ACORN Preparing To Sue Missouri; Voter Fraud Made Too Difficult

ACORN threatens suit over drop in Mo’s voter registrations:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, joined with others Thursday in sending “a letter of intent to sue” to the Missouri Department of Social Services.

ACORN, Project Vote and Demos (a national, non-partisan public policy, research and advocacy center) contend that the state has failed to comply with “a requirement of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to provide voter registration opportunities in public assistance offices.”

The letter was sent in connection with the release of a Project Vote report detailing concerns because voter registrations at
public assistance agencies “have dropped from 143,000 in 1995-1996 to just 16,000 in 2005-2006.”

Could that be that all the people who receive assistance might have registered to vote in the last 10 years?

Nah, it means that someone creative, like ACORN, should be able to “find” 125,000 additional voters each and every year until a Democrat becomes president for life.

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Life Imitates Sick Jokes

Pit bulls at Vick’s house face deadline:

More than 50 pit bulls seized from Michael Vick’s property face a Thursday deadline to be claimed. If no one comes forward, they could be euthanized.

Federal prosecutors filed court documents last month to condemn 53 pit bulls seized in April as part of the investigation into dogfighting on the Vick’s property. No one has claimed any of the dogs, which are being held at several unspecified shelters in eastern Virginia, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Wednesday.

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I, For One, Fear The Austrians When Provoked

U.S. missile shield is provocation: Austrian minister:

Austrian Defense Minister Norbert Darabos has called U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in eastern Europe a “provocation” reviving Cold War debates.

“That the United States are installing a defense shield in eastern Europe is a provocation in my view,” Darabos was quoted as saying in an interview with daily Die Presse on Thursday.

It’s the dreaded Austrian Navy that I fear most.

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I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

Apparently, the reporter is ignorant of that place of business:

The Overland Police Department this afternoon sent out a plea for help in solving an armed robbery that happened at a toy store last Wednesday by sending out a photograph and video of the gunman.

An armed robber held up Priscilla’s Toy Box at 10210 Page Avenue in the city at 8:55 p.m. on Aug. 15, according to police.

Friends, that’s not a children’s toy store. So I hear.

UPDATE: Well, I guess someone at the paper noticed, as the word “toy” has gone down the memory hole.

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Book Report: Deadly Welcome by John D. MacDonald (1959, ?)

This book, one of John D. MacDonald’s paperback originals reprinted when his Travis McGee novels took off, covers a story of one Alex Doyle, former resident of Ramona Beach, Florida, and his return home. Back around the end of the war, orphaned Alex Doyle decided to join the military; on the night before his induction, he went drinking for the first time and awoke from his overindulgence with some cash stolen from his adopted family’s store in his pocket. Run out of town (but allowed to join the military instead of jail), Alex Doyle serves honorably and joins the State Department. But when the Department of Defense needs a scientist to return to the organization, they turn to Doyle to shepherd him back because the scientist married a Ramona Beach woman and settled there. To get the scientist back, Doyle promises to solve the scientist’s wife’s murder.

It’s a short novel, a paperback thriller. I liked it well enough. It lacks the depth of some of the Travis McGee series, but come on, it’s a paperback thriller.

Worth a couple quarters if you find it at a book fair, or a couple bucks if you’re a raving John D. MacDonald fan like me and find it in a used bookstore.

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Town Councilchair Quarterbacks Go Three And Out

Sometimes when a municipality decides that its ideas about how to design and run the business are better than the business owner’s, the business owner decides not to play:

Menards has dropped plans to build a warehouse store at the east end of Grafton near the I-43 / Highway 60 interchange, saying village officials insisted on too many changes in the company’s plans, a Menards official said Monday.

“We just went as far as we could go revising the plans, and finally we said it wasn’t worthwhile,” said Marv Prochaska, the company’s vice president of real estate. “At some point, you have to operate your business, and it was beyond the point where the deal made any sense.

“It was just numerous, numerous small things that all added up to way too much, and it just didn’t make any sense,” he said.

