Sleepless in Midland

Conaway and Neugebauer -- where were they last time we needed fiscal conservatism?

U.S. Representative Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas Dist. 19) was on the radio this morning explaining why he voted "no" on the big financial bailout bill, and he asks what's next, bailout airlines? The auto industry? From his website:

"When I voted today, I voted for the principle that more market-based solutions rather than costly government interventions are the best way to resolve the current financial difficulties we are facing."

Likewise, from Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas Dist. 11):

We cannot make it habit to bail out companies when they make bad decisions, instead of allowing them to learn from their mistakes the same way that everyone else does – the hard way.

So here we have something that sounds like fiscal conservatism from two U. S. Representatives who were among the most outspoken supporters of the budget busting farm bill, about which Mr. Conaway even bragged of overriding President Bush's veto. It's hard to take them seriously now when they were so eager to hand out millions of taxpayer dollars to cotton farmers.

Just as a reminder, from ewg.org we learn that residents in the counties comprising Mr. Conaway's district received government farm bill handouts in the sum of $1.47 billion between the years 1995 - 2006.  And Mr. Neugebauer's District 19, $4.91 billion.

So does the economy need the financial bailout? I don't know. But with our politicians playing election year football with it while handing out money with one hand and gesturing "STOP" with the other, it's difficult to take them seriously.

Updated: 10/3/08 -- Conaway changed his mind and voted "Yea" on the revised bill with the addons. See his rationale here. Neugebauer voted "Nay" and explains here.

No bailout? No problem. Pay that mortgage with Barack Obama commemorative coins.

The DNC pounced on this idea when the coin company presented it. It's the Barack Obama commemorative coin. Link. Excerpt:

The coins already sold to the Democrats will be presented to the senators, congressmen, governors and other politicians they are being given to within the next two weeks.

Query, do the congressmen who voted FOR the bailout get one, or do the congressmen who voted AGAINST the bailout get one?

More from the article:

The coins show Senator Obama’s face, along with a picture of the White House and the legend “President of the United States of America”.

Methinks it's a bit premature to be boasting about being president. And let's not confuse gall with courage.

(Via This + That.)

Sunday Diversions 9/28/08

Check out Captain Disillusion, the Youtube star who uses his talents as a film maker and magician to debunk popular internet myths. For example, here's a very good explanation for the ghost like image that some say they saw in a window behind President Bush during a televised speech.

You can hear an interview with him on this podcast from the Skeptics Guide to the Universe archives.

Does subliminal advertising work?

I don't know about that, I just need a drink.

Wilson Bryan Key wrote several books in the 70's about subliminal advertising, and one of his theories was that alcohol advertisers would photograph drink glasses and touch up the ice and liquor so that anyone looking at them might see some scary faces and images in there. And that was supposed to trigger some subconscious fear that might cause the person to want to consume alcohol.

So I was watching a show on FX Network last night, and a liquor ad came on. Sure enough, there was the ice, and if you look closely, there are some scary faces in the ice. Was that an effort at subliminal advertising? I really don't know, maybe the effect is just a variation of pareidolia. But it happens often enough to make one wonder.

And if you are wondering if I was tempted to hit the sauce, no. But the show made me want to hit the sack.

Tell me a lie I can believe.

There's a popular theme these days: The Main Stream Media favors a certain candidate. And therefore the Main Stream Media won't dig into negative facts that, if known, might turn voters away from said candidate.

Well, I say, "So what?" If we don't trust the MSM anyway then we shouldn't care whether or not they report something. There's a new medium on the block now, and there are diligent souls out there with nothing more than blogs and internet connections digging up dirt and making it known. The word gets around, and if they are wrong there's a self correcting feature as others re-dig that same dirt. And it's wrong to say that lies simply get reinforced when they're proven to be false. It's difficult to know whom to trust, but we use our best judgment and find credible people.

Politics -- believing falsehoods

The inspiration for this particular rant is The Power of Political Misinformation in which the author cites two studies purporting to show that once false information is absorbed then in some cases a debunking of that false information tends to reinforce the original erroneous belief. But then they claim that conservatives have a stronger tendency than liberals to cling to the erroneous beliefs. (Read the comments at that article for a flavor of the contempt many non-conservatives hold for conservatives and factor that into any speculation on why so many people eschew main stream media.)

Here are links to the two studies: John Bullock's The Enduring Importance of False Political Beliefs and Nyhan and Reifler's When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions (PDF).

