and being undervalued.

    Research shows the extent to which men have had to change within one or two generations, adapting to new rules and different expectations.

    Asked what it meant to be a man in the 21st century, more than half thought society was turning them into "waxed and coiffed metrosexuals", and 52 per cent say they had to live according to women's rules.
Read the whole thing, and weep.

Reminds me of a story when I was a sophomore in college. My grandmother was getting married, and as an usher, I was expected to fit in with the wedding dress standards. Somehow, the color pink was involved. Instead, I decided to wear a white shirt, as I owned white shirts and I don't think pink is my color anyway. So my stepmother, wretched woman that she is, told me that real men weren't afraid to wear pink.

I guess our understanding of masculinity differs; mine doesn't involve bending to the whims of the polls or those who would use the polls to manipulate weak men.

That being said, Winston Churchill was a tough man, regardless of whether your woman allows you to think so.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:08 PM   2 comments
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
 
Grammar Day
So first I post a grammar grappler at QA Hates You, now this. Someone would think I was a stickler. However....

Note to AP: A single entity, such as a band, is singular. Not Smashing Pumpkins Sue Virgin Records.

Try to keep up.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:13 PM   0 comments
 
When Politicians Write Oatmeal Packets
So I was reading my oatmeal packet the other day, and this politician's answer to a question leapt out at me:

Dino Data as written by a politician

Notice how the answer doesn't actually apply to the question asked.

Well done, copy writer, well done. You'll be in Washington doing your true calling soon.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:22 AM   1 comments
 
It Takes A Lot To Hurt That Image
Labor strife could hurt America's Center image:
    There were chains and padlocks on most of the doors of the America's Center Monday, and security guards at the one that was still open. There was the prospect of pickets under the marquee on Washington Avenue and of a work stoppage by all union labor at the convention center.

    This, it would seem, is not the image of St. Louis that anyone wants visiting conventioneers to take away when they come to the Gateway City.
I don't know how that really degrades an image of a big concrete venue surrounded by mostly empty buildings, panhandlers, and little convenient eating or shopping. But if the Post-Dispatch thinks so, the city can surely increase its descent into total bankruptcy installing some ill-conceived fixes.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:01 AM   0 comments
 
Not Just A Man
Headline on St. Louis Post-Dispatch story: Festus man killed in Iraq. However, he was not just a man:
    Habsieger, 22, of Festus, was one of four soldiers who were killed in the blast, according to the Department of Defense.
None of the stories identify his branch; to journalists fresh out of J-school, they all look alike, no doubt.

Does it matter? Well, it mattered to Habsieger, didn't it?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:58 AM   0 comments
Monday, March 24, 2008
 
Book Report: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1996)
Wow, this book has something for everyone. Girls making connections in period costume for the women, and the 36-year-old man ends up with a firebrand 19-year-old hottie (played in the movie, apparently, by Kate Winslet) for the 36-year-old men.

This book is Jane Austen circa 1811, the language is more elaborate than one gets into with modern books, so it takes a bit of patience to read compared to pulp fiction. However, it's not a hard, inscrutable language; just something that requires attention.

The book outlines a period in the late teens (marrying and matchmaking age, natch) for two lower upper class sisters: Elinor, the older, who is very sense-oriented, that is, she is proper and full of etiquette and the stoicism required of a lady, and Marianne, who is sensible--that is, captive of the senses. Or maybe I've got that backwards. However, they move in their circles and fall into and out of what passes for love in that class-conscious society.

The ending sort of bothered me; a bit contrived, and even the villains live happily ever after. I'd prefer a bit of comeuppance to them, maybe not a truly Dickensian bad ending, but at least some psychic misery. Austen is too polite even for that.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:10 PM   0 comments
 
The Blues Season: A Metaphor

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:59 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 23, 2008
 
Jamie Lee Curtis: Formerly Healthy
So Jamie Lee Curtis is on the cover of AARP magazine sometime soon, and in reading an article about it, I uncovered this terrifying bit:
    Curtis, who is married to Christopher Guest and the mother of two children, says she reached a turning point two years ago when a tabloid published a photo of her and gave her weight as 161 pounds.

    "I was like, `How dare you — I'm not 161 pounds!' I was indignant. I got home and I went on a scale and I was 161 pounds. I was in denial about it," she says.

    "So I started a really healthy way of eating, just avoiding things that I had been shoving in my mouth. Over the course of a year, I dropped about 20 pounds," Curtis says.
161 pounds on a tall woman is not what you'd call unattractive. It's sort of what you'd call, you know, healthy.

Because, let's face it, there's nothing sexier to me than a woman who can help me move the furniture, dammit, and someone whom I won't accidentally break.

Bonus note: If Jamie Lee Curtis shilling for the senior citizens' magazine isn't enough to make you feel acutely old, how about the fact that the movie Halloween: H20 is available in 10th anniversary edition DVDs?


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:22 PM   2 comments
 
Internet Rumors Made Fresh
Easter came early this year because Congress, in an attempt to bolster the economy by strengthening first quarter numbers, passed an act to move the holiday forward into the end of March.

