To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
You thought surreptitious Apple iPhone location tracking was bad?
Wait until you discover automated urinal flushers are doing.
Let’s just say that not everyone gets emails about improving their manhood, Chester.
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You see that new link in the sidebar?
Yeah, I finally got around to self-publishing my novel John Donnelly’s Gold.
Buy now, and it comes with a free survivalist fuel source (paperback only).
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I have taken the Jeopardy! online contestant tests for a number of years now, awaiting that one night a year where I get the chance to type one or two word answers into a Flash application as fast as I can, hoping to get enough right for the phone to ring or whatever. Every time, I walked away feeling kinda dumb and doubting my own trivia mastery. When I learned that they actually provided categories above the answers (you respond with a question on Jeopardy!, remember), I thought I did marginally better. This year, when I completed the test, I upgraded my self-assessment of my performance to ambivalent.
Then I got the email.
On June 14, I will venture to Kansas City for an actual audition for the program. If you’ve read up on it, you’ll know that this involves another test, a personality interview, and maybe a mock Jeopardy! game. If I pass muster, I get thrown into the smaller pool of people who might get the chance to play on the program.
So I have a little over a month to prepare. I did, briefly, think about “preparing,” as though some program of trivia immersion would somehow make me a better contestant or a more competitive player. However, there’s just as much chance, I think, that I’d stress myself and not enjoy the coming month, so I think I’ll take it in my normal stride: I’ll alter my reading program slightly to include brushing up on some subjects, but I’m not going to study much but maybe the presidents. And hope my native trivia intelligence is enough to carry me.
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The results of the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale:
Friends volunteers sold $102,068.20 in used books, CDs, DVDs, audiobooks and more during the sale — the fifth consecutive Friends book sale that passed the $100,000 mark.
Given the damage I did to it (or it did to me), that means I represent .1% of the proceeds. If I had not gone on half price day, I might have been .2%.
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Tam on compulsory government-centric compassion:
“We” are not a wealthy “society”. You and I live in a place that has some rich people and some poor people and some in-between people. “We” don’t “just have to” do anything. There may be things you need to do or things I want to do, but we aren’t part of some borg-like collective with collective responsibilities, wants and needs.
If you want to be compassionate, go be compassionate. I know that’s usually what I do when I’m feeling compassionate, not expect some entity called “the government” to go be compassionate for me. Mailing a check to the government to help the poor because you’re feeling compassionate is like handing the local crackhead a twenty to fetch you a pizza because you’re feeling hungry.
If you think something needs to be done, you should do it. You should not assume everybody else thinks the same way or that somebody else will take care of it for you.
I had a very similar conversation in a bar with a friend of mine some years back; he didn’t give to charity because he paid taxes, and that was the government’s job. Except I would expect he did not have a big Federal tax footprint based on his income when he is employed, and he’s not buying bonds.
So I expect it is with many people who favor government taking care of the needy. They want government to take care of the needy (and keep their benefits, including promised benefits intact) with someone else’s money. They want the warm-fuzzies without expenditures of their own and without having to give up any television time to work at the foodbank.
A lot of people are that way. Some people worried about the less fortunate or less responsible put their money where their mouth is and their time where the work is. But if everyone who felt compassion did, we would not need government handling it.
Unfortunately, the charities themselves spend a lot of time and effort working to get government grants, so that they can take that government money to do their good. It diminishes the charity to me if it has a large number of grant writers on staff instead of ladle bearers.
I lack a snappy conclusion. I’ll go with “a pox on them.”
That said, I do support a number of small local charities with goods donations and some with time (just a couple hours last year, unfortunately, but I have chillen). Last year, we gave about 10% of our gross income (not adjusted gross income). And we’re the heartless Republicans.
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No book sales this week, but I must have known I was going to be challenged, because I bought some books anyway. We hit two church garage sales, looking more for wooden things I could pyrographitate on, but I found some old books marked a quarter each, so how could I pass them up?
