Not only is he back to two columns a week, but Neil Steinberg draws ever nearer to joining us:
I’m halfway to a Republican.
The glass is half full!
Closer…. Closer
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Category: News
To Coin A Phrase
To blight: (tr.v.) To condemn, as a city, the lawful property of one person or corporation to hand it over to another corporation or person, to enhance the revenue of the governing municipality.
The Board of Aldermen in December 2002 agreed to blight the Target site, allowing the city to ask a judge to condemn it.
Put that in your usage guide and burn it.
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Fallacy of the Distributed Middle
I hope it’s not too anti-Semitic of me to make fun of a a turn of phrase by “officials” of the Jewish Community Center (JCC, or as its otherwise known, “The J”) in Broken Heart, Missouri. In addition to razing a larger building for a small one as its membership declines, the leaders are looking for way to save money to help bridge a budget gap. This includes:
Increased use of off-campus sites for JCC programs, turning the JCC into a center “without walls.”
A center. Without walls. Without, perhaps ideally for these “officials,” without a center.
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Don’t Give My Opponents Ideas
Fark links to a story which I find personally very frightening: Tempers Flare During ‘Taboo’ Board Game.
The party game wasn’t the only thing taboo. Three men were arrested on felony charges after a game of Taboo went awry at a Conway home.
Officers were called to the home Sunday after two men threatened others with guns because they were losing the game, in which one teammate gives clues about certain subject matter, but using certain words is taboo.
Sorry, guys, I know I can be unsufferable when I play this game because I am Olympian and you’re all Little League, but there’s no need to draw down on me.
True story:
Clue: “She was a historical figure….”
Brian J. Answer: “Joan of Arc. Next, please. Come on, we’re on a deadline here.”
Putting a couple of slugs in me is the only way to stop me at Taboo. Better make them high caliber, because a .22 or .38’s not going to shut me up.
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Doing Johnny Ashcroft’s Dirty Work
Susan Murray has an op-ed piece in the Washington Post wherein she posits that reality television is making America more comfortable with a surveillance society. And then she says:
But reality TV does play a crucial role in mitigating our resistance to such surveillance tactics. More and more of these programs rely on the willingness of “ordinary” folk to live their lives in front of cameras. These people choose to have sex, get married, give birth, compete for prizes, work, fight, weep and brush their teeth in front of millions. We, as audience members, witness this openness to surveillance, normalize it and, in turn, open ourselves up to such a possibility.
Some of us have a desire to become reality TV celebrities; others set up a blog or a webcam.
Dammit! Now that we’ve been fingered as undercover operatives, do you think the checks from the federal government will stop?
Also, will someone please call for a Congressional inquiry to find out who leaked our undercover operation?
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Ten Ways To Get Fired
Yesterday, I pointed out Ways to Annoy Your Co-Workers.
Today, I’ll help you out if you just want to end it all: here are Ten Ways to Get Fired.
The article, like the other one, takes the standpoint that you shouldn’t do these things. I was rather hoping for how-to guides.
I’ve only been fired once, and the day after my last day the boss called to ask why I wasn’t at work–but that’s a long, albeit amusing story. Buy me a Guinness sometime and I’ll tell you about Bob “I Own The Business.” One of my coworkers brought in doughnuts everytime she got fired. Me, I took it as an opportunity to stay home and look for a better job. What was my point?
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I Don’t Think That Means What You Think It Means
Instapundit links to a Wired article about outsourcing. It’s an even-handed treatment, but the author quotes an Indian programmer:
Aparna Jairam isn’t trying to steal your job. That’s what she tells me, and I believe her. But if Jairam does end up taking it – and, let’s face facts, she could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey – she won’t lose any sleep over your plight. When I ask what her advice is for a beleaguered American programmer afraid of being pulled under by the global tide that she represents, Jairam takes the high road, neither dismissing the concern nor offering soothing happy talk. Instead, she recites a portion of the 2,000-year-old epic poem and Hindu holy book the Bhagavad Gita: “Do what you’re supposed to do. And don’t worry about the fruits. They’ll come on their own.”
She’s quoting the Bhagavad Gita? The Bhagavad Gita? That, and the particular quote, is particularly funny and ironic.