Google it!


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:19 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 20, 2008
 
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg Vows Sting Operations of Other Cities' Inspectors
Inspector arrested in NYC crane collapse:
    A city inspector has been charged with lying about checking on a construction crane that collapsed 11 days later, killing seven people in a dense Manhattan neighborhood.

    Edward Marquette, 46, was arraigned and released without bail Thursday on charges of falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing.

    "We will not tolerate this kind of behavior at the Department of Buildings," buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster said at a news conference. "I do not and will not tolerate any misconduct in my department."
The mayor points out that the entrenched city officials in his jurisdiction are too tough to root out; instead, he's going to look to impose his will on inspectors and building contractors in places like West Virginia because they don't have sympathetic ears in the New York media.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:56 PM   0 comments
 
United States Leader Speaks
Durbin says U.S. needs new leadership.

Hear, hear, Senator! How about turning over some legislators? No, wait, that's not what you're talking about, is it?
    U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told a Springfield crowd Thursday that it will take new leadership in the White House – even if it is another Republican – for the U.S. to ever regain its image abroad.
I got good news for you, Senator: There will be new leadership, it's written right into the Constitution. However, your phony baloney job remains safe, as your predecessors in Congress and the states only did that to the executive branch. How about leveling the playing field and limiting senators to two terms, too? That's still an extra four years of damage you guys would have over presidents.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:52 PM   0 comments
 
Another Camel Nose in the Tent
Government officials can enter your property without permission if they have reasonable suspicion of bees or mosquitoes in Florida:
    A Florida County has declared war on killer bees.

    Commissioners in Martin County have unanimously passed an ordinance allowing county employees to go onto private property without permission to kill Africanized bees and treat areas where mosquitoes are breeding.
Of course, if you have a threatening dog on your property, they can now shoot it before applying insecticide, and you wouldn't mind if they took a look around while they're there, would you? What do you have to hide?


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:47 AM   0 comments
 
Book Report: First Blood by David Morrell (1972)
I bought this book recently because I already had Rambo: First Blood Part II, the novelization of the movie, and thought I should read them in order. Also, it was cheap. I knew the book differed from the film (mostly in that Rambo lives for a sequel in the movie). So I picked it up as an intermission from a longer piece of classical literature that I'm only half way through.

At the onset, I loved the book. Morrell creates the situation and makes both Rambo and Teasle, the police chief who runs him out of town a couple times without true rancor and with only a dash of Respect My Authoritah! Ergo, the confrontation takes on the dimensions of a natural disaster, albeit one at which one simultaneously wants Rambo to get away (even though he snapped and killed a cop) and wants Teasle to capture him.

Unfortunately, about halfway through, the book stalls. Suddenly, Rambo turns back to slaughter more of the cops. Then the injuries start to accumulate, and both Teasle and Rambo get 18/00 constitutions and great feats of holding their poor bodies to keep in the novel. Yes, I know you cannot get 18/00 constitutions (or you couldn't in Second Edition rules, which is when I quit shelling out money for D&D), but Morrell invents it for the book. The climax carries on for 50 pages or so, dabbles in mysticism and the hunter and the hunted, whichever the order is, and then ends poorly.

I'll have to take another look at the film to see which I prefer; however, although I leaned toward the book at the beginning, I'll probably end up preferring the movie.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:44 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
 
First Task: Rename It Mother Gaia University
When you take a religious educational institution and put a layman in charge, you end up with a secular institution. Next case in point: Cardinal Stritch University:
    Cardinal Stritch University has chosen Helen C. Sobehart, associate provost and associate vice president at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, to succeed Sister Mary Lea Schneider as its president, Stritch officials announced Tuesday.

    Schneider, who announced her retirement last spring, will step down in June after leading the Franciscan university for 17 years. Sobehart, 60, will be Stritch's first lay president since it was established in 1937.
Think I'm kidding? Check out the money quote:
    "Reverencing creation," she said, "is just another way to say sustainability and being green. And isn't that the hot topic these days?"
Leaving aside an adminocrat who makes a word reverencing because it's longer than revering, we've got someone who's going to skip over the secularism and take this formerly Catholic university into the service of the Earth Mother.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:01 PM   1 comments
 
Pizza Delivery Driver Receives Plaque For Adhering To Company's Concealed Carry Policy
Well, I hope he did since his killer got 34.5 years:
    A 17-year-old who admitted killing a pizza delivery driver received a sentence of 34 1/2 years in prison Tuesday, according to online state court records.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:57 PM   1 comments
 
Misleading Headline
Headline: St. Charles votes down cut in utility tax.

