Books and planes

I joined Goodreads today. This could be time-consuming, or it could go the way of mycolts.net, I don't know.

I'm going to Vermont this weekend (nonstop, all hail Midwest) for the first time--I expect it will be culturally similar to Wisconsin, with taller rocks--and I could use some suggestions for something to read on the plane. I've already read An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England. Plenty of good tips in that one.

I have no idea about a hostess gift, either. I'm out of Iowa chops, and WI is problematic: can't get beer on the plane, no point in taking cheese. I'm down to honey (in 3 oz or smaller containers, I haven't forgotten what happened when I tried to fly with Play-Doh) or...uh....sausage?

I don't have cable TV...

Kathy Shaidle:

The so-called poor have cars and cable tv and free medical. They live in America in the 21st century, where school is free and libraries are free and a bus ticket to a better town costs less than a bag of crack. If they're "poor" it's because they were too lazy and stupid to a) finish high school and/or b) keep their pants on. Jesus had something to say about folks who didn't properly manage their money or other people's, and who squandered free gifts and good will. He told the adulteress to sin no more, not to find herself another baby daddy.

I was going to post my own thoughts, but they're not original and I have to go to work.

It's worth noting that all the girls in my HS class who had babies the summer after graduation are doing much better than I am--husbands who make enough money that they can stay home with their younger children, new houses, newer cars than I drive--and that's not counting the social capital automatically granted to mothers, even in stupid situations. Especially in stupid situations.

Is it 1787 already?

Barbara Boxers has proposed that immigration enforcement be suspended so "undocumented residents" (that would be non-citizens who aren't supposed to be here) can be counted for the purpose of doling out Congressional representation. And federal slush money, I'm sure.

I'd like to be the first to propose another 3/5 compromise. Illegal aliens can be counted as 3/5 a person in exchange for building the damn fence and stepping up other enforcement efforts. I think that's fair--the DNC gets 60% of the number of people the Census Bureau can find and ICE can't. Of course, that would only work if ICE was trying to find/process people....sigh.

Given all the pathetic, quasi-legal bribery the City of Ames did in 2000 to try to convince kids in dorms and graduating seniors to fill out census forms to be counted as permanent residents (that roommate who dropped out and went home, they count, too!) to qualify for more federal dollars, I don't feel a whole lot of love for the accuracy of people self-reporting to the Census Bureau (1 out of every 500 teenagers is a widow? in 2000??), much less the reports filed by people out looking for people to report on (see also ACORN).

Plus, it'll be fun to watch all the talking heads and lockstep lemmings pretend they've heard of the original 3/5 compromise.

...and they'll go for it on 4th and 3

If you're a Minnesota football fan looking for an inspiring team to follow this season, you don't need to lower your standards and root for the cheating, slacker-enabling Patriots.
...
How can you not like this team? The coach and quarterback are among the classiest and most accomplished figures in the game, and have we mentioned they don't cheat?

Not often I enjoy something in the Red Star Tribune not written by Lileks.

Oh, this is great.

Police urged not to check legal status

A policy Milwaukee police officials adopted recently prohibits officers from asking immigration questions or alerting federal authorities to suspected illegal immigrants, with some exceptions.
...
Milwaukee officers can question a person's immigration status or alert federal authorities only in cases of violent crimes, suspected terrorism, street gang crimes or other limited cases.

I agree that the city police have better things to do than to do ICE's work for them. But why wait until someone gets killed before turning over a name? They've been making a big deal all summer about making thousands of "citizen contacts", I'm sure they've turned up a few people who aren't supposed to be living here, why sit on this information? Given that thousands of people are killed every year by unlicensed illegal-alien drivers, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to pass on the alleged addresses of people without a valid license to ICE to ignore them as they see fit.

As illegal immigration has grown into a national issue the past couple of years, stepped-up enforcement efforts have produced deportation stories that rankled immigrant rights groups.

In 2004, a Waukesha County mother of two was sent back to India after she got a flat tire and police officers discovered that she had entered the United States illegally 12 years earlier.

