A guide for tourists to North Korea
By John Fund of the Wall Street Journal.

Here's an account of an actual visit that I've linked before.
posted by J Bowen at 4:45 PM ~

Wrong prescription
I haven't heard too much about Brazilian rainforests lately. There were all sorts of scare stories about how cultivating the rainforests would impair our atmosphere, how the soil was useless for cultivation, and how we'd be losing species left and right. And some claimed that the exotic species yet to be discovered within the rainforests had the potential to yield wonder drugs. (and some lost milllions pursuing that possibility).

But suppose you use a plant for drugs and see what happens:

Worldwide demand for herbal remedies is threatening natural habitats and endangering up to a fifth of wild medicinal plant species which are being harvested to extinction, a leading science magazine said.

IMO this is amusing because I find that those with environmental sympathies have a very high overlap with those who are likely to use herbal concoctions for medicine.

If you want to save a species, make sure it has commercial value. Nobody is worried about cattle, hogs, chickens, rice, corn or wheat going extinct. These exotic herbs can join the list once we learn to cultivate them.

It's true that some species resist cultivation, such as morels and truffles. But I'll trust free enterprise with endangered species cultivation long before I would trust some smelly ecobabbler with it.
posted by J Bowen at 3:08 PM ~

Free the florists!
I accept that some professions need licenses, and I hold a professional license myself. Illinois licenses a number of professions, and last I knew the city of Peoria licensed the strippers at Big Al's (they needed an "adult use" permit from the Peoria PD).

But florists? Jacob Sullum has more.
posted by J Bowen at 1:47 PM ~

The CURTA Calculator Page and whatever else I should happen to write
Right here, for us antediluvians who used slipsticks or mechanical calculators, and remember when "computer" was a job title. Sheesh, who would have thought they actually made anything in Liechtenstein?

Another sign that you're an aging geek is if you knew what 3375537 spelled without Leslie telling you. Hint - punch it in on your calculator, then look at the screen upside down.

This reminds me of when the state of Iowa banned a license plate that read 3MTA3.

Curta link stolen from Terry Oglesby, the Possumblogger.
posted by J Bowen at 1:17 PM ~

Jimmy Carter - now 100% nuts!
See what 2Flower has been doing with Photoshop here.
posted by J Bowen at 10:29 PM ~

Death to international lobster scofflaws!
Or at least 8 years in prison, anyway. Read this to see how the US govt is handling this menace.
posted by J Bowen at 2:14 PM ~

Sympathy for the devil
Having been a startup engineer in a past career, I can relate to this.

Stolen from the project manager himself, Jay Manifold.
posted by J Bowen at 7:41 PM ~

Is it murder?

a mentally unstable man allegedly stabbed his mother to death on New Year's Eve. A blood transfusion could have saved her life, but in accordance with her religious beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness, she refused it, and died shortly thereafter.

Is it murder?

By Damien Penny
posted by J Bowen at 6:28 PM ~

I almost missed this - did you?
Maybe you heard about the Kansas State quarterback being accused of rape just before the big game against Ohio State. But did you read this?

It's not really over now, but if nothing else things turned out better than they did for this guy.
posted by J Bowen at 5:57 PM ~

Joe Gibbs to coach Redskins
Will there be a decent football team in DC next year? We'll see how well Gibbs deals with free agency and Dan Snyder.

Via the WaPo.
posted by J Bowen at 12:57 PM ~

What's happening to doctors in Maryland and DC?
One ex-cardiologist's story, via Medpundit.
posted by J Bowen at 12:52 PM ~

Legislation You May Have Missed
From Insight Magazine, which IMO doesn't have anywhere near the penetration it deserves.
posted by J Bowen at 12:16 PM ~

She ain't lyin', y'all
Moira Breen on prescriptive grammarians. Languagehat has more.

Which reminds me of some hillbilly jokes. We can still pick on them, right?

The hillbilly goes to the drugstore for some deodorant. The clerk asks "Mennen's?" and HB says "Naw, wimmen's". The clerk asks "Do you want it scented?" and HB says "Naw, I'll take it with me". "Would you like some for yourself?" "OK". "The ball type?" "Naw, for under my arms".

Or this. Gimme a break - I don't get to write about hillbillies and deodorant very often.

This isn't really relevant (or tasteful either, as if I had standards...), but it's from the same site and I'm gonna link it anyway.
posted by J Bowen at 12:13 PM ~

The next logical step...
ScrappleFace: Judge Repeals Parent Notice for Abortion, Driver's License
posted by J Bowen at 4:02 PM ~

D.C. Council Bans Cell Phones While Driving

The D.C. City Council Tuesday afternoon gave final approval to a bill making it illegal to use a hand-held cell phone while behind the wheel. There will be exceptions for emergencies.

Ward One Councilman Jim Graham was the lone dissenter. Graham has expressed concern about using police resources to enforce the law.

The measure now goes to Mayor Tony Williams, who has indicated he will sign it. Assuming he does, enforcement would likely begin in July. Violators would face $100 tickets.

posted by J Bowen at 2:29 PM ~

Tomorrow's news today
Predictably, MoveOn claimed that the Bush=Hitler ads on their site were not their responsibility. Of course - if they wanted responsibility for their lives or anything else why would they support Democrats? No, they didn't "sponsor" the ads, but then I wonder how much they would have charged someone who wanted an advertisement of similar prominence on their site.