Titles include:
Most of the books are from the early part of the last century. They’re in fair shape, but come on, they were $1.75 all told.
I also got a collection of flight simulator software that probably won’t work on any of my operational PCs. Right after I donated to Goodwill the joystick I bought some years ago for flight simulators before realizing there weren’t any flight simulators any more. That’s all right, this will have a place on my shelf beside the other games I’ve bought but never opened.
My beautiful wife bought a couple cookbooks and some cheap music.
Seven books. Wow, that’s almost seven times what I’ve read this week. And it was a slow week for book buying.. Maybe I should step away from this chupaclocka and read.
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In the comments on her blog, Roberta X. accuses me of having insufficient books.
I accept her challenge. I will buy more.
(And, come to think of it, we might be nearing time for a Noggle Library update. The last one is almost a year old. Sadly, there are not more bookshelves to look at. Just more books crowding those same bookshelves.)
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Minor delays on BART trains in Oakland Friday morning were apparently caused by an unruly passenger talking loudly about weapons of mass destruction, a passenger said on the microblogging website Twitter.
The police activity started at about 9:15 a.m. and was causing delays of about 10 minutes for trains headed into San Francisco, a BART dispatcher said.
Around the same time, someone named Michelle King posted on Twitter, “on the train to sf; Of the many crazy people, there’s one right now clapping loudly and talking about WOMD,” a reference to weapons of mass destruction.
Devious scenario:
Step 1: Get them to shut down the trains.
Step 2: Passengers back up in the train stations, leading to a very crowded venue.
Step 3: Poofit.
I hope the government has some fiction writers gaming this stuff out instead of keeping them all occupied in the White House information office.
(Link seen Edstapundit.)
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My oldest son, 4, is fascinated with guns. He sees guns on the cover of the books his parents read, he sees guns on the cover of the Star Wars video he will watch when he turns five, he even has a couple of clicker pistols to play with, although they don’t actually fully replace the drills, pipe wrenches, and Trio block creations that are also guns. He threatens to shoot bad guys, he threatens to shoot his parents, and I expect he threatens to shoot the other kids in his class who introduced him to the concept of guns.
Which is why stories like this one scare me:
redacted is a shy fourth-grader at Marion C. Early Elementary School with glasses and long brown hair. Each school day she rides school bus No. 9 from her rural Polk County home to the Morrisville school.
Last week, she told her mother, redacted, that a 6-year-old first-grader on the bus threatened to shoot her and a friend with a .22-caliber gun and to kill their families.
“All we said was hi and that was it,” redacted said. Despite the threat, redacted complains that the boy showed up back on her daughter’s bus within days and school authorities refused to tell her how the boy was disciplined.
Those authorities, as well as officials at other districts, say the alleged threat highlights the difficulty that school officials face in separating real threats from kid talk.
The boy’s grandfather said he’s been told that the child made the remarks in retaliation for what he believed was a taunt. The grandfather stressed:
“He’s 6.”
So you have allegations of particularly specific threats of a six-year-old boy to a ten-year-old girl who also, allegedly, only said high. All of these allegations are from the child of the woman who pushed the red button repeatedly. All of the red buttons, in fact.
School officials did not think it was much of an actual threat. They know the boy, know the parents (maybe), and probably scolded him.
But that’s not enough. The sheriff is now involved, the boy will be thoroughly run through a wringer, and the Springfield News-Leader weighs on the issue of whether schools should also have a zero tolerance policy in speech, too.
Because kids were talking like kids.
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You’re saying, “What, Noggle, you’re reading cartoon books now and counting them in your annual total?” If you’ve paid attention, I’ve done this for a number of years. I’ve read these two books in the last two days as a brief respite from the 500+ page books I’m still working on, so deal with it. Or skip the report if you weren’t already.
