September 3rd, 2004
Off
I think I'm done here. Though there's a lot of crap going on right now, I still hope you all have a fun and safe long weekend. See you when I see you.
Posted by fad at 5:46pm
Nutshell
A Wal-Mart owned chain store is being built within sight of the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico. Here is the design per conditions:``A number of conditions have been set to make the store blend in,'' said Ortega, who monitors the site. ``It will be lower than a regular store - below the tree line. It will have more subdued colors, and a stone facade.''Of course some are really pissed about this for many of the same reasons Wal-Mart is hated in the US (or at least the typical arguments during the 90s).
The archaeologist, Veronica Ortega, said the opponents represent shopkeepers afraid of losing business to Wal-Mart.And the opponents admit that.
The opponents don't deny that, but they argue that small stores and markets should be preserved, even if they offer little cultural purity.So who, then supports this monstrosity?
``There is a street market at Otumba, a mile or so away, that will be destroyed by Wal-Mart,'' said D'Herrera. ``The market is full of plastic stuff and Chinese goods, but it still should be preserved.''
Underlining his group's lack of support, D'Herrera said probably 70 percent of the town's mostly poor residents support the new store because it will offer lower prices than the area's small shops.So jobs and lower prices. Yes, some jobs and ownership are lost, but there's a good chance, with more capital around, new jobs and business can start. Not saying it will, but it is a possibility. So with 70% of the poor wanting this because they think it will help them, who can opponents turn to?
``A lot of times, we find more support among the international community than among people here in Mexico,''That's right! Those poor-people lovin' international activists. Why, they love the poor so much, they want them to pay more for goods just as long as they stay so cute and indigeneous. Remember, that poncho makes you more authentic if it was made by some starving native, not someone who saves a few bucks and might have a better life due to the horrors of globalization.
Posted by fad at 4:37pm
Kathump
You have to admire her dedicaton to the call.That's what witnesses said about a woman who struck a Chicago Police Department traffic aide, who was run over Thursday afternoon at Dearborn and Washington.No word if her car contained mystery pot that belonged to a friend of hers.
The driver was talking on the telephone and didn't even realize she had hit the officer, according to those who saw it happen.
Even as police investigated the scene, [the woman], 34, did not get off the phone, as she sat in her black Jeep Liberty awaiting her citations.That's just plain impressive. I hope should I ever break both of someone's legs, I can remain calm enough not to hang up. That would be just plain rude.
Posted by fad at 2:53pm
And A Rock To Protect From Tigers
Once again, The Simpsons predicted this.Some 30 brown bears have been terrorizing a Transylvanian mountain village and could delay the start of the school year, local authorities said Thursday.Better get the bear patrol on this. Either that or blame some imma-gants. Either way, won't somebody please think of The Children™?
Villagers are afraid to let their children go outside, with the bold bears are making off with domestic animals in broad daylight
Posted by fad at 2:40pm
Get Well Soon
Damn. Have to poke up to the real world news for this.CBS News and CNN reported that Clinton, a former Arkansas governor, had gone to Columbia Presbyterian hospital in Manhattan with complaints of chest discomfort. ABC News said the former president would have a quadruple bypass on Friday.Get well soon. Most people have a pretty bad attack long before a duesy like a quadruple is required. Sounds like he's very fortunate they caught it now.
(I will tolerate no bullshit here about "timing" or how this affects the campaign. Not even in attempted jest.)
Posted by fad at 11:51am
Old Stuff
I'd love to see this stuff.The public can now book a curator-led tour of some of the 170,000 objects that are not on display in the museum's South Kensington exhibition halls.But, sadly it's in one of them ferrin countries.
[...]
Stacked on one pallet is a twisted and cracked fuselage section from a Comet, the pioneering but ill-fated British airliner which suffered catastrophic metal fatigue.
Move to another floor and you see a wooden and metal contraption that looks vaguely familiar. It is the original prototype "Workmate", a DIY workbench concept that inventor Ron Hickman sold to Black and Decker for £100.
