Saturday, April 17, 2004

She Sounds Dangerous, Don't Ya Think?

"The 50-year-old Fairfax County housewife already had spent one month in jail for embezzling money from the cash register of the restaurant where she had worked as a waitress. She had paid $3,000 in restitution, far more than the $70 she had admitted taking.

O’Brien, a native of South Korea, also had paid dearly in shame. She hadn’t even told her American husband of 25 years, a foreign aid officer who was working abroad when she committed the crime and served her time. Her four children - three of them born here - kept her secret well.

On Jan. 8 she told her husband, home on leave, that she was going to the store. Instead, she met her probation officer in Fairfax.

That is when the United States immigration system swallowed her life.

The probation meeting was a setup. O’Brien, petite and refined, walked into a room of armed federal agents and local police. They pushed her against the wall, handcuffed and manacled her.

She barely had time to call her stunned husband with the long-hidden truth before she was hustled into a van, still manacled and with no seat belt, for a jolting ride to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth.

O’Brien is still there three months later, awaiting possible deportation to a country she no longer knows and far away from the family she has raised in America."

Sheesh.

From this story via The Agitator.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 06:18 AM
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The Headless Cat

Many of us are familiar with Washington Irving’s character the headless horseman as portrayed in the story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Not as many of us are familiar with the Ford SportKa headless cat, though.

"The video clip starts innocently enough: an orange tabby strolling through a suburban neighborhood comes across a small blue automobile parked in a driveway. As the cat watches, the vehicle’s sunroof enticingly slides open; the curious feline hops onto the car’s hood, then runs up the windshield and pokes its head into the open sunroof the see what’s inside. But what happens next is horrifying: the sunroof automatically begins to close again, trapping the cat by its neck. As the tabby struggles furiously to extricate itself, the sunroof lid slices off its head, and the viewer sees the decapitated body slide to the ground."

My brother sent me a link to the video of this commercial.  It isn’t going to make Ford any friends with cat lovers.  It’s rather audacious, but I must confess, I did chuckle.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 05:41 AM
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It's a MADD, MADD, MADD, MADD Canada

Drunk driving is one of those issues that an individual can have a hard time defending.  I mean it’s difficult to support a besotted idiot driving the wrong way down a highway or weaving through the neighborhood pinballing off the curbs and cars parked along the street. 

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is one of larger organizations which lobbies for more stringent laws as a means to bend the arms those who imbibe and get behind the wheel.  And MADD is active not only here in the U.S., but in Canada.  Colby Cosh has cast his gaze upon those MADD Canadians and their most recent push to illegalize having a drink and driving home.

"When I see a message from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) I always become a bit ambivalent: they’re supposed to make me hate drunk drivers, but I’m afraid they only serve to make me unusually suspicious of mothers. The group is the best imaginable example of the way politics is practiced in an age of untrammelled feeling and very little thinking. Every client group of the nanny state tries to posture as Nice People Against Bad Things, but in our time only MADD has had the exquisite shamelessness to make its very name into a pre-emptive strike against counter-argument.

It has worked pretty well. Since its founding in 1980, MADD has developed remarkable fund-raising abilities and earned broad public acceptance thanks to its patina of sentimentalism. “Neo-prohibitionists on a rampage? Us? Maybe you didn’t read the acronym—we’re just mothers against drunk driving over here."

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 05:23 AM
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Friday, April 16, 2004

Depraved

Oliver Stone is depraved.  I shouldn’t have to explain why, once you read the following.

"Anne-Louise Bardach: Did it strike you as interesting that at one point in the scene with the prisoners, Castro turned to the prisoners’ defense lawyers, who just happened to be there, and he says, “I urge you to do your best to reduce the sentences”?

Oliver Stone: I love that. I thought that was hilarious. Those guys just popped up.

ALB: Is there a show-trial element here?

OS: Yeah. I thought that was funny, I did—the prosecutor and Fidel admonishing them, to make sure they worked hard. There was that paternalism. I mean “father knows best,” as opposed to totalitarianism. It’s paternalism, that’s what I meant. It’s a Latin thing."

From Ann Louise Bardach’s interview with Stone as published in Slate.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/16 at 06:14 AM
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How Gauche

Back on April 5th, I mentioned Jennifer Granholm’s latest pet project in a post titled “Competition To Be Cool." The competion, is part of the “Cool Cities Pilot Program,” and its purported purpose is to, supposedly, figure out how to make Michigan cities cool.  You know, to have cachet like Hollywood, or something along those lines.  Let’s take a look at some of the suggestions to be cool thrown out at Granholm’s latest Dr. Phil style forum held at Grand Valley State University’s Loosemore Auditorium.

Julie Christensen, a college educator and consultant.

"I’m 29 and not thinking about having a family at all.  My friends and I watch “Sex and the City” and we want to go out after work and have drinks and food from different cultures.  We want different places to go that are not all about family."

Well, that’s a real helpful suggestion, Julie.  Might I suggest you wander outside your little world and visit some of the Mexican owned mom and pop restaurants and bars.  You may even be able to catch “Sex and the City” dubbed in Spanish.

A gentleman by the name of Mike Krause thinks cool is the ability to have a nice ride, a “set of wheels.” Granholm took this to mean that Krause was lobbying for a light rail system, and sure enough, the entire group thought that would be cool.  It would probably be cheaper just to buy all the dreamers a new set of wheels.

If the state needs to look for cool, I can almost guarantee they aren’t going to find it.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/16 at 05:46 AM
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Thursday, April 15, 2004

A Worthwhile Presidential Library

I know, I know, it doesn’t seem possible, or at least the title above seems akin to the oxymoron military intelligence, but bear with me a minute.  Reading our local rag, The Grand Rapids Press, I came across an AP article titled “Counter Clinton Library receives IRS tax exemption." Never having heard of this institution, I gave the article a read and then came to the net to find a link to the story.  I didn’t only find the story link, I found a link to the upcoming Counter Clinton Library. I wonder if the library could use some of the postings from early Usenet discussion groups regarding Slick Willy?

