Instapundit Favors Increasing Social Security Benefits!

He’s written a column for Tech Central Station about why governments don’t fund research dedicated to increasing longevity. You have to read between the lines, but Professor Reynolds is actually advocating an increase in Social Security benefits! Because heaven knows that the age of funding has not kept moving upward at the same pace as longevity, even the natural way. So if you add two or three decades (or centuries) at the end of life, Social Security will be dished out at a maximum of something like seventy-five, meaning the codgers willdraw it for half a millenia. Is that what he really wants?

On a serious side, though, if the government funds the research, it will have to provide the resulting cure to everyone in the population. Our electorate would, unfortunately, expect nothing less than immortality funded by tax money.

Couple that with disparate availability of the drug (and I do assume it will be a drug) between developed nations and underdeveloped nations with a large birthrate and less love of life than we have, and suddenly you have the makings of World War V or World War VI or World Wars V-IX. Werd.

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Adhering to the Highest Standards in the State

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports about the difficulty Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., has in firing a deputy:

As a dispute escalates over discipline of wayward deputies, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is trying again to fire a deputy who kept his job after smashing into another car and fleeing while intoxicated off duty.

Clarke is attempting to build a perjury case against Deputy Victor Erato III, whose dismissal was overturned by the county’s Personnel Review Board.

Swell. Drinking and driving and leaving the scene of the accident. In retrospect, it does seem harsh to hold some blue collar working law enforcement official who has a chance of getting shot every day to a higher standard than the state’s attorney general, Peggy Lotsalager.

On the other hand, why does the Personnel Review Board and so many other oppose standards of behavior for law enforcement officials? Do they want to have authorities that citizens can easily disrespect?

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Steinberg Begs for Public Delinking

In his column today for the Chicago Sun-Times, Neil Steinberg begs for a public delinking from Musings from Brian J. Noggle:

Don’t you feel sorry for Wisconsin? I sure do. So close to Chicago, yet still an isolated nowhere of cows and dogtracks and cheese, populated by those who never got their lives together enough to move here. Wisconsin is like the dim brother who lives in the basement and nobody talks about. You don’t want him teased.

HOW DARE YOU, SIR? That’s it, turn the fans on high and point them south. SHARE THE DAIRY AIR!

I would publicly renounce Steinberg and delink him, tossing his endorsement of my genuis into the Chicago River from the Wacker Street bridge in full view of the Chicago Sun-Times building, but no one would notice, except perhaps a cop who would fine me for polluting. How would he know?

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Sympathy for the Devil

I kinda feel a certain pity and outrage on the behalf of Courtney Love on her charges:

“CJ” has obtained a copy of a brand new charge filed against Courtney Love. And this time it involved assault with a deadly weapon likely to produce great bodily injury. The charge stems from an incident last April 25th, to which Los Angeles Police responded. According to documents from the District Attorney, Love assaulted a woman by the name of Kristin King by throwing a bottle and a metal flashlight at her.

Hey, I have seen Kiss of the Dragon and Daredevil, both of which depict homicide via stick pins, so the next time some prick bothers a woman, is it assualy with a deadly weapon likely to produce great bodily injury? Or what about shoving someone and they fall over? If applied with great enough velocity, the earth will kill you.

I guess the answer is, “Yes, if the prosecutor wants to intimidate you into pleading to a lesser charge.”

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Overheard

Ever overheard a conversation when two people whom you don’t really like gossiped about you? That’s what I think of when I read this piece in Slate: Swingers: A guide to the swing states: Missouri.

Like all Midwesterners, Missourians believe they reside in the most authentically American of places. I grew up in Kansas, just a few miles across the Missouri state line, and I’m guilty of this Midwestern indulgence—I’m fond of telling my wife, who’s lived in New York, Texas, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., that she has yet to reside in the United States. What distinguishes Missourians, though, is that they stake their claim to genuine, right-thinking Americanness on more than mere geographical middlingness or plainness of speech. Show-Me Staters marshal reams of scientific data to back up their assertion of pure red-bloodedness.

