But It’s For Homeland Security. And the Children.

Gettysburg College President Katherine Haley Will doesn’t care for the Department of Education’s new spending program:

A proposal by the Education Department would force every college and university in America to report all their students’ Social Security numbers and other information about each individual — including credits earned, degree plan, race and ethnicity, and grants and loans received — to a national databank. The government will record every student, regardless of whether he or she receives federal aid, in the databank.

The government’s plan is to track students individually and in full detail as they complete their post-secondary education. The threat to our students’ privacy is of grave concern, and the government has not satisfactorily explained why it wants to collect individual information.

She’s rightly concerned about the privacy implications, but I’m also concerned about the government overreach. Why, oh why, does the Department of Education feel the need to track every student in the country to the microlevel?

So it can perform its job more efficiently, of course. That job? To spend vast sums of tax money and acquire more power and budget for itself.

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Timely Insight

Gun scare closes part of Cincinnati airport:

Part of Cincinnati’s main airport was temporarily shut down Sunday after a passenger passed through a security checkpoint with what appeared to be a gun in a carryon bag, authorities said.

Baggage screeners noticed an X-ray image that resembled a gun after the passenger had picked up the bag and left the checkpoint, said Christopher White, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman in Atlanta.

To rectify the situation, the TSA closed the airport and searched everyone beyond the checkpoint again.

Were this a novel, movie, or an actual plot, the bad guy would have stashed the gun somewhere beyond the checkpoint for an accomplice to retrieve later. Instead, it’s an example of befuddled TSA grunts closing down an airport because they couldn’t watch the X-rays in real time.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin comments and suspects it was a real gun.

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David Nicklaus Promotes Crony Capitalism

I’ve often said that David Nicklaus is the best columnist in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which doesn’t mean I cannot disagree with him, especially when he embraces crony capitalism, like in the column today entitled “Missouri seems too stingy to be slick on luring jobs“. Here’s the lead:

The great economic war between the states has two kinds of combatants – the stingy and the slick.

Missouri has always been among the stingy. It tries to lure employers with its low-tax environment, and it might sweeten the pot with a few tax credits.

With that table-setting, he proceeds to explain why Missouri is lacking because it doesn’t dangle large incentives before companies to make them relocate here or to keep from relocating elsewhere.

Nicklaus seems to argue that the Missouri state government should spend state tax money to buy businesses’ loyalty, or at least their location in Missouri. While having businesses and employers in the state does affect the citizens positively with jobs and tax revenue for the state which could provide benefits to the citizens, it’s rather circular to use the increased tax revenue to provide tax incentives to businesses.

Crony capitalism occurs when government officials favor certain businesses with sweetheart deals at the expense of others, and that’s what tax incentive packages do; they give certain large (and powerful) companies advantages over the rest of the field, especially the businesses too small or inconsequential to inspire the state government’s lust.

So pardon me if I disagree, Mr. Nicklaus. Although other states’ governments enjoy squandering their residents’ tax money to benefit the few (the employees who work for the company and the state’s employees who get more money to spend), I don’t think that the Missouri state government should competitively transgress against us taxpayers. Although Missouri might lose a couple big fish, ultimately it will benefit from a continued low-tax environment that encourages entrepreneurs to start their businesses here and to maintain their businesses here.

Even if our only benefit as citizens comes from the satisfaction in knowing that our state understands its limitations, almost.

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Go Phish

Some phish scammers really don’t put any effort into it. Check out this phish I received today and the domain that displays when I mouse over the “official” link provided:

Go Phish
Click for full size

I mean, come on, how about registering a second host name aside from your primary line of business, pornography, guys? Is a little effort too much to expect from confidence boys?

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Freedom of Speech Defense for Conspiracy

LaShawn Barber is on Hugh Hewitt’s side:

A man has been arrested for making threats against Michael Schiavo via the Internet. In that case, he shouldn’t be the only one. How many people have said or written such things about Schiavo in the past week out of emotion? Should they all be arrested?

What, this guy?

A man arrested in Buncombe County Friday was charged with threatening the husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the center of the right-to-die case gripping the country.

Richard Alan Meywes was arrested in Fairview by the FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI said in a prepared statement.