Very sad for her, but the police officers did not put a gun to her head in 1996 and force her onto a plane without the proper approval.

(The J-S article used the phrase "illegal immigrant"? Someone's gonna get fired.)

They're starting to frighten me.

No Harrison, no Addai, no Sanders, no problem.

I'm disappointed Marvin's consecutive-games-with-receptions streak ended, but he's got two weeks to heal before Jacksonville, which is a) important and b) on MNF.

I've been indefinitely banned from watching football with the Real Men of Genius because the Colts have won more games than all of their teams put together--Jets (1), Dolphins (0), Rams(0), Broncos(2), and Bears(1). Heh. I didn't tell them I'm out of town the next three weekends anyway.

The stat I find interesting: the Colts are 4-0 against teams with starters who have Colts Super Bowl rings.

Blah blah SCHIP blah blah

Mark Steyn: if this is the face of the "needy" in America, then no-one is not needy.

My dad paid for health insurance for a family of six when he was self-employed for 15 years. But we had one TV, 1.5 bathrooms, and two pairs of jeans apiece. *srednop*

Basketball practice starts this week...

I'm getting a kick out of all the people complaining about how the Wisconsin football team suh-diddly-ucks this year. Top 25, lost one conference game...y'all wouldn't know suck if it walked up wearing blaze orange and popped a cap in Bucky's ass (now there's a mixed metaphor).

Here's some 99.44% pure, home-grown, corn-fed suck, for comparison.

It doesn't really bother me; I feel bad for Bret Meyer because he's a better QB than the record indicates, and I thought Chizik was too negative about the players at the halftime interview (at the post-game interview he blames the coaching, someone must have called him on it), but anyone who watched ISU football before the 2000 season just nods and hopes Kansas has a bad day so we at least get one conference win. When I say we suck, I'm about as emotional as I am when I say the sun came up this morning.

Gutfield:

The whole idea that you have to try something before making a judgment is moral laziness. This refusal to say something is wrong because you're trying to keep an open mind prevents you from seeing what's wrong with the world - or more important other cultures. Female Circumcision strikes me as wrong - but I don't need my clitoris removed to find out.... I find the whole idea of prison rape to be reprehensible. But I've never experienced that either.

He's right for the most part; I know a lot of women who went directly from their parents' house to marriage (via an all-women dorm) and I'm not allowed to point out their lack of experience with the old-maid-with-cat lifestyle when they sneer at it...and I'm not allowed to question their smugness about marriage, either.

I've also noticed people aren't even allowed to judge some stuff they may have tried and later realized was wrong, with the following exceptions: smoking, eating meat, being 'overweight' (see Mike Huckabee's plan to force us all to live his new lifestyle), driving a car (see al-Gore).

*srednop* Too much thinking for Saturday.

Department of Redundancy Department.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Governor Jim Doyle has declared Sunday as Favre Record Day in Wisconsin.

C'mon, that's EVERY Sunday in Wisconsin.

I actually think that game will be more interesting than the Colts game the local FOX affiliate refuses to show me, but I might be harboring some residual Super Bowl shadenfreude.

Heh. Heh heh.

Is it wrong of me to want one of these?

Today someone asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I want to get through Thanksgiving before I start thinking about Christmas, is what I want...

No crying in baseball

But this is really cool.

Besides their surprising 14-1 finish to the season, the Colorado Rockies are giving baseball fans another reason to cheer for them this postseason.

The widow of Rockies minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh, who died after getting hit by a line drive this season, will be granted a full share of the team's playoff winnings after a team vote.

Plus, they're two up on the Phillies, which pleases me in a "my brother-in-law who hates the Colts will be pissed" way.

Zombie strikes again!

