Blizza Blizza

Marshall Fitzpatrick, firefighter and cigarette smoker:

That's $40 in groceries and $40 toward the electric bill, that's $40 toward whatever. When you put both of us together, that's $80 we've saved [by buying cigarettes in Indiana instead of Michigan] going toward our bills which helps us out.

How about you and your girlfriend save even more by, you know, quitting smoking entirely? You choose to smoke, and Michigan chooses to tax your vice. Give up the vice or quit your bitching.

This just showed up in my inbox:

Hello chris
Are you really satisfied with your p*enis size?

Yes, in fact, both I and your mother are quite satisfied with my penis size. Thanks for asking. Your mother appreciates your looking out for her sexual well-being, too.

She also said to get a haircut, take a shower, and move the fuck out of her basement.

Someone with actual journalism experience should feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm fairly certain one of the major tenets of journalism is that headlines should be, well, factual. Apparently nobody told the anonymous AP hack covering the Cessna 310 crash in Sanford, Florida, about that. Observe:

NTSB: NASCAR plane crash due to broken control cables

This seems fairly straightforward and unambiguous, stating that the National Transportation Safety Board has found that Dr. Bruce Kennedy and Michael Klemm crashed because of broken cables in the flight controls of the Cessna 310 they were flying from Daytona Beach to Orlando.

Except that's not at all what the NTSB has said. Again, observe, from the second paragraph of the aforementioned article:

It wasn't known whether the cables broke before or during the crash, though, and the cause of the July 10 crash in suburban Sanford remained unclear, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

So what you're saying is that the NTSB has actually stated that they have no idea exactly what caused the crash at this point in time. Which is sort of, you know, the exact opposite of what the headline said.

Then again, the mass media seems to think airplanes stay in the air by magic anyway, so I guess expecting them to know how to write headlines that treat aviation with any semblance of reason is pretty silly.

In celebration of our freedom, independence, and democracy, I spent the morning in...Cuba.

I am spending the evening watching the neighbours light off all manner of illegal explosives over the pond in the apartment complex. Yay for Independence Day!

On a much more serious note, thank you to all the servicemen and women who have kept this country independent. Your sacrifices are greatly appreciated.

I'm still alive. I've been terribly busy.

The last two days have been spent recovering from serious hard drive corruption that's been plaguing me in one form or another for six months. I think something deep down in the OS was hosed. I'm about 75% recovered from that, but it'll probably take another two days at least. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it isn't a hard disk problem like it was last time (although I did score a free laptop out of that deal).

Last weekend, I was in Mountain View, California, for the Camino Meet-Up. We got a lot accomplished and the plans for Camino 1.6 and 2.0 are pretty solid at this point. Beyond that, things are sort of up in the air, but much less so than they were before the meeting. Kudos to Mike Pinkerton (no relation to Allan Pinkerton of Pinkerton National Detective Agency fame, as far as he knows) for being able to stand up there and talk/lead discussion for 10 hours over two days about our future.

Work is keeping me extremely busy; I just got done with four days straight yesterday, had today off (sort of -- more on that below), and have six straight starting at 0800 tomorrow morning, including two days of OT that I picked up a week ago. The good news is that I have a line next month. The bad news is that it's mostly day trips and the only overnights are our super-short Fort Myers overnight. Grr.

My day off, today, was spent mostly fixing my computer, but also taking my FFDO computer screening, basically a several-hundred-question true-false personality profile. Seems like it might be a good idea if they gave that personality profile test to anyone who wanted to buy a handgun. It would probably have prevented Seung-Hui Cho from committing the Virginia Tech massacre. It took me about 25 minutes. I'm the sort of guy who tests fast in general, but the proctor told me when I started that the last guy he saw take it took two hours. I'm still trying to figure out if I know myself better than most people, or if that two-hour tester was a fluke. It's not all that hard to answer 300-400 true/false questions about yourself, or it doesn't seem to be, anyway.

Anyway, I just wanted to let my five or six readers know I was still alive. I'll try to get back into the swing of things in the next few days.

The Supreme Court ruled a number of years ago that prayer in public schools was unconstitutional, so it's no surprise -- and I would fully agree with the decision, were it not for one minor detail -- that Comstock Park High School officials have removed a sung version of The Lord's Prayer from the graduation ceremony.