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 03:25 PM
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On Blogs

The Christian Science Monitor is analyzing blogging in an article titled “Blogs: Here to stay - with changes."

The piece looks at the proliferation of blogs, their affects, and where they may be going.  A couple excerpts.

"Except for a tiny number of blogs that have gained prominence, all this techno-chattiness remains just that: an immature form of communication that has yet to gain traction with the general public, experts say. Most are moldering in cyberspace, updated only sporadically or abandoned completely. But out of this fervid experimentation are coming some new forms of communication that are already influencing public discourse."

And this statement, which I find to be right on the mark.

"Although making a living just blogging is nearly impossible, a blog can have a great deal of career value by demonstrating one’s expertise and writing skills, thus serving as a “reputation builder,” Blood says by phone from San Francisco. “You can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field by becoming a kind of one-stop source for information."

Interesting read if you’re a blogger.

Via Fred Lapides.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 08:28 AM
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Onboard with Nuclear Power

Great article outlining the “Advantages of Nuclear Power."

Having some familiarity with this power source, and having slept alongside low yield thermonuclear weapons, the SUBROC to be precise, and when I say slept alongside I mean slept alongside down in the Torpedo Room, I can’t understand the ignorant fears typically voiced in regards development of nuclear power plants.  Be that as it may, the linked article, written by Donald W. Miller, Jr., M.D., provides an analysis that can dispel many unfounded fears.

The article is posted at Strike the Root.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 08:09 AM
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Rissin, Frissin, Frassin Taxes Anyway

I sure wish I could remember the name of the cartoon, and the dog from said cartoon, which was constantly rissin, frissin, frassin something.  Anyway, Jon Henke, at Questions and Observations, posts a list of tax quotes for your edification.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 07:38 AM
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I'm Ignoring Them as Fast as I Can

"Here’s a cheery thought on this gloomy Tax Day: government is one of the few problems that can be gotten rid of by ignoring it. In this respect it compares favourably with such hardier ills as tornadoes, swarming piranhas, and male pattern baldness.

There’s a catch, of course. If only a few people ignore the government, it won’t go away; instead it will come down on those few people like a ton of CS gas. But if the number of people ignoring the government – treating its commands as one would treat the commands of some delusional street person – were to reach critical mass, the power of the state, resting essentially as it does on the complaisance of the governed, would melt away like butter in the Arizona sun. As Étienne de la Boétie wrote in his classic essay “Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” (read it online or buy it):

“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces."

From a Roderick T. Long post titled “Just Ignore Them." (The permalink for the post is currently pointing elsewhere so you may have to scroll to Long’s post.)

I haven’t read de la Boetie’s piece, yet, but I will by the end of the day.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 06:14 AM
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Impressions of a Floating City

Aircarft carriers are behemoth ships, which daily execute numerous controlled crashes, and though when I was in the submarine service we dismissively called them targets, they are amazing machines which one can hardly not be in awe of.

Jed Babbin recently had an opportunity to experience carrier life on the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) and has written about for The American Spectator in a piece titled “A Day in Grootland."

"Insurance people make their money by measuring risks. Lloyds of London says that the deck of an aircraft carrier is the most dangerous working environment in the world, and it’s not hard to see why. On the deck of a Nimitz -class carrier, there is constant motion among dozens of aircraft, fuel lines, catapults, jet blast deflectors, and arresting wires. The cats launch aircraft and the arresting wires catch landings in a rhythm that recovers one aircraft and launches another in the space of about sixty seconds."

Via Kim du Toit who is in need of a cold shower after reading the article.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 06:02 AM
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Thomas Sowell Tidbits

Townhall.com publishes a Sowell piece titled “Random thoughts on the passing scene." Random excerpts I enjoyed.

"The older I get, the more I realize that arguing on the basis of facts and logic only gets you labeled as someone who is out of step with the times, if not lacking in compassion."

And.

"Many disastrous mistakes, in both public and private life, are not due to people thinking stupidly but to their not bothering to think at all. If you don’t stop and think, then it doesn’t matter whether you are a genius or a moron."

And.

"It is truly a triumph of rhetoric over reality when people can believe that going into politics is “public service,” but that producing food, shelter, transportation, or medical care is not. In California, producing shelter gets you condemned as a “developer”—especially by those in “public service."

Go pick a few of your own.

Via Greg Ransom at PrestoPundit.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 05:54 AM
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God Bless Him

"When the murderers were pointing a pistol at him, this man tried to take off his hood and shouted: ‘Now I’m going to show you how an Italian dies’. And they killed him,” Frattini said."

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini commenting on Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi, after watching the videotape of Quattrocchi being killed in cold blood.

Via Google News.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 05:45 AM
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A Twice Lifted Quote

"The concept of porn invading our homes all by itself is simply the right-wing equivalent of the left-wing nonsense of guns (ahem) pulling their own triggers."

Via Russell Whitaker at Survival Arts via Dave Aronson.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 05:40 AM
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Flush with Anti-Trust Cash

The creativity professional jobholders exhibit in order to keep their coffers full knows no bounds.  Beyond the taxes taken from us, which most individuals bitch about because they see the reduction of their paychecks, there are fees for this, that, and the other thing, which are not necessarily bitched about because the fees are infrequently levied, at least compared to the payroll taxes individuals pay.

On this tax day, Skip Oliva, at Citizens for Voluntary Trade, proposes “Abolish the Merger Tax." Abolish all taxes, I say.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 05:20 AM
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