Jackson postmortem starting to look like a Howard Hughes re-run

SEATTLE, Washington - I'm well versed on the details of the life and legacy of Howard Hughes, and I know a re-run when I see one. The whole Michael Jackson situation is starting to sound familiar. The large entourage who depended on Jackson for their daily bread, the drug talk, the personal physicians lawyering up immediately after the death - it's all cut from the same cloth as the aftermath of Hughes's death in 1976.

Yet another parallel has popped up - looks like we're now in for a battle over which will, if any, is the legitimate last executed will of Michael Jackson. Michael's father Joe is allegedly not mentioned in the alleged most recent (2002) will, so of course he's now allegedly saying that that will is not valid.

The Hughes will situation became a total circus (with dozens of fakes and alleged wills popping up) that eventually resulted in an award-winning film but never resulted in finding a binding legal will.

Nevada seems to have a secret

SEATTLE, Washington - I have a laminated map where I've marked with a black marker everywhere I've been. Given my prodigious memory, I think it's close.

Nevada has a bit of a unique look on the map - it looks like it won't let intruders into its interior. I have six entry/exit points, from lonely Jackpot in the north (where the desolate two-lane road generously grows a turning lane to allow for easy access to Jackpot's modest casinos) to several entries near Las Vegas. It looks like I have entered and been steered right back out, like there is some great secret in Ely or Winnemucca that I'm simply not allowed to see.

Compare this with nearby, promiscuous California, which I have crisscrossed with impunity.

A painfully frequent misinterpretation of the First Amendment

SEATTLE, Washington - You see this over and over and over, but in this case it's someone who should know better. The Associated Press has issues some guidelines to its employees regarding their use of Twitter and Facebook. This comes in the aftermath of a comment critical of a newspaper publisher appearing on the Facebook wall of an AP reporter.

The president of the guild representing AP reporters, Tony Winton, responded with this:

“I am unaware of anything else like that... parts of the policy seem to be snuffing out peoples’ First Amendment rights of expression by a company that wraps itself in the First Amendment.”

Grrr. Here is the text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment speaks to government^* restrictions on speech, not restrictions on speech imposed by one private party on another. An employer restricting the speech of employees is out of scope:

The U.S. Supreme Court has never interpreted the First Amendment as having the same power to alter private property rights, or provide any other protection against purely private action. When considering private authority figures (such as a child's parents or an employee's employer), Constitutional free speech provides no protection. A private authority figure may reserve the right to censor their subordinate's speech, or discriminate on the basis of speech, without any legal consequences. For example, per the at will employment doctrine, an employee may be fired from their occupation for speaking out against a politician that the employer likes.

People make this goof all the time, but people should know better, and anyone working in media really really really should know better.

* I'm using the word "Congress" in the amendment to mean government generally; the actual meaning and scope of the word "Congress" here and elsewhere in the Constitution is actually a matter of some debate

Now they tell us

SEATTLE, Washington - West Seattle Golf Course was built in 1940. I'm betting that the current practice green has been in its current location for a long time, if not for the whole history of the course.

So now, in June 2009, they finally decide to warn people that errant drives from the 18th can pepper you while you're working on your putting? We already know this. In fact I launched a ball there once from the 18th tee myself.

I think an especially wild long-hitter could whack you from the 17th tee, too.

I don't know how you're expected to take "due care" while practicing your putting. Someone yells "fore" or they don't.

The sudden appearance of this sign can only mean one thing... someone got their ass crowned recently.

Fall of a once-proud piece of outdoor advertising

NEW YORK, New York - The large outdoor advertising at Madison Square Garden used to be elite advertising space. Usually, high-powered stuff like the latest Harrison Ford movie or the T-Mobile G1 would be on display in these slots.

Now? This is not a Photoshop. Bob's Discount Furniture is peddling their wares in this space. What the hell? We've gone from summer blockbuster films to Bob's Discount Furniture informing us of their new Poughkeepsie location?

Women ruining the manual transmission party - or are they?