The minor detail? Comstock Park High School is holding its graduation ceremony in a church.

Kudos to Veronica Griffin of Grand Rapids, MI, whose 15-year-old son, Travis, was suspended from school for 10 days for putting a teacher in a headlock. Mrs. Griffin had no intention of allowing Travis to enjoy his 10-day forced vacation, so she put him to work picking up trash along the side of the road, wearing a sign reading "I made a bad choice in school. Now I'm living with it."

The world needs more parents like that.

Title pretty much says it all. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut died tonight in Manhattan at the age of 84. Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut. Your sense of humour will be sorely missed.

In three days in Miami living out of a hotel near the airport and taking only one significant excursion, a walk to Coral Gables for lunch on St. Patty's, I saw one Ferrari F430 Spyder ($200K), one Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder ($200K), two Maserati Quattroporte Vs ($120K for a vehicle that resembles nothing so much as an Oldsmobile Aurora), several late-model Porsche 911s ($100K or thereabouts; they were all Carrera S models or Turbos), and a Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen ($100K+, not sure which model it was).

Must be nice.

John C. McGinley, Scrubs curmudgeon extraordinaire and Steven Grant, confessed wife-killer. We report, you decide:

From the Freep:

Thurmond's kin owned Al Sharpton's ancestors

The headline itself is great -- you just knew something like this was going to come to light eventually, and it would be hard to find two more polarising figures to be involved. Maybe Jesse Helms and Louis Farrakhan or Malcolm X, but I think Thurmond-Sharpton is pretty far out there.

What really makes this worthy of note, however, isn't the headline. It's what Ellen Senter, one of Strom Thurmond's nieces, said:

[I]t is wonderful that [Sharpton] was able to become what he is in spite of what his forefather was.

That may be the most patronising sentence I have ever seen or heard in my entire life. Senter acts like being a slave -- a matter in which Sharpton's ancestors undoubtedly had no choice -- made an individual inherently less human, less worthy. Are you kidding me? Is it any wonder nobody takes anything he ever did seriously? Miss Senter might as well fly the Stars and Bars on her front porch and burn a cross so all the all the hooded men in her front yard can dance around it.

The 1850s called. They want their philosophy back. Please hand it over with all speed. Alternatively, please hand yourself over to the 1850s by hanging yourself from a tree in your front yard.

If airport security screeners aren't secure, then who is? Check out the situation in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

That's it. I am moving to Bangor, Maine, where it is now illegal for adults to smoke in cars where minors are passengers.

Best. Law. Ever.

"Drive by eggings / plaguing L.A. / 'Yo, they just got my little cousin, esé!'"

You can't sell a mixture of oil, water, colour, and flavours as "cheese", so why is it that Kraft Foods sells a similar concoction as guacamole, containing less than two percent avocado? There's a lot of complaining about the frivolity of some lawsuits filed in this country, but you heard it here first -- this isn't one of them. That crap is not guacamole. "Processed avocado food product," maybe. But it sure isn't guacamole.

I promised more on the civic duty thing Tuesday morning. It's now Friday night. Sometimes other things get in the way. That's coming soon, though.

Work was shaping up to be a day of nothing on Tuesday with the weather being below company minimums for training flights and not being able to get hold of half my students. (I just got upgraded into a new plane and got a new student load on Monday, and scheduling didn't inform any of them that I was their new instructor, so getting them out there for last-minute slots wasn't happening.) Garrett, another one of the instructors, asked if I wanted to burn some time and go to Milwaukee for lunch, so I said sure.

We got to Milwaukee and grabbed a crew car from Signature, went to lunch at a fine little Italian place in the UW-Milwaukee neighbourhood a few blocks from where Garrett grew up, and headed back to the airport. Then a phone call came in from dispatch asking what our plans were. The weather had dropped down even further, contrary to the forecast, and was below company minimums even with special permission. We waited around a couple hours to see if things would get any better. They didn't, and we got stuck in Milwaukee for the night. So much for voting.

Once we figured out we were stuck, we went out to dinner with one of Garrett's friends and then saw the world's worst movie: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. I don't go for horror movies in general because most of them are chock full of bad acting, bad dialog, unrealistic gore and violence, etc. This one hits on all cylinders of bad -- the acting is mediocre, the dialog and script are awful, and the villain isn't particularly believable. Yeah, there are some sick bastards out there, but nobody this ridiculous.

