You know the song “Love Machine” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles?
It just doesn’t sound right to me without sighing hens.
Slightly Adulterated
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It Would Shock You If You Didn’t Expect It
Terry Teachout on Raymond Chandler’s speaking voice:
Only one recording of Raymond Chandler’s speaking voice survives, a BBC interview conducted with Chandler in 1958 by none other than Ian Fleming. You can listen to it by going here. If you do so, you’ll be staggered to learn that the creator of Philip Marlowe sounds…well, wimpy.
Not if you’ve read any of his letters or his biography. Fellow was a total anglophile prone to wearing gloves and not shaking hands because he thought it was barbaric. That he sounds more Capote than Hemingway is not surprising at all.
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She’s Tired Of It Now
My wife is tired of my all-purpose punchline/rejoinder If President Obama lets us..
If she’s tired of it now, just think how she will feel once it’s our (and everyone else’s) lifestyle.
Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to switch to If it makes Reid money in an obscure land deal or If its good for the Pelosi canneries.
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Great Moments in Police Professionalism
Wellston police scuffle; guns drawn:
A brawl between the newly chosen city police chief and his ousted predecessor resulted in guns being drawn on Friday and the mayor requiring medical attention for trying to intercede, police said.
The new police chief was named about four days ago, said Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins, whose department is investigating at the request of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office.
The two men began pushing and shoving each other about 3 p.m in a meeting room inside Wellston’s City Hall. Collins said he did not know what they argued about, though he said the former police chief recently had been demoted to assistant chief.
Guns were pulled during the scuffle, but no shots were fired, Collins said.
Respect for law and order takes another hit.
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Good Book Hunting: July 30, 2008
Yesterday (yes, Wednesday), my beautiful wife and I sneaked off to a church rummage sale alone together, so we had some prime browse time and a chance to pick up some books. Here they are:
Click for full size
Among my purchases, you’ll find:
- The Battle of Midway Island, a paperback history of the World War II battle.
- Nine To Five, the paperbackization of the movie. I saw that movie within the last two years, I think. Maybe three.
- A Russian/English/English/Russian dictionary. True story, in the middle 1980s, while in middle school, I tinkered with teaching myself Russian. Just in case they invaded, I wanted to have wisecracks they’d understand as I partook in the street to street fighting in my trailer park. This was before my physics class that would teach me that street to street fighting in a trailer park would not leave much time for the scrappy Wolverinesish middle schoolers to make cracks. Still, I got one now because I didn’t yet have one.
- Wisconsin: Off the Beaten Path just so I can see where I’ve been and where I should go.
- Cotswold Mistress a novel about something. It was a fifty cents, that’s my excuse. Also, I’ve been jonesing for some acquisitions, I guess.
- See, I Told You So, another copy of Rush Limbaugh’s second book, ca. the middle nineties. Funny that he hasn’t written more, but I guess book royalties might not be a good return on his investment vis-a-vis other things he can do.
- Buckley: The Right Word, a vocabulary builder, I think, based on the work of William F. Buckley, Jr.
- Complete Works by William Shakespeare in the Walter J. Black Classics Club edition. Note that I paid fifty cents for it. You Google searchers who inherited a pile from your predecessors and want me to tell you they’re worth a lot of money, take note that you can get them for fifty cents each or a dollar each at garage sales and book fairs and about five bucks at used book stores that bother to stock them. They’re not old, they’re not rare. Get a job.
- Excessive Joy Injures the Heart. I think it’s one of those chick novels. It had a cool title and it was a ha’buck.
- Bruges and Its Beauties, a guidebook to some city somewhere. I’d better set a bit from a suspense novel I write in it sometime, or I will have wasted this quarter.
- Several Sunset paperbacks about fixing up your home. I got something about decks, something about wiring, and something about painting and wallpapering.
- The Great Lakes and Florida, two photographic journey coffeetable books because I’ve been to both places and because I can probably browse them during baseball games.
- Five CDs of artwork, including 2 Renaissance collections, 1 Impressionism collection, and the Vatican’s collection. I think they might be art history things. They were like a buck each, so probably worth it.
So there I have them. A bunch more books to read when I’m done with 600 page academic history library books.
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Crossing Over, With Brian J.
As some of you might be surprised to learn, I have crossed over from time to time when it comes to voting, particularly for state races. Actually, “crossing over” is a bit of a misnomer; I tend to vote for Democrats, Libertarians, and Republicans based on a strange algorithm that only I understand.