NEW YORK, New York - The manual transmission is plummeting in popularity. Last year a paltry 7% of new cars sold had the stick and clutch. The percentage of men expressing a preference for the stick has fallen from 50% in 1985 to 11% today.

Who to blame for this drop in the preferences of men? Women, of course:

One reason is that most women prefer automatics. "I tried a stick shift once, and then I faced a hill, and I never tried again," said Danielle Wilt, 20, a junior at York College in York, Pa.
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As Volkswagen salesman Ronald Sowell said of his wife, "I tried to teach her manual, but she didn't want to learn. She said that's why they make automatics."

"Ladies putting on makeup while they're drinking coffee and talking on their cell phone — they don't have time to shift gears," said Scott Parsons, a sales associate at Mantrans, a manual transmission repair shop in Tallahassee, Fla.

But after heaping blame on women for most of the article, the author drops this in at the end:

In fact, while interest in manual transmissions among men declined steadily for a generation, interest among women has grown steadily from 4 percent in 1985 to 15 percent last year.

Hopefully, all of this means that young car thieves will leave my ride alone. Or maybe a carjacker will order me out of my car, then order me back in to drive.

Piece of evidence #43768487 on how much tail Derek Jeter gets

SEATTLE, Washington - Derek Jeter's prolific dating life has kept the gossip columns and blogs abuzz for fifteen years (including vicious, unsubstantiated rumors, that I repeat here purely for informational purposes, that he has given herpes to the likes of Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Biel).

He's so prolific, when confronted with rumors that he had gotten engaged, he couldn't even figure out which woman they could be theorizing he got engaged to:

We caught up with the Yankee shortstop before his team bested the Texas Rangers on Tuesday and asked about the rumors he's set to wed "Friday Night Lights" actress Minka Kelly, with whom he was reportedly caught ring-shopping earlier this year.

"The what?" Jeter asked incredulously. "Engagement rumors with who? I have not heard that."

That's "rumors with whom", Derek, but maybe you were mis-quoted.

If you've observed Jeter for years, you know he's not the sharpest sword on the rack. Hey, that doesn't make him bad or unique. Why do I follow sports? I lost interest in the scores some time ago; now I pay attention simply because it's a bunch of guys with huge egos, vicious competitive streaks, tons of money, and usually not much as far as brains or judgment. Hilarity ensues.

Most of South Jersey is semi-literate - or so it seems on Facebook

SEATTLE, Washington - I now have several people from the Old Country linked up to me in Facebook. I get to see how they write. I also see how the people linked to them write. I also see the writing of people who, like me, have left the area.

This seems to be a fair summary:

• From South Jersey, still living there: semi-literate at best
  
• From South Jersey, moved to Florida: semi-literate at best
  
• From South Jersey, moved to [anywhere but Florida]: often literate
  

I've been bashing anyone younger than John Wooden who moves to Florida for a long time. The people just staying in Jersey.... what can I say. It's probably not fair for me to make these judgments based on brief online writings, but it's just brutal stuff.

There are many possible theories. Could be that the ones who stay where they're born are by definition the dopes. Or maybe there's some environmental factor sapping writing competence out of the people. Or, these people can all form a written sentence perfectly well but choose not to do so on Facebook (but the refugees typically DO write well there).

There could be another angle, the when-I-was-your-age angle. Maybe the schooling just sucks lately. Case in point: my mother, who finished her schooling by graduating high school circa 1960 and has never had a job that involved writing at all.

Six or eight years ago, she briefly got email access at a job she had. So I sent her an email to see her response. I had never seen a written paragraph from her in my life. Many times in the last 15 years, I've seen the emails of people not used to writing, seen the creaky language, brutal capitalization, etc. I was expecting the worst from her.

Well, her email was flawless. Full lush sentences, everything capitalized correctly, none of the common bumblings (its vs. it's, etc.) I could barely believe it. If you had told me it was written by Lionel Trilling, I might have believed you.

I don't have the email any more, it was sent to a work account at an old job. But that writing simply would not fly on today's South Jersey internet.

Who writes the copy for Trilogy's in-cart GPS?