Making my displeasure with the movie even more complete was the fact that it prevented me from taking the beautiful Jeannine Gauthier out for a drink after her shift at the desk at Signature finished at 2200. Grrr.

The weather was little better on Wednesday morning, but just better enough that we could head back. We were VFR for most of the flight back but got to shoot the approach down to about 200' above minimums coming back in to Battle Creek. Yay for the instrument rating.

I have jury duty tomorrow morning. For those newer readers, here's a synopsis of what happened last time I got to take time off of...doing whatever it was that I was doing.

If that happens again, I'm going to be super pissed, because this time I actually have to miss work on the day of a student's checkride, on a day I could be doing my 141 check in the Cirrus, and three days before another student's checkride.

I'm gonna break some heads if I actually get selected for a jury. They wouldn't be in court if they weren't guilty, would they?

Wes digresses into the culinary again with an essay on the coffee market, which is fascinating in its own right.

However, this blog would like to take the opportunity to point out that Wes has apparently never heard of, as Dave Barry so charmingly described it, "weasel-poop coffee", which sells for -- you guessed it -- over $250/pound.

Fellow ATPM staffer Wes Meltzer has penned a brilliant ode to the hamburger.

Now I kinda want one, although like Wes, I really shouldn't.

Mmmm...burger...</Homer>

Sometimes I wonder if anyone working at the local NBC affiliate has any journalism training at all:

Driver identified in rollover accident fails to, well, identify the driver, and merely re-hashes the 35 earlier stories WOOD has published on their site about the crash.

Since Lee just tagged me with this little Wikipedia meme and I'm a sucker for history, I figured I'd join in.

This is an interesting exercise for anyone who wants to learn a little more about world history, but it's also food for thought: to most Americans, a birthday is a very special personal holiday, yet the event of any given individual's birth is staggeringly insignificant in the harsh light of the thousands of years of recorded human history.

On August 12, all of the following happened:

In 490 BC, the army of Athens (Greece) defeated an invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon, an event that later gave rise to the Olympic running event by the same name. According to Herodotus, some 6400 Persians gave their lives (in stark contrast to fewer than 200 Athenians) in the failed attempt to conquer those portions of Greece that were not yet under Persian control. Had the Persians won the battle, the development of Greek -- and subsequent Western -- civilisation may have been delayed several hundred years, or not happened at all, an idea first put forth by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, who famously claimed the Battle of Marathon to be more important to British history than the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Languishing in captivity in the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam in 1883, the last known quagga on Earth died. The extinction of the quagga, a zebra-like animal that was found in great abundance on the South African plains in the late 1700s, was the second major human extinction of an African species (the first being that of the dodo in Mauritius some 250 years earlier).

In 1985, Japan Air Lines Flight 123 crashed into Mount Ogura after a catastrophic loss of the vertical stabiliser and subsequent loss of control, killing 520 of the 524 souls aboard in the worst single-craft air disaster in history. (The Tenerife disaster, which involved two 747s, remains the worst aviation accident to date.) The Boeing 747SR had sustained a tail strike some seven years previous and the repair, effected by Boeing, used only one row of rivets where two were called for. The failure of the bulkhead caused the vertical stabiliser to detach from the aircraft and also severed all four hydraulic systems, leaving the aircraft with only engine thrust for directional control. Many of the JAL staff, as well as the Boeing mechanic responsible for the faulty repair, committed suicide as a result. In a similar incident some four years later, Captain Al Haynes managed to land United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10, in Sioux City, Iowa, after total hydraulic failure using only the two remaining engine thrust levers (the number two engine, in the tail, had catastrophically failed and caused the situation) for directional control, probably saving the lives of the 185 survivors.

I share a birthday with several people of at least minor historical significance, but the two that most jump out at me are Erwin Schrödinger and Richard Reid.

Schrödinger, born 1887, was one of the most famous physicists of the 20th century. His contributions to the field of quantum mechanics are virtually unparalleled. Perhaps his most famous work is the Schrödinger equation, although he is probably better-known among the general populace (particularly those with less than a Ph.D. level of physics knowledge) for his thought experiment involving a cat, a vial of poison, and a black box.

