Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
 
Too Long For A Bumper Sticker
War Is Not The Answer; War Is C., and The Answer Is D. All Of The Above.

or

War Is Not The Answer, But It's A Good Guess.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:07 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: St. Louis in Watercolor by Marilynne Bradley (2008)
This is a collection of watercolors by local artist Marilynne Bradley. Each depicts a notable landmark in the St. Louis area, most of which remain. Additionally, each watercolor comes with a bit of the history of the depicted location; Ms. Bradley is also active in the local historical society, so she brings that bit of knowledge to bear.

I paid full price for it in the local bookshop; if I'd planned better, I probably could have gotten an autographed copy from Bradley. I'd originally thought I'd bought the book as a gift for my mother-in-law, but I'd only had the notion to do so, so I got it for me instead and will share it.

Do I recommend it? I guess, if you're into looking at watercolors or want a little trip through some history vignettes.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:35 AM   0 comments
Monday, June 29, 2009
 
How Republics End
neoneocon and Donald Sensing have more details about the "coup" in Honduras where the military removed a president whose term limits were about to expire and who was going to have a referendum not supported under the Honduran constitution to remove those term limits.

One wonders what would happen in the United States if that sort of power grab occurred. At the local level, it worked for Mayor Bloomberg of New York City. Meanwhile, here's the start of the Constitutional amendment to repeal the 22nd amendment to our constitution limiting Presidents to two terms.

I think there should be more term limits at the Federal government level, not fewer; however, I do not support the consolidation and acquisition of power to a central, self-selected few as a new aristocracy in Washington.

When the Republic falls, an emperor is not far behind.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:12 PM   0 comments
Friday, June 26, 2009
 
Cross Purposes
How would the passage and signing of cap-and-trade legislation help in President Obama's stated goal of keeping health care costs down?

Last time I was in a hospital, there were lots of blinky lights, garbled intercoms, and buzzing machinery that need energy to function. With more expensive electricity, how many treatments must be denied to make the scales balance for the unelected board or commission in charge?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:11 PM   2 comments
Thursday, June 25, 2009
 
Book Report: Sudden Prey by John Sandford (1996)
Being as this is a 13-year-old Sandford novel, it's one of the better ones in the series. If you're familiar with the series but are reading them out of order, note this is the book whose events precipitate the first breakup between Lucas Davenport and Weather, which is the name of his girl who was going to become his wife and eventually does.

The plot centers on a biker-slash-light-militia guy seeking revenge on Davenport and his (city-wide, not state-wide) team after they kill the man's sister and wife in a bank robbery. Thus, Davenport dispenses with much of the mystery element with which he sometimes struggles in favor of a more straightforward thriller plot. Since Davenport's still a city cop in this book, he deals with crime instead of the mix of crime and politics he has to deal with later.

That being said, why is it that the quality of many modern series declines over time? Is it because once the brand is built, the author puts less efforts in those books while he or she tries to increase earning potential by writing additional series or books in the time he or she used to spend on a single title? Don't get me wrong, as a former wannabe novelist, I'm all in favor of that, but as a reader, sometimes it leaves me cold.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:41 AM   0 comments
 
Telling Metric
You know, President Obama was apparently on the television doing an hour-long presentation about health care control. And you know what I find a telling statistic about the perceived importance of this event?

Where were the drunkbloggers?

VodkaPundit didn't cover it. Instapundit didn't link to any.

It cannot be an important policy presentation without drunkblogging.

Ergo, nobody in the blogosphere must have taken it seriously.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:27 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
 
Book Report: Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts by Isaac Asimov (1979)
This is an idea of stunning fecundity. As you know, an idea book is any collection of anecdotes or stories from which one can derive ideas for expanded articles or essays. This book collects a large number of facts grouped topically and focusing well enough on history to go into my sweet spot.