At any rate, as I worked through these books, my wife mentioned that Dilbert was funnier than Garfield. Well, I guess it depends on what your life is. If you work at a white collar job, you probably get the jokes in Dilbert. If you have a cat, you can relate to Garfield. If you don’t live the lifestyle, then you’re not going to relate to the humor. I think both of them are amusing, and I don’t think myself any less sophisticated for it.
The Adams book is from the middle 1990s, but its humor remains topical enough to not be dated. It’s the same with the Garfield book, although its timing is my senior year of high school, so I get the extra little bit of nostalgia and have read this morning the Garfield cartoon that ran on my 18th birthday. I don’t know if I’ll get nostalgia kicks out of anything after 1995, so Scott Adams will never do that.
Well, there you have it: about as in-depth of a review of fourteen and twenty-one year old cartoon books as you might expect.
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In the email box:
I’m waiting for the FTL phones anyway.
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I wasn’t going to go to the book sale at Remington’s.
Wait, let me back up: I volunteered at the Friends of the Library book sale on Friday night, collecting the money as other people bought books and offering a running commentary to the customers about books they had. I was pretty adamant to the volunteer at the table with me that I was not going to go to the sale to buy anything because I already own enough books and I don’t have any room.
Of course, as with any of these things, I always find someone has bought something that I want specifically. In this case, a young man came through the line with Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, which I have not seen in the wild, but in retrospect that’s because I tend to skip over the religious section.
I told the guy about it, and he said these fateful words: “There’s another one, but it’s an older edition.”
So despite all of my assurances to my partner volunteer, since my beautiful wife and I had a ‘date night’ on half price day, I fell off the wagon. Loudly.
I got:
And so on.
My wife bought a couple books, mostly cookbooks that she picked up while waiting me to finish, along with a record, some sheet music, and a CD. The Smooth Jazz CD is mine, but please note it’s not smooth jazz in format; it’s a collection of standards by Sinatra, Count Basie, and whatnot.
The total, after half-off, was $98.50. I got 42 books in total along with the CDs. I have already read the Dilbert book depicted within, which means I need to read 41 by October’s sale to keep pace.
The funny thing is how I almost blackout regarding what I buy. When my wife and I had dinner, I could barely recount what I bought. Some books I thought I’d picked up, I must have put back. I am such a glutton.
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The United States military used military action in a sovereign state, a nuclear power with whom we’re not at war, and killed Osama Bin Laden. Hey, I’m a fan.
What I find sort of stunning and mostly not, though, is the triumphalism of my left-leaning friends who want to put the President back on his pedestal as though the President’s authorization of military action based on intelligence gleaned from interrogations he previously decried at a military base he previously decried represents a re-apotheosis instead of a continuation of ongoing action started by the previous administration.
If the previous administration, or a McCain administration, or a Palin administration, had undertaken this action, these same people damn well would have stamped their feet at it and warned about creating another martyr, about summary dispensation of justice without a trial in Manhattan, and so on. You know it, I know it, and some of them know it.
I’d like to think that the enemies of the American Republic will see this as an example of the long memory and long reach of the American military. However, it will be too convenient and too accommodating to their particular narrative that this is the feckless action of a single American leader acting to prop up his flagging regime, and if this serves his purpose, he will leave them to plot and arm again. Some Americans will believe this is true. Perhaps it is at some level, but this is a continuation of American policy. The President did the right thing no matter who thinks so.
Will it stop al-Qaida? Hardly. I don’t even know how much of a figurehead bin Laden was nowadays. We haven’t heard about communications from him for some time. The loose organization of the outfit means you cannot stop it like you can topple a despotic regime by forcing the leader into exile or killing the leader.
Still, it’s good news.
I just hope it doesn’t lead to a Pakistani nuke making its way to Los Angeles or Long Beach.
UPDATE: Two wiser men than I speak: Richard Fernandez and Steven Den Beste, although Den Beste is merely predicting that which already happened as of 10:30 last night.
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The President is to speak. Well, he was to speak at 9:30 CDT, but I’m waiting.