Richard Reid (born 1973) is better known as the "shoe bomber", and is the individual you can thank next time you find yourself standing in line in your stocking feet at the airport, wondering when the TSA wand-wavers are going to realise you pose no threat to your fellow travelers. The response to his attempted terrorism is emblematic of the reactionary defence philosophy put forth by Homeland Security and ignores the fact that such organisations as Al Qaeda are unlikely to strike by the same means twice. A reactive defence is no defence at all.

Finally, my birthday shares a day with the anniversary of the death of the English novelist Ian Fleming, best known as the creator of the archetypal Cold War spy, James Bond. To date, Fleming's most famous character has spawned 20 "official" films (along with two unofficial films and a TV movie) and almost singlehandedly turned both Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan into household names. (The franchise also virtually destroyed the career of Timothy Dalton, who has done nothing remarkable since his second and final Bond film, "Licence to Kill", in 1989, though Dalton's interpretation of Bond was critically well-received.) This coming November will see the release of "Casino Royale", the 21st Bond film and the first starring new Bond actor Daniel Craig, based on Fleming's first Bond novel (published 1953).

Since my blog-circle contains many of the same folks as Lee's, I doubt I'll be able to pass the torch to five people, but Eric, Raena, and Wes all seem like they'd be pretty interesting candidates for a bit of discussion here.

Our bass-ackwards neighbours to the south in the Hoosier State (motto: "We don't know what a Hoosier is either") have, after 30 years of holding out, begun to observe daylight saving time, in a manner of speaking. Perhaps the most telling quote from the article is this:

Martin County Commissioner John Collins, who works in construction, said he personally would be satisfied with either time zone. But he is frustrated that residents and visitors will need to study a map to figure out the correct time.

Please, John, explain to the rest of us how this is any different from the current (well, now "former") situation:

Under state law, most of Indiana has ignored daylight-saving time since the early 1970s.

The result has been a patchwork of time zones, with 77 counties observing Eastern time but not changing clocks; five on Eastern time unofficially observing daylight-saving time; and 10 on Central time that observed daylight-saving time.

Collins sums things up -- past and present -- quite appropriately by saying "It's a mess."

A mess, indeed.

It's that time of year again. In light of the events of last fall, perhaps public support for this holiday could be rekindled? You know, as a holiday honouring the nation's history and the city Jackson saved with a few hundred squirrel hunters 191 years ago today.

From the whiskey-tango-foxtrot file:

I was driving to lunch from the airport today when I noticed a large (50-lb or so) bag of concrete mix in the right-hand lane. I figured I should probably call the police and let them know, and since I didn't know the number, I dialed 9-1-1. The following is a reasonably accurate (i.e., I'm really not kidding about this) transcript of what happened:

*Ring*
*Ring*
*Ring*
*Ring*
*Click* "You have reached 9-1-1 emergency services. All operators are currently busy, but if you'll stay on the line, your call will be taken in the order it was received."

I got 9-1-1's friggin' on-hold message. Yes, that's right, 9-1-1 has an on-hold message.

So I hung up. Not all that important, and I was at Quiznos, so whatever.

Five minutes later my fone rang.

"Hello?"
"Yes, this is the Battle Creek Police. Someone called 9-1-1 from this number and then hung up."

So I explained the situation and they said they'd send someone out to look at it.

I still can't believe 9-1-1 has an on-hold message. And on-hold music, I suspect.

There is a cricket in my bedroom.

He is very lonely.

Someone get him a fine lady cricket immediately, or get me a big can of Raid, because this noise is driving me nucking futs.

We now return to your irregular and unscheduled blogging.

The esteemed drunkenjournalist has posted some pics of The Cow in Israel, courtesy of a reader. The photos are nice, but the gem of the piece is this:

I don't care that Jon uses Windows, and I doubt Jon cares that I usually gravitate towards Macs or Linux, but we both like technology and both think The Cow is amusing.

Chances are, we'd both enjoy a drink together too, and chances are while drinking we'd find out more things we had in common while laughing about what makes us different, and there's probably something important in there somewhere.

Time for the venerable classic, "Good Decision / Bad Decision." This week's subject: Michael Jackson.

As many of you know, MJ was found not guilty on all charges yesterday. I still personally believe the man has done dirty deeds (though probably not dirt cheap) with little boys, but it is America, after all, and if this nation has shown the world anything in the last 50 years, it's that we hold most sacred our Constitutional right to be weird.

