Just asking...

I'm not a Howard Dean fan. But is it possible that too much is being made of his "scream"?

Interested in a crafts blog?

That's Sasha Castel's latest project. She's looking for contributors here.

Look! It's Genevieve!

What? - you haven't heard of Genevieve? Genevieve Gorder? She's the star of Swiffer commercials, and if she were any more hyper and perky I'd shoot a tranquilizer dart at the TV screen.

Looky here - she's a celeb with Trading Spaces on The Learning Channel. They even offer a bio:

Minneapolis born, but internationally trained designer Genevieve Gorder, made her way to Trading Spaces after many years of schooling, travel and hard work.

"I originally thought that I was going to become an ambassador (giggle), it wasn't until my second year at Lewis & Clark College that I realized I was supposed to be a designer. It just found me, I just knew. It's like when people tell you about how they met their spouse for the first time, and within minutes "they just knew", it was like that for me with design. Maybe that's why I'm in no rush to get married (giggle again). Within months, I was living in Manhattan, working as a designer at MTV and finishing my education at the School of Visual Arts ... I think this was all by the ripe old age of 20......Genevieve currently resides in Manhattan. When not working on the show, she works through her own studio double-g. You can find her work just about anywhere, from a bottle of Tanqueray 10, a line of blue jeans set to launch in the fall, to the shelves of Barney's where you'll find a line of her illustrated greeting cards. When she's not working (which is rare), you're most likely to find her at an airport, off on her next adventure.

I won't comment on her style (I'm esthetically challenged - can't you tell?) other than to note that the person she most wants to meet is the late Antonio Gaudi - the architect whose name has been understandably but incorrectly associated with the word "gaudy".

I guess what struck me about all this is the way she is shown on the Swiffer commercials, as someone we all must have heard of. Sheesh, near as I can tell she doesn't even have a blog. Maybe this appearance on NWA will boost her career, eh?

Clinton associate busted for possession of grenades and plastic explosives

Well, that's not the way the NYT put it - here's their lead:

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 23 — The private Hollywood investigator and central figure in a federal wiretapping investigation, Anthony Pellicano, was sentenced on Friday to 30 months in prison on an unrelated weapons charge.

More about Pellicano here.

Ernie Davis: The Greatest Pro Running Back Who Never Was

Right here.

Dancing Hillary!

Those thick calves had to be good for something, as seen here.

Stolen from Best of the Web Today.

Joseph Cirincione

How'd I miss this when it was first posted? Shark notes, as Steven Den Beste tersely puts it, the same expert who now says we didn't need to invade Iraq because it didn't have any WMDs warned that we could not invade because Iraq had WMDs and would use them.

Yahoo! News - Halliburton Tells Pentagon Workers Took Kickbacks to Award Projects in Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL - News) has told the Pentagon (news - web sites) that two employees took kickbacks valued at up to $6 million in return for awarding a Kuwaiti-based company with lucrative work supplying U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites), Friday's Wall Street Journal reported.Yahoo links rot fast, so check it out. Meanwhile I'll see if I can find it from another generally accessible source. Or you can just grab a WSJ.

Or read the lefty blogs - I'm sure it'll be at the top of the agenda there, except possibly for the Cheney/Scalia thing.

CNN.com - Rehnquist questioned on Cheney-Scalia trip - Jan. 22, 2004

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two leading Democratic senators asked Chief Justice William Rehnquist on Thursday about the propriety of a hunting trip Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took with Vice President Dick Cheney while Cheney has a case pending before the high court.

In a letter to Rehnquist, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut asked the chief justice to tell them what "canons, procedures and rules" are in place to determine when justices should recuse themselves from cases.

It takes a thief?

An organization called Ware Enterprises and Investments, Inc. runs the "Dreamkeeper Program". It offers 10% a month interest for the first 10 months and 5% thereafter.

That's nice if you can get it. Can you?

Barry Minkow doesn't think so. He ought to know - he has spent years in prison for his adventures with ZZZZ Best. Now out of prison and with a soul retread, he's a pastor in San Diego and runs a "Fraud Discovery Institute".

Is he on to something?

On July 31, the NFL says it also sent out an alert to its 32 teams warning of possible "misrepresentation" involving the company and providing generic information on pyramid fraud schemes. The League also let its teams know that the firm is not registered with investment regulatory authorities and that both Ware brothers have criminal records in Florida, although those records are unrelated to finance or investment. Citing privacy concerns, the NFLwould not identify players who have invested in the Dreamkeeper Program or the teams to which they belong.

We'll see what happens. No one is saying that Ware Enterprises is doing anything wrong. But they are promising the kind of return that ought to raise eyebrows, and screwing financially unsophisticated celebrities out of their money is a longstanding tradition.