(The news around the world is almost universally depressing, so I'm avoiding it here today. That doesn't mean I'm blissfully ignoring it. There needs to be some small escape.)
Posted by fad at 11:16am
Obvious
More book burning in Germany.Thousands of irreplaceable books were feared lost or damaged in a fire at one of Germany's most precious libraries, though some 6,000 historical works - including a 1534 Martin Luther Bible - were saved by a chain of people who spirited them away from the flames, officials said Friday.Even if saved from the flames, most means of putting out fire are still not all that book friendly.
Posted by fad at 9:04am
Whee-Hoo
I'm sure North Korea will react rationally, as always, to this news.South Korea denied harboring any nuclear weapons ambitions Friday, saying a one-time uranium enrichment test by its scientists shouldn't derail U.S.-led efforts to dismantle rival North Korea's nuclear programs.Geez, no one ever has nuclear weapon ambitions. Just to finally get some balance out there, I'm going to admit freely to you all that I unequivocally have nuclear weapon ambitions. Y'all are just lucky I'm lazy and stupid.
Posted by fad at 8:58am
Weight Lifted
Since I made such a big, damn deal of it, I figured I'd let everyone know I got the album on Wednesday. There. Don't you feel better now? You can blow out that extra candle you added to that shrine you have to me.I was going to do a song by song review, but decided that was too self-indulgent even for me. Plus, I really, really hate fanboy reviews of anything. They are useless and annoying. They remind me of the book reports from the kids in Ramona Quimby, Age 8. "I think this is a good book and so should you." (At least I think that's how they were. It has been over 20 years).
Posted by fad at 6:29am
Templates
Thank God the conventions are finally over and will no longer, even in the limited way they did this time, interfere with prime time's brightest stars shining bright. Good to see the coverage stayed true to form. As reported, the RNC was angry and racist as always. The proof? They had an old, white, Southern man attack the other candidate! The DNC was tolerant, smart and feisty. The proof? They had an old, white New England man attack the other candidate!Now we can go to the even more useless debate season in which the coverage is always in how the Republican has to try to not sound so stupid and mean while the Democrat has to try to not sound too soft or too smart as to alienate all the dumb masses. Wake me when we get over the preconceived storylines.
Posted by fad at 6:12am
September 2nd, 2004
Frances
All of you in the path of the storm, I'm hoping you all stay safe, with power and limited damage.
Posted by fad at 5:20pm
Destroy Them All
Ha! Proof that cats are demonic agents of Satan out to see us destroyed so that he can play his fiddle upon the blasted, wasted lands that once saw the glee of happy, dancing children.Cats not only can catch the deadly bird flu but can spread it to other felines, Dutch researchers reported Thursday - raising important questions about the pets' role in outbreaks.Cat coddler! This is no time to be complacent before the vast KKKat KKKonspiracy!
So far, cats haven't been implicated in the spread of avian flu to people, cautioned World Health Organization's influenza chief Klaus Stohr.
Posted by fad at 3:57pm
Drug War Powered Searching
I don't recommend transporting your victims' corpses through Ohio this summer.Ohio has banned the bringing of firewood into the state from Michigan, where a tree-killing beetle has killed or infested 8 million ash trees.How fun.
[...]
The firewood checkpoints, the first set up in Ohio, were aimed at campers and people traveling over the Labor Day weekend. They will operate much like drunken driving checkpoints used by police departments nationwide. Officers will stop vehicles at random and search their trunks for firewood.
When we moved from Washington to California, my brother and my dad were in the U-Haul, my mother and I (and the dog) in the station wagon following behind. At the Oregon-California border, they were stopped and asked if they had any plants in the truck. My dad said, "In the truck? No..." The guard sent them on their way. As they drove passed he didn't notice the VW Bug in tow loaded up with all the house plants my mom couldn't bear to leave behind.