The word is he’s going to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden. Say what you will.
President John McCain would have eaten Bin Laden’s heart on the live feed. I can’t wait to see what Obama says.
10:04: How triumphant will it be if Osama Bin Laden died of old age?
10:07: If Osama Bin Laden died of old age, wouldn’t you, as a Taliban, throw a couple grenades on him and drag the smoking wreckage to the Americans to claim the reward?
10:08: Yeah, I’m facile and cynical, but personally, I like my thoughts better than Geraldo on Fox going, “Uh, uh, uh, the son of a bitch (I am tough! I curse on Cable TV!) is dead!” and the guys on CNN going, “This, after 8 years of failure and 2 years of earnestly leading from behind resulting in resolution (not triumph or victory, we’re above that!”
10:12: I planned to spend the last hour reading. Now, I’m listening to a Washington Post photographer talking on C-SPAN about taking pictures. The President’s delay is elevating me.
10:14: Remember when President Bush interrupted our nights to say he had Saddam Hussein? Frankly, I caught it on the morning news after a Christmas party, and President Bush spoke on Sunday morning about it. We didn’t get the “Here’s a big announcement on Sunday night. Hold the wire!” thing.
Makes me wonder what news Monday will bring about other things.
10:18: Fortunately, the adrenaline has worn off in the 49 minutes since the President was supposed to speak, and the speculation has gone from (personally) uh-oh to the Osama Bin Laden, yesterday’s villain, has been captured. Now, I hope I can stay awake until the President speaks. Once he starts, though, all bets are off.
10:22: I sent the link to this liveblog to Instapundit. Considering that I am timing out writing to the database when I try to update this post for my own echochamber, I daresay it will all fall down if I get an Instalanche.
Sorry, Trog, but Danica’s sponsor does me wrong sometimes.
10:27: Just checked in on Fox News. Geraldo is still asking the only sober Fox person qualified for live broadcast to ask him what he thinks the president should say.
Me, I think he will say, “Let me be clear: On one hand, there are some people who say that my predecessor failed. Some people say it was impossible. I have done it.”
10:29: Did the President mean 10:30 CST because so many swing states are in the Midwest?
10:31: Maybe we should have put Petraeus in charge of the CIA years ago. The man, and his reputation, get things done.
10:33: In the past, when I live-blogged, I had a second computer (a Macintosh) running live feeds so I could post and keep up. In the second decade of the 21st century, I’m playing Civilization IV in another window and am going to paste it to the Dutch in just a second here. I’ll be kinda upset when the president drops in to take credit for the efforts of 10 years of American military men.
10:34: Maybe it’s just that the President doesn’t have to go to work in the morning.
10:35: When I was a boy, this was time to watch Dr. Who.
10:36: Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida? Kinda like claiming that the Tea Party is astro-turf, hey?
10:36: The White House feed is offset, so he’s not looking at the camera. Like Michelle Bachmamn’s response to a previous speech. Wonder if it will make SNL.
10:38: Well, he thanks the military. Good.
10:39: HE DID IT! He made Leon Panetta do it. But he did it.
10:40: President Obama is more butch than President Clinton, who pulled back at the last minute. Rock on! Maybe he should launch airstrikes against the leader of a foreign country under the auspices of the … and wait a minute….
10:41: It’s a good speech. I hope it doesn’t essentially throw Pakistan under the bus.
10:43: I wish this guy was president.
10:44: Except for the laundry list of things that we can put our minds to, as long as they’re as easy as killing one man.
Recap: Well, that was a very good speech. If George W. Bush had said it, I would have believed he meant all of it.
However, if “unity” means “we celebrate together the military accomplishments of this nation but submit to the programs of Washington that I dictate,” I’m still going to pass. There was a day when the Federal government did sort of hew to that protect us from foreign enemies abroad but let us drill for oil on our land and hope to strike it rich and let us take whatever means we think is necessary to provide for our own health, but those days have passed in the last two years.
