Clerical error or Y2K bug?

British pensioner Joseph Dickinson, 103, had a shock when his local hospital called him in for an eye test and told him to bring his parents.

The U.S. Mint's cheerleaders gloss so effortlessly over FDR's confiscation of damn near all the private gold in the United States that you might miss the fact that he was a greedy socialist who pulled off the biggest gold heist in history.

Read with a skeptical eye, the Mints coverage of its auctioned-off 1933 Double Eagle seems so propaganda like as to be laughable.

The 1933 Double Eagles, nearly a half a million, were struck after President Franklin Roosevelt started to wean America off the Gold Standard, and after he had ordered the recall of all gold coins.

Can't you just see the happy, pink-faced smiling Americans of the 1930's cheerfully opening their safety deposit boxes for government inspection, gleefully handing over their hard, intrinsically valuable gold coins (And bullion, and foreign gold coins) over in exchange for soon-to-be devalued scrip?

The U.S. Secret Service was on the case, though, and in 1986 they finally managed to track down the (believed to be) only 1933 Double Eagle that was not destroyed or transferred to the Smithsonian. Too bad they didn't put so much effort into trying to stop Osama and his crew from attacking the White House with jetliners.

And you thought WorldCon ran a shoddy business? Our government spent how much money, over a 50+ year period, chasing down twenty dollars, and yet congress claims the high ground in telling American corporations how to do business.

Other good blogs. I've run out of commentary for now, but I didn't want to lose track of these.

1. Jason Rubenstein
2. Boing Boing
3. Letters From Exile (I've actually read this blog in the past, but I'd lost track of it.)
4. Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

I've been spending a bit of time using the Blogger Next Blog feature, which takes you a randomly-chosen, recently-updated blog. It works best if you place it as a link on your link bar (by dragging the hyperreferenced URL (Above, the words "Next Blog")to the link bar of your browser. I've perused 100+ blogs in this fashion, and here are some neat ones that I hit:

• Smythe's World - Another lawyer-written blog, this one crafted by the clever and thoughtful Steven Smith, if that is his real name, who purports to be a bankruptcy attorney.

• adrants - Self described as "News and musings on the oddities of the advertising industry with additional inconsequential comment on other annoying life related peculiarites," which I really cannot improve upon.

• Librarians' Index to the Internet- Links to totally random topics, covered in painful detail.

• John Ellis Not a lot of posts. Think quality, not quantity.

• James O' Neil - Hit and run commentary and comedy, from a conservative student at SFSU.

• Star Lines - The gem of the lot. I would never have found, nor read this blog had I not been on a quest for quality reading material on the web. If you check out just one of these blogs, check out Star Lines. You are bound to find something that makes you smile, think, or both.

Hey Script kiddies: Apparently the RIAA does not like to be attacked during the summer, so could you come back this autumn, or winter?

"Don't they have something better to do during the summer than hack our site?" asked the RIAA representative,

who asked not to be named. Probably because he seems a bit of a fool, wondering if potentially harmful activity was being undertaken against the RIAA's site only because the actor(s) had nothing better to do. Really, do these people even bother to read what is being written about them?

Is there no limit to the pandering that President Bush
will undertake in order to court the Mexican vote?

Will the requirement for C.E.O.'s to sign off on their corporations lead to a brain drain out of America's corporations?

Given the shenanigans, failings and incomptencies of underlings, is it any surprise that the heads of major corporations might decide to not sign off on their financials. Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems says he won't sign, and he will resign before the August 14th deadline to avoid signing. (Apparently he was already slated to leave, I think this just speeds up his departure timeline.)

I used to live with earshot of where the Amtrak derailment took place today. The stories I've read so far do not really make it clear just how close this derailment happened to the site of the 1996 accident on the same line. Yes, the other accident happened in Silver Spring, and this one in Kensington, but they are just a few miles apart. I remember listening to the EMS, Police and fire response to the '96 accident on my (since sold) police scanner. It was one of the worst sounding events I ever followed with my scanner.

When I lived in D.C. I had the very bad habit of riding my bike at all hours of the night, most commonly from 11PM to about 1:30 AM. The streets were empty, the temperature cool, the breezes gentle. One of my favorite activities on those rides was to race to one of the many bridges crossing these tracks when I heard a train. I'd stop on the bridge, turn off my headlight and just watch the train until I couldn't see the EOT device anymore. Good times, good times.

