Saturday, December 06, 2003

Opportunity for college kids?

When I was in college I did about anything for money. I did stop short of prostitution, posing for porn and donating plasma for money. But two years running I had 5 different W2 forms, and there was other stuff besides like volunteering for medical experiments (I got $50!), digging ditches or doing about anything that called for physical brutality.

Now here's something called eMove from U-Haul. If you're over 18, you can volunteer to help people move at rates you set. You can pack/unpack, load/unload, drive, or whatever you can work out, and at rates you set. Or you can contact U-Haul to use these people.

It might be worth a look.

Unseemly self promotion

Here's where to go. You know what to do.

And set your alarm clock, because you can vote every 12 hours....

Yep, I'm shameless. But I did nominate someone else to that category too - Rand Simberg. He didn't show up on the ballot though. Maybe our host has him in a different category.

UPDATE: Oh stop it - Allah is in the House is beating Scrappleface for best Humor blog? Death to the infidels!

I'm ugly and I'm proud...

Zombyboy nails it here.

And who wants to work for Abercrombie and Fitch anyway?

Get this mofo now!

A prosecutor in a local drug case has turned up dead and abused in PA.

Cop killers are bad enough. But when goons start killing prosecutors it's time to get medieval. Let this nonsense continue and the road is clear to deterioration into something like Afghanistan.

Good grief, even US mobsters have been known to show some discretion - that's why Dutch Schultz was killed. Schultz was under pressure from DA and later Presidential candidate Thomas P. Dewey, so he decided that killing Dewey was the thing to do. His fellow mobsters disagreed, thinking that this could lead to an all-out legal assault on the mob. So they had Schultz killed.

I'm guessing that neither local law enforcement or the feds need any encouragement to follow up on this. IMO it's especially interesting because it appears that even our criminals are less discreet than before.

Thursday, December 04, 2003

Allen West Defense Fund

Jed Babbin writes of Lt. Col. Allen B. West here.

Alan West Defense Fund, c/o Angela West, 6823 Coleman Drive, Ft. Hood, Tex 76544.

Stolen from The Corner.

(p.s. yes, I know his name has been spelled two different ways. They're both as found. I'll put my money on Jed Babbin.)

Stamp on Paul Robeson

Anna writes of the new Paul Robeson stamp and much more here.

The stamps might be discontinued though - people won't know what side to spit on.

Can you spell "tax evasion"?

It's time to teach the NEA a lesson or two. Sic 'em, IRS!

Limbo

You may think that "limbo" is a place or a dance, but no, it's a state of being. Mike Adams explains.

Criminal stupidity

Our favorite criminal justice scholar/blogger writes of the latest kerfuffle in Cincinnati here. In particular, she notes that the death was classed as a homicide by default - it wasn't suicide, natural or accident. IMO they need another box on that form - something like "Darwin Award candidate".

So let me get this straight. One guy, irrespective of size, decided to take on two. He called them names. He had to know that they were armed well and trained. He had to know that they had more or less unlimited and even better armed backups just for the asking. And if he believed the local mythology, he knew that the cops would beat him or kill him just for practice just because he was black.

And this is about race?

Calling Larry Flynt...

Come on guy, you came up with pictures of Jessica Lynch. How about some of Valerie Plame? She wouldn't have to show her face...

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

"Stem cell rules do not hamper research"

...says the Director of the National Institutes of Health. Take it away, Dodd.

The party of the rich

Bill Hobbs has the scoop on some rich guys who are trying to buy the next Presidential election. For the Democrats.

Single celled snitches

They found the dead child in a creek, but something wasn't right. Later they determined that the child had actually drowned elsewhere. How? Read this.

District of Condoms

What inspired (?) that "bathroom marketing" post? (oh admit it, you're dying to know). Here in DC they're going to start distributing condoms in certain govt bathroom for free. And they're just in time for party season - why pay for balloons when the govt will give them away for nothing?