Meywes is accused of sending an e-mail putting a $250,000 bounty “on the head of Michael Schiavo” and another $50,000 to eliminate a judge who denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case, the FBI said. The FBI did not immediately identify the judge.

“The e-mail also made reference to the recent death of a judge in Atlanta and the death of (a) judge’s family members in Illinois,” the FBI said.

Yeah, who has not threatened violence in anger regarding the Schiavo case? Well, for starters, I would guess those who don’t want the government to do extralegal things don’t talk about individuals doing extralegal things, but that consistency is our hobgoblin.

(Thanks to John Cole for the link to the news story.)

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Book Report: Three from the 87th by Ed McBain (1971)

I inherited this book from my Aunt Dale; I don’t know if this was her personal copy or if she bought it to sell on eBay, but I do know that she liked Ed McBain, or at least owned one or more of his books; I remember in particular that I read her copy of Lightning when I was young and impressionable.

This collection includes, oddly enough, three of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels: Fuzz (1968), Jigsaw (1970), and Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here (1971). That’s right, McBain (or Hunter, if you prefer) has been writing these books for fifty years now, and to a certain demographic, the books haven’t aged too badly.

I mean, of course, to people from Generation X and before, these books have aged well. We remember computers coming into the fore in our lifetimes; before that, typewriters. Criminey, I wrote my first couple of college papers on an old Smith Corona before I could spring the thousands of dollars (with a loan, no less) for the 286-10 running MS-DOS 5.0 and LotusWorks that would last the rest of my college career). So these stories, which feature cops handwriting forms and typing on typewriters, remain relevant and undated to me. I pity writers now (myself included) whose crime fiction will seemingly be ever dated from this point on–what, he was typing on a computer and not just intuiting through the Gibsonterface?

These three novels are short; the whole book runs under 500 pages. But that’s something else I remember: novels running under 200 pages each. Now, the publishers think you’ll wilt if you spend $30 on fewer than 350 pages. Come to think of it, I would, too. Perhaps hardback publishers are pricing themselves out of the entertainment marketplace by keeping their book prices in line with that of video games.

But I digress.

These three novels represent not only McBain’s deftness, but the power of the third person narrator. Because these books don’t rely on a single character’s viewpoint, McBain has more latitude to try different things than, say, a first person narrator writer like Robert Crais.

The novels appear in this book in reverse chronological order (hence, pardon me while I discuss them in the opposite order in which they appear in the book). Fuzz depicts a series of assassinations in the city perpetrated by the Deaf Man, who will become the 87th Precinct’s nemesis over the years. This is his second appearance (I believe, and textual evidence supports it). Jigsaw features a couple of detectives from the 87th Precinct, supported by others of course, investigating a particular crime. Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here depicts a 24-hour period in the 87th Precinct, with two shifts of detectives dealing with the crimes that occur on their shift. The third person narrator allows a lot of latitude of who the author can include and exclude and even who can die during the course of the book. Authors who use the first person narrator shortcut its immediacy by including third person sections (see also Robert Crais and, I daresay, Robert B. Parker). McBain p0wns you.

The novels within the book do present an interesting artifact, though, as they depict life in The City (a proxy for New York) in the 1960s and 1970s. Wow, it did seem like a dangerous place to live….until this fellow named Giuliani showed up. McBain found something to write about afterwards, as his books don’t stop with Giuliani’s election, but I cannot help but read them in that context.

So would I recommend the book? Unabashedly. Although my wonderful and well-read mother-in-law has, on occasion, condemned Ed McBain as smut, I still laud the poetry interspersed with the gritty. Also, she was a high school teacher who had the public’s morals to protect. Me? I am a poor boy from the ghetto who wanted to escape with his writing. I cannot think of a better example of the third person narrator in crime fiction series than Ed McBain. Any of them, or any three of them in one volume.

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Jack Cardetti Strikes Again

Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the Democratic Party, said Blunt’s budget cuts would hurt children, older adults and vulnerable people who lack lobbyists to protect their interests in the state capital.

“He’s especially ravaged the Missouri Division of Youth Services, a national model for how to take care of juvenile offenders and then turn them into productive citizens,” Cardetti said.