Texas brags that it’s a “whole other country,” but Missouri proudly declares that it is the whole country. Talk to a Missourian about the state’s politics for more than a few minutes, and the words “microcosm” or “representativeness” are likely to surface.

Not if you talked to me, you coastal pipsqueak. I don’t think Missouri is a microcosm or representative of the whole country any more than New York City, Washington, D.C., or Boston are. I do think that we in the Midwest understand better the regionalism of the country, that is, the properly federal nature of the United States. Becuase we know ourselves and because the media continually run as contrast a loop of the coastal, self-important mindset–which excludes the views of residents from elsewhere because it doesn’t recognize they exist, or because it thinks that its postmodern intelligence and relativistic morality supercede the rubes, we recognize and understand the difference. But I digress. And I’m not smart enough to summarize the mindset of millions of people based on a three-day swing through the state.

I got chips like dandruff, brother, and coastal commentators brush them off rather glibly.

Is it just me, or is Slate becoming as unreadable as Salon these days? I admit freely, at the possible expense of the mounds of junk mail the Republican Party sends me, that I read Salon daily in the late 1990s. I found its writing edgy, hip, and concerned with culture, the arts, and affording me a different perspective. Heck’s pecs, I even bought stock in Salon, for crying out loud–stock I hold to this day because I would spend more on broker’s fees to sell it than I would get for it. But somewhere a little before it started requiring commercials, it became a one bongo drummer, thumping an uncompelling political beat.

Slate’s about one bad day from losing my daily traffic, too. Cosmo types psychoanalyzing the quaint states that comprise the majority of the union and desecrating the dead rather repel me.

And Slate hasn’t yet dissed Wisconsin yet.

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Something Special in the Air

Aaron, of Free Will Blog, casts a critical eye and two rhetorical fists of iron upon the airline industry:

It’s something of an illusion to suggest 9/11 caused their problems. That’s only a popular excuse for today: Despite air travel growing an average of 7% a year throughout the 90’s, the airlines still struggled, and are still struggling today to deal with passenger drops from the Gulf War. In 1991. They weren’t profitable in 2000, either.

There are only two possibilities here: They are either incompetent, or the demand for the massive infrastructure they’re trying to float simply isn’t there. In either case, they suck at doing business, as demonstrated by last year’s debacle, asking workers to take a 15% paycut to avoid bankruptcy, while simultaneously increasing their own bonuses to run away with more tax money in their pockets.

We’re sucky crony capitalists, Aaron. We understand laissez-faire, where one company’s (or industry’s) weakness, failure, or strength means more opportunity for others.

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Look at the Pretty Birds

Hey, I am from Milwaukee. I know all about the flying rat problem upon which Whitney Gould reports in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Aggressive and messy, gulls are the new urban menace:

Like something out of a Hitchcock movie, they’re lined up along the rooftops of buildings, on parking lots, on grassy plots, on the gravel wasteland left behind by demolition of the Park East Freeway spur. Gulls. They’re everywhere, it seems – and so are their droppings.

Think that’s the problem? No, sir, it’s just a symptom. I got your real problem isolated:

Scott Craven, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says a good food supply is part of the attraction in urban areas. “We’ve created a wonderful habitat for them after they were beaten back for years by egg and feather collectors and persecution,” he says. “This is their rebound.”

The birds are protected by federal law, but when they reach nuisance levels, their eggs can be removed with permission of state and federal wildlife officials. In extreme cases, such as Manitowoc’s, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has given local officials permission to shoot limited numbers of gulls.

Andy Paulios, a state Department of Natural Resources wildlife manager, said the best approach is for communities to monitor gull numbers, recognize that the birds are here to stay and then work for a consensus on where they can be tolerated and where they cannot.

To summarize, the problem has three parts:

  1. Daft ecologists who think it’s mother nature’s appropriate retribution to Man.

  2. Federal law and requirements for permission slips from daddy Fed and mama State to take action.

  3. Bureaucrats who recommend more bureaucracy to solve the problem.

Class, is this story an example of a man versus nature or a man versus overbearing state authority conflict?