Posted by fad at 1:55pm
I'm Still Officially A Lost Job
Missouri lost 51,800 jobs from June to July this year, twice as much as any other state. Or at least that is what was reported. There was an odd oops.The day the report was released, a Labor Department economist said it was misleading. Now, the agency says Missouri made an error when it failed to include teachers on summer vacation among the employed, as Labor Department policy states.Yeah, it does seem really odd. The story gives the sense that Missouri hasn't made this mistake in the past. It'd be really neat if there were a type of person out there whose job it was to ask questions about stuff like this. It could be nothing, but, then again, manipulating those numbers in an election year could also be very tempting.
"When we saw the numbers, we said right away, 'That's an awful big change for Missouri.' That's when we questioned it," said Ken Shipp, an economist with the Labor Department in Washington. "We have no idea why they did it that way."
Posted by fad at 10:10am
Many Unused Jokes With This Story
Well. I guess we all need something of ourselves to be proud of.Mr Yilmaz, 28, has mastered the discipline of eye-squirting - sucking milk through the nose into the eye before squirting it out across a table.Uh. Bravo? (BTW, big ole picture with the story. The squeamish may not want to click it.)
He hopes his latest distance of 2.795m (9.2ft) is confirmed as breaking the former record of 2.615m (8.6 ft) held by a competitor from British Columbia.
Posted by fad at 9:49am
Trapped
Back to the ha-has, sort of. That kid who drove the country trying to make a smiley face pattern of pipe bomb explosions is truly, and sadly, messed up.When placing pipe bombs in mailboxes two years ago, he occasionally left letters in which he referred to "dismissing people to a better reality,"The last thing I want is for someone who doesn't believe in death to offer to help me out.
[...]
"Mr. Helder doesn't believe death exists," said Simcox. "He has seen ghosts in the past." In Helder's world, bodies die, but spirits go to a "higher dimension."
Posted by fad at 9:45am
Unreasonable
I threw a few cheap -- and not so cheap -- shots at Reason's Nick Gillespie this week, so figured I should explain why. It has almost nothing to do with things this week. Those just reminded me why he's on my "annoying and worthless" list. In fact, all my reasons are from long before the war.Our story goes back to 1998. I was just about to receive my BA in Tuition Check Clearing, but my education was just starting. Most of my philosophy (sorry, that sounds really arrogant, but I can't think of a better word right now) started from that time. One of the major portals to these new (to me) ideas was Reason. At that time it was a very open minded, pretty much non-partisan magazine from a practical libertarian viewpoint. Any good idea, no matter its source, was explored without needing to throw a cheap shot if the source wasn't libertarian pure enough. It was an alternative to the wackos, shills and charlatans of the Libertarian Party. It wasn't so much the content of the magazine -- though I always looked forward to it -- but the people and ideas introduced through it that were so enjoyable. I let my subscription lapse when I lost my job that time (seems a reasonable reason, I hope), but when I found a new one months later, after settling in to Missouri, I took out a multi-year subscription again to Reason. The magazine, in this time, had changed just slightly, but I didn't think much of it. Then, about two months in, Virginia Postrel announced she was leaving as editor and Gillespie was taking over.
[This goes on and on. I recommend skipping it.]
Posted by fad at 9:22am
September 1st, 2004
Armadillo
Truly the AshKKKroftian night has fallen heavy upon the land.The statue of a continental soldier that sits atop the state's Auburn Correctional Facility was removed earlier this summer for renovation.The FCC has gone too far.
[...]
It seems workers sprucing up the 156-year-old statue were told to reduce the size of Copper John's crotch,
Not everyone in the prison system is happy with the cosmetic alteration, though. Correction officers have had shirts printed, urging in a not so family friendly way that Copper John be saved.Well, that's not nice to tease us like that. We want to know what the copper cocklovers' T-shirts say!