What’s he talking about? My governor, Matt Blunt, has apparently announced more cuts:

Gov. Matt Blunt has announced a second round of state budget cuts that will reduce state spending by $240 million and eliminate an additional 1,274 state jobs.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to say that Matt Blunt, boy wonder of Missouri, will be old enough to be president in 2008.

I don’t want to gloat to my friends in Illinois or Wisconsin, but Ha! In your face! A Republican governor with a Republican legislature!

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From the Bookmark Collection

Well, it’s Saturday, so I’ve got nothing better to do than to expose you to a representative of my well-used bookmark collection. It’s really only a collection because the bookmarks are accumulating in the nightstand drawer, not because I’m actively seeking new and exotic bookmarks. If I were, I’d undoubtedly have better items than the collection of Amazon, used book store, and “here’s a gift, send us money” unsolicited fundraiser bookmarks I’ve got. Still, some of the bookmarks merit comment, including this one:


This bookmark comes to us from 1985, and it’s geared to students. Check out the fellow depicted upon the front of
the bookmark. He’s got a flattop haircut undoubtedly helped out with a liberal dose of gel. By 1985, we were
moving out of the heavily-teased hair styles for the most part and into more natural looks. At least we were in
the middle of America; perhaps the Flock of Seagulls thing persisted in pockets on the coasts (although the
mullet has yet to go out of style in Jefferson County, Missouri). This kid’s wearing a t-shirt with his own
picture on it, the very latest thing available from the malls, and a pair of the oversized shorts they called
jams. Me, I never had a pair of jams, although I liked to call the patterned oversized swimming trunks I
acquired via hand-me-down-from-outside-the-family or parental garage sale purchase “jams” simply because they
had a design upon them. This kid’s also wearing a pair of untied Converse or some other non-Nike brand of
high-tops, all the rage amongst the rural toughies in the area in which I went to high school. Toughies whom
the urban toughs that I spent my early years would have eaten alive (and probably have in prison by now, or so
I hope in the remainder of my adolescent revenge fantasies).

The text of this bookmark reads, “It’s cool to be you!” The irony, of course, lies in that this self-esteem-boosting message
lies on a bookmark. Cool kids, or at least those of the soc or jock or hooter/stoner mentality would not be privy to
this particular boost. The very fact that this message appears on a bookmark implies that the adults-that-be, or
at least the adults-that-were expected that young people with books needed self-esteem boosts to make up for the slights
and the lacks of dates and for all the other various and sundry humiliations levied against those who preferred books
to television and the assorted social and physical vandalism that represents the high school experience…. well,
a simple I’m OK, You’re OK from a bookmark wouldn’t do a thing for a teenager, who would see through its
facetiousness and condescensious consolation. I wouldn’t have taken it seriously as encouragement had I owned
this bookmark in 1985; since I got it sometime as part of a yard sale book purchase, where it was wedged between the
incompletely-read pages of some adult book, it helped me even less than a “It’s cool to be a middle-aged suburban
subdivision dweller” bookmark more geared to my demographic.

Crikey, I hope no teenager has thrown a belt over a rafter as a result of the loss of this security blanket.


The back of this particular bookmark indicates that I’m not lying when I say it’s circa 1985; as a matter of fact,
the text indicates it’s copyright, which I am no doubt violating terribly since you gentle readers could blow up the pictures,
print them on the new-fangled photo-quality color ink jets whose abilities we could only see in movies in 1985 while we listened
to our dot-matrix printers chattering away or the daisy wheels pounding on paper. Please, do not send me a nickel when you do so,
for you’d just be an obvious plant from the copyright holder’s lawyers.

The brand name, Tab-Marks, would indicate that this bookmark was the product of one of the big three book clubs of the era. Come
on, Generation X, you know what I am talking about. The single sheet of full-color (not the Weekly Reader, you pre-addled
baby boomleters) front and back distributed in class that
allowed those of us who needed ego-booster bookmarks to choose from a menu of paperback books for a buck or two each. Arrow, Tab,
and Scholastic fliers made the rounds at my elementary and junior high (although in Missouri, they call them middle school) classes.
Kinda like Columbia House for kids, with nothing required to buy in the future.

It was always a big deal, as our family was rather, um, undercapitalized, to get to order books from these services. I did, on occasion;
after a couple of weeks, I got some books that were mine and not the library’s. Wholesome youth entertainment like Judy Blume and
Beverly Cleary (I consider it a testament to the power of these book clubs, and the library, that I still score 8 of 10 on the
Harry Huggins trivia quiz).