Look on the bright side, Grafton! That’s sales tax revenue you never had, so you won’t have to worry about what to do if the location started making less year over year.

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Book Report: Puppet on a Chain by Alistair MacLean (1969)

I forget which book fair I bought this book at this year; I do remember thinking it was great to get a copy of a non-book club edition of Alistair MacLean’s work, but when the Book Fair Employee put this in the box, she tore the dustjacket almost completely. Swell.

I probably hadn’t read this book since high school. It’s centered around an Interpol narcotics investigator going to Amsterdam to sniff out a big, organized crime syndicate shipping heroin abroad. It’s interesting that it’s a commonplace crime handled as though it’s bigger than it is. Some of the response to the drug thing is over-the-top, but this was early in the war on drugs, before it became commonplace I suppose. The point of view is a little different from many MacLean books in that this is a storyteller first person. Unlike other first person points of view, where the I is supposed to play it straight, this storyteller withholds information and foreshadows later events to make a better story. I think it’s a good point of view, a bit of the double-effect narrator going on, and think I should try it again.

A good read, quick enough (a little over 2 nights for me) and probably readily available at book fairs or the link below if you’re interested.

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Book Report: Ghosts by Ed McBain (1980)

This book, an 87th Precinct novel coming from the old tradition of hardback mysteries under 200 pages in length, is a throwback even at its publication date. The phone numbers within it appear as town plus five digits. In Isola. In 1980. So I guess it was on the shelf for a decade or so before publication.

In it, Carella investigates the murder of a known writer whose fiction books were so-so, but whose nonfiction book on ghosts was a runaway bestseller. The murderer also killed a woman outside the writer’s apartment building, and then moves on to kill the writer’s editor and try to kill the writer’s girlfriend, a medium–but the killer attacks the woman’s twin sister inadvertantly. In the course of the investigation, Carella encounters some actual ghosts, marking one of the few if not the only time the supernatural makes its appearance in these books.

It’s a decent enough thriller and a quick enough read.

Striking, though, is the back of the book which features two long paragraphs of praise for Ed McBain and this book from Stephen King. Ed McBain’s been plying his trade for 25 years, and the book company puts an endorsement from a relatively recent, although popular, upstart to sell more books. How Mr. Lombino must have felt. Of course, he probably sold more books on account of it, so he probably was okay with it, as he was a professional.

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Answering My Wife’s Question About Transportation Budgets

The other day, I commented that Ronald Reagan allowed for a federal gas tax 25 years ago because of the state of the interstate highway infrastructure. I made the comment that transportation budgets are always diverted to other things, and she jumped on my “always.” However, I think I have a better insight into government nature than she does.

This column enumerates some of the ways transportation,that is, gas tax, money is spent that doesn’t involve maintaining roadways:

As recently as July 25, Mr. Oberstar sent out a press release boasting that he had “secured more than $12 million in funding” for his state in a recent federal transportation and housing bill. But $10 million of that was dedicated to a commuter rail line, $250,000 for the “Isanti Bike/Walk Trail,” $200,000 to bus services in Duluth, and $150,000 for the Mesabi Academy of Kidspeace in Buhl. None of it went for bridge repair.

And:

Minnesota spends $1.6 billion a year on transportation–enough to build a new bridge over the Mississippi River every four months. But nearly $1 billion of that has been diverted from road and bridge repair to the state’s light rail network that has a negligible impact on traffic congestion. Last year part of a sales tax revenue stream that is supposed to be dedicated for road and bridge construction was re-routed to mass transit. The Minnesota Department of Economic Development reports that only 2.8% of the state’s commuters ride buses or rail to get to work, but these projects get up to 25% of the funding.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Government get general tax revenue.
  2. Government spends tax revenue on shiny things, not maintaining core government services (law enforcement) or infrastructure (roads).
  3. Shortfall in core services funding becomes an emergency requiring raised taxes/dedicated taxes.
  4. Government gets dedicated tax revenue in addition to general tax revenue.
  5. Government spends general tax revenue on shiny things and new dedicated tax revenue on shiny things, not on core services or infrastructure.
  6. Shortfall in core services funding becomes emergency requiring raised taxes.