Taverns for Tots

"I have just heard in the news that--as of today--Toledo bars have found a loophole in our smoking ban. As you all probably know, a few months ago a ban on all smoking in bars and restaurants in the Toledo area was passed, unless it was for a charitable event. So now the bars have started a not-for-profit corporation that charges people a buck to smoke in the bar, it than goes to their corporation: Taverns For Tots. This shows once again that you can try to beat down business with socialism, but it will fight back to the bitter end. The city of Toledo's lawyers are looking into the legality of this plan, and will no doubt file a lawsuit. I’m interested in seeing if this is, in fact, legal."

By Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy.

So you think you have problems?

Do not follow this link. It's just nasty.

The real Patriot Act

From the WSJ. Excerpt:

The Justice Department says the Patriot Act has played "a key part"--sometimes the "leading role"--in a number of successful anti-terror operations. As for civil-liberties abuse, a useful measure of just how profoundly threatening the law is should be Section 223, the Patriot Act provision under which citizens can seek monetary damages if they are mistreated. To date, the number of lawsuits is zero.

Let the bidding begin

You know, I almost blogged about it a few days ago when Carole Moseley-Braun dropped out of the race and then backed Howard Dean. There was Dean with money and allegedly no black support, and a black woman who presumably is dropping out for lack of money - they were made for each other. How long before they hooked up?

Not very, as it happens. The Corner on National Review Online quotes a Chicago Sun-Times article as follows:

"We are going to help her with the debt," [Dean adviser Jon] Haber told me. The debt tab could be in the neighborhood of some $300,000 and Dean's camp will help Braun raise the money to pay it off. Braun will campaign for Dean three days of the week, with the Dean campaign picking up her travel expenses. Braun will become a Dean campaign consultant and will be paid about $20,000. Up to three of Braun's staffers, including [Patricia] Ireland, will be hired by the Dean campaign.

If Moseley-Braun is worth that much, how much do you suppose Al Sharpton can sell out for?

SOTU

If you read many blogs it would be hard to miss that the State of the Union address happened last night. Convinced that it was in good hands, I went to Sam's and crashed early.

I wasn't disappointed. For one, here's Edward Boyd's take, which expresses some disappointment but still reminds us of why Bush is far better than anything the Dems have to offer.

Vodkapundit was good for 33+ posts starting here and going up. Tacitus blogged it live too, starting here.

Tom Daschle's Trent Lott Moment?

Via HobbsOnline.

Come on, Josh Marshall, make something of this.

The George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator

Much of the lefty blogosphere has just become redundant.

From Buttafly via the Corner.

Wanna publish your own book?

Quoth Andy Kessler: "You can write an op-ed today that runs tomorrow, set up a Web site that sells toys in a day or two, get a million signatures and recall a governor in a couple of months. But for some reason, it takes two years to get a book published."

But he survived, and today the book is on Amazon here.

Women who regret their abortions to speak in Washington DC on Jan 22.

Details here.

Can't make it? Then there's this, this, this, and much more.

Links stolen from After abortion

Special obstruction forces

Here is a very interesting article about "Nine reasons why we never sent our Special Operations Forces after Al Qaeda before 9/11".

Stolen from Instapundit.

Triumph of the obvious

See if you can follow this logic: Sex causes reproduction. Therefore abstaining from sex will prevent reproduction.

No, it's no trick - it really is this simple. And they've figured it out in Uganda, as noted here.

Cold!

Streakers' getaway car stolen. Perhaps the weather did what the law cannot to take these guys out of the gene pool.

How corrupt is France?

From David Frum's Diary on National Review Online

Effective feminism

Betty Friedan? Gloria Steinem? Kate Michelmann? Forget those pretenders - while they bitched and moaned, other women were actually doing things. Here's a realfeminist, and here are many more.

"...one of the great con jobs of all time"

Here's a great column by Jay Bryant.

Carol Moseley Braun, who ended her presidential campaign this week, is frequently and accurately described as the only African-American woman ever to serve in the United States Senate.

But, assiduous newsreader though I am, I have never seen her identified by the following descriptor, which in addition to being equally accurate is vastly more remarkable:

Carol Moseley Braun is the only African-American Democrat ever to serve in the United States Senate.

Isn't that really astonishing? A political party that for the past seventy years has claimed the allegiance of as many as ninety per cent of the black voters of this country has elected precisely one of them to the Senate. And the only way Moseley Braun won was by challenging and defeating the Illinois Democratic Party's anointed and endorsed candidate – incumbent Senator Alan J. Dixon in 1992.I paused in mid column just now and did some rough math, which suggests that somewhere between a quarter and a third of all Democrats are African-Americans. So if we applied the concept of affirmative action quotas to the Democratic Senate membership, there should be approximately twelve black Democratic Senators in the current Congress. But in fact, there are none. There weren't any in the last Congress either, or the one before that. Except for Moseley Braun's single six-year term, there have never been any black Democratic Senators.