I read it over the course of a number of months, a couple anecdotes/facts or a chapter at a time. I'm thinking about putting it onto my desk, though, so any time I'm out of ideas, I can grab it, flip to a random page, and then draw something out to draw out into an essay.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:32 PM   0 comments
Monday, June 22, 2009
 
You Think It's Bold?
A play flyer for a "bold" play:

A bold new musical like the bold old musicals


Uh huh. Bold, maybe even paradigm breaking. You know what would be bold? If cancer was the good guy. That would be different from every other empowering little piece of literature out there.

I still wouldn't go see it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:29 AM   0 comments
Friday, June 19, 2009
 
I Am Like The Obama
Sorry to brag about myself, but I have personally saved or created 300 million American lives by not killing anyone today.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:52 AM   4 comments
Thursday, June 18, 2009
 
Forget Yoda
Treasury to Auction $104 Billion In Debt Next Week, a Record:
    The Treasury announced Thursday a record $104 billion worth of bond auctions for next week, part of its herculean efforts to finance a rescue of the world's largest economy.

    The sales will exceed the previous record of $101 billion set in auctions that took place in the last week of April and consist of two-year, five-year and seven-year securities. That record was matched by another $101 billion week in May.
Call me a wee bit skittish in the 2009 Obama Economic World, but sooner or later these headlines are going to have to include the word try instead of assuming someone while buy what could become junk bonds.

(Link via Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:24 PM   0 comments
 
Sharing A Ministry
I have shared triumphs like this:
    And finally, after months of cajoling and correcting, I seem to have made a convert! I just edited a draft document in which the writer used the serial comma consistently throughout! Also, another one is halfway there -- he seems to get the general concept, but is confused about the placement of the final comma in relation to the "and" -- he writes, "thing, thing and, thing" instead of "thing, thing, and thing." But at least now I can tell how many items he intended to list, so that's an improvement.
I beat that into enough designers that they do it correctly, years later and in different positions. And if only one of them passes the lesson on, I'm totally reaping the Amway benefits of knowledge-spreading.

(Link seen on Dustbury.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:24 AM   0 comments
 
Robin Carnahan and ACORN
24th State asks some questions about Robin Carnahan's involvement with ACORN.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
 
Let's Hear Him Say Ninety-Nine, Ninety-Nine
Obama Blueprint Deepens Federal Role in Markets:
    The Obama administration last night detailed a series of proposals to involve the government more deeply in private markets, from helping to steer borrowers into affordable mortgage loans to imposing new limits on the largest financial companies, in a sweeping effort to curb the kinds of reckless risk-taking that sparked the economic crisis.
How long until the government actually holds the paper on your home, and you live in it at its pleasure? That's called state property, ain't it?


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:35 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
 
Some Catholic Churches Will Try Anything To Improve Attendance
American Idol auditions attract thousands in Mass.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:07 PM   0 comments
Sunday, June 14, 2009
 
Book Report: Back to the Future III by Craig Shaw Gardner (1990)
Last autumn, I read Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II. Back then, I said:
    Unfortunately, I don't think I have the third novelization of the movie (although I do have the trilogy of movies, which this book encourages me to watch). And I want it.


Well, I didn't have to go to Ebay or anything since it turned up serendipitiously at a school rummage sale I attended last week. So I jumped into it as soon as possible. The novelization is from the same guy who did the second one, so he still overuses the question marks and the exclamation points. But he does neat things to cover visual effects, such as the Eastwood Gorge sign change in the end. In the film, it's a visual effect, and the author seamlessly has Marty notice it. Other times, though, he seems to bang it a little bit.

The movies are very visual experiences, and some of it is lost. But a good nostalgic read never the less.

Books related to this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:20 PM   0 comments
 
The Public Plan Deception


As it so often seems to be, any federal plan is the nose in the tent. On purpose.

How's that competitive passenger rail thing working out for you?

(Link seen on Gateway Pundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:19 AM   0 comments
Saturday, June 13, 2009
 
Cap and Trade + Nationalized Health Care = Crazy Delicious
Hey, let's do it like the Canadians:
    The Lower Mainland's health authorities will have to dig more than $4 million a year out of their already stretched budgets to pay B.C.'s carbon tax and offset their carbon footprints.