Spokesman Wes Boyd said the ads were in "poor taste" (If he said that they were inaccurate it went unrecorded). Of course he didn't acquire such sensitivity until called on it by the Republicans, which might surprise some people who remember how the Dems fussed about the "rats" ad.

And now for tomorrow's news - MoveOn blames Karl Rove for planting the ads on their site...
posted by J Bowen at 2:20 PM ~

Of plums, pops and pegs
John Derbyshire discusses Lenny Bruce, obscenity the world over and more as only he can right here on NRO.
posted by J Bowen at 9:15 AM ~

A soldier's funeral in Texas
Via Andrew Sullivan.
posted by J Bowen at 7:15 AM ~

May not be safe for work
"This is a very shocking anti-American propoganda video made by North Koreans and previously broadcast on South Korean and Japanese Television. English translation titles by Rob Pongi."

Found via Maureen at reenhead, who is also responsible for the DC Metro Blog Map.
posted by J Bowen at 6:09 AM ~

Neutrality vs. Objectivity
As explained by the incomparable Thomas Sowell.
posted by J Bowen at 5:50 AM ~

Of course!
Dems explain why Republicans object to the Bush=Hitler idea, thanks to Jonah Goldberg at the Corner.

Oh yeah, he had this too.
posted by J Bowen at 3:17 PM ~

Victims of govt
Right here.
posted by J Bowen at 9:08 AM ~

Is deliberative democracy a good idea?
I'm starting to agree with Richard Posner that the answer is no.

The Marginal Revolution strikes again.
posted by J Bowen at 8:57 AM ~

Cadavers for rent
Really.

Thanks to Tyler Cowen at the Marginal Revolution.
posted by J Bowen at 8:56 AM ~

"Mommy, what's a dildo?"
Ricky West points to this item from Jesse at Pandagon, allegedly "skewering" Brent Bozell:

Jesse drily observes: "note that Bozell's major problem out of assault, rape, murder by strangulation, and a dildo...is the dildo."

Clever, but willfully obtuse. Jesse knows very well that the battle against violence on the tube is lost just as Brent Bozell and the rest of us do. Dildos are still a bit of a novelty on TV and some of us would like to keep it that way.

You know, for all the fuss we hear about unwed mothers, there's something we could do for them without even getting off the couch. We could insist that TV stations, radio stations and others show some class in what they broadcast so Mom can get a little downtime once in a while while the media does the babysitting. Is that so much to ask? Or must we have low standards on every station lest we should lose the First Amendment?

UPDATE: It's Ricky's blog, but the poster was Oberon. I thought that was a bit out of character for RJW.
posted by J Bowen at 6:23 AM ~

ASTM, etc.
Somewhere in the west Philly suburbs there exists an organization called ASTM International. They impact your life in more ways than you'll ever suspect, yet most of you probably don't even suspect their existence.

What's with ASTM, anyway? It is the acronym for the organization's original name, the American Society for Testing and Materials. Libertarians should love these guys, because they implement voluntary standards for materials that can be adopted in contracts and laws. The standards themselves are created primarily by subject matter exports who are familiar with the state of the art, not a pack of bureaucrats whose major consideration is self-perpetuation.

So what do they provide standards for? Just about anything. Soils for instance - wouldn't you like to know if your house is likely to go sliding off a cliff? ASTM has a test for the so-called "liquid limit" of soils, which can be used by civil engineers to measure soil stability.

How do they do it? According to fairly rigid procedures, the soil is mixed into a paste and placed in a shallow, spherically-shaped bowl. A tool of specific dimensions is used to create a trapezoid-shaped groove in the paste. Then the whole shebang is jarred repeatedly by a special apparatus a specified number of times, after which the width of the groove at the bottom is measured. From this the "liquid limit" is calculated.

The above is from memory from a job as a tech in the summer of 1979, so this might have changed since then. If you want to know the current standard, it'll cost you $38.00 if you buy it from ASTM. Don't all go at once or you'll bring down their server.

The same spec also offers the method for determining the "plastic limit". As I recall, this was affectionately known as the "turd test". The soil would again be mixed with water according to some strict rules, then the result was to be rolled into cylinders of as small a diameter as possible. The resulting diameter of the cylinder is used to calculate the "plastic limit".

Such a measure may not be too impressive - you might have been expecting super fancy machines, etc. And some standards might call for such elaborate apparatus. But in this application what is needed is something that can be done without elaborate preparations in the field, so that is what ASTM designed for this application.

ASTM offers thousands of standards, but they aren't the only ones - there are many others that affect you. There's NFPA, UL, ASME, ASHRAE, SMACNA, ANSI, AWWA, SAE, ICBO, CABO, BOCA, SBCCC, ASCE, IEEE, DIN and countless others. Expect tons of fun as I write about a few of those in future posts. (Yes, that's my idea of a cliffhanger - remember, I'm an engineer, not a writer or something). In the meantime you'll have to be content with this about ASME.
posted by J Bowen at 9:14 PM ~

But did Queen Elizabeth compete in the Olympics?
Alright, so Lacey is one classy bitch. But I'll bet she can't do this.
posted by J Bowen at 2:55 PM ~

Does he ever shut up?