There have been three black Republican Senators: Hiram Revels, Blanche Kelso Bruce and Edward Brooke.

Oh, Democrats will let African-Americans serve in the House of Representatives, but only after carefully carving out black-majority, which is to say segregated, districts for them. Well, you can't expect white Democrats to vote for one of them, can you?

So the Democratic Party's policy, throughout the modern, post-World War II era has been to create separate-but-equal congressional districts. Keep blacks in the ghetto – the urban plantation. The handful of African-American Republican members of Congress, by contrast, have come from suburban and rural areas, where they have been, often enthusiastically, supported by Republican voters. Moreover, whenever the Republican Party has attempted to run black candidates in black areas, they lose overwhelmingly, and this pattern holds for other offices, too.

White Republicans have no problem whatsoever voting for black Republicans, when they can find one to vote for. Black Democrats won't vote for a black Republican. White Democrats won't vote for a black Democrat. Which is the racist party?

There's much more worth reading (gimme a break while I nod toward "fair use"). Then comes the climax:

The massahs were Democrats. The whip-toting overseers were Democrats. The Klansmen were Democrats. The filibusterers of the Civil Rights bills in the 1960's were Democrats. The liberals whose welfare-state policies destroyed families in post- Great Society inner cities were Democrats. That such a party gets to claim the allegiance of so many African-American voters is one of the great con jobs of all time.

With "friends" like the Democrats, who needs racists?

Casey Kasem leaves American Top 40

Oh admit it, you listened to it once in a while. I first tuned into it in the early 70's, and for a while I didn't miss it. I still tuned into it once in a while if I happened to be listening to the radio on Sundays, but then pop music changed. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with getting older...

The whole time the DJ was Casey Kasem. He finally retired.

But you'll still hear him - he has always been the voice of Shaggy for "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?"

The Democrats - party of forebearance

The state of IL has much to answer for when you consider some of the jackasses sent to Washington in their name. Now Jerry Costello asserts his asininity as follows:

"Could you imagine what the Republicans would be doing to a Democratic president who was a CEO of a company that now has gotten billions of dollars worth of contracts - no-bid contracts - without competition? There would be hearings day after day. And my prediction to you is that you will see in this session of Congress that begins on Tuesday, there will not only be hearings but I think there ought to be impeachment hearings."

Yeah, that's it. The Dems have had the goods on Cheney for all this time, but out of the sweetness and light from their golden hearts, they've withheld their fire for the sake of the Republic.

I could dog-cuss George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress at great length for any number of issues. And then along comes some !@#$! lobotomy candidate like this to convince me that I have no choice but to vote against them and their party.

And spare me any crap about Costello being a lone crank. There's still such a thing as party discipline, and Costello was covering for Dick Gephardt in a state Gephardt has to win. If the Dems have any sense they'll take Costello to the woodshed and make him crawl to the nearest mike to apologize for being such a jackass. As things are I suspect it was a trial balloon, and if they think they can get anywhere with it they'll keep spreading the idea.

"But the Republicans did it to Clinton!" That's right, they caught the whorehopping degenerate lying about something trivial, risking perjury charges because he didn't think the Republicans would call him on it. That he was indiscreet enough to be messing with a pathetic bimbo who couldn't keep her mouth shut told us everything we needed to know about his judgment and fitness for office. (Protecting his family my eye - you do that by not whoring around in the first place). There's utterly no comparison here.

Tasteless entertainment

I often have CNN blaring in the background for some reason. I happened to look up as someone was playing a PC game in which you save babies Michael Jackson is dropping off a roof.

That struck me as pathological enough for me to blog about, so I went looking for it on Google. It was worse than I thought - there are several, as shown here, complete with reviews.

What's next?

Pull my finger

My referral logs tell me someone landed here wanting to know what animal was called the "ship of the desert". This is what he got. Then again, the way kids seem to be today, he'll have to ask the teacher what "seamen" are.

Perhaps there lives someone so innocent that they never put a little kid up to something obnoxious. Wimps! Not me.

My greatest single accomplishment was probably teaching some younger relatives (both girls, around 2 and 4) how to blow their noses without a handkerchief. Their mother had fun breaking them of that. Heh heh. In my defense, I was only about 13 myself.

I wasn't through yet. Another relative had sisters in high school, and he'd wind up talking to their many suitors. Seeking to help in raising a fine young gentleman, I gave him examples of things he shouldn't say, like "she's taking a huge nasty dump right now". How he survived to adulthood I'll never know.

And that's not even counting the stuff I put myself up to. Did you know you can build a fire in a commode?

So I must be carrying some heavy karmic baggage, eh? Oh no - one of the girls above got me back in spades.