    Critics say the payments mean the government's strategy to fight climate change will further exacerbate a crisis in health funding.

    "You have public hospitals cutting services to pay a tax that goes to another 100 per cent government-owned agency," NDP health critic Adrian Dix said.
(Link seen on Surber.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 AM   0 comments
Thursday, June 11, 2009
 
It's a Fundemic!
WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years:
    The World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic Thursday - the first global flu epidemic in 41 years - as infections in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere climbed to nearly 30,000 cases.

    The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. WHO will now ask drugmakers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine, which it said would available after September. The declaration will also prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.
The difference between yesterday and today? A proclamation from above.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:39 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Yes Sir, That's My Baby photos by Josef A. Schneider (?)
This book is a slender Hallmark version of the book listed below. Child photographer Josef Schneider has taken photos of children with odd expressions on their faces, and they threw in word and thought balloons to ascribe wry thoughts to the children. Mildly amusing.

It's not a coloring book that I'm counting towards my yearly reading total, but I am counting it.

Books related to this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
 
Book Report: Devil's Holiday by Fred Malloy (1952)
Well, this was a book in a plain brown wrapper.

The cheap binding mirrors a Walter J. Black sort of binding. A novel title like Devil's Holiday and an author named Fred Malloy, I was sure someone was going to get icepicked. But you learn something new every day. Like that there was a lurid genre of what they called sleaze or soft-core pornography featuring tawdry, descriptive scenes of seduction as it were. In 2009, you wouldn't call this pornography. But fifty years ago, apparently, hoo-whee!

The book centers on the afternoon, evening, and night of Christmas Eve. Young couple (almost 30, so Old Married Couple in 1950s books) is kinda on the rocks. When husband came back from the war, he was different and the wife had almost taken a lover in his absence, but did not. The afternoon of Christmas Eve, the husband gets together with a young woman from the office and, after heavy drinking, they spend the afternoon in a hotel. He leaves his wife's Christmas gift in a cab with her, and he starts fruitlessly seeking her to find it. She returns it to the wife, and the husband's infidelity is thrown in her face. So she goes out on the town to get even and to give him grounds for a divorce because she loves him and doesn't want him to be the villain in the divorce. So he goes out to a dive bar, hooks up with a ruffian from Missouri, and they drink, get into a fight, and try to meet women.

The characters at the root have a basic love for each other but cannot communicate it, and they're swept into a series of poor decisions that are fueled by the constraints of the norms of the time and more alcohol than it would take to kill me and preserve me.

I don't know what it says about its times that the relatively tepid sensual descriptions in the book were considered sleazy or pornographic. I also don't know what it says about our times that 1950s sleaze has more conflicted characterizations and internal dilemmas in a simple plot than in much contemporary fiction of a more lofty-goaled but still genre fiction.

I might try this author again if I stumble over another one of his works, but I gather they're pretty rare.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:59 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
 
Book Report: Nintendo Role-Playing Games by Christopher Lampton (1991)
This is a book aimed at the middle-school or early high-school market, and it describes, briefly and zealously, some of the role-playing games available for the original NES. These include The Legend of Zelda, Shadowgate, Ultima, Dragon Warrior, and whatnot. Each has a couple of pages that includes some information about the storyline, a bit of comment on the game play, and tips that range from knowledgeable and insightful to vague, general, or obvious, possibly depending upon whether the author played the game before writing it up.

I'd call it a walk down memory lane, but that's cliche and I was not an NES guy. But it did give me the urge to install a new role-playing game. Or maybe install one that I bought in the past when I've had this passing urge. Or maybe hook up an NES and run through one of these games. Instead, I've started a game of Civilization IV which I'll probably abandon in a couple of days. Face it, gaming's not high on my priority list these days.