Oh yeah, the local license plates say "Taxation without representation". Ha! - look at what their local govt does. Are we to expect them to do a better job picking Senators or Representatives?

Bathroom marketing

I remember traveling as a kid with my parents. Of course I'd have to hit the john for every stop, and I'd learn about all sorts of products which were hard to find elsewhere at the time. I also learned not to ask questions about them too.

Then for a while it seemed that those machines disappeared, and their presence was surefire confirmation that you were in a dive. It probably had something to do with motels and truck stops being corporatized - local owners would take money from whatever might provide it, but the suits at headquarters had their standards, dammit. Nope, no condom machines, no "novelties" - spoilsports!

But it's yesterday once more, in Ohio anyway. Having to make an emergency pitstop there was like being a kid again. Condom machines, up to 75 cents from a quarter and no longer "for prevention of disease only". A scale with lottery numbers. A cologne dispenser with knockoffs of reputable brands. How long before there are interactive monitors hooked up to Home Shopping Network? Or even those cool Japanese toilets?

It's been a long time since I've seen a pay toilet, but I wonder if there aren't other ways to make money from those captive audiences. Like, say, a TV display in the stall, powered by quarters. I thought I'd read of a casino somewhere that allowed gambling from the bathroom. But all of these might have to wait for a throne that doesn't make your legs fall asleep after a long session.

Bathroom marketing might be humble, but as a plumber's wife once told me, "your shit is our bread and butter".

Dude, you're stuck with your spyware

If you have a Dell and you think their tech support will help you if you have spyware problems, think again:
If you or a family member receive a Dell PC as a gift this Christmas, you may be in for a surprise, if it becomes infected with spyware.

Dell has instituted what has to be the most misguided tech support policy I have ever seen. Not only will Dell refuse to tell you how to remove the spyware, they won't even refer you to web sites that can help.

Why does Dell do this? Dell cites the possibility that removing spyware might violate user agreements between the user and some other company. The following is an email sent to Dell tech support persons announcing the new policy:

Subject: Spyware: What we can say to the customer

Dell does not support or endorse the use of spyware removal programs.

NOTICE: Use of spyware removal software may conflict with user license agreements of other applications installed on your system. Please consult your user license agreements for further information. Dell does not endorse the use of spyware removal software and cannot provide support on these products.

This means we do not take callers to download.com or doxdesk.com, nor do we recommend spyware removal programs, nor do we advise callers on the use of spyware removal programs. This includes using phrases "We don't support the removal of spyware, but I use..."

Please reply to this e-mail to indicate that you have read and understand this information.

Thanks,
Vader

This is bull. Doesn't Dell realize that the majority of spyware and other parasites now are classified as viruses? Does Dell really care more about the writers of spyware and viruses than they do about their own paying customers?

It is perfectly understandable that Dell does not want to provide manual spyware removal instructions over the telephone. It's hard enough doing it on message boards where you have access to log files and specialized removal tools. However, to withhold the addresses of web sites that can help is callous and irresponsible. All they have to do is refer them to doxdesk.com, cexx.org, or to my site and let the experts handle it.

Several of us in the antispyware/antivirus community have signed an open letter to Dell Inc. asking them to retract this foolish and misguided policy. That letter is located at http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/dell/support_letter.php. Consider that a press release and feel free to post the entire letter anywhere you please. People need to hear about this rubbish.


More from Slashdot here - follow the comments for some major Dell-bashing.

Via SpywareInfo.

Computer protection racket

Patterico and numerous others have been struck with this obnoxious program called Spy Wiper. It does sweet things like popping up porn sites, making your CD-Rom drive open, threaten you with your Notepad, etc, trying to badger you into buying something. More here.

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

"Gay marriage" again.

Aaron points to this William Safire column in which Safire notes that gay marriage is about approval, not civil rights. Where could he have come up with such an idea?

Can anyone point me to a civilization in which the children were raised to believe that they could get married to either sex with equal approval? What happened to it?