Reality:
    An additional reduction in St. Charles' tax on utility bills was rejected Tuesday night by the City Council after opponents said the city couldn't afford it.
Of course, perhaps to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the government is the people, not the other way around.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:14 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
 
Public-Private Gasbag Leaks
When a downtown restaurant owner closes his business after 40 years so his location can become part of a parking garage for lofts, we get this blather:
    But Jim Cloar, president and CEO of the Downtown St. Louis Partnership, said Dooley's demise says less about the area than about how tough it is to be in the restaurant business.
Oh, spare us. St. Louis, like most municipalities these days, is eager to implement Central Planning and 10 Year Programs to dictate the local landscape and businessscape and doesn't care that it has to steamroll individual, independent business owners who have organically grown the sort of businesses and location that the Urban Planners want to beam down from the planet Urtopia.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:52 AM   0 comments
Monday, March 17, 2008
 
Warping the Children, Part LVI
My poor children will be the only ones in school who identify this creature:

The dreaded Callmeplissken
The Callmeplissken



- posted by Brian J. @ 1:17 PM   0 comments
 
Finally, A Hate Crime!
Vandals break windows at Islamic center here:
    Seven windows were broken during the weekend at an Islamic religious center in an apparent act of vandalism, police said. They said it was the third act of vandalism in less than a year at the Imam Hussin Foundation building in the 5400 block of Lansdowne Avenue.
No doubt this will get more play than stories where vandals damage churches or synagogues.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:10 PM   0 comments
 
St. Charles Judges Want To Dare Courthouse Shooters
St. Charles judges wonder if police should be armed in court:
    Two St. Charles County judges have questioned the safety and fairness of police officers' bringing their weapons with them to court.

    Court security officers and bailiffs are armed, but other officers — some in uniform, and some in plainclothes — routinely enter the courthouse in St. Charles to testify, file paperwork or participate in their own personal cases. If they show their credentials, they are allowed to enter the courthouse armed. At a judges meeting earlier this month, Circuit Judge Jon Cunningham asked whether the policy should be changed.
Twits on the bench alert.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:07 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 16, 2008
 
This Just In: Centralized, Computerized Data Sometimes Accessed Inappropriately
UCLA workers snooped in Spears' medical records:
    UCLA Medical Center is taking steps to fire at least 13 employees and has suspended at least six others for snooping in the confidential medical records of pop star Britney Spears during her recent hospitalization in its psychiatric unit, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

    In addition, six physicians face discipline for peeking at her computerized records, the person said.

    Questioned about the breaches, officials acknowledged that it was not the first time UCLA had disciplined workers for looking at Spears' records. Several were caught prying into records after Spears gave birth to her first son, Sean Preston, in September 2005 at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, officials said. Some were fired.
Forget the anti-totalitarianist spin of central data repositories for a moment, and reflect on the common basics of nosy human nature. When you build these databases, you make it possible for common people who have some access to it for real purposes to access a bunch of it for their own prurient interest.

It's an unforeseen consequence, no doubt, of actions our legislators and leaders take. The consequences, like most, are only unseen by the actual people tasked with Doing Something! but are quite obvious to those of us who know the nature of the human animal.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:02 AM   0 comments
 
Lead Supports the Main Idea
The first paragraph of a story in the San Francisco Chronicle (linked on the site's home page as THE FORGOTTEN WAR, as though the Iraq War has slipped anyone's mind), sort of supports one of the reasons for going to war:
    The war in Iraq has gone on for five years now, but there is almost no sign of it in the Bay Area, a region where 7 million people live.
Well, that was sort of the point of the flypaper strategy, wasn't it?

The rest of the piece is a creative writing assignment about how nobody's protesting or the nation isn't rising up or something. It does, however, feature this wonderful simile:
    Yet the war is a presence in the Bay Area, like an underground river, like a storm just off the coast, like a deadly illness that will not go away.
But deadly illnesses don't go away until, I dunno, you die.

Sounds like staff writer Carl Nolte is really saying Death to America, ainna?

I guess you could defend him by saying he's a bad writer.

P.S. I did include your name, Mr. Nolte, so you'd catch this mockery next time you google yourself. Consider yourself mocked!

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:55 AM   0 comments
 
Good Book Hunting: March 15, 2008
Beware the Ides of March, indeed. Not only did we attend two very disappointing school-based rummage sales, but it's also the annual Eliot Unitarian Chapel book fair. This little affair takes place in the library of a little church in the next suburb over, but its hardbacks are $3.00 and other books are also priced over what I tend to spend. Unfortunately, I had cash in the wallet, a mostly entertained toddler, and the pent-up urge to acquire. So I got a couple books.

Also, since I fancy myself a history writer now with my recent publication in a magazine of that genre, I was looking for idea books or reference material. So I bought some historical biographies that I normally would not have.
Ides of March book fair purchases


I got:
  • Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein in paperback because I fear my shelves are low on the Heinlein, high on the Greg Bear.

  • Roadside America, a collection of old highway and small town tourist trapica. An idea book.

  • The Explainer, another Slate compendium.

  • The Life of Emerson, a biography of that transcendentalist.

  • Son of the Wilderness, John Muir, another historical biography. I read something about Muir not too long ago in a history magazine. Also, I have been to Muir Woods and wear the hat while walking said toddler.

  • Catherine the Great. Because I don't have many Russian history books, I guess. I don't know. I was pretty profligate at picking things up at this point.