Do kids still get these circulars? We don’t have children yet, so I don’t know whether schools fit them in yet amongst the
year-round fundraisers to which those pimping schools subject their students. Perhaps children of the twenty-first century
don’t need pencils to make checkmarks and ticks on full-color order forms when they can use their cellular phones to order
the books directly from Amazon.com.

I hope one or the other is the case; I’d hate to think that no children spend rainy afternoons in overstuffed recliners with
simple paperbacks extolling the adventures of anyone not named Potter. Mainly because my dream is to open a used book store, and
to be honest, the Greatest Generation, who stocked their post WWII homes with New American Library editions of the classics, the few
Baby Boomers not into free love and protests, and the few straggling, under-self-esteemed (apparently) Generation Xers are dying
off faster than I can accummulate the wealth and stock to start the money-losing dream-come-true.

Remarkable, ainna, that bookmarks can jog as many memories and reflections, sometimes, as the books into which we stick them? So many people just jam notes, slips of paper, and bank privacy notices (hem, well, perhaps only for technical, business-related books, you see) into books because reading doesn’t require the pomp and circumstance of true bookmarks.

Although, oddly, perhaps that would merit a better sign of books’ ubiquitousness….

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On Hewitt’s Side

Perhaps this fellow is a part of Hewitt’s rank and file:

A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could “take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo,” authorities said.

Michael W. Mitchell, of Rockford, Ill., entered Randall’s Firearms Inc. in Seminole just before 6 p.m. Thursday with a box cutter and tried to steal a gun, said Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Although one would hope that “Hewitt’s Side” is staffed by people who are generally smarter than to try to rob a gun store with a box cutter.

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Build a Meme Workshop

This morning, Weber and Dolan (teh best morning radio show evar!!!1!) asked listeners what albums they could sing from memory. I didn’t call in because I would have filled the segment myself.

Not that you care, but here’s a partial enumeration of albums I could sing end-to-end were they playing (although for many, I am taken aback when they’re played on CD and there’s no pause between the song at the end of side 1 and the beginning of side 2).

So, anyway:

  • 52nd Street by Billy Joel
  • Glass Houses by Billy Joel
  • An Innocent Man by Billy Joel
  • Piano Man by Billy Joel
  • Greatest Hits Volume 1 by Billy Joel
  • Greatest Hits Volume 2 by Billy Joel
  • Scoundrel Days by a-ha
  • Hunting High and Low by a-ha
  • Stay on These Roads by a-ha
  • East of the Sun, West of the Moon by a-ha
  • Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
  • Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
  • Animals by Pink Floyd
  • The Wall by Pink Floyd
  • A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd
  • Flesh and Blood by Poison
  • Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich by Warrant
  • David Gilmour by David Gilmour
  • About Face by David Gilmour
  • Sports by Huey Lewis and the News
  • A Pocket Full of Kryptonite by The Spin Doctors
  • I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen
  • These Eyes by The Guess Who
  • The Return of Bruno by Bruce Willis
  • No Time to Kill by Clint Black
  • Repeat Offender by Richard Marx
  • No Fences by Garth Brooks
  • Greatest Hits Volume 1 by The Eagles
  • The Scattering by Cutting Crew
  • David Gilmour by David Gilmour
  • Weird Al Yankovic by Weird Al Yankovic
  • Dare to Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic

What can I say? I listened to these things over and over in my high school and college years. Note that none of these albums dates past 1994. Telling.

Now, you play. What albums could you sing every song on if that album is playing?

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Hugh Hewitt Excludes Me

Hugh Hewitt, responding to something by Andrew Sullivan that I haven’t and won’t read, says there’s no conservative crack-up occurring:

On this side, Andrew, the ABC polling team, Charles Fried and –sort of– William F. Buckley and some additional, talented essayists. On the other side –my side– the president, all of the leadership of the GOP in the House and the Senate, every possible GOP presidential candidate who has spoken on the issue, all but Boortz of the vaunted “Republican noise machine,” and the rank and file.

Hewitt enumerates a large number of elected leaders and the only voters he names are the rank and file. That is, the dyed-on-the-sheep conservatives.

