Rachel Lucas is right; anything with a British accent is funnier.
Drive Shaft: The Early Years
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Author: Brian J. Noggle
Any Civilization Player Knows Differently
AP overstates its poll results when it says Bush, Congress hit bottom in AP poll:
It’s almost as if people can barely stand the thought of President Bush and Congress anymore. Bush reached his lowest approval rating in The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on Friday as only 30 percent said they like the job he is doing, including an all-time low in his support by Republicans. Congress’ approval fell to just 22 percent, equaling its poorest grade in the survey. Both marks dropped by 4 percentage points since early January.
Actually, I would expect the absolute bottom to be armed insurrection or at least some sort of lynching. Disgust with one’s government and party, pithy remarks made amongst the like minded, and/or staying home on election day after filing one’s taxes in a timely fashion but answering negatively to a pollster doesn’t strike me as the bottom.
(Link seen on Instapundit.)
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Book Report: Playgrounds of the Mind by Larry Niven (1991)
Wow, it’s been almost three years since I read N-Space, the collection to which this book is billed the sequel. How do you get a sequel to a collection of short stories, snippets, and novel excerpts? Beats me, I am not a marketing flack for a publisher.
Like that book, I didn’t care for this book too much. For starters, it pads the nearly 500 pages with excerpts and scenes from novels (a disturbing number of which I have already read). It offers a number from his Warlock series, which I haven’t read and might have to look into. Other than that, it dabbles mostly in the Known Space arena.
It did, however, allow me to put my finger on one of Niven’s flaws: his books are best when the science isn’t actually a freaking character within it, particularly the one that speaks most. The later Ringworld novels fell into this trap, as did one of the stories in this book (“The Borderland of Sol”) whose only purpose was for Niven to noodle about the conceit of a quantum blackhole. The narrator is a space adventurer who follows along with Carlos Wu, father of Ringworld‘s Louis Wu, as they uncover a scientist engaged in piracy. The bulk of the story is Wu knowing the science of what’s going on and not spilling it until they’re in the pirate’s lair, where the pirate scientist gives a lecture on quantum black holes.
The nonfiction bits talk about how much Niven likes to deal with the hard sciences and that, in one of the many science fiction convention memories he treats us to, he and a group of artists and writers got a conference room set aside so they could create a world, including the topography, the aliens on it, and their culture. They worked in the room for the whole convention, and that was it: people putting together a world. Niven was surprised that more fans didn’t stop by to see this riveting action as artists created the images, writers wrote up the prose, and everyone brainstormed without a freaking story.
Niven, apparently, lives for this stuff, but readers don’t necessarily. Ergo, this book is okay for real Niven fans, but casual science fiction fans should probably stick to the real novels or the real collections.
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ABC News Corrects Coyote’s Spelling
From the story Fake FedEx Trucks; When the Drugs Absolutely Have to Get There:
A fake U.S. Border Patrol van was found to be carrying 31 illegal aliens in Casa Grande, Ariz.
An alert agent recognized that the “H” in the van’s serial number is a letter used only on U.S. Border Patrol Jeep Wranglers. It should have been a “P.”
One suspects that the story would have been almost as informative without the clarity that’s only useful to smugglers.
Now, how about some Pantone colors for the fake logos, ABC? What, are you holding something back because the Bush administration censored you?
(Link seen on Instapundit.)
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Those Poor, Poor Donkeys
Southern Residents Asses Tornado Damage
(Link courtesy of William Squire.)
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Regardless of the Adjective, More Money Needed
MoDOT: Roads safer, more money needed
Do you get the sense that if the roads were less safe, more money would be needed anyway?
Roads remain the same….more money needed!
Flying cars invented, more money needed to convert the roads to bike paths!
Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads? More money needed to subsidize production of organic garbage for the Mr. Fusion.
Come on, everybody play “Think Inside The Bureaucratic Box”!
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Me and 3105
Total Missouri vote count for Fred Thompson: 3106.