So far there are no reported fatalities in today's accident. I hope it stays that way.

NOTE: If you do any research on U.S. Government funded contracts, don't even think about taking any work home with you. FURTHER NOTE: If you are married to someone working on a U.S. Government research contract, don't let your children get too close to your spouse's work.

There is something truly, inspiringly funny about plagiarist Joe Biden (D - Dumbass) sponsoring anti-copying legislation.

The amateur psychologist in me thinks that he might be lashing out against a world that punished him for his copying transgressions.

I.R.S. Loophole Allows Wealthy to Avoid Taxes

Interesting article about a clever death-tax avoidance technique "invented by a lawyer in New York and a chemical engineer in California".

Loophole (noun): Def'n - Any tiny bit of remaining freedom not yet destroyed by the bureaucratic state.

I know it only points to the source, but this Reuter's headline makes me chuckle.

U.S. Explores Strike Options Against Iraq-NY Times

I just love the mental image of the U.S. exploring strike options against the NY Times.

"So, Raines thinks he can attack me again," hammered Rumsfield, "and co-opt public funds to get a juicy lease below market value. Well, I'll just see about that."

[Because I am still "Off my Reuter's articles," I didn't click on the link, so I cannot guarantee that it works.]

Whiny political-fools crying that we need to "Do it for the children" remind me of Pierre Lemieux's satirical, and insightful, essay "Why I Hate Children."

Ann Coulter explains it all.

Thus, the Democrats' theory must be that Bush's purchase of the Texas Rangers and Cheney's ascension to the vice presidency were wily scams to conceal their real reason for selling assets: insider information! Of this, there is no evidence. Literally no evidence, in contradistinction to when liberals say there is "no evidence," meaning there hasn't been a conviction in a court of law, but there are boatloads of evidence.

Great comedy from my wife: Immediately upon hearing that Rob Lowe plans to leave The West Wing next spring, leaving the best gig he may ever have, she suggested he might want to reprise his role of John Seger in "Atomic Train II."

Watched a bit of PBS's Great Projects show about the big dig. Beyond all the corruption, gee-whiz engineering, bad planning and wrecked budgets, one thing stuck in my head: What a great target for terrorists.

Apparently Shariah (Islamic law) holds a proscription against paying interest on loans. (I realize that this is a gross over-simplification of the situation, but it is suitable for this post.) Though I cannot prove that Arthur Andersen is involved in this, some creative accountants, lawyers, clerics, and marketing people at HSBC hope to serve Islamic financial needs, including a coming a product with which they hope to get around Shariah and provide home mortgages, in the U.S., to Islamic clients. HSBC (in the UK, writing for its Amanah Finance) asks and answers the question:

Why Islamic Finance?

Islamic Finance has emerged in recent decades as one of the most important trends in the financial world. There has always been a demand among Muslims for financial products and services that conform to the Shariah (Islamic law). With the development of viable Islamic alternatives to conventional finance, Muslims are beginning to find Shariah compliant solutions to their financial needs. Given a total population of more than a billion Muslims worldwide and an estimated industry size of US$200 billion, Islamic finance is a serious business for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

HSBC recognizes this demand, and its Islamic finance initiative is a direct response to the financial needs of its present and future customers.

Wow, almost $200 per Muslim. They might all be able to buy a used rifle each and come and get us. Of course, after buying the rifle they wouldn't have any money left over for bullets. Or food. I hope.

Personal Banking

At HSBC we recognise that customers demand more choice and greater flexibility in their day-to-day banking. That's why we are working to offer a wide range of Islamic financial products and services that suit both your ethical preferences and personal circumstances. At present HSBC Amanah Finance is working on a range of services that include checking and savings facilities, investment opportunities, debit and charge cards, and vehicle and home finance solutions.

We further recognize that by actively soliciting the business of Muslims, we are likely increasing the chance that we will be doing business with potential terrorists. Allah's will be done. So be it.

Amanah Finance, headquartered in Dubai, UAE, has offices in London, New York, Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur. I'm not sure it if will be the sponsor of the coming "Maha Kaba" mortgage program to the U.S., but I have it on good grounds that this loan program is headed here soon, if not already available.