Posted by fad at 3:15pm
Reason Destroyer
Time for another cheap shot at Nick Gillespie. Here I present to you his inner monologue upon meeting someone new:"I'm Nick Gillespie. This person is not Nick Gillespie, therefore it is very likely they are stupid. Especially if they disagree with me. Since I use reason, anyone else doing so would come to the same conclusions I do. If they disagree, they must not be using reason as well as I do. I hope it's not a Republican because they are all evil stupid. Democrats are just clueless and stupid, but at least not evil. Nothing worse than evil stupid. Well, since Ashcroft won't let me fuck a budgie in the middle of the World Series I'd better just say something smug and filled with authoritative sounding asides that enforces my superiority."
Posted by fad at 2:24pm
Random reason it is good to live in the 21st century
The list of edible/poisonous has already largely been drawn up.
Posted by fad at 2:17pm
Brain Melting
I never have trusted owls. Always flying, hooting and ever staring, staring. Now I know why. Those filthy bastards have stolen my best idea.Owls have been observed using dung as bait to trap beetles for food, the journal Nature has reported.I've been using dung for years to try to trap nature journalists. So far all I've caught are a couple of Irish tourists. Friendly chaps. Shared a pint with them. Unfortunately 1/3 of a pint isn't all that satisfying.
Posted by fad at 1:57pm
Zeeble
They -- and they being those who prefer to autopilot on cliches rather than original thought...which includes me I guess -- say that when given lemons, make lemonade.A 76-year-old Algonquin grandmother who authorities said used her age and frail health to scam suburban car dealers on Tuesday admitted defrauding an Elgin dealer with a bad check.Obviously there is a massive conspiracy of little old ladies to undermine the economy of the United States. Someone get Paul Krugman on this. He's an expert on big, crazy conspiracies. And using the word "documented".
Posted by fad at 1:33pm
Jean
Hmmm, maybe I should cancel that shopping trip I was planning.Police on Wednesday charged [a woman] with theft by deception, for allegedly passing a bogus $200 bill at the Fashion Bug storeSomehow this story is made extra good with a Fashion Bug involved.
Police said they didn't know how the clerk was taken in by the ruse, even though several other things about the bill should have been a dead giveaway.I think I want one of these bills. Better if it had been a $300 bill, but I wonder how many people really remember the "rebate".
Among other things, the bill had a hokey serial number - DUBYA4U2001 - and didn't bear the signature of the secretary of the treasury. Instead, the bill was "signed" by Ronald Reagan, whose title was "Political Mentor" and by Bush's father, who is listed as "Campaign Advisor and Mentor."
Posted by fad at 11:49am
Issues
We're experiencing some goofiness with our server, so you may notice odd things going on around here.
Posted by fad at 11:33am
Insider
You know those commercials, usually on the radio, for companies which claim they will fix your credit good? You don't? To hell with you then!Sorry, little rage this morning. Anyway, some of them have a very straightfoward method of doing this.
A Riverside, Calif., credit-repair firm bribed employees at the nation's three major credit bureaus in an unprecedented scheme to inflate the financial standing of hundreds of clientsGo Riverside!
Experian said it triggered the investigation in early 2002 after it caught and fired a Dallas employee who was part of the scam.That's some pretty good scratch.
The employee [...] was paid $300 to $500 a week to falsify files
Falsifying credit files is "kind of like counterfeiting the new bills," Girard said. "You can try it, but it's hard to get away with it with all the shape-shifting holograms and embedded threads."Shapeshifter!
Posted by fad at 11:15am
Rest In Oops
I'm pretty sure this is a zoning violation.The 46-year-old man died of natural causes in June. He wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered"That's not herb tea; that's Herb!"
[...]
Family members told police the bag of ashes slipped as they were circling the cemetery in a small plane they had hired for the day.
The 4-pound bag crashed through Vreeland's roof and landed in the attic.
Posted by fad at 11:07am
Unreasonable Response
Today's nearly libelous insult of Nick "I don't need to make an argument because I'm right!" Gillespie:I'm still pissed at him from taking a once great magazine that was about ideas and policy and turning it into a bitch rag about how Ashcroft won't let him shoot up heroin and fuck his mom's dog in the middle of the street.