This year, I cannot cross over to vote for Al Liese (Dem.) for state representative just so I can see which member of the family runs next time when Liese, who replaced his son using very similar signage for his run, gets term limited out. I thought it was a neat trick, but I was a neophyte in that scam even though I saw The Distinguished Gentleman. Now, though, I realize that Missouri politics is a full employment program for the Carnahan family as well as the other microdynasties-they-hope in the Blunt, Loudon, McNary, et al families.
Still, if Katherine Bruckner (her “blog”) somehow gets nominated for state rep, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat. I mean, she’s a Democrat proud she’s got her concealed carry license? That’s tougher than the Republicans vying for the spot on the ballot, word.
Additionally, I’m kicking around voting for Jay Nixon for governor if Kenny Hulshof is elected. I have a new motto: I trust a Missouri Democrat more than a Washington Republican. The difference, of course, lies in that anyone elected to or running for a national office is now a national servant, not the servant of the Missouri people. The money for the race comes from the outlying states, and suddenly the candidate espouses the national party’s opinions. It’s why I could have tolerated a Governor McCaskill but am not too pleased with Senator McCaskill.
Of course, once I start seeing the Jay Nixon ads and he starts making me sick of him, I might end up going Hulshof after all. Reluctantly.
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Can You Take Your Children’s Privacy Too Far?
You forget to whose blog you’ve come.
Of course not.
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Leftist Thugs On Wheels
Another month, another Critical Mass event includes beating a four wheeler, this time in Seattle:
According to Jamieson, as the Critical Mass group moved down the street, blocking traffic, some riders got in the way of the Subaru and prevented it from leaving. Some bikers sat on the car and were banging on it, he said.
“The driver was pretty fearful that he was about to be assaulted by the bicyclists,” Jamieson said.
The man tried to back up, but bumped into a biker. “This enraged the group,” Jamieson said.
Several of the bikers bashed up the Subaru, shattering the windshield and rear window, Jamieson said.
The driver tried to drive away, but hit another bicyclist, Jamieson said. Still, he drove about a block, to the corner of Aloha and 15th Avenue East, before the Critical Mass riders cornered the car again and started spitting on it and banging against it.
One bicyclist punched the driver through his open window, and another used a knife to slash the Subaru’s tires, Jamieson said.
The driver got out of his car, and was hit in the back of the head, opening a large gash.
Wow, just like San Fransisco.
You know, if they keep at it and this spreads, eventually cities will ban these events. More oppression for the poor, poor bike lovers everywhere, especially the leftist thugs who like any excuse to damage the straights with “cause.”
(Link seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)
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Conscious Colors for Interpretive Metrics
In case you didn’t know it, Missouri is almost on par with the third world, or so this dynamic and purposefully frighteningly colored map would have you think.
What is food insecurity? Probably something less than distended bellies and dead children in the streets. But it’s a interpretive metric, so those who want more government money in programs designed to combat bad feelings will always have just cause to spend more money. Except, sometimes, I suspect that it’s just ’cause that they have.
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One Cup Of Earl Grey, Hot, Away From Jean-Luc Picard
Godwin’s law states that As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.. A lesser known corollary, or maybe something I just made up, states that most disputes can be clarified by using a Picard versus Kirk clarifying analogy.
Therefore, I would posit for your reflection, that Obama is Picard and McCain is Kirk.
Obama lives in a moneyless world where the Federation rules all aspects of its citizens lives, and the military vessel he runs would only use its weapons to make pretty lights as it ferried ambassadors and vaccines all over the galaxy.
McCain, on the other hand, lives in a world where the Federation is an outpost of decency barely clinging on in a galaxy where others would conquer it and it wants to have adventures, dammit. McCain also sings “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” and he might be bluffing….but maybe not. You can see Kirk doing that, but not Picard. That’s my point.
So, friends and three of my four regular readers (excepting my sainted mother, who isn’t geek enough for this post), please, let me know in the comments whether the analogy holds up.
Also, please no obvious Obama is Sisko bits. One, I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a complete episode of Deep Space Nine in my life, and two, any Star Trek series with a number in its acronym is a sissy series (and I include ST:V in this assessment even though V is only a Roman number–however, Obama is Janeway comments might be acceptable.)
Get your geek on!
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When You Read The Spam Subject Lines Wrong
Let’s just say that it probably didn’t actually say:
Hot sex with Adobe products
But since I deleted them whole stack very quickly, I cannot say for sure, and it’s not actually impossible.