Apparently the "loan" will work something like a pre-paid interest loan, where the interest is not called interest, but it is just capitalized into the cost of the home.

Example, as it was explained to me: Mustaffah wants to buy a home, but he doesn't have the needed money. He desires to borrow the money, but no home is worth falling out of the good graces of Allah by violating Shariah.

So, in order to finance the cave of his dream, Mustaffah signs up with HSBC for a Maha Kaba, Shariah compliant mortgage, in which HSBC buys the home, then immediately resells the home to Mustaffah at a mark-up that includes the future time value of the money loaned. Payments made against this sale amount are somehow not interest, and therefore comply with Shariah. I have no details on what happens in the event of a sale, how payoffs can be computed, and whether or not prepayment is penalized. Further, it is unclear as to whether or not the credit life insurance policy has a coverage exclusion for splodey-dopes.

(This is all very sketchy, explained to me by someone who had only received preliminary information and had not yet been fully trained on the product. Updates will follow if I learn more from him, or from my reader(s).)

[Somewhere, in all of this, there is a "conforming" joke/pun between an FHMA conforming loan and the need for Shariah products to "conform" with a "higher" law, but I can't find it. If you think of a good one, let me know.]

NOTE:"Murabaha" is the name of the islamic HSBC company.

WARNING: Shameless plug for the website of MK 8700, Ed Rigdon's electronic marketing course at Georgia State University. I happened upon it by accident and I think it deserves future attention. Looking through the archives, it would appear the Professor Rigdon has blogged news items of interest since the fall of 1998.

American University really should consider changing its name in light how un-American its actions have been towards Ben Wetmore. This is one of those stories that if I didn't provide links with it, my less media-junkie friends wouldn't believe that this happened in the United States.

American Universy Public Safety officers, not dressed in their uniforms, approached a student taping a speech by Tipper Gore, did not identify themselves to the student, and then demanded he stop taping a public speech and appearance by a recent U.S. senatorial candidate. Giving him just a few seconds to comply, and still not having identified themselves, the heavies with badges made things a lot worse in a hurry:

Gerlach walked with Wetmore and the officers out of the arena April 8, according to her statement. A member of the Media Relations staff indicated that the tape should be secured from Wetmore so that it would not be distributed, she wrote, and Wetmore refused to turn over the tape. When Wetmore blocked the camera from the officers, the struggle began, she wrote.

"I attempted to tell Officer Lazarus and Officer Smith that this incident was escalating to a level that it didn't need to go," she wrote. "I felt like they were escalating the situation and I didn't feel that this needed to be handled this way."

Just what the hell is on that tape, and why is AU so concerned its contents might be distributed? </sarcastic paranoia>

Image Courtesy Oleg Volk
Weird aside: The Department of Public Safety at AU is part of the Office of Finance and Treasurer. Strange, to me anyway, that the cops report to the money-man.

Weird aside #2: Why the hell were campus cops taking orders from someone in the media relations department?

[Link to AU story found via The Hub]

Man, those America West pilots really know how to drink!

I am not a sports fan.

That said, I enjoy good sports talk radio and I occasionally go to a sporting event for social reasons. I'm not against sports, I just never understood how, or why, it posessed such power over so many of my friends. The NY Times Magazine carried an article on Sunday that helped explain the allure of spectating sports.

Like many revolutions, it started in the hours before dawn with a single man trapped in an underventilated room, surrendering to the wanton urges of his febrile brain. It was the spring of 1980, the room an ESPN studio in Bristol, and the urges belonged to Chris Berman, a lumpy 24-year-old son of the suburbs, hired the previous fall because this start-up 24-hour sports channel was looking ''for a couple guys who could speak in complete sentences and wouldn't embarrass them.''

Twenty-two years later, Berman can't pin it down it exactly, but at about 3:15 a.m., while plowing through that evening's baseball highlights, either ''Frank Tanana Daiquiri'' or ''John Mayberry R.F.D.'' plopped out of his mouth. After these words, whichever ones they were, had gone out over the airwaves, Berman shuddered and thought, ''Oh, my God, what have I done?''

Berman knew that anyone watching ESPN at 3:15 a.m. in 1980 was, to put it charitably, a highly committed sports fan, and by augmenting those names in such a punch-drunk way, Berman was revealing himself to be just as far gone. Instead of another talking hairdo dumping scores into the void, he was a junkie communing with fellow addicts. He was sowing the first seeds of a new community.