  • Back to Basics, a Reader's Digest compendium of basic skills. Not the Foxfire series by any stretch, but will prove useful if civilization collapses. Or if I get into the Renaissance festival lifestyle, I suppose. I don't know which chance is greater.

  • The Dark Ages, which also might be helpful if civilization collapses, but mostly this is an idea book.

  • Journey to Cubeville, a Dilbert book to remind me of what it was like when I was a straight.

  • The Great Works of Mankind, a rather seasoned picture book of great buildings and whatnot. Also an idea book.

  • Son in Law, a movie with Paulie Shore. Which I have already seen. Take that for what it's worth.

  • The Eiger Sanction, a Clint Eastwood movie I have not seen. Still, it's only a buck, less than the DVD I would probably have bought eventually.

You can see Heather's single book to the right and the boy's book, Piglet's Night Light. One of the workers at the book fair played me by asking if the lad might like to look at a book while we browsed. She gave him this one, which he flipped through while we pushed him through the tables. As if I was going to take it away from him where we ended. As a side note, he's pretty good with the older children books, but we've begun the transition from board books by letting him flip through magazines so he could get the feel of the lighter paper pages and learn not to rip them or fold them. Helpful tip if you've got kids or books, I suppose.

So we spent like $25 dollars today, and I got 10 new books. As long as I only go to a book fair once every 2 months and stay away from the long science fiction novels or historical biographies, I'll keep even with my purchases. On the other hand, look what I'm purchasing.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:11 AM   2 comments
Saturday, March 15, 2008
 
What Dooley Wants You To Forget
When St. Louis County Executive Charles Dooley removed the sales tax increase to support Metro, the local mass transit agency, from the upcoming election ballot, here's the kind of shenanigans he wants you to forget before he tries again to convince you to pay more to support more such shenanigans:
    As its lawsuit against a team of contractors dragged for years, the Metro transit agency saw its legal bills balloon — at times topping $1 million per month.

    Among the bills Metro paid was a $624-a-night hotel room, and group dinners at high-end restaurants that topped $300.

    The agency covered more than $30,000 in lodging expenses for one of its law firms, including two rooms at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Clayton that the firm used as a satellite office during the trial.

    Agency leaders even paid out about $9,000 on a typo. That was the cost for a lawyer who billed for 76.9 hours of work — in one day.

    The costs during the three-year legal battle soared to more than $21 million — shattering Metro's own estimates of how much it would pay for the case. The Post-Dispatch reviewed many of the bills generated by the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, as you recall, was because Metro was shocked and embarrassed by how much cost overrun occurred on the recent extension of the light rail system. Funny, though, that Metro, with its seasoned professionals in mass transit and government teat-sucking, was astonished to discover the cost overruns whereas those of us who bash the government and its teat suckers were far less surprised that hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared into the ether.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:25 PM   0 comments
Friday, March 14, 2008
 
Thank You, and Good Night
If I disappear from the Internet for a while, it's because I've become a content consumer and not producer now that CBS has put the original Star Trek online for free.

Back in our day, the Enterprise had a 25" rabbit ears grainy view screen, not this fool big screen high def like the Enterprises with letters in their numbers.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:30 PM   0 comments
 
That's Not MSN
While looking up the lyrics for the song "Fred Bear" by Ted Nugent (referred to below), I saw something in the corner of my screen that I thought was a little....suspicious.

That's not really MSN
Click for full size

That little layer that pops up with the butterfly and offers you the opportunity to download ringtones based on the song you're looking at has been crafted to look like a Windows / MSN Messanger alert, but it's not; its target is login.tracking101.com, which is apparently some sleazy adware serving company.

You know, I'm duly suspicious of any ad that masks itself as a function of another program. Suitably so, in most cases.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:41 PM   0 comments
 
The City Is Backsliding, Backsliding the City
How many "signs" of the city of St. Louis's Renaissance can you dispel at once? Well, at least two.

One:
    A deal to bring Centene Corp.'s $250 million headquarters to downtown St. Louis is on shaky ground.
Two:
    Centene's development is supposed to be inside Ballpark Village, a seven-block entertainment and retail district that city leaders hope will be a cornerstone of downtown revitalization. It's also uncertain when construction will begin on the $387 million first phase of Ballpark Village, co-developed by the St. Louis Cardinals.
Obviously, this will require a futile gesture on the part of the city, say a couple more million dollars of tax money, so the politicians and their unelected directorate of the expensive can protect their phoney baloney jobs. If you don't mind my mixing pop culture references.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:48 AM   0 comments
 
Blast from the Past
In the year 1984, Julie Brown releases an EP with a song on it entitled "The Homecoming Queen Has Got A Gun". School shootings do not immediately spike.

Would that make you think that perhaps the popular culture influence nor the availability of guns makes these things happen, but more a certain laxity of moral standards that would manifest itself in another decade? Or perhaps the inclusion of these incidents as major signifiers in the sweeping narrative told by popular media?