Here’s the Brian’s Notes version of the Bhagavad Gita, kids: Prince Arjuna is a little reluctant to enter a war where he has friends and relatives on the other side. He’s a bit reluctant to go into battle because he doesn’t want to slaughter them. His charioteer, Krishna, happens to be an incarnation of a deity, and he spends the poem convincing Arjuna that it’s his duty to go into battle and slaughter his friends and relatives because that’s how the his life is scripted. So Arjuna does. I’d imagine this quote is Krishna giving a pep talk, probably before revealing one of his majestic and terrifying forms.
With that context, make of the quote what you will. Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of Java!
Note: Don’t take this post as demeaning to the Bhagavad Gita or Hinduism. Go read the whole thing, as they say. It’s an interesting piece, and describes an eastern worldview that I don’t entirely share. It’s got certain truths in it, though, and as from any philosophical work, perhaps you can draw something from it to apply to your own life.
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Say Nay, Kid
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, local government officials want to change the name of the ballpark from Pac Bell SBC Park to Mays Field at Park. To honor Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
SBC and the Giants organization are resistent to the idea. I can understand SBC’s reluctance. The Giants will come around, though, once they realize that in ten years they can sell both names, making it Field at Park.
And in fifteen years, they’ll be selling the players’ names. “Listen, kid, to play in the National League, you’ve got to take the name given you. You’ll be Yahoo! Google, or you’ll be playing in the Grapefruit League for the rest of your life.”
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I Had To Quell Free Speech In Order To Save It
According to the New York Post, Al Franken physically attacked a LaRouche supporter who was dissenting from the views of Howard Dean.
“I got down low and took his legs out,” said Franken afterwards.
I don’t get the joke, Alfrie, but I generally don’t. Were you making some point about how you think Republicans show false machismo by picking on small national threats, or something too sublime for me to imagine?
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Only Ten?
MSN has Ten Surefire Ways to Tick Off Your Coworkers on its Careers site. Hey, I took a look because I thought I might pick up some new techniques. Unfortunately, this little document is about things you might do that might tick off your co-workers and why you shouldn’t do it. I don’t do the ones listed here.
I have, however, inadvertently stumbled across other surefire techniques to, if not tick off, at least raise hackles of, co-workers and office mates. So might I suggest the following:
- Audible smacking of gum.
- Real-time audio commentary to whatever sputteringly shocking news story you are looking at on the Web. Also, do this for at least six hours a day.
- A messiah complex, wherein you exclaim to anyone who is listening that you are the greatest job title that ever was, but low how they mistreat you. Oh, how sorry they will be when you’re gone. How lonely they will be in the silence of the whining.
- Answering questions that weren’t asked and then vigorously defending your position to a startled co-worker. Remember to get angrier if he or she agrees or tries to appease you.
- Clearing the nose and the throat with gusto. Every couple of minutes.
- Vigorous scratching and appropriate relief noises, particularly if you can bare the skin to scratch.
I am sure my former office mate could add more to this list, but until the doctors break through his catatonia defense mechanism, we’ll never know.
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The Perfect Storm
In the 1980s, it was global cooling.
In the 1990s, it was global warming.
With a new decade laid before us, we should expect some new blight upon us, a pox brought upon humanity by technology and the rising standard of living around the world.
Oh, but no. The best they can do for the 2000s: global cooling caused by global warming.
Yawn.
(Link seen on Drudge.)
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Hey, You’re Not Barbara Ehrenreich!
Over at the Independent Women’s Forum, bad Charlotte takes issue with a piece in the New York Times Magazine that resins up the bow for the poor in America, particularly one woman whose tragic life story runs a gamut of poor decisions and short-sightedness. As it is in the New York Times Magazine, the author blames her miserable life on America, not on her miserable self.
As soon as Barbara “Nickel and Dime Bagged” Ehrenreich is back from her next indiscretion that could prevent her from getting a job at Wal-Mart, perhaps she could comment. Maybe we should hope she does not.
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Tony Blair Breeds Prostitutes
Drudge links to a story in the News of the World about an eighteen-year-old British student who’s going to sell her virginity on eBay to pay for her schooling.
Let’s enumerate the sordid details, shall we?
- She’s only eighteen, and she’s only still a virgin because she’s a lesbian.
- She’s going to the university to get a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Policy.
- She’s hard up because she’s working 3 shifts a week.
- The government is only giving her £3000, which leads poor Rosie to say:
“The government has made it difficult for people like me to follow their ambition to study.
“I wish we could concentrate on learning rather than constantly worrying about money or working to get by.