But I liked the book. A simple read.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:38 AM   0 comments
 
All the Cool Kids Like It
If Tam K. and Jay G., former ECD where I used to work, agree this is the bomb, I must post it so the last amongst you can see it:



You are welcome.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:37 AM   0 comments
 
Obamath
Claim of 600,000 "jobs created or saved" + ACORN = 632,092 new workers with names like Mickey Mouse, Peter Parker, and Iluv Obama.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:15 AM   0 comments
Monday, June 08, 2009
 
Book Report: One Knee Equals Two Feet by John Madden with Dave Anderson (1986)
This is an insightful book from 1986, the beginning almost of Madden's commenting career. He was fresh off of his years coaching the Raiders and being one of the all-time greatest coaches in the game. Within it, he describes the elements of each position, including coaching, and describes what he thinks makes a successful player at that position and who are the all-time best at that position (through 1985). Unfortunately, that means a lot of Chicago Bear loving, including extolling the virtues of Jim McMahon. Or Ed. Whichever wore glasses and was flaky. Or dark glasses and was flaky. Of course, if he wrote the book in 2006, he'd be all about Brett Favre, who played the game like quarterbacks did before they were drones radio-controlled by the coaches on the sidelines.

The best insight from the book: Madden had to teach his linemen to be aggressive. Unlike linebackers, who were sort of normal-sized, linemen where huge from birth and were conditioned throughout their youth to be gentle and to not use their size to their physical advantage. So he had to teach them otherwise. Fascinating insight.

A good book if you're into football at all. Even if nobody gets icepicked in it.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:25 PM   0 comments
 
Things Brian Likes
The pen-and-ink drawings of Gary Gackstatter.

As seen at Old Trees' Art and Air fair this weekend, where the Good Citizens of Webster Groves did not even suspect that a wicked individualist Republican walked amongst them.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:30 AM   1 comments
Sunday, June 07, 2009
 
Noggle On Your Driveway
The Webster-Kirkwood Times published a letter from me on Friday. I missed it in my review of the paper, but a neighbor commented on it.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:47 PM   0 comments
Saturday, June 06, 2009
 
Triumphs of Socialized Medicine
Doug Ross collects a list of triumphant headlines regarding socialized medicine in this post.

Remember, every dead citizen is cost savings in a government budget.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:28 AM   1 comments
Thursday, June 04, 2009
 
Not The Best Spin
That Air France plane that crashed on its way from Rio to Paris? The authorities, meaning whomever the papers are quoting and not necessarily authoritative on anything, are quick to dismiss a terrorist bomb.

Authorities these days are quick to dismiss terrorism in any catastrophe for fear of fanning the flames of fear.

Instead, they're trying to soothe the public by saying the plane probably just fell apart in midair.

That doesn't exactly make me want to hop on a plane. Call me crazy, but call me a cab for my next trip across country.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:53 PM   0 comments
 
Where Were You When Obama Changed The World?
I think Obama's speech on Muslimism given in the land where The Mummy was set will prove to be as fundamentally game-changing in the world as his paradigm-shifting speech on race was in the United States. It will be taught in textbooks and quoted by the citizens of the world by memory, just like school children now recite the verbal gems he deployed when distancing himself from that one guy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:47 PM   0 comments
 
As If Thousands of Technohipsters Suddenly Cried Out In Terror At Once And Were Suddenly Silenced
How do you like it, technohipsters? WaPo: DOJ preparing antitrust probe for Apple, among others:
    Apple, Google, Yahoo! and Genentech are subjects of a fresh antitrust investigation surrounding hiring and recruiting practices among companies in the tech industry, according to Washington Post staff writer Cecilia Kang.

    "By agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly," antitrust experts said in the article. Hiring and recruiting can sometimes be a touchy affair, as Apple found out late last year when trying to hire Mark Papermaster. The investigation may suggest some kind of written agreement among large tech firms to not hire away each other's top talent.
Your cherished icons are businesses, and your cherished administration has determined they are evil.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
 
Elected Officials Fear Job Insecurity
Growing list of politicos find fault with term limits:
    Imagine Missouri's stately Capitol with a vacuum hose attached like a glove around its rounded dome.

    That's how House Speaker Ron Richard describes the effect of term limits on the General Assembly.