I was told that she wanted to have 3 girls I knew stay overnight with her. Oh yeah, their boyfriends would be visiting too. I was going to be there chaperoning anyway, and nobody was leaving, so could I get them some ingredients for some frozen daiquiris? Trusting soul that I was, I took her at her word and got a bottle of rum and some frozen strawberries.

Hah! - think "Risky Business", only with free sex. Every kid from that end of the county must have shown up at their country home at one time or another that night, and their huge yard was covered with perhaps 40 cars. Terrific - I figured I'd be meeting the sheriff any minute.

Well, there was only one bottle, right? No, these kids had their own stuff, and the next day when I rousted the scheming princesses to help clean up, we gathered 7 huge yard bags full of beer cans and other containers.

I'm dealing with this the best I can, walking around, trying to keep the bedrooms empty and the john running. I didn't have to put out any fires, but the hordes did manage to break a door.

One girl I'd never seen before grabbed me and led me outside to a kid who had passed out. This was when I discovered that the debauchery inside the house was just the tip of the iceberg. Recovering my composure, I stood him up, shoved my finger down his throat as far as it would go and let Nature take its course. She held him while he barfed a regular Hawaiian sunset, then he straightened up and went back to drink some more.

It finally ended, with no fights, no known physical harm or conceptions, no DUIs or car wrecks and no visits from the law. Actually in retrospect it was kind of comforting to see how the kids looked after each other, but it wasn't anything I cared to repeat.

Anyway, on the whole I figure I'm on the good side of karma with this. And what do you know? - the girl who got me good above is now married with kids of her own...

Gonna write myself a letter, gonna mail it to my local DJ

Marsha Albert did, back in December 1963, and look what happened.

Saudi male teens' ideas about women

It's, um, enlightening if not particularly enlightened.

Stolen from my favorite colon addict at Diotima (aka διοτιμα). She has several other good links too - just keep scrolling down.

Well, I can't pass this link up:

In the thirty years since Roe v. Wade, the number of infant homicides has skyrocketed. According to a study released last year by the Centers for Disease Control, babies are at the greatest risk for homicide during the first week of life and are now ten times more likely to be murdered on the day they are born than at any other time in their entire lives.

In fact, babies are now killed on the first day of their lives almost daily in this country. The rate of infant homicide is now twice what it was before we began telling women they were free to kill their unwanted babies before birth.

Fear of Dirty Bombs

I had concluded that bloggers and their readers were far smarter than John Q. Public some time ago. The response to this post of Dean Esmay's is even more evidence.

Longtime readers will note that I have written of nuclear power and dirty bombs many times (here,
here, here, here, here, here, here, and even more yet.). Now StrategyPage is in on the act. Excellent. Would that every dangerous substance announced its presence as clearly as radioactive substances do.

Glass Harps

I'm not sure when the goblet was invented. I'm sure it's also undocumented when someone first ran their finger along the rim of one and produced a sound. Then later yet someone would have figured out how to tune them, and put them together so that they could be used to play a melody. That last person arguably was the first glass harper.

Leave it to Ben Franklin to come up with a better way. According to the WSJ, his favorite invention was the armonica. It was constructed of glass bowls that were nested and mounted concentrically on a horizontal shaft which could be rotated. Thus the musician need only move his hand from one to another to play another pitch without the complication of sliding his fingers along the rim.

With modern synthesizers being as cheap and powerful as they are, I'm guessing that we won't be seeing any further development with this. That's OK with me - somehow automating this any further seems to be missing the point.

Mass graves and WMD

Nelson Ascher explains it all here.

Gay issues again

Before it becomes too obvious, let me note that I'm not a lawyer. So let's make this really simple.

A marriage consists of a man and a woman. Anything else is not a marriage.

If the participants in love, that's good, but not essential - millions of marriages the world over are arranged by others such that the bride and groom have never even met before marriage. Thus love is not relevant.

If they procreate, that's OK, but not essential.

There is no "right" to get married. Both churches and states have reserved the right to restrict who can marry whom. Professions of love are not sufficient to overcome these, nor is procreation.

Gays have exactly the same right to get married that everyone else does. They just have to marry someone of the opposite sex. That they might love someone else is beside the point.

Being gay is not like being a racial minority. Gays are not required to identify themselves as such legally - it's not on their driver's license, passport or any other common legal document. Gays often cannot be recognized as such. Gays can claim to be straight and vice versa and no one can prove otherwise. In short, being gay is not an immutable state, but a choice. As such it's unworthy of being classed with handicaps, race and sex wrt Federal or state protections.

The various differential statuses and rights written into our marriage laws were designed for marriages consisting of a man and a woman. These are not necessarily appropriate for same-sex pairings. Whether it is appropriate to extend these to same-sex marriages should be addressed on an issue-by-issue basis by legislators in advance, and with input from interested parties like insurors. These issues will be addressed, and it will be far more expensive and less orderly if done in the courts after the fact.