However, those elected leaders didn’t get elected by just the rank and file. Bush was elected with a coalition of moral/religious conservatives, libertarian-conservatives, and hawkish Democrats. During the election season, I was pleased with how inclusive the Republican electorate was becoming. Now, after the election, it’s condensing to its rank and file “Hewitt’s side” is sacrificing government constraint and government fiscal discipline to legislate its morality.

Now that Hewitt and his side have gotten my libertarianesque vote in the election cycle, they’re ready to excommunicate me from the Republican orgy. I, and some of the others not on Hewitt’s side, will remember this next election cycle. When a third party candidate comes along with just enough strength to draw our protest votes and the Clintonocracy is restored to the throne, will Hewitt’s side learn its lesson?

Probably not. But the last time we had a Republican legislature and a Clinton presidency, it worked out to the best for domestic policy. The Republicans wouldn’t give Clinton what he wanted, and Clinton could veto what Hewitt’s side wanted. Of course, the United States lost ground in foreign policy and international safety, but perhaps we need to toggle between good domestic policy and good foreign policy every decade or so to keep the republic as healthy as possible.

Which, unfortunately, seems only to be heroic measures at the end of the republic’s life.

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A Technology Consumers Won’t Embrace

Ever need to phone 7,000 people at once?

If you ever need to get in touch with several–or several thousand–people at once, Send Word Now has the software for you.

The New York City-based start-up is promoting a communication application at PC Forum that lets a user type a message on a PC that then transforms into a phone call to a few people, or a few thousand. (PC Forum is owned by CNET Networks, owner of News.com.)

Though the urgent message currently needs to be typed into a PC (or broadcast from a company’s server farm), on April 7, Send Word Now will announce that customers can broadcast messages with a Palm handheld.

Wonder how companies will use this technology, huh? Two words: Phone Spam.

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Do Not Eat

A study commissioned by a number of environmental groups interested in regulating chemicals has uncovered, in a shocking twist, that your house contains things that the environmental groups want to regulate more (Study finds toxic chemicals in dust samples from U.S. households):

Americans are exposed to a variety of potentially dangerous chemicals in their homes from products such as computers, frying pans and shower curtains, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The study, called “Sick of Dust,” found 35 hazardous industrial chemicals in household dust samples from 70 homes in seven states, including California. It was commissioned by nine environmental groups, including the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose.

“It literally brings home the fact that hazardous chemicals are in our daily lives,” said Beverly Thorpe, international director for Clean Production Action, one of the study’s sponsors. “We feel now is a prime opportunity to overhaul chemical regulation in the United States.”

The researchers tested the dust samples for six types of chemicals, including pesticides and flame retardants. All the chemicals are legal, but many are known to be harmful to immune, respiratory, cardiovascular and reproductive systems. They said infants and young children are especially vulnerable to exposure.

I should have chipped in a couple dollars since this also proves a maxim of mine: Do not eat the dust bunnies.

I’d like to take a moment to elaborate on this thesis and enumerate some other things I don’t think you should put in your mouth or slide down your gullet:

  • Dust brontosauri. If you’re like me, your dust has clung together in much larger beasts than mere bunnies; these are probably worse and more toxic than mere dust bunnies, although they’re just as cuddly and furry.
  • Color newspaper inserts. Although the richly-colored flame-broiled burgers look appetizing, and come to think of it, so do the vinylly-sided homes, the colored inks might, in fact, be bad for you. So I implore you to do what I do, stick to the healthy black inks and eat only news pages.
  • Charcoal briquette residue. Although the fine grey powder does provide a noticeable high when snorted, it also brings the risk of mockery and various and sundry cancers.
  • Windex. You know, Mai Tais just don’t look right without a touch of something blue, but you should choose Boone’s Farm Apple Wine Product instead of any glass cleaning product. Listen, Mr. Yuck was right.
  • Insect carcasses after the exterminator has left. I don’t care if Fear Factor is your favorite television show, the reason that the bugs are now easier to catch is that their little bodies are pumped full of poison. If you break the record for ants consumed in an hour, it might be your finest hour, but it could also be your final hour. Chocolate covering is not an antidote.