I haven't read both of these studies in their entirety, but I've read enough to be skeptical of their conclusion about conservatives. In Nyhan and Reifler's study the test subjects were college students about whom the authors say: "college students are also known to have relatively weak self-definition, poorly formed attitudes, and to be relatively easily influenced ..." but then they say that makes for a more accurate study because those are "characteristics that would seem to reduce the likelihood of resistance and backfire effects." Hmmm, I'm not so sure that follows. An equally valid and likewise insulting generalization might be to say that they have short attention spans and had lost interest by the time the erroneous information was corrected.

Anyway, in one of the experiments they presented the test subjects with information supposedly supplied by the Bush administration prior to the Iraq invasion about the presence of WMD in Iraq. So right there we've got a contentious issue sure to put Bush supporters on the defense. Then some of the test subjects were presented with portions of the Duelfer Report which is supposed to be the last word on Iraqi WMD and which basically dispels the notion that Saddam had WMD at his disposal. And from the subsequent responses the testers drew their conclusions.

Many of us heard President Bush's speech and wondered why he put so much emphasis on WMD given that there wasn't a lot of evidence. But we supported the war anyway for a number of other reasons. So when people started squealing that Bush lied we knew that in reality there was no lie but only a mistaken emphasis on something everyone believed at the time but that couldn't be proved. It turned out to be wrong. But we don't live in a science fiction movie in which we can freeze time and change the future so that had Saddam stayed in power he would never reactivate the WMD program, Russia and the Europeans wouldn't prevail and the sanctions wouldn't be lifted, Saddam would quit cheating on the sanctions even if they stayed in place, Saddam would stop taking pot shots at our jets, and Saddam would abandon the oil for food scam on his own.

Sure enough, the Duelfer Report reports that at least one of Saddam's physicists said that Saddam had told them to keep the WMD program active (see appendix).

So a simple experiment in which the subjects were told "Bush said this" about WMD and then shown repudiating documents isn't really enough. The Duelfer Report was too long to have been shown to them in its entirety. And anyone with a lick of common sense and a smidgen of knowledge about the U.S. history with Saddam would logically assume that if Saddam didn't have WMD he would get them as soon as he knew it was safe.

Anyway, whenever I read about a college professor's study which he/she says proves that liberals are smarter, more intuitive, more sane, process information better, etc., than conservatives then a hurdle gets erected, and that college professor needs to overcome the presumption that he/she is merely using flawed science to validate his/her own predisposition toward political opponents.

It's not that conservatives can't accept the truth when they see it, it's that they've been exposed to so much bias that they're conditioned to be skeptical.

Okay, we're almost done here. I believe but can't confirm that the line "Tell me a lie I can believe" is from the movie A Face in the Crowd, the prescient 1957 movie about a smart Arkansas hillbilly who charms and lies his way to becoming a powerful political figure.

Dear American:

Your Urgent Help Needed

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to [email protected] so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Posted by Nick at Freakonomics. (Lightly edited.)

Spending on law enforcement

The other day a city news release informed us that the Midland, Texas, City Council voted to accept a grant for the sum of $54,270 from the Texas Department of Transportation to be used to pay officer overtime for intersection traffic and DWI enforcement for the year beginning 10/1/2008.

I'm sure there's an official report somewhere saying that these expenditures reduce traffic accidents. But from my own observations, the biggest intersection problem is the unsynchronized traffic lights. A smooth and steady ride is the best way to either preserve our precious fossil fuels, save gasoline money, save time, or save all three. So the mandatory stop and go driving that we end up doing because of the red lights is costing us money. When I'm out and about it appears that most people obey the traffic laws anyway, and those who don't seldom cause a collision.

Now, I know that there are those who want a zero tolerance for traffic violations regardless of any risk that they may pose. But it's at least possible that the enforcements for which these type grants are directed do little more than generate ticket money for the city.

So is this where the citizenry wants its law enforcement dollars spent? Let's look at the city crime map. The map for "Last Week," which I presume means 9/14/08 through 9/20/08, can be seen below. It was taken from the city website.  Click Crime Map to see it.

Using that map I've added up some totals, and here's what I get:

6 auto thefts
3 burglaries of businesses
19 burglaries of residences
1 burglary of a storage unit
19 burglaries of vehicles
1 graffiti
1 robbery
14 vandalism
15 vandalism of vehicles.

Therefore, the two most frequent crimes, according to the map for the designated week, were burglaries of residences and burglaries of vehicles with 19 each.

So should intersection traffic control and DWI get the priority over these types of crime? I don't know, it's above my pay grade. But if I had the power to eliminate either red light running or burglaries, I would focus on the burglaries.