The body of law that addresses marriage is large and complex. It would require substantial revision to accomodate new issues that arise with male-male or female-female relationships, and many issues that arise with male-female relationships would not apply. It makes no sense to encumber marriage law with innumerable new "if's" when it is already so complicated.

Such revisions would have to take place in all 50 states. That's a substantial effort. And for what? So a tiny sliver of our population might save some legal paperwork and expense. IMO such a demand is unreasonable.

Although I oppose federalizing marriage law, I would support a Constitional amendment defining marriage as a man and a woman just to prevent chaos.

I recognize that harmonizing marriage laws across the country would be beneficial, however. Surely we have talented lawyers who can write a code for "civil unions", packaging what is appropriate for such couples into something democratically acceptable nationwide. The final product might even result in better marriage laws. So I ask why gays don't pursue this approach?

I've heard some claim that the 14th Amendment somehow has something to do with this issue. I'm sure its authors would be astonished to hear this - I'm guessing that if someone had said "if you give blacks equal rights you're paving the way for homosexual marriage!" he would have been laughed out of the room if not sedated. Those of you who do think that an amendment written almost a century and a half ago can be interpreted so probably owe a huge apology to Senator Rick Santorum.

I guess that's enough flame-bait for one day.

Whatever happened to Christopher Cross?

Or, if you're in your early 20's or younger, who is Christopher Cross?

We'll let his website tell it:

Christopher?s entry into the public eye was complicated by unfortunate terms like ?meteoric rise,? ?rocketed to fame,? and the dreaded (and seldom accurate) ?overnight success.? Longed-for terms before the fact, intoxicating in their fruition, and finally next to impossible to parlay into a long-term career, particularly in a business on the verge of being revolutionized...

Four years, two albums, eight hit singles, several world tours, five Grammy's, and one Oscar later, Christopher rested. Wouldn?t you? But waiting there in the wings was that music merchandiser?s dream, that music purist?s nightmare, that soon-to-be-ubiquitous usurper of the imagination -- the music video. The world suddenly wanted its MTV, and it didn?t take long to see, in this new era of self-invented media darlings, that no amount of quick cuts, exotic locations, or writhing chorines would disguise the fact that, on the outside, Christopher Cross was just a regular guy.

Well, that's one way to put it. The fact is that if you lined up pop recording artists by looks, he'd be on the wrong end of the line. His picture wasn't found on the album covers or in the liner notes, and I know that when I first saw this guy who'd had so many big hits so fast I was expecting something different. Anyway, as I perceived it at the time the guy just all but disappeared after his first TV appearances.

Then again, why not? Unless he had a recording contract worthy of Boston or the Goo-Goo Dolls, he should have been disgustingly rich by then. If he's happy, everything's OK.

His music as I recall was highly produced pop. The songs were mostly slow and mellow with occasional exceptions like "Ride like the Wind". He sang in a fairly high register, and his voice was kind of asexual. I guess if I were looking for an artist who sounded something like him I'd pick (get the brickbats ready) Dan Fogelberg. Hey, if you want better reviews, go here.

Anyway, if you want more, here's Cross's official site.

And they can continue without representation...

...until they demonstrate some sense. DC tried to pick a Democrat candidate for President, and this is what happened:

Dean, the former Vermont governor, got 43 percent of the votes, followed by Al Sharpton with 34 percent, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun with 12 percent and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, with 8 percent.

I think I'll put another lock on my door.

How to fix the Iowa caucuses

Stuart Buck notes that it's very easy to vote in the Iowa caucuses, which makes all sorts of mischief possible (cough Howard Dean cough). Here he cites Dan Savage's experience (you have to see this) and this concern:

According to The Des Moines Register, only 61,000 Democrats and 86,000 Republicans participated in the Iowa caucuses in 2000. Throw in a bunch of young, energized, devoted volunteers ? like the hordes of Howard Dean supporters I've seen leaving Seattle for Iowa in their hybrid cars over the last couple of weeks ? and, well, you get the picture. In a nine-way contest, even a few hundred out-of-state volunteers willing to show up at caucus sites and impersonate Iowans could distort the outcome on behalf of their candidate.

In closing, Buck notes

Requiring identification would be a great idea. The only problem is that whenever anyone proposes that people should have to show some ID when they vote, Democrats and liberals complain that any such requirement would be 'discriminatory.' Which is why I'm hoping that Dean's supporters do try to vote illegally in Iowa. Maybe that's what it would take for other Democrats to recognize the importance of having an ID requirement. I just can't understand why it should be easier to get away with voting illegally than it is to rent a video from Blockbuster.

He's right - nothing is a problem until it harms the Democrats.

Judicial Recess Appointments - A History

A PDF from the Federalist Society. One of the authors is Stuart Buck.