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That’s Just Sad
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch uses the AB-InBev merger as a springboard to launch a series of “damaging” fatuous questions at John McCain, whose wife owns an AB distributorship.
The head of the Washington Bureau “asks”:
John McCain’s Straight Talk Express is far less talkative when it comes to beer.
McCain’s campaign is unwilling to directly address questions flowing from InBev’s purchase of Anheuser-Busch Cos. in light of his wife, Cindy’s, ownership of a large Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Arizona, Hensley and Co.
— For more than 20 years as a legislator, McCain has abstained from taking positions or voting on measures related to alcohol. As president, would he act on beer-related legislation — or continue to abstain, in effect casting a veto?
— InBev does business in Cuba, designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. As a candidate, McCain has been tough on the Cuban government. Will his wife now sell the products of a company that does business in Cuba — or even expand her business to include InBev’s other products?
McCain’s campaign is unusually tight-lipped on those questions, and wouldn’t say whether the candidate’s wife plans to separate herself from Hensley.
The paper’s really making an effort here to springboard from a rather touchstone local issue into casting aspersions onto McCain’s ethics. Particularly creative is trying to cast his recusing himself from voting on things that would benefit him through his wife’s company and complaining about how a parent company would do business in Cuba. We’re really stretching here.
I mean, for crying out loud, Barack Obama drives a Chrysler 300, and DaimlerChrysler does business in Cuba. Shouldn’t Barack have rented a Ford? And what about his publisher’s parent company, guilty of using Nazi slave labor at one point? Will Barack abstain from signing legislation in favor of slavery or Nazis?
I mean, I’m just a crackpot backwater blog making sarcastic remarks about Obama here, but the story and the leading questions in the paper is from a “credible” periodical with a (declining) metropolitan audience.
Forget this story, Post-Dispatch. If you need to try to gig McCain based on a narrative of local concern, investigate why he’s tight-lipped about trading for a good middle reliever for the Cardinals. Sure, it’s not his job, but you can still blame him for with a couple of bullet points.
(Full disclosure: I am actually a citizen columnist for a sort of sister publication of the Post-Dispatch.)
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When Is A Lobbyist Not A Lobbyist?
When he agrees with the journalist’s point of view:
A rising number of uninsured patients are going without necessary care and are raising medical costs for those who have insurance coverage, according to a report released Tuesday by the Missouri Foundation for Health.
The report, “The Significance of Missouri’s Uninsured,” took several recent studies from health care think tanks and federal agencies, located data relevant to Missouri and added analysis. The report was prepared by the foundation’s Cover Missouri project, which began earlier this year.
“I think there is an increasing understanding among Missourians that we’re reaching crisis,” said Ryan Barker, a health policy analyst for the nonprofit foundation, which conducts health research and advocacy. “This is a problem not just of a few people but of almost 800,000 Missourians.
Spending money on health care for the poor? Not when there’s a study to conduct to bolster allocating tax money to a cause!
When it’s a special interest group that the paper likes, it’s not lobbying, it’s advocating, and the special interest group-funded study isn’t suspect, it’s news.
I know, it goes without saying. But I’ll say it anyway because it’s as important to make a mystical chant out of the truth as it is the less-than-true that you want to stick in people’s heads.
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Wig Sharing Illegal
A photograph accompanying this story in Popular Mechanics about Area 51 illustrates how federal laws will eventually encompass every behavior on the planet (and, given the subject matter of the story, maybe the universe):
Where is it in the Constitution that Congress can prohibit passing your tresses to someone else? Eh, probably the Interstate Commerce Clause.
(Link seen on Instapundit.)
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Williams Goes For Steelman
Michael Williams endorses Steelman.
No doubt he’s getting a flurry of hits from the House of Representatives since he quotes the magic Google term “Kenny Hulshof” in his post. I hope you fellows there in Kenny’s office are doing official government work on those computers and not campaign work because I’m under the impression that’s naughty.
But Washington naughty doesn’t count, right?
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Words That Do Not Belong In Country Songs Twofer
Badonkadonk, Donkey Kong, as in Trace Adkins "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk":
- That honkey tonk badonkadonk
Keepin’ perfect rhythm
Make ya wanna swing along
Got it goin’ on
Like Donkey Kong
Word to the wise: do not refer to an attractive woman as a large gorilla who kidnaps girls and throws barrels, or any other video game character for that matter. Let’s just say that calling a certain beautiful wife “Lara” sort of spoiled the moment, okay?
You can see the video for the Trace Adkins song, along with attendant badonkadonk, here.
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