Turning a sheet of paper into a PDF file

Converting typed sheets of paper into a single pdf file is a pain in the rear without the proper equipment. I struggled for hours trying to accomplish that task recently, and the resulting file was less than desirable. My HP flat scanner would not save a scanned document directly to PDF, so the process required scanning to jpg then using the free PDFCreator -- Komando recommended, by the way -- to save them into a single PDF document. And the results stank. Saving the jpg with a low resolution made the page too dim to read, but with a higher resolution the resulting PDF file size was humongous.

Adobe Acrobat would do the job, of course, but that's a budget buster. Some flatbed scanners will save straight to PDF, and I was ready to go buy a new one. But then discovered ScanToPDF. The free trial version was easy to use and worked like a charm, but it left a watermark. I had to buy the home version at $40 to get rid of the watermark, and it worked. It makes multipage PDF documents in a snap, the files are small, and the pages are readable. I'm so happy.

Arson at the Texas Governor's Mansion -- arson at GHWB house. Too similar for convenience.

Newsroom Stew links to the Dallas Morning News article. Excerpt:

Department of Public Safety officials won't say whether the men – 22-year-old David McKay and 23-year-old Bradley Crowder – are suspects in the June 8 arson, which gutted the governor's mansion. But a high-ranking state law enforcement official said Wednesday that the men, who remain in custody in Minnesota and stand accused of manufacturing Molotov cocktails for use at last week's convention, are under investigation in Texas.

These two have not been tried, and as Stew says, they are presumed innocent until found guilty. But it is interesting that investigators are looking into the connection. And if they find a connection, I hope they continue to look for similarities of the 6/8/08 fire in Austin with the arson fire at the George H. W. Bush house in Odessa on 12/27/07. (Did they return to West Texas to roast some some Xmas holiday chestnuts?) For review, see Who would do such a thing?, infra.

And as I said in Arson at the Texas Governor's Mansion - a coincidence?:

A fire at a house of historic value. A possible political motive. An accelerant on the front porch. A lot of coincidences.

Sunday Diversions 9-21-08

First up, did you miss Talk Like a Pirate Day? I did. Forgot all about it. But why talk like a pirate when you could talk like a space pirate? For some tips go to How to talk like a space pirate.

After that you may want to just watch the dog to do some tricks. The old dog won't learn new tricks? No problem. Click here and get that dog to do the tricks. Thanks go to Ann Parish for this one.

Have a pleasant Sunday.

Road signs

There's a lonely stretch of Texas roadway between Rankin and Iraan that just happens to be my favorite part of the West Texas landscape. It can be a little disturbing, though, because often the turkey vultures sit on the fence posts and utility poles waiting for something to drop dead. Keep moving, keep moving.

On a busy day it may be several minutes before another vehicle comes along. And if you stop, kill the motor, get out and listen, you may be able to hear the next vehicle miles away. But, if the vultures start circling, check your pulse.

Keep going and eventually the highway runs into Texas I-10. And here's my favorite road sign -- the 80 MPH speed limit sign. Hopefully, some lawmaker won't decide to punish travelers by setting it at 55 MPH like Jimmy Carter did.

So how was your week?

I've been out of pocket, so I need to catch up. Let's see, on Friday 9/12/08 the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11422. And on Friday 9/19/08 it closed at 11388. So not much must have happened during the week. Yeah right! A melt down. A melt up. A giant bailout. It was a grief and relief on Wall Street, and here we are at the weekend again. Investor-taxpayers were cheering and crying at the same time.

American International Group Inc. (AIG), accepted an $85 billion government loan which was basically a government takeover. That was all over the headlines, but here's a footnote. Did you know that AIG was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Not any more. AIG was was booted out, and Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) replaced it in the DJIA per the Dow Jones press release on 9/18/08.

Temporary abandonment

This site is going to be inactive for a few days. I've left behind some food pics which, hopefully, will be sufficient until the weekend.

 

(This was just some of the delicious food that was served at the annual HospiceMidland volunteers' celebration on 9/13/08. YUM!)

Hurricane Ike - Fact checking the "certain death" warning

We all probably heard reports of that frightening warning: You will be faced with "certain death" if you stay on Galveston Island when hurricane Ike strikes. For example, on 9/11/08 a site called The National Terror Alert Response Center told us the following: "Nearly 1 million people along the Texas coast were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm, including Galveston Island where the National Weather Service warned residents to flee or 'face certain death.'"

Narrowing it down a little bit is the National Geographic News which told us this:

"We rarely issue this warning unless there is a severe, impending catastrophe," said Chris Sisco, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "It's very serious."

The warning reads: "Neighborhoods that are affected by the storm surge … and possibly entire coastal communities … will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide.

"Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family, one- or two-story homes may face certain death. … Widespread and devastating personal property damage is likely elsewhere."

Well, it's difficult to verify that that warning was made in those words. Do a NOAA search and the results for the phrase "certain death" don't contain references to Ike. Those pages could have been changed later to remove that phrase. But such a search does turn up a list of things to expect in general from high winds on the South Texas coast which contains this in regard to winds in excess of 110 mph: "The blown debris will create additional destruction. Persons and pets caught outdoors will face certain death if struck. "

And in regard to high water there's this:

Life-threatening inundation is likely. All neighborhoods, and possibly entire coastal communities, will be inundated during high tide. Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one or two story homes will face certain death. Many residences of average construction directly on the coast will be destroyed; widespread, devastating personal property damage is likely elsewhere. A large number of small craft will break away from their moorings, especially in unprotected anchorages.

Okay, fair enough. But what was Ike's body count? As of Sunday afternoon -- 3:37 pm ET -- USA Today, citing A.P., reports ten hurricane related deaths, seven of whom were in Texas, out of 140,000 who didn't heed warnings and stayed behind. Pretty good odds.

The item that inspired this little exercise was the notice at Grits for Breakfast about the decision not to evacuate the Galveston County jail which left 1,000 county jail prisoners to face the hurricane from their jail cells. Was that a sound decision? It doesn't sound very good in light of those "certain death" warnings. But there were many other factors at play, not least of which would be the jail's altitude above sea level and any emergency plans that may be in place. Anyway, an anonymous commenter to that post tells us that he/she called the jail and was told the jail is without air conditioning and television, but otherwise there were no problems.

Therefore, I believe it's safe to conclude that "certain death" wasn't so certain after all. But exaggerated warnings have always been the norm when hurricanes approach, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are always be people who ignore those warnings.

Update: 9/30/08 -- The Houston Chronicle reports that "The Houston-area death toll from Hurricane Ike has reached 32 with the discovery this weekend of two unidentified bodies along the shore in Galveston County and the body of a Port Neches man found in Orange County." It says 365 are still missing.

More Main Stream Media Over-the-topism

The Atlantic magazine wanted a photograph of John McCain for their article, so naturally they called in an anti-McCain photographer to get just the shot they wanted. See Photo District News. Excerpt:

The Atlantic didn’t select the diabolical looking McCain for its cover. Greenberg is hoping to license that image to some other magazine (she negotiated a two-week embargo with The Atlantic so she could re-license images from the shoot before the election).

Warned that the image is just the kind of thing that will stir up the anti-media vitriol in the conservative blogosphere, Greenberg said, “Good. I want to stir stuff up, but not to the point where I get audited if he becomes president.”

That said, she goes on to explain that she’s thought about replacing McCain’s mouth with bloody shark teeth and displaying the image on a billboard with the message that the candidate is a bloodthirsty war monger.

Link to the one you see above on the right:  click -- not the most flattering photo I've seen of Senator McCain. And Link to the "diabolical" one: click.

Bernie Mac

I have confess that before he died Bernie Mac was just a name to me. Sure, I had heard of him, but I had never caught a performance, tv or otherwise. A friend recently made the observation that a sitcom in syndication has crossed a threshold and probably had some quality that put it above the run-of-the-mill sitcom. So when when Bernie Mac died I decided to check out the reruns. So, does someone have to die in order to show up on my radar? Let's not even go there, okay?  It's a funny show.

FX and CW both show the reruns at odd hours. And the other day I think I stumbled on the first episode.  Bernie Mac plays himself, and he likes to sit in his den and talk to us. He talks directly to the camera a few times in each episode carefully explaining his side of the issues that plague him. Here's how the first episode begins:

"Damn! That's a good cigar. You can tell a good cigar by the way it feels. And this feels like a good cigar. [takes a big drag and blows out smoke] Look at that smoke. That's cigar smoke there boy.

"But I ain't here to talk about cigars. I'm here to tell you, that, uh, [takes a big drag, blows it out] I'm gonna kill one of them kids.

"Oh don't get me wrong. I love 'em -- they my blood. I give 'em the shirt off my back.

"Ya ever see a chicken with his neck wrung, laying to the side all lazy and weak?

"Talk like that to me one more time, SNAP! I'm gonna snap they necks off! Eh! They too sassy! They too grown up! They talk back too much!

"Eh, I know what you're saying to Mac. I don't care what you're talking about. 'Bernie Mac cruel. Bernie Mac beats his kids.' I don't care. That's your opinion. Cause you don't know the whole story. You don't know what went down. And they ain't my kids!"