Germ juice

One solution to humans seemingly insatiable appetite for energy is to let bacteria do most of the work.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have identified a microorganism that is particularly good at converting sugars to electricity under natural conditions.

Who is Ron Suskind?

Yeah, he wrote the Paul O'Neil book that just came out. But here's more, from The Corner.

Onward Christian Soldiers

From CNN:

A painting by controversial artist Scott LoBaido, part of a new exhibit at the National Arts Club, depicts President Bush holding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's severed head in one hand and an American flag in the other.

They just interviewed the artist, Scott LoBaido, on TV. Believe it or not, there's a reasonably conservative artist in NYC.

The painting in question is on display at the National Arts Club and is to be there until January 29. I'm guessing that something will happen to it before that time is up.

Leopard Slug Aerial mating

And you thought primates had all the fun - try this.

Stolen from BoingBoing.

How long before Glenn Reynolds links to this?

TIME Magazine: Sexual Healing

Go away, Move On

This site has never claimed that MoveOn=Hitler. If you should happen to do so in the comments that wouldn't imply anything about my own position of course.

More about MoveOn here.

The Bush test for airport security

This story tells about an Algerian who allegedly planned to martyr himself. Here's a quote:

The man had also shaved off all his body hair, a religious act often observed by would-be suicide bombers so that they are "clean" before entering heaven, the newspaper said.

Let's hope that the guys who are responsible for airport security don't think like I do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jimmy Carter - now 100% nuts!

See what 2Flower has been doing with Photoshop here.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What's happening to doctors in Maryland and DC?

One ex-cardiologist's story, via Medpundit.

Legislation You May Have Missed

From Insight Magazine, which IMO doesn't have anywhere near the penetration it deserves.

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.

The next logical step...

ScrappleFace: Judge Repeals Parent Notice for Abortion, Driver's License

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.

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...

Of plums, pops and pegs

John Derbyshire discusses Lenny Bruce, obscenity the world over and more as only he can right here on NRO.

A soldier's funeral in Texas

Via Andrew Sullivan.

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.

Neutrality vs. Objectivity

As explained by the incomparable Thomas Sowell.

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.

Victims of govt

Right here.

Is deliberative democracy a good idea?

I'm starting to agree with Richard Posner that the answer is no.

The Marginal Revolution strikes again.

Cadavers for rent

Really.

Thanks to Tyler Cowen at the Marginal Revolution.

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.

But did Queen Elizabeth compete in the Olympics?

Alright, so Lacey is one classy bitch. But I'll bet she can't do this.

Not kosher

What happens when you try to order a kosher meal on an Arab airline.

Not to excuse the airline, but really now, is Air Emirates the first choice of Jewish travelers? I'm thinking that our hero might have been surprised by what happened, but he wasn't necessarily disappointed.

Tobacco and me

Sgt. Mom over at SSDB tells us why she doesn't smoke.

I had a very similar experience. Some neighbor kids and I grabbed some of whatever would burn down by our favorite illicit place to play - down by the river at a place where the riverbank was higher than we were. I had some ordinary paper, some nondescript dry weeds and a lump of coal and rolled them up into an approximation of a cigarette. I'd heard of charcoal filters, after all - surely the coal would take some of the edge off, right?

Ye gads! - one toke was all it took. Imagine getting shotgunned by a locomotive tailpipe and you have an idea of what I felt like. I never was tempted to smoke from that point onward.

Nobody who was around me much chewed tobacco, so I wasn't in any danger of picking up that habit. But one buddy was around it, and his father decided to give him some aversion therapy. The old man made him take a big lump of the stuff and then locking him in the car on a hot day with nowhere to spit. He swallowed some, and he wasn't even through barfing yet before he decided never again.

It's been awhile since I've been around anyone who chews indoors, and I don't miss it one bit. My favorites were the ones who used to spit into any trash can they saw. Once you threw something out, you definitely didn't want it back.

Someone I know had a boss who chewed, and one day he managed to spill his cup across her computer keyboard. IMO this is about enough to gag a buzzard off a gut wagon from 50 paces. But it was the only keyboard they had, so they cleaned it up the best that they could and she used it as much as possible. It didn't last long after that, though, and neither did she.

I've heard Acidman and others talk about how they put on weight when they quit smoking. So what would happen if a non-smoker started wearing nicotine patches? Or started drinking nicotinis?

One last thing - you might check out "Thank You For Smoking", by Christopher Buckley. He's a riot.

A kid after my own heart

I understand that I used to dostuff like this too. I'm a little smoother and subtler now, I think.

I propose an email writing campaign to Big Arm Woman insisting on a picture of Miss Katie. bigarm_at_doorstopkitty_dot_com

My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé

I knew a young lady who was a real bottom-fisher for a while - there was no telling what she'd bring home to her long-suffering parents. She would have been perfect for this new TV show.