I got nothing, but I recall I thought the song was funny at the time, but given how times have changed, not so much any more.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:56 AM   3 comments
 
Book Report: The Forge of God by Greg Bear (1987)
I am such an easily led reader. The cool kids mention Heinlein, I read the Heinlein. Instapundit mentions Greg Bear, and I read one of the Greg Bear on my shelves. I think I bought both this book and its sequel, Anvil of Stars, from Downtown Books in Milwaukee some years ago because he has a lot of books, so if I liked the books, I could get a lot of books. Also, Ted Nugent sings about his brother, Fred Bear. So Instapundit mentioned the book, and it was like Pavlov ringing a bell.

That said, this book provided me with flashbacks of bad Niven, too present in my memory. The book covers an alien invasion whose first appearance is a couple of strange geological structures that appear out of nowhere. Then, a series of disconnected scientists hold a bunch of meetings and put together some papers about what might happen. Then, an alien appears that might or might not be a natural alien or just a biological construct. Then, pre-meetings, politickings, and a religious President who thinks the alien invasion--and probable destruction of the Earth--is punishment from God.

Seriously, the first 200 pages of this book are event, meetings, politicking, papers, hard science. The book cuts between disparate groups, some of whom I forget between their brief cut scenes. But the main characters are hard scientists, a science fiction writer, and politicians (sorry, national leaders). This is supposed to be hard science fiction, which I can take when it when the characters are good and the plot moves along. Unfortunately, with this book, I don't really get into the characters, the plot drags, and ultimately the enemy who is destroying the Earth is so abstract that I can't really get a mad-on. The author treats them like a force of nature. And there's another group of aliens who are helping to save a few Earthlings--they cannot stop the inevitable destruction of the Earth. They, too, are unclear.

However, in the last 200 pages (slightly less), some of the good aliens possess--as in take over the wills of--some of the characters, and then the possessed characters work toward salvation of a small number in arks that will take them elsewhere. So that happens.

I guess that allows me to put a finger and pixels to another annoyance about the plot: The events happen to the characters. They don't really influence the story, it just takes place and the people go along for the ride. Or die.

The book certainly bears a lot of influence from Lucifer's Hammer; in the afterword or whatnot, the author thanks Niven himself. Sadly, it's not as good as good Niven. It's worst than bad Niven. Hard Science Bureaucracy Fiction.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:46 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
 
Mel Carnahan's Daughter Says People Who Vote With Fake Names on Voter Rolls Already Have Fake Picture IDs
Mo. politicians clash over photo IDs:
    Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan tells congressional lawmakers that requiring photo IDs for voters won't do much to stop voter fraud.

    She says photo identification only helps in rare cases when someone tries to impersonate another voter.

    The Democrat claims a photo ID requirement would do more harm by disenfranchising elderly and poor voters who lack proper ID cards.
Considering how many dead people and underage voters apparently vote in Missouri (story), Robin Carnahan seems to imply that the state of Missouri, in which she is supposed to be Secretary of State but instead seems to have the title of Democrat Party Mole, has already issued photo identification to that same set of the "population," and that Mickey Mouse would only be caught when he tried to vote as George Washington.

Issuing photo IDs to the dead, to toddlers, and to people whose names match celebrities or cartoon character, I have to admit, seems to be a bigger problem than mere voter fraud.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 PM   0 comments
 
Murphy Knows Kirkwood
Kevin Murphy reflects upon the Kirkwood shootings and sees beyond the handy racial template:
    Kirkwood is suffering from a clash of aesthetics and has for a long time. All the big fights for the last 30 years (or more, I can only speak personally to 30 years) have all been over aesthetics. Usually its couched in terms of the effect on neighborhoods and property values but the majority of Kirkwood wants to keep the city a place of high end residential properties (nothing wrong with that) and if that limits what you do with your property, so be it. And that's when the fighting begins - when you do something with your property that goes against the Kirkwood aesthetic. Tear down an old house to put up a new house - fine if the old house is one of the many old small ones and the new one fits in with the look and feel of Kirkwood. Tear down a charmer to put up a McMansion - Kirkwood explodes in red yard signs "Protect Historic Kirkwood". Tear down a house to put in a parking lot - don't even think about it Baptists.

    Meachem Park has been thoroughly reconstructed since it's annexation from Kirkwood. Law and order, and all that that entails, has been provided. And if the order that is imposed doesn't conform to the locals desires, it does to the wider Kirkwood aesthetic. And no amount of jawboning about race, no amount of representation on the city council will change that.
Yes, but the handy racial template will keep the power-accumulating and power-abusing government officials from having to reflect on what they do that might make someone lash out violently. So they can go on, after the bread and circuses of racial harmony, stepping on the individual citizens.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:22 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
 
The Antithesis of Sharing
Someone gave my son a book, a book that that particular someone thought might have been a nice story about sharing or merely about fish. If that someone had cracked the cover of the book and had perused the book at all, I'd have to assume that someone wanted to co-opt my son into a world where all the altruistic bogeymen of Ayn Rand fiction are true. That book is The Rainbow Fish, and its author's name might as well be Marx Pfister.