Crikey, couldn’t he have called a press conference for tomorrow?
I’m afraid for a Monday morning document dump now.
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Sissy.
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A correspondent of Jerry Pournelle and Instapundit have read Larry Niven’s Ringworld books and have noticed the resemblance of the president to the Hindmost.
Independently riffing off of the Krauthammer column. Remember, I called him the Hindmost in February, before the Krauthammer column.
I am clever. LOOK AT ME!
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The President has spoken:
And even if you have a job, chances are you’re having a tougher time paying the rising costs of everything from groceries to gas. In some places, gas is now more than $4 a gallon, meaning that you could be paying upwards of $50 or $60 to fill up your tank.
Of course, while rising gas prices mean real pain for our families at the pump, they also mean bigger profits for oil companies. This week, the largest oil companies announced that they’d made more than $25 billion in the first few months of 2011 – up about 30 percent from last year.
Now, I don’t have a problem with any company or industry being rewarded for their success. The incentive of healthy profits is what fuels entrepreneurialism and helps drives our economy forward. But I do have a problem with the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies we’ve been handing out to oil and gas companies – to the tune of $4 billion a year. When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right. They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.
The President would seem to argue that raising the cost of doing business for the oil companies will lead to a lowering of gas prices. He cannot believe that, can he?
Those subsidies are not payouts from the government. Apparently, they’re money the government doesn’t take from the oil companies:
Amid rising gasoline prices at the pump, President Barack Obama urged congressional leaders Tuesday to take steps to repeal oil industry tax breaks, reiterating a call he made in his 2012 budget proposal earlier this year. The White House conceded his plan would do nothing in the short term to lower gas prices. [Emphasis added.]
Apparently, he or someone at the White House does not believe this will lower gas prices. He must then think that some people will react to the attack on the cartoon character Big Bad Oil.
Sadly, I know some people who do hear that bell and drool appropriately.
Here’s a hint: If the cost of doing business goes up, price goes up. And money the government does not take from you is not a subsidy. If you firmly believe that, one could make a case the government could trim the deficit by ending your graphic novel subsidy, that is, the money it does not take from you that you spend on graphic novels.
Sadly, one has difficulty arguing with people who feel Big Oil is the bad guy and the President is the good guy.
Finally, I’d like to acknowledge that this president is, in fact, effective at achieving his goals.
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Charles Krauthammer, today: The Obama doctrine: Leading from behind:
Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the president’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.”
— Ryan Lizza, the New Yorker, May 2 issue
To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy — Lizza’s painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears — this will have to do.
Remember, way back in February, I offhandedly called him “Hindmost Obama.”
This is more relevant if you’ve read the Ringworld novels, I suppose.
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Someone on my twitter feed retweeted this:
The next time someone says something bad about Pakistan compared to the US, I’m going to point them to this:
Pakistan has taken the landmark decision to allow transsexuals to have their own gender category on some official documents.
You know, in the United States, we don’t have climate of fear over blasphemy laws:
This is where Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead in March. Bunches of flowers, many now dry and brown, are piled on the kerb. Large colour posters showing his picture are displayed alongside.
On seeing the media, guards from his mother’s home nearby rush out to explain what happened.
Mr Bhatti had just left her home, they say as they walk me through the short distance, when another car blocked his path at the junction and the gunmen inside it opened fire.
Mr Bhatti’s murder shocked Pakistan.
It came just weeks after the shooting of another prominent politician, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer.
Both men had dared to speak out about the need for debate and possible reform of the controversial blasphemy laws.
And both men paid with their lives.
So, a checkbox on a government form for transsexuals and maybe transvestites. On the other hand, you have killing members of minority religions and people who think you shouldn’t probably kill members of minority religions.
And it’s a wash to some people. One merit, one demerit. Maybe two merits since it’s Christians and their defenders who are dying.
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