{As much as I hate to admit it, I first heard about this article when Colin McEnroe talked about it on his radio show.]

Always delivering links to great articles, Obscure Store has earned a perma-link. Pushing it over the top were these two great articles:

A piece in the L.A. Times about how lawyers are finding evidence on ebay when they need historical samples for product liability cases, and a fun story from the WaPo about a tough, principled lady in Alexandria, VA who boots cars that trespass on her private parking spaces.

Always a great link over there. Always.

I thought only priest's had to be registered with the state.Under Megan's law, anyway.

OK, a cheap joke about a serious story. An Indian court found Catholic nun Ursuline Sr Bridhi Ekka guilty of violating a law on religious conversion by not reporting conversions to district authorities, and sentenced her to six months jail time for her offense. Apparently, the first person to ever be convicted under this statute, I hope she will be the last. India has its head up its collective ass on this one.

File this one under the topic of how modern life resists satire. In the midst of one of the worst forest fire seasons ever (with at least two fires started by federal employees), pocket bureaucrat and recreation forester Debbie Gaynor has ordered David Knickerbocker to take down the flag pole he has had outside his cabin in the Eldorado National Forest. For 23 years he has proudly flown the flag of the United States of America, a banner of hope, freedom and inspiration, outside his cabin, but now the U.S. Forest Service has ordered it be taken down. The reason; "flagpoles are not authorized for recreation residences and must be removed" states the order received in by Mr. Knickerbocker in a letter.

"Flagpoles are not authorized."

How sad that such a sentence can even be formed using the english language. How very much more sad that a U.S. federal employee wrote this sentence out and sent it to a United States citizen.

Mr. Knickerbocker was also informed that his hot tub had not been approved and that he must paint his aluminum door a darker color.

A darker color? Sounds like some sort of loophole to me, "a darker color" does. Next time I expect CMYK codes, a pantone number and/or RGB values for accepted colors.

Personally, I think he should start flying the Jolly Roger until some petty bureacrat at the U.S.F.S. rescinds this ridiculous order.

Being no big fan of TIPS, I really enjoyed this hilarious post over at TruthLaidBear.

A big welcome back to Stuart Buck, who upon leaving his clerkship in D.C., has resumed blogging.

"The Buck Stops Here" was the first blog I ever read, and certainly the first blog I ever read regularly. Hopefully he will re-publish, if allowed, some of his old posts from before he was made to stop blogging.

Ex-Arthur Andersen employees are landing in all sorts of places, and many of them are attempting to cover their tracks.

Another partner who was in the Vienna office and asked not to be quoted by name because he has since gotten a job at another big accounting firm, said: "There's nobody left. The Andersen that was is simply gone." Partners have lost the capital that they put into Andersen -- $70,000 per person, on average -- and now face possible liability.

The article in today's WaPo continues:

"We're starting clean . . . with a new slate," said Jay Meriwether, a managing director at Protiviti who was a partner in Andersen's risk-consulting division.

Protiviti is attempting to market itself using the letter "i" to signify that it is independent -- it won't do any work for a company other than risk consulting or internal audits. Its logo says "All those in favor of a truly independent risk consulting and internal audit firm . . . Say i."

Two jokes spring to mind:

1. Didn't Andersen get in a lot of trouble because all anyone thought about was "me"? How much better is that they are all now thinking about "i"?
2. I can think of a few worlds other than independent that begin with "i":
   • Incompetent
   • Indicted
   • Indiscretion
   • Idiotarian
   • ILL-Gotten

Minnesota has started naming its roadside ponds after TV characters from The Simpsons and Happy Days.

So it named some of them Bart, Barney and Milhouse.
...
The Simpsons ponds -- there's also Apu, Clancy Wiggum, Maggie, Itchy, Lenny, Quimby, Scratchy and Seymour -- are all part of the Interstate 494-Highway 61 interchange project in Newport in the metro area.

[Thanks go out to my friend Scott for the link to this article.]