The Rainbow Fish cover


You see, the Rainbow Fish has colorful, reflective scales made of foil embedded within the sheets of the book. That differentiates the Rainbow Fish from the other fish in this fictive undersea world, too, making it more beautiful and, according to the value system espoused by the book, better somehow as the other fish value and covet those scales for themselves. Are they the villians? Of course not. The fish endowed by its creator is the villain because it recognizes the value in its scales and is unrepentant for having them:

The other fish demand the Rainbow Fish give them its beauty


Okay, perhaps the Rainbow Fish is a bit impetuous. Perhaps a bit of a, erm, jerk. However, note the fish's demand: Give me one of your scales. Part of your actual body that I find attractive. In the real world, if you ask a woman with pretty hair for a lock to keep and wear, she'll pepper spray you, get a restraining order, and you're the one ostracised, or so I have heard. In the Rainbow Fish universe, if you refuse, you are ostracised.

Brothers and sisters, I know something of sharing. Sharing occurs when someone with something says, "Hey, I have something, and someone has less or nothing. I shall give that person some of my something." Instances that begin with someone having something and someone else demanding it are called "Robbery." This book, then, seriously tries to inculcate urchins with the worst ad absurdums of Rand's villainous thoughts: altruism, to give of yourself because other want you to give it up or because self-denial is a value. I mean, even Marx said From each according to his ability, which implied that ritual self-dismemberment or self-flaying was not required.

Unfortunately, the Rainbow Fish is weak and consults with a many-tentacled consultant who then tells him that he needs to give in, compromise, and everyone will love him. So the Rainbow Fish does:
The happiest comrade in the commune


Now that they're all equal in the ugly, asymmetrical single shiny scale, everyone loves him. Or at least Diana Moon Glampers would be. You see, in the Rainbow Fish undersea soviet, people love you for what you give them, not for what you are. And what you give them is the power to demean and diminish you for their own benefit.

Call it whatever you want, but it's not a lesson in sharing. It's a lesson in self-destruction for the pleasure of the masses.

You know, when the boy brings me this book to read to him, he gets a different story than the words tell him, and by the time he can read himself, Daddy might lose this book. Because, jeez, this is not what I want to teach my son, and it's not what I want him to absorb from professionals because I'm not paying attention.

Sort of related thoughts from Rachel Lucas here, but she's not a breeder like me, so it's all theoretical on her part.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:25 PM   2 comments
Monday, March 10, 2008
 
Book Report: John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy by William Caferro (2006)
I got this book through an intra-library loan because I thought I could squeeze an article out of John Hawkwood based on a sidebar I saw in Renaissance magazine. If you are like I was, unaware of who Sir John Hawkwood was, I'll explain a bit. Sir John Hawkwood was a mercenary operating in 14th century Italy. A veteran of the Hundred Years War, Hawkwood came to Italy, played all sides against the middle, and became one of the most profitable and well-known mercenary leaders of his day. He spent the last years of his career with Florence, and the city eventually immortalized him with a frescoe over his tomb.

That being said, the book is a very detailed timeline of Hawkwood's life and adventures, from his arrival in Italy to his participation in numerous "Free Companies" (unemployed bands of mercenaries pillaging the land) to his various employments with Pisa, Milan, the Papal States, the Kingdom of Naples, and Florence (employed bands of mercenaries pillaging the land). Over the course of the latter three decades, Hawkwood became a known and feared figure amongst the city-states of the early Renaissance. For example, Hawkwood made a trip through Tuscany with a free company wherein he systematically visited the environs of each city state in the region and demanded payment to move on. Most of these payments came as lump sums, but often they had additional payments so you could put the sparing of your crops on credit. By the end of the year, Hawkwood had earned more on his trip than most city-states made annually, and to this day, you can still go into an Olive Garden and order the special Hawkwood Tour of Italy, wherein the restaurant will feed your entire party, will give you 10,000 florins, will put you on the payroll for the rest of the year, will gas your car, and will give you the directions to the nearest Pasta House and hope you go there.

John Hawkwood was so well known and feared that the things we pass around on the Internet as Chuck Norris lists originated as John Hawkwood lists in Renaissance Italy. For example, a Florentine banker carried the following items to the Holy Roman Empire:
  • John Hawkwood invented the color Burnt Sienna. Poor Sienna.

  • All the towers in Pisa were straight until John Hawkwood glared at one as a warning.

  • The Italian penninsula was shaped like a pair of boots until the arrival of John Hawkwood.
Hawkwood became a fixture in English fiction (and some in Italy, too) in the centuries after his death, and this book tries to get to the bottom of the myths built by the fabulists by using actual historical sources. Unfortunately, that means the book lacks a certain amount of narrative or insight into Hawkwood himself, as all we get are really lists of dates, movements, and rosters. Still, it's enough to stand in awe at a man who traveled to Italy and grew wealthy through shrewd contracts, ruthlessness, and the occasional battle.