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Hockey Heaven

  • Tampa Bay Lightning win Stanley Cup. In a hard fought, nail-biting series, Khabibulin proves the better goalie over Miikka Kiprusoff. Story
  • Brian Noggle wins Great Hockey Pool 2004. It’s a little pool run by a former co-worker. Since I picked Tampa Bay to win the cup, with their victory I edged out some late competition. It’s my second win in two years, marking the beginning of a dynasty. Of course, I’ve gotten much better at it now that we’re not playing for real money.
  • Milwaukee Admirals sweep Wilkes-Barre / Scranton to win the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup. Ah, my hometown team, the first hockey team that I ever saw play a game. Led by a lifetime minor-league goaltender, the Admirals hoist their first championship cup, bringing honor to my hometown and all 40 hockey fans in Milwaukee. Story

Regular blogging should resume tomorrow now that the Stanley Cup finals are over, and the NHL for that matter.

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Another Head to Head Matchup

Sure, we’ve pitted Tommy Lee Jones against Michael Ironside to see who’s the tougher, and we’ve matched Ani DiFranco against Pink to see who’s the grittier authentic singer, but now we’ve got a monumental battle of epic proportions: Who’s the tougher vampire slaying hottie?

Buffy “The Vampire Slayer” Summers

versus

Anita “The Vampire Executioner” Blake

Both of them have frequent romantic dalliances with members of the supernatural, but I can forgive that. Gee, Buffy’s perky and endowed with super powers which leaves her with martial arts skills and super strength. However, Anita Blake can raise the dead and doesn’t mind usign firearms from time to time (every couple of minutes, almost). Advantage: Blake!

Full disclosure: I read the Anita Blake books in the mid nineties and had a crush on Anita Blake, who would be a perfect woman except for her undead fetish. I’ve only seen the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer and haven’t seen much of the television series. Because face it, Buffy’s an also-ran.

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Book Review: Schott’s Original Miscellany by Ben Schott (2002)

I bought this book as part of my “5 for $5.00” annual rejoining of the Quality Paperback club, which means that after shipping and handling, I only paid $16 total. And it’s hardcover, not paperback. But that’s enough about the pricing.

The book reminds me of The Book of Lists with a little less verve. Schott has collected numerous lists of trivia and has compiled them. No chapters. No themes. Just a hard dose of trivia for some of us to mainline before the shaking starts and our withdrawal begins. Still, I remember a couple of things from the book and I’ll spring them at odd times or to ensure that the North Side Mind Flayers trivia night team emerges victorious.

So do I recommend it? If you can get it cheap, or if you can borrow it, or if you’re into this sort of thing. It’s not a compelling read, but it is something you can pick up during commercial breaks when watching sports on television and can put down again when the action resumes without losing your place.

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Poor Form, Peter

Kudos to the non-geek marketing types who composed the marketing letter for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, wherein the first lines are:

Human Space Colonies in the 21st Century?

The Viking Orbiter and the Mars Rover have brought us one step closer.

Whyever would a serious student of the space program focus on the Viking Orbiters when the program included two landers of its own. In the nineteen-by God-seventies?

I suspect the person who wrote the copy just didn’t know.

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Read The F’n Manual

Note to “international” news organization CNN: Before you open your vacuous mouths and list Bill Clinton as a potential vice-president, why don’t you read the manual, which quite clearly states:

Amendment XII

The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;–The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;–the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

And:

Amendment XXII

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.

I would say, “Let’s not quibble over the words elected and eligible,” but we know certain factions within this country want the courts to decide members of the executive branch as long as the courts decide the right way.

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Trust Him, He Measured It

Via Fark we get news of a Colorado man who’s having a “property dispute” with the government. His solution is a bit of, um, civil disobedience involving an bulldozed he armored and some ordnance. What type of ordnance, you ask?

[County Emergency Manager Jim] Holahan said the driver was also firing from the vehicle with a 50-calibre [sick, as in “spelled the Continental way, and that’s sick”] weapon. There were no reports of injuries.

You read the article, and then you tell me how Holahan gauged the size of the weapon from his desk.