SEATTLE, Washington - This morning I played a round at Trilogy aka Redmond Ridge and the in-cart GPS had a bit of an abuse of the English language in its "Pro Tip" for the par-5 6th hole. Does anyone review the copy for these things? I know English is not easy, synonyms, homonyms, etc. but come on.

Anyway this must have inspired me because I did get the "illusive" birdie on the hole, only my second or third birdie of the whole season.

Michael Kinsley delivers a beatdown to Newsweek

SEATTLE, Washington - I recently made some tepid sarcastic comments about the newly redesigned Newsweek, admittedly without even picking up a copy.

When it comes to snarky beatdowns, there are amateurs and there are professionals, and Michael Kinsley is a professional. Mr Kinsley was recently canned by Time and seems to have vented his anger on poor Newsweek by trashing their makeover.

Amidst all the snark were many good points about the nature and evolution of newsmagazines. Some snippets:

In his editor's letter... Jon Meacham says, "We are not pretending to be your guide through the chaos of the Information Age," which concedes a lot of ground from the get-go. Why not at least pretend? Why else would people pick it up, let alone subscribe?
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That said, Meacham's vision of a magazine full of exciting narrative and provocative arguments isn't terrible, if he could pull it off every week. Sadly, though, he has been defeated by what Mikhail Gorbachev used to call "the approaches of the stagnation period." He says he wants "provocative (but not partisan) arguments." Which would be what? "Let's paint the Capitol dome dark brown"? Or, "Try cooked carrots--they're not too bad"? It's not easy to be provocative if you're looking over your shoulder for the partisanship police.
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Why, for that matter, is there still a letters page? It's the first page of content you come to. Five one-paragraph comments on the issue published two weeks ago--room for little more than a thumbs up or down. On the Internet, thousands of people have their say immediately and at length. And then a self-parody: "Your thoughts on swine flu" -the cover story two weeks ago--"in six words." Hali McGrath of Berkeley, California, submitted, "Blah, blah, swine flu, blah blah." And Newsweek published it.
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It's been said that the test of a newsmagazine is whether you would grab it if you'd been trapped in a coal mine for a week and had one hour to catch up. And after a week trapped in a coal mine, perhaps an hour with a picture of Miss California in a bikini will be more useful than any explanation of why she's in the news. But the new Newsweek maintains the same irritating practice as the old one of half-explaining, which is no use either to those who already know the story or to those who don't.
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My favorite feature in the Scope section, and possibly in this entire issue of Newsweek, is called (for no special reason that I can determine except for a failed attempt at a pun) "The Reign of Spain." And it consists of a handsome chart comparing the unemployment rate in Spain in December 2007 and in March 2009 with the unemployment rates in other countries on those same dates. Why Spain? Why those dates? Why these other countries? Newsweek's entire explanation: "Unemployment in Spain is soaring as the country sheds thousands of low-skilled jobs."

First test of Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co - FAIL

SEATTLE, Washington - When I noted the opening of the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company in Belltown, I pointed out that they're offering 30+ flavors and it may be tough to master them all.

Here's their first Flavor Fail... the first exotic flavor that isn't quite right: Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla Frosting. They put chocolate sprinkles on it.

I guess you can offer an unlimited number of flavors if you're going to simplify by putting chocolate sprinkles on everything.

Ideology, fecundity, and mobility

SEATTLE, Washington - In case you didn't hear in the aftermath of the 2004 election, white fertility rates had an incredibly high correlation with voting patterns - Bush carried 25 of the top 26 white-fertility-rate states, while Kerry carried the bottom 16 states in this category.

This was pointed out today in a post by Bryan Caplan that was a response to Arnold Kling's grim assessment that demographic trends were going to result in stagnant, single-party Democratic rule in the coming years.

Caplan (who's very much into nature-vs-nurture stuff) countered Kling's grimness with the idea that the higher birthrates combined with an intergenerational correlation in ideological preferences spells trouble for Democrats in the long term.

I'm not buying it. Even if there is some small genetic component to ideology, it can't possibly be enough to counter the fact that a certain percentage of young people currently flee and will continue to flee their stagnant red-state origins.