Stolen from Mac Thomason.

.

Through a Rapist’s Eyes

What they're looking for and how to deter or stop them.

Via DebWire.

New Year's flying fridges warning

Oh, just read it.

There must be a punch line here somewhere

Surely those secular Canadians won't be tolerating Islamic sharia law.

Stolen from Vicki, who isn't the least bit fat no matter how many online recipes she reads.

Could the eagles have flown Frodo into Mordor?

This burning question is addressed here.

And if you don't have any idea what this is about, it serves you right.

First sighted at Charles Murtaugh's.

Oh, that kind of crash

Few things are quite as annoying as having a bug in your car. But it's even worse when it's under the hood.

Stolen from Terablogger.

And people wonder how kids get attitude problems.

They tell you there's no Santa Claus. They tell you there's no Easter Bunny. And then along comes this guy selling you Sea-Monkeys and X-Ray specs. The only thing that could make it worse would be if, like Woody Allen, you were breast fed from falsies. (Follow that link - there's lots of great stuff there. Trust me...).

Sea-Monkeys link stolen from Combustible Boy at Max Power.

Not safe for work, or for play either

That Elizabeth post below reminded me of another woman associated with physical contests.

Being on the road so much, I have often found myself talking to hotel front desk people in the dead of the night. About anything is likely to come up. One time a few years ago I was in Evansville, IN when a young lady told me about her aunt or cousin or whatever. When she said the woman's name was "Bunny Glamazon", I thought she was pulling my leg, but I busted butt to Google her.

She was for real. Ah, it looks like she's upgraded her website since then. She bills herself as 6'3", 220 lbs, and if you'd like a "session" of, say, "semi-competitive wrestling" she's available for $400/hour. Or if you are small perhaps you can costar in productions like "Bunny Conquers Japan" (from her site:It's here. Bunny is back from Japan and in this video shot in Japan, she TOTALLY Dominates a tiny 5' 2" 87 pound male and 4' 10" 85 pound female couple.)

No, I've never met the lady, and I swear that that's really how I heard about her. Maybe some local blogger like Dave Worley will investigate further.

Candle on the windbag

Do you remember her?

Standing only 5-foot-4, the dainty figure seemed out of place among the absurdly muscled men who made up pro wrestling's usual cast of characters. That it belonged to a beautiful woman made it all the more surprising. The manager's name was Elizabeth Hulette, a 24-year-old Kentuckian and former competitor for the title of county-fair queen. But few wrestling fans would ever know any of that; they would know Hulette simply as a character called ''Miss Elizabeth.''

Yes, for a few years there that bull session/soap opera/freak show known as professional wrestling was a guilty pleasure of mine, and Elizabeth was a common and welcome sight. It wasn't like today for sure - women were scarce, and there certainly weren't any women wrestlers like today. There were some, like the Fabulous Moolah, but they didn't get TV coverage. And trust me - Moolah definitely wasn't Playboy material like Joanie Laurer (Chyna) and Rena Mero (Sable).

Why bring this up? Well, partly because I followed the "Making the dumbest sh** interesting" link from Glenn Reynolds to Oxblog, where I found the link that led me to Miss Elizabeth.

Her obituary, that is. She died in April. Wow, I feel old now...

Oh nothing, I just liked the line

Power Line: "Female genital mutilation was not much of a problem in Minnesota before Somalis settled here in the 1980's and 1990's."

Wimp!

"I decided to invite an arch-liberal and an arch-conservative to meet in this column and constructively discuss their differences, with me as moderator. I wanted the liberal to be Al Franken, the author of the best-selling Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and the conservative to be Ann Coulter, author of the best-selling Traitor: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. Ann agreed right away. But Al begged off, saying he was too 'busy,' even for a worthy cause like helping combat the plague of name-calling. What a milksoppy, pantywaist, jellyfish, weasel-out wuss he turned out to be."

Pink slips greet returning soldiers

When U.S. Army Maj. Joe Cherry left his federal job at the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago because he was called up to fight the war in Iraq he received an unexpected going-away present. The major wouldn't have to worry whether his government job would be there when he returned - the federal government made that decision for him, firing him on the spot.

Cherry is not alone. In the last five years 5,690 veterans have lost their jobs in both the private and public sectors while activated to serve a tour of duty, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report presented to Congress this year. Those numbers are expected to increase because, of the 300,000 deployed reservists, as many as 25,000 veterans are expected to return home in 2005 to reintegrate themselves back into civilian life after a tour of duty in the global war against terrorism. Of those 300,000, about 20,000 work for the federal government.

This is a crock, and begs for more publicity so it can be fixed before most of the troops come back.

Pass the beef

Usually I get a salad in the company cafeteria, but today they had prime rib. That was a no brainer.