“I think Tony Blair and Charles Clarke are encouraging a class divide, which is wrong and goes against all of Labour’s principles.”
- In Social Policy in British universities, false dilemma logical fallacies are proper rhetoric for socialism:
“I’m not willing to sacrifice my future for the sake of a part-time job, so I am faced with two choices—years in debt or prostituting myself on the internet for my education.”
- Her lesbian lover supports her as long as she is safe, but is angry that she’s [Rosie] in this position.
- A British newspaper presented this as news.
British kids these days. Fortunately, we won both the revolution and the War of 1812, or these would be our future leaders and Socialist Policy setters. Our own are bad enough.
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I Am Stunned, Stunned I Tell You
This story in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle indicates that men who drink more than fourteen drinks per week and women who drink more than seven drinks a week might be abusing alcohol. Is that really “abusing” alcohol?
Alcoholic beverages, such as delicious Guinness Draught, are designed for human consumption. Consuming them, and even consuming lots of them, is actually using them properly. Now, taking a couple bottles of Jack Daniels Old #7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, pouring them over a couple of derelict sofas, and lighting them on fire, that’s alcohol abuse. Whiskey is not supposed to be an accelerant in arson. It’s supposed to be a slight intoxicant.
On the other hand:
“I’m stunned by some of this information,” said Roxanne Klingensmith, a deacon at St. James Episcopal Church.
The deacon should ask herself, How often do I seek out information that stuns me? Information should educate or, well, inform; if it produces a physiological effect such as immobilization and if one frequently finds oneself stunned or seeking stunning information, one might well suffer from informationism and might abuse information.
(Link seen on Fark.)
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Line Forms at the Left
Tim Blair links to this remarkably in-depth recap retrospective on the Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck relationship which publicly lasted 18 months or at least two movie promo cycles.
Within it we find this job description:
One reason for the final demise of the relationship is said to be Jennifer’s desire to settle down and have a baby. Another, according to Us, was her chagrin at Ben’s partying ways.
My bachelor friends, if you would like to impregnate and perhaps share a house (and bed) for the long-term (two years? three years?) with Jennifer Lopez, send your resumes to:
Jennifer Lopez
C/O United Talent Agency
9560 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 500
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
or
Jennifer Lopez
C/O International Creative Management
8942 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills CA 90211
Please include a photograph.
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If They Want You, They’ve Got You
The other white African-American links to a cautionary tale about a family that was a little different from the rest, and the felony prison sentences that resulted.
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Next Step: Making Opaque Walls Illegal
San Mateo, California, has made private karaoke booths illegal since people can do illegal things in public places where the public cannot hear you.
I’d like to point out that opaque walls are a greater danger, since people can do things behind those walls which the public and law enforcement officials cannot see, but I would hate to give them ideas.
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Barbecuing Your Own Pork
Apparently, the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority that was formed in 1989 to build a megolithic publicly-funded dome stadium to lure a football team is still in business, even though its job was completed in 1995. It’s paying six figures to its members, maintaining a luxury suite in the Trans World Edward Jones Dome, and setting itself up to be a gravy train for two more decades.
What, you mean the vaunted Civic Leaders are in it to feather their own nests at the expense of the taxpayers? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
How long until Richard “Il Dick” Gephardt can join in now that his small-potatoes, low-paying political career is over?
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Daddy, Where Does Petroleum Come From?
Professor Reynolds has the word about people who claim that Bush’s Mars program is all about sending Haliburton to Mars to look for oil.
Honey, if Haliburton finds oil on Mars, there are far greater things to worry about than the rich getting richer.
Such as:
How will the discovery of freaking life, albeit dead and decomposed, on another planet impact the Religious Right’s support of Bush?
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Layer Up, Prosecutors; It’s Cold Out There
In this FoxNews.com story, we find (under the heading of “Now, Honey, Do as I Say, Not as I Do”) another example of clever prosecutorial layering:
The 10-minute pursuit Friday morning ended outside Del Mar Pines School with the arrest of Stacy L. Taylor for investigation of evading arrest and child endangerment.
Got that? Child Endangerment. Mother runs off from a ticketing officer, and suddenly she’s under the stormcloud of a nebulous criminal charge.
Any moving violation can now become child endangerment. Speeding? Rolling through a stop? What if someone were to be coming the other way? The Children might have been endangered!
I think this post makes me guilty of conspiracy of child endangerment or perhaps incitement of child endangerment.
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