The Zombster has a zillion disclaimers: The pictures from the Folsom Street Fair can be considered hard-core pornography (and Zombietime is experiencing heavy traffic; expect long load times). I admire Zombie's willingness to wade into the frays and the thoroughness of Zombie's reports (I think I know what pronoun Zombie takes, but I don't want to accidentally 'out' Zombie's identity). I would have gotten myself kicked out for hurting people's feelings with my cackling Hillaryesque laughter.

Really. The religious sex toys were disgusting (no Mohammed-shaped sex toys, I wonder why...), but mostly they all look kinda pathetic. Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!!! I'm so EDGY!!! LOOK AT ME!!!

(...says a chick with a blog. Ow.)

Dunno; if they were trying to shock right-wing cranks in flyover country, they failed. The "fetish lifestyle" is so mainstream anymore...CSI (I only watch the original) regularly has plots featuring extreme BDSM, furries, bloodsports, transvestites, perverting religious symbols, Elvisexuals, did I mention extreme BDSM? These poor deluded fools think they're being counter-cultural, and they're network TV.


Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, two gay guys have been sentenced to 7000 lashes for activities not conducted in public.

Wisconsin News of the Weird

STONE LAKE, Wis. — A man who went to a northwoods bank's drive-up window demanding money fled on his camouflage-colored all-terrain vehicle after the teller held up candy suckers and said that's all she had, authorities said.

*srednop*

This seems fairly normal to me--both the bank robber on the ATV and the teller apologizing for not having any money.

RESOLUTION

Thank you, "Jackson Bauer", whoever you are.

NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved by the Senate of the United States and its individual members that they

(1) Shall refrain from suggesting, without warrant, that our troops are murderers, liars, torturers, idiots, losers, and traitors

(2) Shall refrain, whenever possible, from making public statements about the troops, their mission or our country that are indistinguishable from statements made by Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or others who have vowed to destroy the United States of America

(3) Shall refrain from introducing legislation that would impede or impair the ability of our troops to defeat our enemies or that exceeds the powers granted to Congress under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution

Worth reading the whole thing, of course.

Scheiße!

Since I got home from work, I've had four otherwise rational people rant at me about how Bush hates children. They want free healthcare for their kid (because they deserve it, simply by virtue of spawning in the first place) and that mean child-hating bastard vetoed the bill that would give it to them.

They had no idea that the bill had provisions providing free insurance to non-poor non-children, much less that those provisions were added by Dems, and if they would have left well enough alone and just increased the money for poor children by 300% W would have signed the damn thing the way he signs all the big-government big-money bills, but even once I point this out, they don't care! They truly believe George W. Bush wants their child to DIE so he can continue spending billions to kill Iraqi children, too.

My personality disorder is acting up; I told them to move to Canada and let me know how long the wait is to see the allergist.


(My "Beginning German for Adults" class started tonight, so I now know more words than 'Scheiße' and 'Bier', but I'm all self-conscious about how I'm pronouncing all the vowel sounds.)

Clean your lint trap.

The worst part about living in an apartment is sharing laundry machines with people who are either ignorant of how to launder textiles appropriately or just don't care. If I had a dollar for everytime I opened a washing machine and found a bathroom rug, six bras, four pairs of jeans, AND a king-size sheet set, none of which should be washed together in the first place much less overloaded by that...

Anyway, when you take your clothes out of the dryer, clean the freaking lint trap.

Residents of a 10-unit apartment building evacuated safely when a small dryer fire filled the structure with smoke early today on Milwaukee's northwest side.

Milwaukee police said no one was hurt and the fire did only an estimated $100 in damage. The emergency call came in about 3 a.m. from 7105 N. Teutonia Ave., police said.

The suspected cause was a build up of lint inside the dryer, police said.

There were a couple of dryer fires around the city about this time last year that caused serious damage. I'm not just an old crank--I'm an old crank who doesn't want to get woken up and forced outside at 3 a.m.

Damn, I'm good.

Friday Michelle Malkin had a piece on underage kids being allowed into a sex fetish festival in San Francisco, and I commented "I'll bet money someone takes in a kid in a stroller."

Damn, I'm good.