That might include me, but on further reflection, I somehow was filling out a St. Louis City paper ballot; I know because I voted against its half cent tax increase for practice.
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I Was Going To Write In Thompson
I voted this morning, about 9:30, about the 98th person at my polling place to use the scanned paper ballots instead of the touch-screen voting machines. I took the piece of paper because I’d planned to write in the name of my favored candidate, a man who has since left the race, Fred Thompson.
The current front runners of the party, Romney and McCain, are not my first choice. Nor my second choice. Nor, really, men I would choose at all if given any good field. Romney signed MassCare (Google asks, “Did you mean Massacre?”). Romney promised auto workers that he would save the auto industry. I mean, Romney isn’t what I’d call a conservative.
McCain, now, I liked him well enough in 2000, before I knew much about him. I even forgave him for earnestly supporting McCain-Feingold because I thought his heart was in the right place with his intentions, but I didn’t think the law would prove “Constitutional” (the difference between Constitutional and “Constitutional” lies in the difference between my opinion and that of the swing vote of the Supreme Court). However, it did, and ultimately the better I got to know McCain, the less I liked him.
I would have voted for somebody else, anyone else, when I got to the polling place. Instead, I hoped to write in the name of Fred Thompson to indicate my displeasure with the ruling mass of the Republican party that its calculus that weights “electability” (that is, how positively enamored the media coverage of a candidate is) over substance (that is, reason, individualism, and capitalism tempered with individually-motivated charity that make up the American psyche, or what I always hope is ultimately would prove to be the American psyche).
I wanted to let the Party and its new ruling locus back east understand that they weren’t speaking for me, that I would go outside the established paths they chose for me and would actually write in the name of a Federalist, a man laden with gravitas, and someone who I think exuded sincerity and down-to-earth belief in himself and the aforementioned tenets of American society.
Of course, between the two evils vying to be the lesser of the two evils on the ballot in November, the current leader McCain varies from all that I think is good in politics more than the other guy, and a vote for a who has no chance is really a vote for the front runner. That is, any vote for anyone other than the guy in second place is irrelevant. And I didn’t want McCain to win, did I?
Brother, that argument that my opinion is irrelevant doesn’t work if you’re trying to bring me to inflate your relevance. I know that I differ from the bulk of the party, and this primary offers me the opportunity to remind you just how much.
I was going to write in Fred Thompson, but his name was on the ballot. Good, that means that people who feel almost as fervent as I do but are lazy might take the opportunity to send the same message that I did. I filled in the circle and scanned it in, leaving a paper trail in case of voting irregularities or whatnot and a record that I stand apart from the direction this party is going, down the slippery slope into disconnection from me, if not its base.
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Another Juxtaposition
On Friday, I shoveled nine inches of snow off of my walk and driveway.
Today, it was seventy-five degrees and the snow is all gone.
You cannot really explain that to someone who hasn’t lived in St. Louis.
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Another Fancy Headline Juxtaposition
Following the “coincidence” yesterday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch identifies another suspicious bit of serendipity:
Click for full size
I’m beginning to see a sordid pattern in the behavior of our elected officials and their visits to the Midwest.
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So Who’s Trying To Remove The Middle East From The Internet?
Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast:
An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.
Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.
Someone said boat anchors were doing it. Doing it effectively, I would say.
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Bring Your Own Handgun, Please
Police seek help in shooting of elderly woman
Doughnuts and coffee will be provided, though.
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I Don’t Think So
Rightroots has a lot of balls.
They’re like the McCain callers who hit me sometime in 2005, it seems, demanding my support or I’d get a Clinton presidency.
Now, this Rightroots band has started the F7 program, seeking pledges that Republicans will send money to whoever is the candidate on February 7, 2008. Or else I get Clinton or Obama.
Setting aside the fact that there won’t actually be a candidate until the convention this summer, but I don’t care about any of the remaining candidate for the candidacy.