Posted by fad at 9:33am
August 31st, 2004
Helium
Allow the New York Times to give you my idea of the setting in hell.The Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade didn't want the day to end. So toward midnight, tired and sunburned from marching and hanging out in Central Park, about 65 of its members gathered in a borrowed Chinatown space to eat and entertain themselves with what they referred to as a "talent show," which lasted until nearly 2 a.m.There it is. In a poetry club. At 4am. Surrounded by Marxists. All of whom have a poem to recite.
[...]
At the Bowery Poetry Club, almost everyone of the dozen or so people on hand at 4 a.m. went onstage to read or recite a poem.
Posted by fad at 3:57pm
iPost
Look! It's an iBook on a stick!I think the designers at Apple spent too much time at the Minnesota State Fair.
Posted by fad at 2:57pm
Freebear
A rousing chorus of Born Free if you please.A bold amphibious escape bid by a bear at Berlin zoo has been foiled in a dramatic shoot-out.Did zoogoers panic?
Juan the Andean spectacled bear first paddled across a moat using a log for a raft, then scaled a wall.
Finally he appeared to commandeer a bicycle, before zookeepers with brooms cornered him, and a colleague picked him off with a tranquiliser gun.
He did say, however, that he was "alarmed at how some fathers were too busy filming the bear to check where their children were".Hey, they can always make another kid. That tape could win them money on one of them TV shows!
Posted by fad at 2:27pm
Stoopid
The ups and downs of one Boston area man.First thing Monday morning, he allegedly tried to rob a copy shop at Boston University thinking it was a bank. Boston police said he walked into the shop on Commonwealth Avenue and passed a note to a store employee asking for money. When he was told the shop wasn't a bank, Callahan asked for directions to the nearest Fleet bank branch, police said.After that, his day got interesting.
Posted by fad at 1:43pm
Movin Pikatur
Duuuuude....
Posted by fad at 9:54am
If You're Reading This, You're a Fascist
One of the fun things about seeing coverage of protesters is their incredible over and mis use of the word "fascist". I'd bet any one of them up to 4 Leninland Antibucks that they couldn't get through the day without using that word. Most likely they would not understand the joke, call me a fascist and twirl away. It used to be that "fascist" just meant "anything that dares disagree with me". Not anything they disagree with, because for them to disagree would mean acknowledging there could be other views. I used to know someone in the late 90s who lived in New York and would routinely call Giuliani a Nazi or a fascist. Now I happen to think Naziism was a special horror and crime that shouldn't be diluted by referring to people trying to enforce jaywalking, limit aggressive panhandling and going perhaps too strongly after porn shops as such. If everything is Naziism, then it is very easy to forget just how horrific that was. For example, the easiness with which seemingly reasonable people have no trouble calling Bush equal to Hitler.But I digress. My point was that for these protester types "fascist" seems to be the new "um." "So, fascist, I was, like, fascist, thinking we should walk over there." "Hmmm...fascist, I dunno." I imagine lots of conversations like that, and this:
"So what color should we paint the People's Free Space [That's "living room" to you and me -- ed.]?"
"Anything but fascist."
"You mean fuschia?"
"Yeah, that's what I said. Fascist."
Or:
"Hey, don't fascist those chips, man!"
Actually, I kind of like that last one.
Posted by fad at 9:44am
Welcome Back
Today is a day that has been nearly 8 years in the waiting. The Trashcan Sinatras' new album, which some of my friends are quick to point out is lousy music, has finally been released. But for me, this means the adventure is just beginning. Now I need to find a place to purchase said album.While living here isn't as bad as when I was in Wisconsin and had to drive an hour to Milwaukee just to buy CDs (Wal-Mart doesn't generally carry the stuff I like), it isn't quite like it is in other towns where a hipsterish music store of the proper temperament is relatively easy to find. One of my favorites was a place in Redmond, WA, just in a little strip mall across from my first work. It was loaded with bootlegs all with a nice "IMPORT" sticker on them. This was the type of place that when the Joy Division box set came out, I didn't have to ask them to order it. They already had two in stock. Only once there did another customer see what CD I casually held in my hand and feel the need to express his judgment upon me. I forget what it was (I didn't buy it), but apparently it was a pale ripoff of some obscure band this fellow was very proud to be aware of. I guess I was supposed to be proud of him too, but, in sadness for my betterment he was trying to achieve, I was not.