Good Decision: In the wake of his latest close shave, Jacko "will no longer share his bed with young boys," says his lawyer.

Bad Decision: Having shared a bed with young boys in the first place!

Apparently, as little as ten bucks.

Unfortunately, there's enough uncertainty surrounding the incident -- police didn't even have suspects until two days ago, and it happened in April -- that any halfway-decent lawyer ought to be able to get both girls found not guilty, whether or not they were involved.

Ugh. Someone stop me before I vomit. If anyone tries to rob my grandmothers, I will kill you. Fair warning.

The top stories right now are the theft of a vending machine and an overly friendly and lost moose.

Of course, the vending machine theft is important because it's one of five in Michigan's entire Upper Peninsula. (ba-dum *ching*)

Still haven't figured out the moose.

Northwest Airlines has announced that it's no longer offering free pretzels on domestic flights as part of a cost-saving measure meant to return the airline to profitability.

NWA lost over 450 million dollars last quarter.

Being stingy with pretzels is expected to save two million dollars per year, or half a million per quarter.

Only 457-and-one-half million to go.

Somehow, I don't think this is going to help at all.

She's moved from her former habitat in a grilled cheese.

Both houses of the state legislature are now backing a measure that would ban smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. Here's hoping it passes.

It's expected that the Michigan Restaurant Association, a 4500-member trade group, will again oppose the legislation. WOOD-TV says, "[m]any restauranteurs say they should be able to decide the issue for themselves."

Yeah. And I should be able to decide for myself whether or not to sue your irresponsible asses for letting secondhand smoke give me cancer in 30 years. It's a public place. No smoking. If people want to kill themselves in their own houses with all the windows closed, more power to them, but don't inflict that on the rest of us, OK?

I've remained silent on the whole Terri Schiavo thing until now, when I just had to say:

What She Said.

Along with a big heaping cup of "it's not your damn life so butt the fuck out already you damn worthless vote grubbing politicians."

Keep your laws off my body. And my wife's. And my children's. And my parents'.

Are we clear?

Blogging the trip to Maryland...

Mile 122, I-94, Michigan: Three bales of hay in the fast lane eastbound. Called State Police. Surprisingly, no one had reported it yet. Score one for the good guys.

Mile 137, I-94, Michigan: Lowe's in Jackson has a new billboard. Formerly advertising Menard's, billboard is now advertising Home Depot. Some people never learn.

Mile 145, I-94, Michigan: Zig's, formerly Jackson Brewing Co., is now no longer Zig's. It's out of business and for sale.

Mile 148, I-94, Michigan: Large billboard on side of road, reading "Christ died for our sins. 1 Cor [something something]." Funny because "Bible" is in huge letters in front of "1 Cor." You'd think that would be obvious.

Mile 91, I-80/90, Ohio Turnpike: The world-famous Fangboner Road. Also, one of the Cedar Point exits. Three hours since leaving home, including a detour to dop off an iPod mini case. Why did it always take five hours to get to Cedar Point whenever we went on school field trips?

Mile 134, I-80/90, Ohio Turnpike: Listening to NPR. Heard mention of an organisation called the National Association for Business Economists. Those guys must be a blast at parties.

We're celebrating with this wonderful one-day colour scheme. Nobody's gonna pinch this this blog for not wearing green today!

My right to breathe trumps your right to kill both of us. Lee pointed out a great story earlier: California counties are beginning to ban smoking on beaches.

As one respondent in the Fark thread said:

You're not a martyr. You're not a patriot or the last defender of American freedom because you have the courage and manly fortitude to slowly kill yourself in the stupidest method possible. You are most likely a self-serving, weak-willed, egomaniacal, out of shape asshole who, statistically speaking, probably has trouble climbing more than three stairs without hacking up brown lung butter. Sadly, smoking will not kill you quickly enough to prevent you from reproducing, thereby frustrating both Darwin and the rest of us.

How's that brown lung butter taste, guys?

Dan Rather signed off for the last time as anchor of the CBS Evening News tonight.

For the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather reporting. Good night.

I grew up with that signoff. Twenty-four years of hearing that every weeknight at 1859. I like Bob Schieffer, but it's just going to be weird watching anyone else trying to fill that chair.

Couldn't the BBC have found a better picture, though?