This book, from 2006, must have been a vanguard, as I see a couple more books are coming out this year about Hawkwood. Ultimately, I guess it stands as a testament to the impact of the man and his uniqueness in his time that he fascinates people centuries later.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:07 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 09, 2008
 
A Comparison Brett Favre Could Have Done Without
Uno the beagle retires from the show ring:
    He was one of the greats in his sport, an underdog who was bred in Belleville and lived in a small Southern town who became a most popular champion. He thrilled fans by running around like a playful pup, until there was nothing left to prove. Last week, he bowed out.

    So long, Uno the beagle.

    Less than a month after winning best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club, his team made it official: America's top dog has retired.

    "If anyone could bark out signals like Brett Favre, it's Uno," David Frei, host of the Westminster television coverage, said Friday. "Like Brett, he did it all."

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:06 PM   0 comments
 
Post-Dispatch Finds a Rezko Angle It Likes
Not that he has ties to Obama; that Republicans may be involved: Corruption May Prove Bipartsan in Illinois:
    Illinois businessman Stuart Levine, an associate of Republican former Gov. George Ryan, had dinner one evening in 2004 with fellow businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko — an associate of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich — at the Standard Club, a ritzy members-only hotel near Chicago's downtown financial district.
Meanwhile, the Post-Dispatch continues to endorse the consolidation of power into political hands that makes this sort of corruption possible.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:46 AM   0 comments
Friday, March 07, 2008
 
A Case for Gay Marriage
If only gay marriage were legal, sadistic lesbians wouldn't have to kill to prove their love for one another.

(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:04 PM   0 comments
 
Limited By Typing Speed, Spelling
64


You know who will do well here? My beautiful wife, who works in international shipping software and can type over 100 wpm.

Tip: Just Say Hi has also recognized Kosovo. Also, some US possessions/protectorates (Guam) appear as separate countries.

(Link seen on The Anchoress.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:32 AM   1 comments
 
Faulty Random Number Generator
Hidden in this story, which has a positive result of finding a fugitive murder, we have this disingenuous nugget:
    On Sunday, a police officer in Eureka, Mo., was randomly running license plates in a Days Inn Motel parking lot when the officer came across Newman's vehicle.
Mmm-hmm. Somehow, I think the fact that this officer was in the parking lot of a motel running the plates diminishes the "randomness" of it, and I would question his sample size--I suspect it was less random than thorough in the selection of plates to run.

Otherwise, it sounds a little totalitarian, does it not? Stay in Eureka, and the police will know who you are.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:42 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 06, 2008
 
Making Britain Satire-Proof
You know how some of us like to make a little ad absurdum fun about the nanny state bubble-wrapping everything for the safety of its citizens adult children?

Britain is removing satire from our repertoire:
    Britain's first 'Safe Text' street has been created complete with padded lampposts to protect millions of mobile phone users from getting hurt in street accidents while walking and texting.

    Around one in ten careless Brits has suffered a "walk 'n text" street injury in the past year through collisions with lampposts, bins and other pedestrians.
There's a picture at the link.

History repeats itself, the first time as satire, and the second time as just good sense according to British government officials.

Coming soon: buddy bumpers to keep you out of the street.

(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:13 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
 
A Decade Later
You can go to AltaVista.com and conduct a Web search?

How quaint.

Of course, 10 years ago, I used AltaVista and Dogpile. So it's not like I've never AltaVistaed or Dogpiled anyone.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:54 PM   0 comments
 
The Difference Between Brian J. and Good Parenting, Volume 19
Sure, most parents teach their toddlers to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". However, very few do so by making the toddlers watch Dirty Harry over and over again until they get the song right.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:42 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
 
America Works Best When We Say Unions, Make Our Military Decisions For Us
Perhaps that wouldn't be such a winning slogan, but the Boeing machinist union wants to overturn the decision making apparatus of the United States Air Force:
    Furious over the potential loss of tens of thousands of American aerospace jobs, a major union representing Boeing Co. workers intends to press Congress to overturn the military's awarding of a tanker contract to Northrop Grumman and its European partner, European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.
Before you let those fellows go all American Pie on you, don't forget they like to strike at inopportune times.

Be hell of a thing if our Air Force planes couldn't reach their targets because the Air Force had tankers on back order because machinist strikes pushed their delivery dates, ainna? Guess that's not going to happen unless our elected betters in Congress will it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:39 PM   0 comments
 
Sad Day for a Wisconsin Boy
Brett Favre Set to Retire After 17 Years.
Report: Gary Gygax, 'Father of D&D,' Dies at 69.

Seriously. What's left for a Wisconsin boy? Governor Doyle and high tax rates? The Aaron "Mr. Glass" Rodgers era in Packers football?

You know, I once met Gary Gygax when GenCon was still in Milwaukee, as nature intended it. It was after TSR sued Game Designers Workshop into oblivion for including trademarked properties like elves and hit rolls into the Dangerous Journeys system. Gygax looked like an old biker and regaled me and a couple of friends with some stories about another system he was developing and some weird role-playing anecdote about carnivorous trees.