Many years ago, I was on a feverish, catch-all conspiracy email list (remember those?) One member would often post stories about "infiltration" of homosexuals in the school system etc. and then note that "homosexuals can't reproduce, so they have to recruit to replenish their ranks". That's an asinine observation about homosexuality, but I think I can twist that quote around on this issue: "Heartland religious conservatives can't recruit, so they have to reproduce to replenish their ranks."

Problem is, a certain percentage of these "reproduced" folks leave the Heartland and move to coastal urban centers and turn into leftist Democratic voters. This migration strikes me as largely unidirectional. If you live in a big city, like Seattle, you probably have some friends who moved there from [insert dumpy red state here] as young adults, often leaving their religious upbringing behind. How many people go in the opposite direction? How many Boston Brahmins or young Seattle urchins leave home to become religious conservatives in Nebraska?

There's a reason the migration is unidirectional - people (especially young, curious folks) are going to head for the more dynamic, less restrictive lifestyle. Cultural homogeneity and an alleged 6,000 year old Earth are not great bases for recruitment - you have to "birth" people into that world-view and hope they stick around. Dynamic culture, sex, drugs, and a government that allegedly will tend to your more costly worldly needs? As Drucker said in Heat, "I don't have to sell this and you know it, 'cause this kind of shit here sells itself."

I had to use all sorts of labels and terms here I usually avoid - Red State, Heartland, blah blah... oh well. Only way to make my point.

A new cupcake player in Seattle - unless it's Sunday

SEATTLE, Washington - There's a new cupcake player in town - the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company in Belltown.

I'd like to say I've been there, but they just opened on Friday and they're closed Sundays. The hours listed on their website are 7:30 to 5 Monday to Friday, and 9 to 5 Saturday. Geez... come on. This isn't as bad as the four-and-a-half-day schedule at Shoofly Pie, but it looks like I have to take a day off from work to try the cupcakes at this joint.

They list 30+ flavors on their website (plus seasonals!), serving nine varieties every day. That sounds to me like too many flavors to master, especially for a new joint, but they must know more about this than me; they're the ones opening a cupcake shop and I'm the one sitting around with my thumb up my ass, complaining about my humdrum life.

Bold innovations at Newsweek: raising price, renaming sections

SEATTLE, Washington - Among the innovations being pondered by dead-tree publishers is the idea of cultivating a higher-quality, more passionate readership base (that will be more appealing to advertisers) by raising your price and your perceived level of quality. The Newsosaur discussed this in the context of newspapers.

Relatively expensive niche products like The Economist are cited as a validation of this (risky) strategy.

Newsweek is pushing ahead with this strategy. They're raising the newsstand price by $1 to $5.95, and raising the rates paid by subscribers.

As far as swanking up the content? Well, they're renaming the "Periscope" section... it will now be called "Scope". And the back page will be named "The Back Page".

I hope you have more than that up your sleeve, Newsweek

Laptops for the ladies?

SEATTLE, Washington - Wow... Dell launched a female-targeted site called Della that tried to pitch laptops to women by mentioning its use in calorie counting, watching cooking videos, etc....

And there was a backlash! I'm shocked!

A little-known victim of the Islamic Revolution

SEATTLE, Washington - As if there weren't enough negative consequences to having a country fall into the control of fundamentalist Muslims - turns out one of the victims of Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 was an almost-completed Orson Welles film that might be a classic.

By the early 1970s Welles was developing The Other Side of the Wind, a film about an aging film director returning from years of exile in Europe to direct a final, avant-garde Hollywood feature. Welles's reputation for profligacy forced him to hunt high and low for new suckers to fund his ventures, and one of the investors in Wind was an Iranian production firm run by Medhi Mouscheri, brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran.

By early 1979 shooting was finished and Welles was editing the film when the Shah was overthrown, marking the beginning of a 20+ year battle over the ownership of the film (which sat in a humidity-controlled vault in Paris the whole time). The newly-installed theocratic regime presumably had better things to do than work through film investments. Welles died in 1985 and his heirs, like all heirs, were in the thick of much of the legal tangle-work.