The problem does not lie in the amount the government is getting and spending; it lies in the things the government buys.

But don’t tell the government or our elected/unelected “leaders” that. They like shiny things.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

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Sick Joke

What is the difference between Michael Vick (Falcons’ Vick Accused of Executing Dogs) and the city of Denver (Denver pit bull ban draws dog lovers’ ire)?

Michael Vick bought his own pit bulls and “executed” them, whereas the city of Denver seized other people’s pit bulls and “put them down” for the good of society.

Haha! No, I guess it’s not funny. It’s even less funny when you think of the lack of principles involved.

And you know what’s really cheesing me off about the dogfighting thing? It’s the perversion of the language. I mean, come on, a rape stand? That’s not the term by which you buy them in the catalog; it’s called a breeding stand, and it’s designed so that mating dogs don’t hurt each other during mating (or to hold the dog for grooming or whatnot). But the papers and the indignirati all use rape stand because rape is an automatic bad word above reproach. Like here’s Brian J. Noggle saying that rape isn’t rape when a breeding animal hasn’t given its consent to be bred.

Or Michael Vick “executing” dogs. I mean, seriously, executing them? We’ve used that term to refer to a procedural sort of killing by some sort of authority, not tossing kittens in the river. But, again, it’s an automatic bad word, worse than killing a dog, Michael Vick was executing them.

George Orwell would nod sadly but knowingly.

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Good Book Hunting: August 16, 2007

The Jewish Community Center in Creve Couer has been holding its annual book sale all week, and we picked the absolute worst night to go to it. The first night is preview night with a cover charge; Friday, today, is half-price day; Saturday, tomorrow, is bag day, where one can buy a bag and have everything that fits into it for five dollars. Last night, then, was the last day at full price, and hence the most picked over selection possible for the full price. Not that it stopped me from finding far too much:


August 16 Book Fair Results
Click for full size

We have:

  • A number of Perry Mason mysteries, including The Case of the Mischievous Doll, The Case of the Fiery Fingers, and The Case of the Horrified Heirs.
  • Several of the Classics Club books I’ve taken to collecting. New books include History of Plymouth by William Bradford; Selected Stories by Anton Checkov; The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler; and Seven Plays by Henrik Ibsen. I already had Selected Works by Cicero, but it was a different printing. This brings my collection to, what, 29 volumes in this set?
  • The Pathfinder by James Fennimore Cooper; I have most of the Leatherstocking books now. Perhaps I should read them.
  • Hallowe’en Party and The Mousetrap (a play) by Agatha Christie.
  • A collection of poetry by someone I’d never heard of, James Kavanaugh.
  • A “chapbook” by local poet Pam Puleo. I knew Pam when I was doing the open mike circuit about 10 years ago. This “chapbook,” which looks more like a school project and includes some loose poems tucked into it, looks like a school project. When I read these to the boy, I might try to imitate Ms. Puleo’s voice and delivery.
  • A bunch of Camus, including The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays and Caligula and Other Plays.
  • The Realm of Numbers by Isaac Asimov.
  • Star Trek: The Return because I’m interested to see how Shatner got them to resurrect Kirk.
  • The Lost City of Zork because I’m an old school geek.
  • Some philosophy books, including Basic Ethics, Dilemmas, Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy, and A Casebook on Existentialism.
  • Open Net, George Plimpton’s hockey book.
  • Friday by Robert A. Heinlein.
  • A hardback copy of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.
  • The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. I am getting quite a collection from Bloom. Probably because I keep thinking he’s the guy who got a hand on Naomi Wolf’s thigh.
  • The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.
  • A Death In China by Carl Hiaassen and some other guy. The Carl Hiaassen is what’s important.
  • Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist, some musings of some science guy.

Brian, you say, that’s 30 books, meaning that you’ve picked up 62 this week. Isn’t that more than you read in a year?