This is the best our remaining candidates can offer the bulk of conservatives. That they’re not Clinton or Obama. To me, either one is as bad–or worse–on domestic policies and slightly better on foreign policies in that I don’t think they’ll gut the military. That’s what has me “sold” on one of these Republicans in the White House in 2008. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement or a call to action for me.
I won’t sit out the election, but I’m not going to jump on the Not Clinton or Not Obama bandwagon with any sort of fervor.
In 2000, I sent money and I volunteered for the candidate for president; in 2004, I sent money. But I have quite enough reservations about the remaining candidates. I am sure enough not going to waste my money or time in support of a candidate or a party with which I no longer agree.
The Rightroots and the Republicans better learn that its previous constituency was not composed of fall-in-line simpletons.
Here’s my pledge: Not on damn dollar or hour. Again.
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Book Report: Ranting Again by Dennis Miller (1998)
Wow, is this book really 10 years old? Man, I read the original book, The Rants only….12 years ago, I guess. Funny how those years condense in memory. I’m reading another book whose predecessor I read in my old house, probably 3 years ago, and that doesn’t seem so far back.
Regardless, let’s get to the book in hand. It collects Dennis Miller’s monologues from his old HBO show which he got right after he left Saturday Night Live. All those years ago. They’re seasoned with his allusions, which you get enough of to think yourself smart when you get them. He takes on the normal topical topics, like kids these days (which are now kids those days and adults now), politics, government, and relationships. The titles are broad and the topic matter, too, is broad, and somehow, it saddens me and comforts me that the rants could hold up today, a decade later. Particularly if you just change the name “Clinton” to “Clinton.” We haven’t come very far in this decade, but we haven’t gotten much worse.
Additionally, it’s odd to note that Dennis Miller, before 2001, sounds more like an intelligent Bill Maher politically than he does now. He says, I think, that he changed in 2001. I would say so.
Good, interesting reading worth a look.
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A Tax That Doesn’t Sunset? You Don’t Say!
Stadium tax might live on after 2014:
The amount of sales-tax revenue distributed in 2007 to the Miller Park stadium district increased by only 1.8% over the previous year, raising new concerns the five-county tax will not be retired as hoped in 2014.
Which raises the distinct possibility that the stadium will be empty because the Milwaukee Brewers become the San Antonio Migrants or the stadium will be replaced to keep the Brewers in town before the sales tax is retired.
But you’re telling me that taxes with expiration dates are more likely to stick around than tax cuts with expiration dates? This is a stunning turn of events, indeed!
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So We Meat Again
The Meatriarchy returns.
The next time I update my sidebar, he’ll be back on it. Also, I’ll remove the dead man, the dead candidate, and the dead paper link.
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Juxtaposition from the Kama Sutra
Birds of a feather, er, flock together:
Click for full size
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That Must Have Kept The Mediums Busy
Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey
After all, dead men fill in no scanatron forms with number two pencils.
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Heather Likes Bridges
Here are 18 Stunning Bridges From Around The World.
(Link seen on Dynamist Blog.)
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Book Report: April Evil by John D. MacDonald (1955, ?)
As you might know, gentle reader, I am a great John D. MacDonald fan, and someday I hope to own all of these paperback originals. This one, written in the middle 1950s, deals with a bucolic Florida town near Tampa that has an old doctor who grew rich from land sales but kept the money, in cash, in his fortress like home. Word gets out, and some out of town hitters come looking for it at the same time as distant shirt-tail relations show up to sponge a bit and the niece-by-marriage hatches a plot to have the man committed.
The book switches points of view and really develops the individual characters in it. It seems slowly, almost, but it’s not; the book runs only 191 pages and really ramps up to a good climax as the individual storylines come to a focal point. MacDonald does this well in his paperback originals, some of which I’ve already reviewed in this space (use the search bar, I’m too lazy to do it for you).
This book is a good one in the set, and I’m eager for the next. Which will probably be in a couple of weeks.
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