The Other Side of the Wind's fate is now in the hands of Peter Bogdanovich, who was one of the actors in the film. In 2004, Mr B (whose career bogged-down-ovich after the success of The Last Picture Show in 1971) announced that he would edit the remainder of the film and release it. We're still waiting - Mr B seems to be pulling a Duke Nukem Forever with this, dripping news out every so often without ever producing any results.

A clip or two of the movie can be seen in documentaries, and some who have seen a good hunk of the footage claim that it's top-notch work, with an Academy Award-level acting performance by John Huston as the aging director. Can Bogdanovich possibly craft the film into something resembling Welles's original vision, or will it bear the stamp of Bogdanovich? Here's one clue - if The Other Side of the Wind finally gets released and you see Cybill Shepherd in it... that was Bogdanovich's doing.

UPDATE 2018/10/29: The long wait is almost over, The Other Side of the Wind drops on Netflix on 2018/11/02

Garbage report on "savings" from ditching car and using transit

SEATTLE, Washington - Economict Thomas Sowell made the oft-quoted observation that economics is not about solutions, it's about trade-offs. Keep this in mind as you read the America Public Transportation Associations's drivel on how much you can "save" every year by getting rid of your car and using public transit instead.

APTA pegged the "savings" at $8,600 per year across the top 20 transit-ridership cities, and $10,483 in Seattle.

Yes, it looks like riding transit will "save" you money - but what about the trade-offs? What are the costs? If you ditch your car, you're probably severely damaging your quality of life. People don't have cars for the joy of burning money - they have them because the benefits of the car equal or exceed the costs. A car gives you sweet, beautiful mobility, it immensely enhances your work possibilities, your recreational opportunities, your potential for community involvement, on and on. Unless you have tons of time to burn making circuitous trips on transit to do what you have to do, or you're just thrilled with everything within walking distance of your house, you're probably making your life worse.

We don't need the American Public Transit Association to tell us what car ownership costs, or for that matter if the costs are worth it - people have clearly voted with their choices. In fact, in recent polling about luxuries vs. necessities in life, the automobile checked in as a necessity with 88 percent of the respondents, blowing away items like landline phones, televisions, microwave ovens, you name it - even though car ownership was by far the priciest item in the poll.

Each of us can make our own decisions on these matters, without propaganda outfits like the American Public Transit Association telling us about the "savings". I'll keep my car, thanks. I don't have a microwave oven, even though I can afford to line my walls with the things if I want, because I've decided the benefits are too modest.

You can make a really shit life for yourself if you want to by eliminating all "costs" regardless of benefit. As a commenter on the seattlepi.com story on the APTA report noted:

Living in a tent would save about $42,000 per year. Giving up table wine would yeild $240 per year. Using old newsprint and forgoing commercial TP would save a whopping $48 per year. Movies? Nix your montly movie night habit with the wife and you would save nearly $1,200 annually. Coffee at Starbucks? Drinking tepid water each morning would net about $600 per year in savings. Want to save big? For go kids. The cute little buggers cost you more than $13K a year...throw in childcare so you can have a fulfilling career...another $8K minium. Everything in life is not always about saving money

which I reproduced here for its sentiment, in spite of the massive spelling, grammar, and usage errors.

A brief tour of Brooklyn espresso joints

NEW YORK, New York - I decided to spend my Sunday morning having a few espressos in Brooklyn. I avoided the places I have visited repeatedly in the past (Gimme Coffee! and Gorilla) in favor of some first-time visits.

My first visit was to a month-old spot featuring Stumptown beans in Cobble Hill. The place may be called Cafe Pedlar or Coffee Pedlar - as you can see in the photo, there's no identification on the outside of the building, no sandwich board, nothing. Some sources say "Peddlar" but I did see it spelled with one "D" inside.

Judging from internet postings this charming-turned-hip-turned-gentrified 'hood needed good espresso, so good for them. They need a couple more tables so I could not photograph the espresso, but it was better than adequate. They use a La Marzocco machine - come on, that's a 2nd string machine nowadays.