Battle Creek's police chief has set a new traffic ticket policy:

The police department will require its patrol officers to write a certain number of tickets every day. But, the police chief says it's not a quota.

Not a quota, eh? Let's see about that:

quo´•ta, n.

1. A proportional share, as of goods, assigned to a group or to each member of a group; an allotment.
2. A production assignment.

So how is this not a quota, exactly? Oh, right, because the chief said it wasn't. Let's try that, shall we? "Battle Creek's police chief is President of the United States." Hmmm...

Do you know what tomorrow is?

Yes, that's right.

It's the day all the chocolate in the entire United States goes on 50-percent-off clearance.

And I, for one, am definitely not above heading to Meijer and buying a bunch of half-price chocolate in pink, foil-covered, heart-shaped boxes.

Who's with me?

Wanita Young, professional persecutor of well-meaning cookie bakers everywhere, is finding the attention from her little tantrum too much to bear:

This has turned into quite a fiasco. It's something that never should have happened, and it's just devastating. My phone hasn't stopped ringing. My life has been threatened, and I'll probably have to move out of town.

To which I can only think to reply: duh. What the hell did you expect would happen, you heartless, selfish bitch? You sued two teenage girls for anonymously leaving cookies on your doorstep in a random act of kindness. You deserve everything that happens to you as a result.

A side note: the Denver Post is having way too much fun with these headlines:

• Outraged readers say cookie ruling was half-baked
• After a crumby ending, donated dough rolls in for 2 cookie deliverers

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

The City of New York banned smoking in all indoor public places on 30 March, 2003. Almost two years after the ban went into effect, the New York Times is looking at the effects of the ban:

Asked last week what he thought of the now two-year-old ban, [James McBratney, president of the Staten Island Restaurant and Tavern Association,] sounded changed. "I have to admit," he said sheepishly, "I've seen no falloff in business in either establishment." He went on to describe what he once considered unimaginable: Customers actually seem to like it, and so does he.

[A] vast majority of bar and restaurant patrons interviewed last week, including self-described hard-core smokers, said they were surprised to find themselves pleased with cleaner air, cheaper dry-cleaning bills and a new social order created by the ban.

Kudos to New York City for having the cojones to keep this ban in place and enforce it. I'm sure the bar scene smells much better now, and this has been an inspiration to other areas as well -- Boston has enacted a city-wide ban, Philadelphia's city council is considering one now, and that heart of tobacco production in the United States, Virginia, has enacted a state-wide ban. Australia, Italy, and Ireland have also followed suit. Hopefully this portends a new attitude toward smoking in public: if you want to screw up your body, do it on your own time, on your own property, and leave the rest of us out of it!

Wanita Renea Young, you should be ashamed of yourself. You sued two teenage girls for anonymously leaving cookies on your doorstep.

I sure hope nobody in your neighbourhood plans on trick-or-treating on Halloween, you sorry waste of humanity.

(via Dave Barry)

To the judge who failed to throw this suit out of court:

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

You wouldn't want to be sleeping with a snake.

Australia, where the incident occurred, is home to nine of the world's ten most poisonous snakes, a list that includes the tiger snake.

(via Dave Barry)

All you nutjobs who are wasting your lives away protesting a woman's right to choose might direct your energy toward wondering why a kid who unilaterally aborts his girlfriend's baby isn't charged with first-degree murder.

Maybe next time a homeless person sets a fire with a dollar's worth of scrap lumber it won't cost a major city 25 to 60 million dollars to fix it. That says to me there's a serious weakness in the system. And what are they doing to fix it? They "were actually able to find enough relays left over in [their] system that [they] could salvage out of other jobs [they] had to do this work" — in an old closet, one presumes — so they can restore it to its previous vulnerable state. Brilliant.

Only 1455 days until Dubya is no longer President. 'Nuff said.

Continuing the proud SEC tradition of football players being arrested for possessing large amounts of marijauana is Mississippi State offensive tackle Richard Burch. Only this time, instead of a garbage can full of the stuff, he had an ounce. C'mon, Burch, can't you do better?

Target has yanked the Mac mini from its online store. No word on why. Suspect Apple's elite server ninjas had something to do with it.