I don't have anything against fast food or fast food chains. I don't eat a lot of it, never really did, but I still eat fast food a couple of times a year. That being said, this rant by Engelmacher over at Angry White Girl is one of the best rants that I've seen in years. Here's my favorite paragraph [WARNING: Graphic Content]

We as a society are now so used to seeing things like double-decker cheeseburgers and super-sized carbonated beverages containing enough phenylalanine and fecal matter to choke a Clydesdale that we not only accept them as part of our daily lives, we actually expect them to follow us everywhere we go. Travel to some exotic, faraway land and you are immediately greeted by the effervescent visage of Colonel Sanders buttfucking Ronald McDonald atop a goddamned Jack In The Box, while the Taco Bell Chihuahua laps eagerly at the wet spot spreading out in all directions beneath their floppy shoed feet. Fast food, like the runny, ranch-flavored semen of anthropomorphic, promotional icons, is simply fucking everywhere.

Go read the rest.

There's an old joke about how different newspapers craft headlines to report on God announcing that the world will end. I was reminded of this joke after reading how the anniversary of a world changing invention was covered by various media outlets.

One hundreds years ago - yesterday - an air-conditioning system designed by Willis Haviland Carrier, just one year out of Cornell University's College of Engineering, turned Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic and Publishing Co. Brooklyn into the first air-conditioned building in the world. Here's how the anniversary was covered:

• CBS - 100 Years Of Playing It Cool (AP's JerrySchwartz)

  But until Carrier, no system cooled, cleaned and dried the air.

  One of Buffalo Forge's clients, the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic and Publishing Co. in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, had a problem: The paper it used in its printing jobs, including the popular humor magazine Judge, was expanding and contracting in the heat and humidity. The printers were finding it impossible to align the ink.

  So Carrier came up with a simple solution. If the plant was heated by blowing air through coils pumped full of steam, why not cool it by blowing air through coils full of cold water? Water in the air would condense on the coils, the way it does on a glass of iced tea in August; as a result, the air in the plant would be both cooler and drier.

  On July 17, 1902, the printing plant was cooled for the first time, and the age of air conditioning began - though it wouldn't be called that for four years, and for decades it could be found in few workplaces, and even fewer homes.

• Boston.com Air conditioning's centennial: A hundred years of hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm(AP's Jerry Schwartz)

• MSNBC - 100 years of keeping cool (MSNBC's Lisa Napoli)

  Carrier himself was chosen to air-condition the U.S. Capitol in 1928, but it was controversial. Members of Congress were concerned that “the people” would think this move an indulgence. It wasn’t until 25 years later that air-conditioning in the home started to become routine.

• AZ Central - Air conditioning's centennial: Chillin' for 100 years(AP's Jerry Schwartz, uncredited.)

• Silicon Valley.com - Unglamorous technology can change history (Richard Reeves - syndicated)

  It has always amazed me that more history is not written around advances in technology, science and medicine rather than as the story of great politicians and generals. In fact, a quick check revealed that the first apparatus that might be called an air conditioner was actually a device that, in 1851, blew air over trays of ice in a malaria hospital in Apalachicola, Fla.

  The history of the world, told as a chronicle of technological advance, is certainly more compelling than looking at statues of men on horses. Actually, the horses were no longer necessary after the invention of the automobile and the riders are mostly long forgotten. Electric lighting practically doubled the productivity of men and women and certainly changed the world more than World War I, which happened more or less at the same time. My father-in-law, who grew up in Harlem when it was a German neighborhood, told me that when the first buildings in the area were electrified -- a single bulb was typically installed on the first floor -- neighbors would gather after sundown, bring chairs and sit at the bottom of the stairs, just staring at the glowing bulb.

  Actually, come to think of it, I remember doing the same thing when television reached stores and homes in the 1950s. We stood on the street and stared at the thing for hours, not just at the programming, but at the test patterns that filled the little back-and-white screens most of the day.

  How important, then, was the invention of air conditioning? Richard Nathan, director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York, was asked that question by Newsday. He answered: ``Air conditioning had a fundamental demographic and economic impact on the country, contributing along with the civil rights movement. . . . If I had to make an estimate, it's about 50-50 in terms of the importance of the two of them.''

• Staying perfect to form, the Washington Post took time out of its article to document how the elderly and the poor are left out of AC's cooling zone, though it does offer the best insight into how AC allowed rampant growth of federal legislation.