I then decided to lose my virginity on a few matters - making my first visit to the Greenpoint neighborhood and riding the G train. The G is the one line that does not enter Manhattan, and when I've spotted it in the past it had like 4 cars instead of 10, and nobody was on it, so I was worried. I figured that G might stand for "gangsta" and that my life might be on the line.

Similarly, I had barely heard of Greenpoint and didn't know if it was a decent 'hood or a shooting gallery. Turns out, it's just another bland Brooklyn far outpost - similar to Red Hook but without an Ikea to create buzz. It's also a Polish enclave - they had Polish bakeries, Polish restaurants, even a Polish credit union!

My espresso hit in Greenpoint was Café Grumpy. They offer products from a variety of roasters and use a Synesso machine. They offered the regular espresso and a "guest" espresso (pile on a few more and they'll be up to the four different espressos offered at Caffé del Doge in Palo Alto).

I went with a regular espresso and it was the best one of the day. Nice and short, dark crema, no bitterness, no aftertaste. Grumpy has a Chelsea location so perhaps I'll incorporate it into my Manhattan trips going forward.



Also of note at Grumpy is the bathroom - they have dozens of Polaroids of people on the walls, a few of which have captions and a few of which have cryptic numbers. There may be some sort of logic to it but I wasn't in the mood to decipher anything.



From Grumpy I strolled in the rain towards Williamsburg. (I seem to be the only person in New York with rain hat and slicker). I stopped for breakfast at Mugs Alehouse on the way, eggs Benedict and an Anchor Steam beer (which the waitress kept referring to as "Anchor Steamer" beer). The bar, of course, had a television with a distorted picture.

I made my way down Bedford Avenue, the hip heart of Williamsburg, passing a Japanese-Malay fusion restaurant and similar atrocities, before arriving at Oslo Coffee Company on Roebling St. I didn't recognize their coffee beans but they did have a Synesso machine.



The demitasse was from Caffé Vita, and it was not the only sign of Seattle in the room; the sink had a bunch of stickers from Seattle affixed. Vita, Bauhaus, Top Pot, a few Ballard stickers, even some less-prominent joints like Herkimer and Tougo were represented.

Seattle beans, Seattle stickers, rain, Seattle espresso machines - I decided to call it a day.

On watching stretched 4:3 images on 16:9 screens

NEW YORK, New York - I don't watch television much, but nowadays the first thing I have to do when I check into a hotel with a wide-screen HDTV is fiddle with it to get the picture down to 4:3 ratio. Genuine widescreen pictures (16:9) are only available if the hotel is shelling out for high-def service (none seem to do this) or grabbing the over-the-air HD signals but they all seem to configure the TV in "stretch" mode so that the 4:3 image gets stretched over the whole screen.

I consider it essentially nuts that people would want to watch the distortion produced by stretching the image. Yet, not only do I see this in hotels and bars, sometimes I go over someone's house and when they're watching a channel being delivered in 4:3 they have it set up to stretch the image. It looks broken to me, crazy, unwatchable, but even this HDTV guide notes that some people prefer to watch the distortion instead of having some of the screen go unused.

Analysis of "best" lesbian sex scenes in the movies

SEATTLE, Washington - I've been running low of things to rent on Netflix, so I decided to work through about.com's list of the Best Lesbian Sex Scenes in the Movies. Here is my analysis:

Tipping the Velvet: Disappointing

Better than Chocolate: Hot lesbian action

When Night is Falling: Disappointing

If These Walls Could Talk 2: Didn't see it

If These Walls Could Talk: Disappointing

Head in the Clouds: Did I rent the Utah cut of this film? Since when does dancing count as lesbian sex??? FAIL

Lost and Delirious: Disappointing

Wild Side: Disappointing

The Hunger: Disappointing

Bound: Hot lesbian action

Don't believe that a WA income tax will only tax the "rich"

SEATTLE, Washington - The politicians are scraping around for new revenue sources in Olympia, but at least for the moment they have shelved the idea of creating a state income tax on people earning above $250,000 per year.