Is it time to ban government “property disputes”? Bulldozers? No, but it must be time to ban fifty calibre weapons.

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Book Review: Skylar in Yankeeland by Gregory McDonald (1997)

How could I pass any novel by the author who created Fletch when the library’s offering donated (not library copy) hardbacks for a quarter? I couldn’t! So even though this particular novel only hit my shelves recently, it enjoys the LIFO processing that the most compelling, and quickest-looking, reads enjoy. Let’s face it. Brian’s book shelves don’t enjoy proper rotation, which explains why The Sound and the Fury and its companions in a big Barnes and Noble Faulkner four-pack are enjoying the beginning of their second decade of dust-gathering, but this book flew off.

This book is a sequel to a book called Skylar, which I have not read. This book makes some reference to the earlier book, but it’s not required.

The plot, basically: Skylar, a country boy from Tennessee, comes to Boston for to go to a prestigious music school on a scholarship. Before he gets that far, he stays a couple nights with his wealthy relations. Sort of like if I lived with the Kerrys, maybe. But I digress. He’s a bird in the water, so to speak (ah, what one does to avoid clichés!) since he exudes native simplicity. Underneath it, though, he’s pretty sharp. So the book riffs on this disparity between how it’s done in The South and in Yankeeland. The book is billed as a crime novel, but there’s little, incidental crime in it. Much of the pleasure in the book comes in the character interplay.

Let’s see, we’ve got five million dollars’ worth of jewelry missing, and Skylar’s thirteen-year-old cousin is strongly suspected of murdering her junior high rival. We’ve got Skylar’s older cousin’s fiancé hitting on the strapping country lad and then dreaming rape sequences when he doesn’t respond. We’ve got rich relations on the brink of fiscal disaster. As Skylar appears, these things happen around him, and he gets to be the straight man and observer ot the mysteries’ resolutions.

Granted, the characters are somewhat stereotypical. If this were Steinbeck or Morrison, undoubtedly I would use the word “archetype” instead. Still, it was a quick and amusing read, and well worth at least twice as much as I paid for it. It’s particularly amusing if you are more non-coastal in nature and aren’t one of the bad archetypes lightly mocked by the good archetypes. A good, quick read.

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Galling as Big As Church Bells

Here’s a new twist on the Nigerian scam, playing to the Christian (which is a code word in many places, undoubtedly, for “rube”) audience:

From: Pastor Mrs VICTORIA ANI

Attn:Sir,
PLEASE ENDEAVOUR
TO USE IT FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

I am the above named person from Kuwait.
I am married to Dr. VICTORIA ANI who worked with Kuwait embassy in Togo
and Nigeria for nine years before he died in the year 2001. We were married
for eleven years without a child.

He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his
death we were both born again Christians. When my late husband was alive
he deposited the sum of$15.6Million (FIFTEEN Million six hundred thousand
U.S. Dollars) with one Finance Firm in Europe. Presently, this money is
still with the their bank.

Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last long due to cancer problem.
Though what disturbs me most is my stroke. Having known my condition I decided
to donate this fund to church or better still a christian individual that
will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct here in. I want a
church that will use this fund to fund churches, orphanages, Research centers
and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God
is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that Blessed is the hand
that giveth.

I took this decision because I dont have any child that will inherit this
money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I dont want my husbands
hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers. I dont want a situation
where this money will be used in an ungodly manner. Hence the reason for
taking this bold decision.

I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am
going to be in the bossom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the lord
will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.I dont need any telephone
communication
in this regard because of my health and because of the presence of my husbands
relatives around me always. I dont want them to know about thisdevelopment.

With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall
give you the contact of the Finance firm in Europe. I will also issue you
a letter of authority that will empower you as the new beneficiary of this
fund. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the lord
is my shephard. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy
Christian.Whoever
that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth. Please
always be prayerful all through your life.

Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for a church or christian
individual for this same purpose.
Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.
Hoping to hearing from you
Remain blessed in the name of the
Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Mrs VICTORIA ANI.

Man, that hits all the exotic locations. Kuwait! Togo! Nigeria!

I almost responded just to get the letter of authority. I wonder how much that cost?

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