  WaPo - Cooler Heads (WaPo's Jennifer Frey)

  There are places out there, of course, that never have air conditioning. Small corner bodegas. Older apartments and houses where the residents cannot afford -- or do not like -- window units. More than three-fourths of the District's public school buildings. Outdoor job sites.
  ...
  Without air conditioning, we would be limp, damp, foggy, irritable. We would be utterly miserable.
  ...
  Then came the power of AC. The House of Representatives was air-conditioned in 1928, the Senate in 1929. The White House got central AC during a renovation in 1930. Public office buildings followed suit. A few decades later, residences became air-conditioned. The town changed.

  So, say some, did politics.

  "Clearly," says Marshall Wittmann of the Hudson Institute think tank, "air conditioning was a lubricant for the Congress to enlarge the size and scope of the purview of the legislative branch."

  In other words, if you think like Wittmann, it wasn't just the New Deal that brought about the era of big government. It was the installation of air conditioning.

  "It not only enlarged the government," Wittmann says, "but also saved Washington from losing its position as the nation's capital. Can you imagine modern-day lobbyists and legislators enduring Washington sans air conditioning? Impossible!"

• Last and least, Time's Jessica Reaves, who takes this as an opportunity to describe her personal problems with AC, and how she finally overcame them.

  Time - Making Peace with Air Conditioning (Jessica Reaves)

  It may surprise you to learn that we lived in this sticky state until exactly 100 years ago today — July 17, 1902 — the day that Willis Carrier invented the air conditioner.
  ...
  A confession: I have what you might call a conflicted relationship with the air conditioner. ...
  ...
  This summer, however, I've finally made peace with Mr. Carrier's invention by purchasing my very first air conditioner.

It's fashion week again in Brazil. Mmmmmm, fashion week.

Bush really is clinging to that homeland defense plan. Like some kind of life preserver. Quick, somebody get him in front of one of his Message Drop backgrounds.

Feeling a bit naked standing in front of a crowd without one of his de rigueur prop-eye-candy backdrop, President Bush covers himself by improvising a handheld visual sound byte.

The following quote came to me via email from a friend. My friend titled the email "Good Advice From a Man Who Knows".

"America must get rid of the hangover that we now have as a result of the binge, the economic binge, we just went through," President Bush said.

Sometimes the straight man gets to be funny. Sometimes.

Implementing its new policy, Southwest Airlines recently demanded that two fatties buy extra seats for their return flight home. Instead of being happy that they made their outbound leg on the cheap, they are suing Southwest for discrimination. (Or is that dis-cram-ination?)

If this truly comes about the US will have more citizen "agents" spying for it than the STASI ever had. People should report crimes and truly suspicious behavior to the authorities, but I fear a system that turns 1 in 24 Americans into officially sanctioned domestic spies.

T. I. P. S.

=

To

Insure a

Police

State

[Found via Politechbot]

There is something really strange about those sound-bite (Eye-Bite?) backgrounds the President Bush has been showing up in front of lately. (See; Protecting the Homeland, Corporate Responsibility, Strengthening Medicare, Working Towards Independence)

Though obviously creepy for their propaganda value, these backgrounds appear even stranger to me due to their highly stylized, engineered even, design. These layered appearance, well designed to be legible, even in low contrast, out of focus, message boards almost scream Big Brother. The message is short, the font legible, the contrast against the background images is high, and the distribution of the wording seems very carefully designed to always get the message into any photo taken from any angle. I can't argue with the Bush team's desire to get their message out past media gate-keepers, but I question this blatant high-tech propagandizing.

News organizations, or at least the print media, appear to be fighting against these message saturation backdrops. By limiting the depth of field, photographers have taken an effective portrait technique and started using it to . By placing only the subject in focus, viewer's attention is drawn to where the photographer wishes. In covering Bush lately, photographers also appear to be using a limited depth of field to control the propaganda content of their photos. Bush will be in focus, but his message appears as blurry smudges behind his head. Perhaps this limiting of propaganda value injects a bit of a message of its own, that is, that the president's message is in fact a bit fuzzy.

From my perusing of cable and network news coverage, television cameramen have not yet started taking the same steps. Given the standards of most operations, I suspect such "artistry" will not start appearing on small screens any time soon. Out of focus backgrounds on TV are primarily reserved for flashbacks, soap operas, dream sequences and Barbara Walters' specials.