Around here the basic music shopping choices are the gleaming suburbic Best Buy, which isn't actually all that bad on selection, but is highly unlikely to be carrying the album. Shifting down the hipster trail a bit there is a place called Slackers. Get it? Ain't they cool? Unfortunately, they concentrate more on the punk 'n' Chomsky side of CD sales. Oh, and crappy bootleg T-shirts. I always wanted to steal one of those shirts or a Chomsky CD, get caught, and then enjoy their explanation of how, yes, property is theft, except in this case. There used to be a place somewhat close by that was actually really nice. It had all the hipster gear, but staff that didn't openly judge you and could take that damned security sticker off a CD in 1.73 seconds. Unfortunately it had to close so that a Qdoba could move in.
If those others fail, I may have to trundle down to trendyville itself: Vintage Vinyl down in Delmar. I fear going there because your level of ironic detachment must be so high in order to enter. I could try a disguise. The really expensive mall nearby has one store for the upper middle class kids attempting to show their disdain for capitalism and the system by buying overpriced Emily the Strange stuff long after the really cool kids have rejected it for being too mainstream. They have to wait for it to burble out because their parents won't let them go to the parts of town where they can get the latest nonconformist uniform. So that probably means I would be sniffed out as a poseur if I attempted a disguise from there.
Oh well, the adventure begins soon enough as the stores open. I know I'll probably just end up getting it from Amazon, though. But I will not be denied at least the opportunity for the hunt.
Posted by fad at 6:09am
Convention
I enjoyed the Reason convention stuff for the DNC, in large part because his royal smugness, Nick "Libertine Pretending to be a Libertarian" Gillespie kept his typing away from it. Strangely, he's all over the RNC.
Posted by fad at 6:02am
August 30th, 2004
No Title
One of my great rules for life is "Don't talk politics or religion at the bar." Too few follow this rule.A man sprayed butane-lighter fluid on his girlfriend and her bed, then set the bed on fire early yesterday, police said.I hope she doesn't leave him because I'm sure he didn't mean it, and I'm sure he's just so sweet most of the time.
The woman escaped without serious injury.
[...]
The woman told police she and the man had gotten into a dispute over religion after they returned home from a tavern early yesterday. She said the man started spraying the bed with a butane can used to refill lighters, then set the blanket on fire with a lighter.
Posted by fad at 2:19pm
Hello, Citizen
I have found my mentor.A 6-foot-tall, 275-pound bearded man crashed a children's birthday party in Oak Forest, identified himself as "vengeance," then helped himself to a piece of cake, police said.I have come close to doing that so many times, but always chickened out at the last. No more will I live in fear.
[...]
When the owner of the home asked the man who he was, the intruder replied, "I am vengeance. I am the knight. I am Batman." Then the man went into the kitchen, cut a piece of birthday cake, took it into the living room and ate it.
Posted by fad at 11:19am
Elvish, Not Elven
Hard to find interesting stories through all the fludge of convention coverage, but this appalling child abuse could not slip me by.By October, 150 or so young vocalists will be able to at least sing lyrics in the invented language, if not speak it with the fluency of Aragorn.Then afterwards they will play a rousing game of Boil 'em, Mash 'em or Stikkem Inna Stew.
[...]
Choir members are immersing themselves in Elvish through books and movies, and will put in about 40 hours of Elvish singing practice before the October performance.
Posted by fad at 11:16am
Query
Since I have nothing else so far today, I'll just drop this. I constantly read worshipful references to A Confederacy of Dunces. I used to think it was a collection of things idiotic famous, powerful people had done, but now it appears to be some sort of novel, or something. So what is it and why is it such a big deal? I could probably research that myself, but I prefer my knowledge to come to me with no effort on my part.
Posted by fad at 9:30am