    "There's always a vacuum up here. There's always someone seeking power," Richard said. "If the legislative branch doesn't get it, forces outside the building might set policy."

    Over time, Richard said, lawmakers develop the institutional knowledge and personal fortitude to become powerful enough to stand up to the executive branch and the hordes of lobbyists who try to influence legislation. But when term limits force out elected officials before they get properly seasoned, he said, the vacuum sucks the power right out of the Capitol.

    The speaker's comments land him firmly on a growing bandwagon of Republicans and Democrats in the Show-Me State who have become disillusioned with Missouri's constitutionally mandated limits on the amount of time elected officials can serve in the House and the Senate.
Yeah, it sucks not ruling after you get the taste for it and having to go find a job in an economy like this.

You know who continues to approve of term limits? I do. It keeps individuals from becoming too powerful and keeps the ranks of lobbyists so full of former legislators that they, too, aren't as powerful.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:48 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
 
Book Report: Your Money or Your Life by Neil Cavuto (2005)
I find Cavuto to be the most engaging of the Fox News hosts. He's pleasant, polite, and assertive, and he always looks as though he believes that his guests are full of crap. In many cases they are.

This book collects, in written form, some short pieces of comment he used on his television programs in the late nineties and the early part of this century. He offers a couple paragraphs on dot-coms, on the Fed, various recessions we've passed through in the last decade, the Iraq War, Congress, and so on and so forth. In the Brave New World, they remind us of the time Before, the time of prosperity and opportunity. I can't imagine a collection from 2008 through 2018 would look like. If it would be allowed to be printed.

That said, it's only an okay book. The topics are handled with empathy and whatnot, but given that they're based on thirty second comments at the end of a newscast, you don't get really deeply into a topic. Since they say a lot of the same things, the book is also a bit repetitive since a collection from a decade or so is going to cover the same thing the same way sometimes. If you're going to read the book, break it up by reading a chapter a night or such. Maybe that's how normal readers do things instead of reading for hours at a sitting.

I'm a bit saddened that I don't get to see his program more often, but I'm busy afternoons and the guy isn't taking an afternoon bottle these days.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:56 AM   0 comments
Monday, June 01, 2009
 
Book Report: The Father Hunt by Rex Stout (1968)
Rex Stout falls, in the Brian J. Noggle Pantheon of Crime Fiction, into the second tier of demigods. The Nero Wolfe books more closely resemble the Watson/Holmes school than hardboiled PIs, but they feature pretty punchy writing and the first person narrative style popularized by the pulps. I've read a number, and I like them well enough, but they're not Ross MacDonald or Raymond Chandler books.

In this book, a woman comes to Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's assistant, and wants the duo to find out who her father is. She was raised by a frugal and detached mother, and when the mother dies, she leaves her daughter a quarter of a million dollars "from her father."

Wolfe and Goodwin find the trail leads through a wealthy, unliked family and might well solve the hit-and-run death of the mother.

It's okay reading, but not MacDonald.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:44 AM   0 comments
 
The Villiage Takes The Child To Raise It
'They stole my little girl,' says mother judged too stupid to care for her baby:
    A young mother who was judged too stupid to care for her own baby has accused social workers of 'stealing' the child from her.

    The woman, who must be identified only as Rachel for legal reasons, is taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights in a last ditch attempt to halt the adoption of the child, now aged three.

    She has told the Mail that she was bitterly unhappy with her treatment at the hands of social workers at Nottingham City Council.

    Her daughter, referred to only as K, was born three months prematurely with severe medical complications. Officials felt the first-time mother lacked the intelligence to cope with the child and care for her in safety.

    K was eventually discharged from hospital and given to a foster family.

    But although her health has now improved to the point where she needs little or no day-to-day care, the child is due to be handed to adoptive parents within three months.

    Rachel will then be barred from further contact.

    The adoption is going ahead despite a recent psychiatrist's report which declared that the 24-year-old has 'good literacy and numeracy and that her general intellectual abilities appear to be within the normal range'.

    It said the unemployed former cleaner had no previous history of learning disability or mental illness.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:32 AM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."