I never met Brett Favre, though, and I actually foolishly turned down a chance to see him play the last year. However, I think that the conversations would have been similar.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:50 PM   0 comments
 
Brian Needs Google Hits
In case anyone wants to know, if you're about 5'11" and a size 5/6, your inseam could be about 33". Difference in your trunk vs. leg length could make for variation.

Apparently, someone does want to know, so I asked my sainted mother, who has those dimensions.

Also, please note that my sainted mother wouldn't mind a whole box of Ho-Hos, if you're sharing, but they nor the copious amounts of junk food she already consumes seem to alter her basic mathematics. Fortunately, I inherited something of that metabolism myself.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:03 AM   2 comments
Monday, March 03, 2008
 
Sunshine Go Away Today
In a stunning turn of events, governments have thought to use the Kirkwood shooting as an excuse to cloak themselves in greater "security" by persecuting dissident citizens and offering a show of force to intimidate citizens. After Kirkwood shootings, gadlies [sic] under the microscope:
    Dienoff, who denies he would ever hurt anyone, is among a small number of people who rarely miss the opportunity to attend local government meetings, where they raise the hackles of officials over issues from taxes to traffic tickets.

    Often called gadflies, they see themselves as champions of freedom and watchdogs of local government.

    But post-Kirkwood, a conflict has arisen between security and First Amendment rights. Where these critics may once have been seen as annoying, if sometimes right, some are now being looked at as possible threats.

    Some cities have moved to install metal detectors and to have armed officers on hand. At least one, Pine Lawn, has voted to bar anyone it deems disruptive from public meetings.
Fortunately for those entrenched in local municipal power, the Kirkwood shootings have a ready-made racial template so that citizens and their leaders don't have to think of it in terms of a small government throwing its weight onto a single citizen, pricking him and then silencing him until violence is his only possible expression.

No, it's racial. Kumbaya, have some harmony-building meetings, and then take exactly the wrong steps.

Because silencing the disenfranchised faster and moving into micro-sized totalitarian city states more quickly isn't going to ensure safety. Limiting the government's influence and not running cities like fuedal fiefdoms might.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:43 PM   0 comments
 
Once You Start Nannying
Once an organization finds success in its push to rule citizens' lives (namely, through regulating corporations and the citizens they serve), that organization often likes to turn its prowess at ruling to other endeavors. Another case in point:
    The Dodge pickup has rust on the tailgate and a Harley-Davidson sticker on its back windshield. Beside it sits a Honda Accord with a big, white butterfly on the windshield and American flag butterflies on each side of the trunk.

    There's the minivan sporting a tattoo parlor bumper sticker and a miniature San Francisco football jersey suctioned to a window of a red Cougar with a scuffed-up driver's side.

    They all have one thing in common: Their owners didn't pay off a car title loan, and now they're getting ready for auction.

    For years payday lenders have been the bad guy in the predatory lending debate while their close cousin, car title lenders, have cruised along unnoticed - and perhaps more disturbing for some - unregulated in several states. Many efforts to regulate the industry have failed as the lenders pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into legislative campaigns.
Sadly, the totalitarian impulses of the news media continue to cast organizations who offer services as the bad guy, not the ill-informed or naive sheep who get into bad situations and clamor for the government to save them from their decisions.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:40 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 02, 2008
 
Comforting Thoughts
By the time my sons are teenagers, Hannah Montana and Avril Lavigne will be out of fashion and trying desperately to hang onto their fame.

Unfortunately, Britney will be more popular as a martyr to the music, a la Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments
Saturday, March 01, 2008
 
Meterologists Predict 80% Chance of Government Payout to Fools
Spring flooding possible after heavy snow in upper Midwest:
    There's a good chance of flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers this spring because of soggy landscapes and a heavy snowpack in the upper Midwest, according to the National Weather Service.
So I guess that means I'd better plan on having my tax dollars spent to fix the leaky basements of recent development on flood plains, eh?

Which is worse, the fool who builds multi-million dollar mixed use developments on land that gets submerged, or the fools who suffer a government that feels compelled to bail that fellow out with buckets of cash?


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:08 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: The Wrecking Crew by Donald Hamilton (1960)
Ah, now that's better. This is a nice, serviceable bit of pulp paperback reading. The second book in the Matt Helm series, The Wrecking Crew shares the name of one of the Matt Helm movies starring Dean Martin, but they're not that similar. Whereas the movies are sort of Austin Powers, winking and nudging at the motif, the books are more earnest and straightforward.

Matt returns to service as an assassin, and his first real mission sends him to Sweden under the cover of a freelance photographer. After writing a telling article about a master spy, a writer is apparenty killed in an ambush. The widow has an article of her own and commissions Matt to take photos of northern Sweden. But Matt's real purpose doesn't seem too secret. So why does the superspy leave Helm in place?

The writing's better than things I've read lately; it's not John D. MacDonald, but only John D. MacDonald is. The plot twists a bit, and it tends to take you on a bit of a ride, but it's enough fun for a paperback.

(My first review of a Matt Helm book here.)

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:44 PM   3 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."