---

I've been thinking that the world needs a short hand name for these creepy over-engineered message carrying backdrops. I came up with these possible names, and if you come up with any of your own please send them to me.

• Eye-Bites
• Back-Words
• Message Drops
• Propacandy
• Prop-Eye-Candy
• Bushgrounds
• HI-Liters
• Bushboards
• BB-BG's (Pronounced BeeBee-BeeGee's, as in Big Brother BackGrounds.)
• Your Suggestion Here

(I should not rule out, however, that these backdrops are simply a way to cover up undesired nude statues in the background. )

Another update on how our world is starting to look more like Ender's world. I wonder how long until the US Army starts using video games as a qualification tool in addition to a recruiting tool? (For persons not yet enlisted or commissioned. I understand that they already use simulators for training purposes.)

After hearing a news-nugget on the radio about its new openness I got an idea for a post involving China's recent showing of some of its military bases to foreign media.

My first, rather naive thought was, "Oh, China is going to be open, and show outsiders that it doesn't abuse its conscripts." (Or at least doesn't treat them any worse than it treats other citizens.)

But no, instead it was some sort of flag waving, sword swishing theatrics designed to inspire fear in those that might not yet (or still) fear the biggest, reddest menace left on the planet.

Were I not the hit and run blogger that I am, I would now attempt to tie this together with my earlier post on the 40 Millon or so "bare branches" in China. I would suggest that China hopes to use its 40 Million unmarried, and likely to remain so, men in an agressive expanisionist push to take territority from its neighbors, and it is using this recent press coverage to intimidate its enemies before it actualy has to use its armies.

But I'm just a linker, so I leave the rest to the thinkers.

Non-waif Neil Cavuto tells us to distrust him as a source of advice on diets, and we should view Congress similarly when fiscal advice is concerned. He then asks Congress:

Just one question: who the hell are you to judge?

You have no problem year in and year out churning out budgets that are a sham. Now you're going to judge corporate budgets?

You have no problem losing tens of billions of dollars in pork barrel programs that have no real value. Now you're going to add some value to corporate books?

And you have no problem sticking it to taxpayers for largesse that benefits your own coiffures. Now you're going to judge the largesse of CEOs you claim are benefiting their coiffures?

Four words: I don't think so.

There was a bit of discussion over on FR about whether or not Neil's use of "coiffures" instead of "coffers" is a typo or if it is an intentional pun, picking on politicos fascination with their appearance AND their budgets. Either way, the rest of Neil's rant is worth checking out.

After the Shoe Bomber incident, when shoe x-ray and inspection was becoming more prevalent, I asked an airport security worker how they would handle screening people with artificial limbs. Well, now I know.

I've been saying for years that the hub for switching from calling flavored fizzy water "soda" to calling it "pop" was Rochester, NY, where strange enough they call it "Soda Pop." Now I have proof.

[Link Courtesy RAWbservations.]

I get quite a few referrals from people searching the web for updates on Christopher Braga, the FBI agent who shot Joseph C. Schultz in the face. Since I seem to get so many hits on this matter, and I just came across a few more articles that came out while I was away, I figured I would link to them to keep readers up to date.

Grand jury won't indict FBI agent in shooting

State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee, who is seeking re-election, decided to present the case to the grand jury after a review of those reports left important questions unanswered, according to his office. And since Braga also refused to give a statement to investigators, the grand jury became "the most prudent course of action," according to Kristin Riggin, spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office.

Arundel police fault FBI manhunt

Once agents stopped the car being driven by Schultz's girlfriend, they gave conflicting orders. One agent shouted, "Open the door!" while another ordered, "Put your hands up!"

Being that I just returned from vacation, I find myself unable to generate the necessary vitriol to vent yet again on this "accident".

Some of my regular readers are friends from real life, and I post stuff like this because without sources they just don't believe my stories about the militarization of U.S. police forces.

Shit.     Shit.

[Unrelated, but I thought of this due to my use of fear quotes on the word "accident" above: Inventor of Air Quotes Dies in Mysterious "Accident"]

Nice to see, after returning from my weeks vacation, that Mickey Kaus has a story I reported on 12 DAYS AGO!, and I even included full transcripts, albeit on my "EXTRA:" section.