I'll let everyone else handle the outrage about dressing babies up like a sex slave. Here's the comment that rankled in the original linked article:

Fathers Gary Beuschel and John Kruse watched over them closely. They were proud to show the twins off.

“They will see more than the kids with moms and dads in Iowa,” said Beuschel, who wanted to expose his children to San Francisco's diverse community.

1. "Exposing" your 2-year-old children to sexual fetishes is not a good thing no matter where you live. That really should go without saying.
2. They always go for the cheap slam of the Midwest, like your longitude is a marker of your worth as a person. Unoriginal.
   
3. On top of being a shitty parent and a drone, he's also ignorant. I've seen people exposing their small children to BDSM-type fetish stuff in Iowa City, which is, surprise, in Iowa.
   

5-10 years ago I used to attend a yearly gathering in Iowa City of people from an online community. Some of them would wear their BDSM gear to the park, and most of them would bring their children. I didn't actually see anyone masturbating, but people dropping their pants to show off new piercing was pretty common, as was leading people around on leashes and floggings. One guy made a hobby of getting a picture of every participant wearing handcuffs (there are probably still some of me, wearing handcuffs and looking annoyed; fortunately most of them are 404). One year there was a donkey. I've suppressed the rest of that story.

Not only did no one stop to think, "Maybe I should leave the kid with Grandma for the afternoon," no one stopped to think, "Maybe all these other parents using the park don't want to see the man in the fishnets lick my naked boobies." Well, I did, but I didn't have any influence over this group.

I don't even want to know what went on at some of the private after-hours parties.

So that's why I KNEW people were going to be bringing their kids to this thing in San Francisco. I understand these people. They've all got huge empty places inside and they do stupid shit to get attention to try to fill it.

Oh, and my sisters tell me that children over 2 years should not still be drinking out of a bottle.

Time to fill in the river...

Another drunk "college kid" died in the Mississippi River while drinking in LaCrosse over the weekend.

The incident marked the second straight year that a drowning occurred during the city's initial Oktoberfest weekend. Exactly one year ago Sunday, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Luke Homan disappeared after a night of drinking. His body was found two days later in the Mississippi River.

Homan, 21, became the eighth college-age man since 1997 to turn up dead in a river after going missing from a tavern. The deaths led to persistent rumors of a serial killer roaming the area, but police and the FBI continue to insist there is no evidence to suggest the deaths were anything but accidents.

Last year when this happened, there were several "town meetings" to discuss the "epidemic" and how to stop it. Telling kids to stop binge drinking by the river wasn't on the table--townspeople wanted increased nighttime patrols in the area, free cab rides, big fences, etc. Great ideas, except it looks like they didn't work. I suggested filling in the river--yeah, it might slow down some barge traffic, but aren't the lives of these "good young men" worth economically crippling neighboring states? The only way to keep drunk "kids" out of the river is to remove the river.

Blaming Oktoberfest seems disingenuous; it's not like there's no binge drinking the other 51 weekends a year.

Anyway, I feel really bad for their mothers. While the sad fact that sperm has never hit my eggs makes me unable to comment on anyone else's children (or so I'm told, daily), I can imagine that it must hurt like hell when someone knocks on the door to tell you that the baby you carried for 9 months has killed himself by his own stupidity.

Harkin off his meds again...

Still pleased to be one of 6 Iowans who didn't vote for the man in 2002. Maybe I'm naive, but basic integrity is more important than committee seniority.

Maybe Congressional committees should be randomly assigned every two years, so senators are more equal. Some people might become proficient in one area after forty years of writing the legislations, but most of them don't seem to be doing any better now than they did in the 60s. Pathetically few Congress members had a real job (and most of them were lawyers) before their first elected position back home, so most of them can't claim a science, technology, education, business, medicine, etc background that would make them more suited for one committee than another. A couple of exceptions--Tom Coburn was a practicing obstetrician until the Senate made him quit seeing patients on breaks--but not enough exceptions to make the current practice the best practice.

What do I know? I just work.