So I got back to my desk to chow down and surf (surf and turf?), and I stumble upon the mad cow story.

So how did the cow get the condition? It might not have "caught" it at all - there's a mutation that happens every so often that causes the condition to occur independently of outside influences. In humans a corresponding condition is called Creutzfeld/Jacob disease, or CJD.

Bottom line: the cow might well be the only one affected.

A popularization of this topic, perhaps dated now, is Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes.

Couldn't he just build a meth lab like everyone else?

Don't try this at home:

Golf Manor, a subdivision in Commerce Township, Mich., some 25 miles outside of Detroit, is the kind of place where nothing unusual is supposed to happen, where the only thing lurking around the corner is an ice-cream truck. But June 26, 1995, was not a typical day.

Ask Dottie Pease. Cruising down Pinto Drive, Pease saw half a dozen men crossing her neighbor's lawn. Three, in respirators and white moon suits, were dismantling her next-door neighbor's shed with electric saws, stuffing the pieces into large steel drums emblazoned with radioactive warning signs.

Huddled with a group of neighbors, Pease was nervous. "I was pretty disturbed," she recalls. Publicly, the employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that day said there was nothing to fear. The truth is far more bizarre: the shed was dangerously irradiated and, according to the EPA, up to 40,000 residents of the area could be at risk.

The cleanup was provoked by the boy next door, David Hahn. He had attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his mother's shed following a Boy Scout merit-badge project.

Much more here.

Stolen from Clayton Cramer.

Setting the record straight

Nothing that contains marshmallow cream can rightfully be called "fudge".

Merry Christmas, baby face

A jury Tuesday spared Lee Boyd Malvo a death sentence, deciding instead to send him to prison for the rest of his life for the murder of Linda Franklin at a Home Depot store in Seven Corners.

The convicted Washington-area sniper, who was 17 when the shootings occurred, was given a life sentence for each of the two counts of capital murder.

The jury, which deliberated about 8 and 1/2 hours on the penalty phase of the trial, found the aggravating factors necessary for the death penalty were present as circumstances in the murder, but nonetheless opted to give Malvo a sentence of life instead of death.

His formal sentence will be set by Judge Jane Marum Roush in March, but she cannot impose a death penalty without a jury recommending it.

Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said shortly after the penalty was announced that Malvo's immature appearance and the timing of the case may have helped him.

Malvo was "very lucky that he looks a lot younger than he is . . . ," Horan told reporters when commenting on the jury's decision.

"We used to have a theory when I was a very young prosecutor that whatever you do, don't try one on Christmas week."That must be the reason why this creep didn't get the same thing his buddy did - it's not as if he's not a cold-blooded killer.

When this "impressionable teenager" gets paroled, let's get him a bus ticket to Brookline, MA to pay back for Willie Horton.

Just imagine how it would be if we didn't discriminate

"For the first time since tracking began 20 years ago, U.S. women outnumber men in higher paying, white collar managerial and professional occupations."Sheesh, no wonder Viagra is so popular - in a few more years the only jobs for us guys will be as sex slaves.

The 100th Scourge of Richard Cohen!

Right here.

And our hero also writes of fun he had at a DUI checkpoint in northern VA not too far from here. It serves him right for not telling me he was in town.

Diplomacy with balls

More from the Corner: one of Jonah's flying monkeys suggests a reason for Muammar Khadafy's sudden policy change.

The great reckoning

Go ahead, capitalists, read this awful book and enjoy its laughable message that you are somehow virtuous. Enjoy this fantasy as long as you can because justice will soon be served to you. Howard Dean will become president and you will then pay for your rape of the environment, exploitation of workers and selfish pursuits. No more slaps on the wrists. Jail time will be the norm, as it should be! There's no place you'll be able to hide, and no one will be able to save you. Your reign of darkness will come to an end. Mark my word!

What book are they talking about? You'll just have to check out The Corner

Never let it be said that Eric Raymond is politically correct

Here he discusses racism and group differences.

If topics like that interest you, check out Gene Expression.

Stand up for our prisoners

How could the Danish prison system be so cruel?

Plan B

If the Kurds story mentioned below doesn't work, then the lefties will have another explanation for the capture of Saddam Hussein and the recent tractability of Muammar Khadafy. Just as the Iranians decided to release the hostages before Ronald Reagan got to the White House, the other two want to be clean before Howard Dean became President. After all, he was gonna get the UN to come down on them.

Nah, I don't think even the lefties could keep their faces straight for that one.

No way, Kurds

Jonah Goldberg isn't buying the story that the Kurds actually caught Saddam Hussein. Right here on the Corner.

Beware of geeks bearing gifts

Would you like ties with color photomicrograph pattern of an infectious agents? How about a James Watson bobble-head doll? (I hope he doesn't get a Crick in his neck). Anyway, Derek Lowe is the guy to see, right here.