Not this year, friends; I am at 72 total books and I’m going all the way! Although I’m not sure where that is, but if I can get there in my comfortable recliner, I am there.

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Book Report: The Parisian Affair by Nick Carter (1981)

This completes my recent reading of three great novels set in Paris (the others: The Three Musketeers and Hunchback of Notre Dame). This book, number 148 of about 260 featuring Killmaster Nick Carter, offers everything a growing boy needs. The action and the story are tied together. The story moves. The cover’s not as lurid as one would hope from a paperback original, but one can learn to accept.

Plot Summary / Spoiler Alert!

Nick Carter is ambushed, saves damsel, sleeps with damsel; Nick Carter is ambushed, kills a couple ambushers, one escapes; Nick interviews model who might be an expert assassin, sleeps with her; Nick is in building that explodes; Nick sleeps with woman he saved; Nick ambushes model, kills level bosses, discovers model is only a junkie; Nick finds another model, dead, declines to sleep with her; Nick drives Ferrari fast; Deus ex maquina encounter as Nick discovers big boss and kills him; Nick drives Ferrari fast, rescues his boss; book ends with more implied sleeping with damsel formerly in distress.

Fortunately, no trained goats tempted Nick, or it would have been a much different story.

Now, I can read some quality junk fiction to clean some from my shelves.

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Book Report: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (1831, 193x?)

As you might have guessed, gentle reader, I’ve been on a French Lit kick for some reason lately; I guess it was because The Three Musketeers was good enough to warrant another look at a potboiler from France in the nineteenth century. Well, this book is not quite that fast of a read.

For starters, the first third to four ninths is mostly exposition. We’re introduced to some of the characters through a long and mostly meaningless scene depicting the titular cathedral during a festival of fools. Some extraneous ambassadors are in town, and Quasimodo, the bell ringer, is elected the king of fools. The poet/philosopher who wrote the main drama finds the audience’s attention continues to be diverted by all sorts of interruptions, comings, and goings, and ultimately he’s disappointed. Dejected, he wanders about Paris and ends up in the neighborhood frequented by the vagabonds, who’ll hang the intruder unless someone saves him by marrying him. Against all odds, the beautiful Esmeralda does.

Then, we get not one but two long essays on architecture and the way Paris looked in the time period in which the book was set. Remember, like The Three Musketeers, this novel was a historical novel when it was written, so the author must have felt the need to pad up 40 pages of exposition to educate his readers. But it really kills the pacing of the story.

To make a short story long, this book really collects a very brief number of scenes with a lot of words dedicated to them (much like other older books, I’ve noted). Ultimately, the author lavishes detail on characters that play minor roles in the action (although major roles in the story, I suppose; the action and the story being two different things here).

Spoiler alert!

So Esmeralda falls for a philandering captain of the guard; a repressed bishop fixates on Esmeralda; the poet/philosopher drops out of the book for a while as the bishop stabs the captain while he’s entertaining Esmeralda, framing the young pseudo-gypsy for the crime; as she’s sentenced to hang, the bishop offers to save her, which she rebuffs; the hunchback steals Esmeralda from the hangmen and takes her to Notre Dame, a sanctuary for criminals; the bishop meets the poet and gets him to foment a rebellion of the vagabonds so they–bishop and poet–can secret Esmeralda from Notre Dame; the bloody uprising occurs; the bishop and the poet steal Esmeralda and her trained goat from the church; when they reach the opposite shore of the Seine, the poet takes the goat instead of the alluring Esmeralda to whom he’s already wed by the laws of the vagabonds; the bishop again pleads for Esmeralda’s love, and she rebuffs him; and they all die, including the subplots, except for the captain of the guard, the poet, and presumably the goat.

I don’t know how you can turn that into a Disney film; I suppose it’s only American audiences’ lack of knowledge of the basics of the plot that allowed it to happen. I mean, Disney wouldn’t dare to try Hamlet. And the hunchback: not a nice guy.

So I’ve got one more French book to go and then I am thinking about knocking off some junk from my to-read shelves before the next book fair later this week.

Wish me luck.

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