Dear Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News, Charlotte Observer, Miami Herald, etcetera,

Please stop asking for my name, address, birthdate, dog's name, mother's maiden name, step-sister's IQ, grandfather's shoe size, closest African-American relative, great-uncle's time of death, arrest record, favourite book, least-favourite movie, number of pieces of junk mail I get each day, and any other so-called "demographic" information when I go to your sites in an attempt to view your online content.

I know you think that you're going to use this information which you have absolutely no business asking for to serve me "targeted" advertisements that your marketing staff has determined I'm more likely to click on.

What your marketing staff hasn't determined, though, is that I am using very aggressive advertisement and cookie blocking, so I will never see your ads anyway!

I find the registration how-to at the Washington Post very telling in this regard:

Ad/Pop-up Blockers

1. If you are running an ad or pop-up blocker please temporarily disable the software to test to see if the survey can be completed.

2. If you are then able to complete the registration, you should then be able to configure the ad/pop up blocker by entering an exception for www.washingtonpost.com and washingtonpost.com. Please refer to your ad/pop up blocker manual or manufacturer for the proper settings.

The Post goes on to outline a detailed, 20-step process for getting registration to work.

No one on their staff, apparently, has ever considered the fact that maybe there's a reason so many people are using ad and pop-up blockers! (Hint: it isn't because we enjoy going to great lengths to install them, then turn them off so we can see your site, then turn them back on, then turn them off so we can see another site five minutes later, then turn them back on, ad infinitum.)

There are literally thousands of other news sites on the Web where I can get most of your content. If you make it difficult for me to get, I'll simply use your competition.

Enjoy your gradual slide into irrelevance.

Sincerely,

A Concerned User Who Is Really Fucking Sick Of FIve-Minute Demographic Surveys Just So He Can Read One Article

In honour of the events of 08 January, 1815, I give the world a Wikipedia entry on The Battle of New Orleans, the 1959 Johnny Horton song that topped the charts and won the Grammy for Song of the Year.

According to yesterday's edition of All Things Considered on NPR, 08 January used to be a national holiday on par with the Fourth of July. I think we need to bring this back. You know you all want the day off of work!

Needless to say, The Battle of New Orleans is the Song of the Day.

Those of you who don't browse MacSurfer probably haven't seen my latest article on SchwarzTech.

Chris Lawson shares his thoughts on the state of the Mac Web and lets you in on a little secret that PC Magazine and Ziff-Davis don't want you to know...

I imagine this will ruffle quite a few feathers in the community; that's what it's supposed to do. I'm not so much trying to piss people off as make them think about what they're publishing. Just because it mentions the Mac doesn't mean it's worth linking to, which Michael Alderete really hammers home in his post published over at MacInTouch (and kudos to Ric for at least paying lip service to the ideas I've outlined in my article):

John Dvorak is a "shock jock" columnist. He's not particularly interested in getting anything right -- he's interested in getting a reaction. That's why he picks on the Mac so often. He knows that Mac users will rise up to defend their platform, guaranteeing a ton of mentions around the web, irate responses in blogs, and vigorous letters to the editor...and a whole lot more traffic to his columns, improving his standing with his editors and publishers, and thus compensation.

The worst thing any Mac user can do to John Dvorak is ignore him. Even though we know he's wrong, and provably wrong, it's actually better to just let it go.

An Indonesian man has been found alive approximately 160 km west of Banda Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra. He had survived eight days on a raft of coconut trees and other wooden debris, drinking rainwater and eating coconuts he had reportedly cracked open with a doorknob.

A 16-year-old New Jersey girl, whose father called police after she came home drunk because he wanted to "teach her a lesson," turned him in for drug dealing and possession of weapons when the police arrived.

Never underestimate the vengeful nature of a teenage girl, especially if she's drunk.

And for the dad:

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

A fellow Wolverine decided to be an iPod for Halloween. Oh man. Why didn't I think of that?

(From Slashdot)

Two Norwegian pilots were attacked by an axe-wielding Algerian on short final (about 100 feet above the runway) earlier today, and a Delta 737 pilot was shot in the eye with a laser pointer, causing temporary injury to his eye from which the pilot is expected to recover.

On a more personal — and positive — note, I passed my AGI and FIA written exams this afternoon, leaving my aviation career with one further written examination: my ATP. Wahoo!

The first four hurricanes — Bonnie (technically a tropical storm, but still), Charley, Frances, and Ivan — weren't enough. Now we have to contend with Jeanne. And, oh yeah, the remnants of Ivan that came back through here after making a 1200-mile loop through Washington, D.C.