Face it, the world is full of substances that could hurt or kill you, and the government cannot regulate them all. If you’re really having that much trouble keeping toxic substances out of your mouth, perhaps you should consult with your psychoanalyst and see if he or she can get you promoted to the next stage of psychosexual development.

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Forget Taiwan

Same old story, underplayed as usual: Report: China Faces Severe Water Shortages:

China’s already severe water shortages are worsening due to heavy pollution of lakes and aquifers and urban development projects with a big thirst for water, such as lawns and fountains, state media reported.

More than 100 cities have inadequate water supplies, with more than half “seriously threatened,” the official Xinhua News Agency cited Qiu Baoxing, a vice minister of construction, as saying.

“The uneven distribution of the limited resource and serious pollution further deteriorate the situation,” Qiu said.

In Beijing, for example, each resident has access to only 10,593 cubic feet of water a year, compared with the world average of 35,310 cubic feet, Xinhua said in a separate report.

That reminded me of an article I read in the November 1997 edition of The Atlantic Monthly entitled “Our Real China Problem” by Mark Hertsgaard (available online to subscribers here) which documents the impact of China’s population growth and industrialization on China’s environment. Excerpt:

At least five of the cities with the worst air pollution in the world are in China. Sixty to 90 percent of the rainfall in Guangdong, the southern province that is the center of China’s economic boom, is acid rain. Since nearly all the gasoline in China is leaded (Beijing switched to unleaded gas in June), and 80 percent of the coal isn’t “washed” before being burned, people’s lungs and nervous systems are bombarded by an extraordinary volume and variety of deadly poisons. One of every four deaths in China is caused by lung disease, brought about by the air pollution and the increasingly fashionable habit of cigarette smoking. Suburban sprawl and soil erosion gobbled up more than 86 million acres of farmland from 1950 to 1990 — as much as all the farmland in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Farmland losses have continued in the 1990s, raising questions about China’s ability to feed itself in years to come, especially as rising incomes lead to more meat-intensive diets.

Also:

Beijing has so little water that Party leaders have questioned whether the city can remain the capital, according to Yu Yuefeng, the staff director of the Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Conservation Committee of the National People’s Congress. With a nervous chuckle, Yu told me that the problem has eased in the past two years, thanks to higher than normal rainfall, but, he conceded, “This is a roll of the dice. We have to rely on the gods to keep the rains coming.” In his privileged Party position Yu can afford to laugh. The problem is not so amusing for some 50 million people in rural northern China who must walk for miles or wait for days to obtain any drinking water at all. As for farmland, population growth has reduced the supply per person to about the size of one third of a tennis court.

That article appeared seven and a half years ago.

If China wants to conquer, Taiwan might only be a starting point. If China goes the militaristic conqueror route, it will need clean land, arable land and fresh water. Which would worry me if I shared a frontier with China.

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The Hottest Thing Since

Apparently, entrepreneurs have decided that some people don’t want to sing a la karaoke; they want to lip synch comedy routines:

Karaoke is soooooo 1990s. For those who’d rather make people laugh at their punch lines than cringe at their high notes, the new wave in participatory entertainment is Joke-e-oke.

The premise behind Joke-e-oke is that, at some level, everyone wants to be a comedian. It’s a form of entertainment software that allows people, momentarily, to realize this ambition while emulating the classic comedy routines of their favorite comedians.

The idea for Joke-e-oke is simple. It’s basically karaoke with stand-up comedy material. Many dream of the chance to be a comedian with killer material in front of a laughing crowd. With Joke-e-oke, people are able to live out their comedy fantasy of being their favorite comedian onstage, choosing from a list of stand-up comedy icons to perform. A built in laugh track is added, timed perfectly to accent punch lines.

Wow, those whacky entrepreneurs will try anything! But seriously, I think this will be the hottest thing since Movieoke, which is at least six degrees Kelvin above absolute zero.

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Red Herring?

How come I haven’t heard Terry Wallis mentioned at all by those who want to save Terri Schiavo.

Granted, comatose ain’t vegetative, but still, I would expect some comparison.

UPDATE: Because in this highly-complicated case in which most commentators have incomplete or inadequate knowledge, it’s important to introduce more incomparable situations as direct metaphors for the possibilities. Obfuscation through opination. That’s the other thing the blogosphere does best.

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