Advantage, real-Blogosphere.

[And we don't need need no stinking editors! -- TC]

Vacation to the Maritimes is pinging along nicely. Thanks to the lovely Holiday Inn Select in Halifax (Or, as my friends called Halifax when we dragged them up here years ago for our wedding: "Halifar."), I'm surfing at high speed on a complimentary connection in Willow's lounge.

Even with all the reported hype, getting into Canada from the states is still very easy. "Nothing to declare, vacation, 5 days" and you're in. Since we came on the Cat Ferry, we had to fill out a customs declaration, but otherwise it was just like going through a land crossing.

A slight variation on the theme:

Click image for Store

For whatever reason I seem to notice a lot of quirky things in web ads, as noted before. Today I came across this rather unfortunate advertisement to gain referrals for the Orange Saving Account from ING Direct.

Is it just me, or do the lines transecting the logo make it look a bit like an ass?

Yet another reason why we should pave France.

Remind me again why we are these people's ally?

The NY Post has a story today about hundreds of New Yorkers who voted both in Florida AND in New York for the November 2000 election.

The RNC says it has found 402 instances of New Yorkers recorded as voting in the five boroughs and also in the three Florida counties at the heart of the 2000 Florida election furor - Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward (Ft. Lauderdale).

Not just registered to vote in more than one place, but actually voted in more than one place.

So far, in partial checks of 11 states, the RNC has found that more than 140,000 people were registered to vote in two places - and 759 were recorded as casting two ballots.

I wonder how the party affiliation will shake out on these "Double-Dippers," as the Post calls them. Sixty Eight percent of NYC voters are registered as democrat, but no word yet on the double-D's.

Mister Softee Tried To Kill Me!

Even the ice-cream man can lose his cool.

The driver of a Mister Softee truck, allegedly fed up with the tactics of a Hartford neighborhood activist, is facing third-degree assault and breach of peace charges for attacking the activist with a baseball bat, city police said.

Luis Amaro, 51, a part-time Mister Softee driver, is accused of charging out of his truck Saturday and swinging the bat at Wilbur Troutman, a city resident and frequent critic of the jangling kiddie music coming from the truck's loudspeakers.

"Mister Softee tried to kill me!" Troutman, 64, said Tuesday as he recovered from arm bruises and a graze to the head allegedly suffered in the attack. Troutman was not seriously injured, but he described the attack as "totally unprovoked" and "monstrous."

After reading this article, and from having followed some of this story as it has played out on CTNow.com, I don't know what to believe. The paper was even more careful than normal in including all of its "allegedlies" and "reportedlys" in describing this "attack."

The only evidence of the attack is bruising on the activist, though the report seems to indicate that no one saw him get hit. Did the activist, or someone with him, put the bruises there to supply more ammunition for his fight, I don't know, but the paper was very clear to point out that the charges only followed seeing the bruises, bruises that were not observed until the activist returned home.

This afternoon I designed this based upon something my wife used to say about Philly when she worked there. I think she's right, it would be better without the exclamation point. I'll edit it up tomorrow. Anyway, I put this up for sale on T-Shirts and Mugs over at CafePress.com.

That's it, I'm now officially off my Reuters. The charade is over, the mask removed, the curtain pulled back and all cliches delivered. Reuters is biased, anti-American, and unfailingly leftist.

Here's the opening paragraph of the "news" story that pushed me over the edge:

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The first permanent¹ world criminal court, dreamed of² for decades, became a reality on Monday -- even as the United States fought tooth and nail³ to avoid its jurisdiction over humanity's most heinous⁴ crimes⁵.

[Similar text appeared as part of the caption for this Reuters photo.]

1) Permanent? We'll just see about that. Persisting, pestering, perpetual, open-ended perhaps, but permanent? Pie-in-the-sky, I say.

2) Dreamed of by whom? Certainly by the author, for one.

3) Having an opinion and using diplomacy to further your view, when practiced by mere Americans, is fighting tooth and nail.

4) As created this kangaroo court will have the ability to reach within borders and deal with entirely domestic issues, potentially criminalizing legitimate acts by civilians and government officials alike.

5) The only crimes they will bother with are crimes by the west against others. Call me with an update after they indict Saddam Hussein, Osama
Bin Laden, and/or Yassir Arafat.