Ugh. Time to evac again. Looks like Pensacola this time. I'll keep you posted. And once again, over to Lee Bennett for your complete hurricane coverage. :)

It's funny, but it's not. Today's APoD pretty much sums up the current situation. Every time a new hurricane gets close to landfall, another one is brewing down there in the Carribean. And it always seems to be predicted to strike Florida.

Ah, the delicious sound of torrential rainfall. Some areas around here have had nearly two feet of rain in the last week. Now Ivan is set to add to that, and the end of hurricane season is in November? Are you kidding me?

I'm hereby passing off all responsibility for updates about the hurricane and its impact on the area to Lee Bennett over at SecondInitial. His September archive has about all you need to know, keeping in mind that Jacksonville is about two hours north-northeast of Orlando and thus has experienced far less impact than Orlando has.

In short, I don't expect anything will be too out of the ordinary when I get back tomorrow night.

Well, I'm safe and sound here in Hot-lanta, hooked up on a wireless connection in the hotel (for free, no less). It's starting to look like Frances might be a bit of a bust -- she's slowing down, almost stalled in place about 170 miles off Miami right now, and might (one would hope) blow herself out before she hits land.

The other option is that she'll get a whole lot worse over the warm waters off the Florida coast and build back into a Category 4 storm. Let's hope that isn't what happens, because I'd rather not be stuck in Hot-lanta, no matter how hot the A-T-L is, for five days.

Everyone in the area is beginning to brace for Hurricane Frances, which is expected to make landfall sometime between the wee hours of Saturday morning and midday Sunday, depending on how far north the storm tracks. Counties from about Flagler to Duval (approximately Cape Canaveral to Jacksonville) have cancelled school for Friday, and most sporting events for the weekend have already been cancelled. Folks are starting to sell plywood on the sides of the roads, and Duval County plans to announce evacuation plans tomorrow afternoon.

As for me, I'll probably be evacuating an airplane to Pensacola, Atlanta, or Dothan (AL) and leaving the car at the airport, which is fairly free of debris-creating trees and the like. Here's hoping Frances makes landfall somewhere between here and Daytona, where the coast is much less heavily populated, and where damage around here should be minimal.

Expect a full report (no photos; my digicam is back in Michigan) sometime after the weekend.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or be incredibly angry. A foreign toy manufacturer has produced so-called "9-11 Attack Toys" and a Miami distributor purchased a bunch of them sight-unseen (as part of a larger assortment) and has begun distributing them in bags of candy around the USA.

What the hell is wrong with the people who came up with this toy? Who plays with a toy like this? Is Al Qaeda trying to recruit four-year-olds now?

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

Microsoft has patented what appears to be an equivalent to the venerable (as in dating back to 1980) Unix command sudo, which comes as only a mild surprise considering the recent stupidities of the USPTO.

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

The International Olympic Committee, in a fit of money-grubbing suppression of free speech, banned Olympians from publishing online journals of their Olympic experiences at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. (Ooh! Don't tell them I *gasp* linked to their site! Get bent, you morons.)

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

Traffic, as usual, was really bad on the way home today. Some jackass behind me thought it would be fun to sneak up and block a driveway for a lady who was trying to turn left just behind me. I would have stopped short and left it open for her, but I didn't realise I was blocking it until it was too late, and when I pulled up to give her room, this guy in a Chevy Avalanche decided to pull up and take the space I was trying to give her to turn, (insert heavy sarcasm) you know, because it makes so much difference whether or not you're 15 feet further up toward the light.

Well, he got his 15 feet, she got blocked out, and as soon as he turned right, the cooler full of Pepsi sitting on his tailgate (this is another reason why fake trucks like the Avalanche are useless, by the way) went flying off the tailgate and landed in the middle of the road, immediately bursting open and scattering Pepsi cans and ice packs all over the street.

Serves you right, Mr. I-Need-15-Feet-And-Damned-Who-I-Run-Over-To-Get-It.

Then a fire truck came through the intersection right as our light turned green, and some dumb bitch behind me had the nerve to honk when I didn't go the instant the light turned green, even though the fire truck was a) still in the intersection and b) blaring his horn and siren.

And people from Florida say Northerners can't drive.