Now, you're welcome to think that the state should have an income tax (although it would probably drive people like me from the state). There are legitimate pros and cons. But you're a straight-up sucker if you think such a tax would continue to only be levied on the "rich" going forward.

Look at the history of the federal income tax for guidance on this. The first federal income tax created after the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 only applied to income above $3,000 (which if you do the math is almost $65,000 in 2008 dollars). The bottom rate was 1% (ONE Percent!), going up to 7% for income above $10,000,000 in 2008 dollars. Given the $3,000 threshold, less than two percent of American households paid any income tax at all at that time.

This tax was pitched as just grabbing a bit from the very very rich, those who could afford it, just as the proposed Washington income tax has been pitched.

Interestingly, when the 16th Amendment was being debated, there was talk of putting a 10% hard cap in the amendment. This was rejected, because it was considered absurd, a total howler, that the income tax rate could ever rise that high. (See here). In fact, by 1918 (under wartime conditions) the top rate had blown right through the inconceivable 10% barrier all the way to 77%.

State governments can't wage war as a justification for raising taxes, so they just institutionalize big spending increases and new programs in good times and then start cooking up ideas for ways to take more money to pay for these things when things sour. This phenomenon is discussed in detail in the excellent cover story from this month's Reason magazine.

Of course, every last penny of the government spending (in programs that sometimes did not even exist a few short years ago) is alleged to be indispensable, crucial to the functioning of a civilized society, kids will be starving in the gutters if anything is cut, etc etc.

Smartphone Hubris

WHITEFISH, Montana - I'm on my first vacation since getting an internet-enabled phone. I figured it would be sweet... no messy paper maps, no getting lost, find a restaurant with a few clicks.

One problem - T-Mobile doesn't serve Montana. Not just the podunk part I'm in... the whole damn massive state. So I'm scrounging for wifi, just like the not-so-old days.

The time is right for Terminator to end

POST FALLS, Idaho - All of the buzz indicates that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is going to be canceled after one-and-a-half seasons. Now, who will be the hottest chick on television once Summer Glau is off the air? I won't know because I'll probably again retire from watching TV for 5-10 years.

SPOILER ALERT

Still - if you saw the last episode, you know that this is the time to end the series. Based on how it ended, if they did do another season it's possible that Glau would have to play a human instead of a cyborg. And if that happens, I think dear Ms Glau would end up getting exposed. Let's be honest - we're not talking about acting talent on the level of a Faye Dunaway or Kate Winslet here.

Update: a re-assessment of Summer Glau here.

News Flash! - some politicians made intelligent, prescient comments six months ago

SEATTLE, Washington - It's looking more and more likely that GM will fire for bankruptcy, in spite of the fact that they've gotten tens of billions of dollars in aid and have been essentially taken over by the allegedly brilliant inner circle of the Obama administration. I was beating the drum for bankruptcy back in November. In fact, it was so obvious back then that a bankruptcy filing with no taxpayer aid was the correct path, even some politicians knew it.

A couple senators mentioned in November that a government cash infusion to GM would just put off the inevitable. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) knew the truth:

Mr. Kyl, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, added, "Just giving them $25 billion doesn't change anything. It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."

Those were tepid comments compared to Richard Shelby (R-AL):

"Companies fail every day and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down," said Mr. Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

"They're not building the right products," he said. "They've got good workers, but I don't believe they've got good management. They don't innovate. They're a dinosaur in a sense."
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"It's not the General Motors we grew up with. It's a General Motors that is headed down this road to oblivion," said Mr. Shelby. "Should we intervene to slow it down, knowing it's going to happen? I say no, not for the American taxpayer."

Normally every word out of the mouths of politicians is nonsense, but note that the Times article is dated November 17, right after the election; you have a window of a couple weeks there where the politicians of the losing party will make sense, before the whole bullshit cycle revs up for the upcoming (i.e. two years in the future) election.

RIP - Harry Kalas (1936 - 2009)

SEATTLE, Washington - If I think back and try to re-create in my mind a hot, sticky summer night in South Jersey as a kid, Kalas's voice calling a Phillies game is a required element.

RIP