IMO this is significant because gays are made, not born. It's what you do, not who you are. Claiming it's innate is a cop-out - any natural leanings can be overcome, just as we expect people to refrain from sleeping with their close blood relatives. Surely no one is saying that gays are uniquely weak in this regard.

So if the above is true it is likely that the resultant gay parity from gay marriage will result in a society with a higher proportion of gays. What would be the impact?

I'm agnostic on this - I have no idea if the resulting society would be "better" or "worse" than today's. I'm just looking for answers with some science behind them, not just the typical nasty "homophobia!" taunts just for asking the question.

From IVF to cloning?

Remember Louise Brown? She was the first "test-tube baby", born of in-vitro fertilization.

IVF was very controversial at the time, but is commonplace now. I hear an ad for an IVF clinic on the radio during my commute most mornings. And this article describes a book about IVF written by a woman who apparently believes that the same acceptance that later came to IVF will come to cloning.

Ouch

Hey Hillary - how does it feel to have your morality questioned by Dick Morris?

Trees - ecological menace?

We already know of the pollutants that trees emit, which account for such things as the "smoke" in the Great Smoky Mountains. But it's worse than that - trees may be responsible for mass extinctions.

Before the tree huggers wet themselves let me note that I'm not down on trees. But the fact is that environments change, and it's a totally natural phenomenon, just like human beings are. Which makes environmentalists, in their efforts to freeze our environment as it is, are perhaps the most unnatural things on earth.

Brute force and ignorance

Remember Rory Gallagher? Probably not, unless you're a guitar freak - he was a front man, but he wasn't a Top 40 kind of guy. But from what I've heard he was a performer, and I know his live albums are better than a lot of live acts.

Anyway, he had a song which seemed to summarize a certain college football game from this past weekend. And I salute the proletarians of the University of Georgia for their victory over their future bosses from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

UPDATE: Alright, here's the real Rory link. What can I say? - I miss Lonesome Dave Peverett too.

Monday, December 01, 2003

Nieman Marxists?

Michael Moynihan is looking for a name for those lefty celebrities like Barbra Streisand who have so thoroughly disgraced themselves lately.

Ripped off from Glenn Reynolds.

A modest proposal for campaign contributor control

The WSJ tells us about the mess that Gray Davis has left for Arnold to deal with. Hmm - what might be the most equitable way to distribute the pain of recovery from Davis's debacle?

I propose the debt be allocated to Gray Davis's campaign contributors in proportion to their contributions. So if, say, 5% of his money came from prison guards, the prison guards could be hit for 5% of California's budget deficit.

No, this isn't a serious proposal. But I like the idea of making supporters accountable for the errors of their puppets.

Beyond parody

Stolen from Friday's WSJ "Best of the Web Today":
My selection for this year's Charlie Tuna Award goes to the Animal Protection Institute (API) of Sacramento. This is no easy feat considering some of the stunts pulled off by former Fish and Game Director Robert Hight.

The API pushed SB 1645 as law, which requires that anybody taking furbearing mammals or non-game animals must purchase a trapping license, available only by paying a fee ($78.50) and passing a fairly complex test. Now get this: Fish and Game Code 4005 defines non-game animals as including mice, rats, gophers and moles.

So now you need a trapping license to set out mousetraps?

Terry Knight of the Lake County Fish and Wildlife Committee asked Scott Paulsen, DFG chief of law enforcement, that question at a committee meeting Thursday night.

"We're not enforcing this for personal use," said Paulson, who then added that, because of the force of law, the statute must be enforced for commercial use.

That means if you hire a neighbor to set mousetraps at your house, or perhaps hire your gardener or a pest control service, that they must have a trapping permit -- or face being arrested.

The DFG did not support the bill, but the Animal Protection Institute pushed it through anyway, according to Knight.

"I can see the headlines now, 'Mice trappers face jail term,' " Knight said. "But if you get the permit, the real problem you're facing is that it takes too many mice to make a fur coat."

Sunday, November 30, 2003