The story goes on to tell us that his sister has a drug problem, and she got caught stealing something. So soft hearted Bernie and his wife move her three children into his house, and don't worry, he'll keep reminding us how nice a guy he is for doing that. But in each episode they present him with some problem, a problem that interferes significantly with the lifestyle this wealthy comedian would like to live.

Oh, did I say the show is really funny? Check it out, it's worth a look.

Digital tv transition test case

Thanks to the sharp eyed Rob, who posted Digital Daze Ahead, we learned that a test case of digital tv transition in Wilmington, NC, was scheduled to take place on 9/8/2008.

So how did it go? The Wall Street Journal tells us in Digital-TV Switch Is Tested that in Wilmington and the surrounding area there were about 14,000 households that get over-the-air tv broadcast. The article says that one tv station received 74 calls, another station received 36 calls, and the FCC received about 100 calls within a short time after the transition.  And they were from people who, for the most part, couldn't get their set top boxes to work. So that's a little over 200 people who felt the need to seek help from the tv stations or the FCC. Not bad. But we don't know how many people got help from their neighborhood guru or who may have just decided this was as good a time as any to take tv out of their lives.

The rest of us still have time to enjoy tv viewing before they flip the switch for the entire nation on 2/17/2009. My cable provider tells me I need do nothing to prepare, and that's exactly what I plan to do.

The Sarah Palin Action Figure

With all the back and forth bickering going on in the presidential campaign, let's step back and look at some of the humor coming out of this thing.

It's a bird. I's a plane. Able to leap the gender gap, it's the Sarah Palin Action Figure!

Of course they had to have one for Obama, too, but somehow the Barack Obama Action Figure must have sounded oxymoronic. So, they came up with Beach Blanket Obama. What a hoot!

See them at HeroBuilders.com. (Via ExtremeMortman.com.)

Updated: An emailer asks: "Hmmmm where's Biden, anyhow?"
Heh heh, good observation. I guess old Joe just didn't make the cut. Picture this cartoon: Sarah Palin casting a giant shadow with a tiny Joe Biden in that shadow desperately trying to be heard. (If only I could draw.)

Accidental handgun discharge in Big Spring - 3 year old dead

Someone once said that there is no such thing as an "accidental discharge" but that the phrase should be "negligent discharge." The news articles say that this incident occurred on Saturday, September 6, 2008, in Big Spring, Texas, and resulted when a three year old boy named Aiden Mathews found a handgun which he then fired. The bullet struck him in the face, and he's now dead. (Damn. Typing that last sentence brings tears to my eyes.)

In this case the negligence was in leaving a loaded, unlocked handgun where a child would have access to it. In fact, it's more than negligence, it's illegal.

But let's focus on the handgun. If you look at the articles in the news roundup -- see below -- you will notice that one of them says this: "The handgun was a .357 caliber sig ...". That's slightly wrong. That describes the caliber and not the make or model of the handgun. Big Spring Chief of Police Lonnie Smith was kind enough to inform me that the handgun was a Springfield XD, and the caliber was .357 Sig. The .357 Sig caliber consists of a bullet that is only slightly larger than a 9mm (.355 caliber) bullet, but it has a .40 caliber size casing. The result is a small bullet with a very powerful charge.

The Springfield XD, in my opinion, has two safety flaws. First, it has no manual safety which in the present case may have prevented the discharge, but we'll never know.

The second flaw is in the procedure for taking it apart for cleaning. The manual says "While holding the slide, pull and release the trigger with the firearm pointed in a safe direction to fully unlock the slide from the frame." (Emphasis added by me.)  Download the manual at the Springfield site linked above. And watch someone do it on Youtube here.

Therefore, to take it apart the user has to pull the trigger. For two examples of Springfield XD discharges during the cleaning process while the gun was still loaded see Accidental handgun discharge - Springfield XD, inside. The breakdown procedure is similar to that of the Glock. (Look for details based on results of an open records request on these pages soon about a recent Glock cleaning accidental/negligent discharge at the police firing range.)

Finally, here's the Big Spring incident news roundup:
Big Spring Herald;
NewsWest9; and
Midland Reporter-Telegram.

Updated 9/10/08: It looks like Springfield has put a manual safety on certain of the XD model handguns. But at this time it appears to only be available with the .45 caliber model. See it in the downloadable manual and catalog available at Springfield XD. I've emailed Springfield sales asking if they have plans to put it in the other models, and if I get a reply I'll add another update.

Second update 9/10/08. Received a reply from Springfield sales, as follows:

Good afternoon,
As of right now the .45 is the only XD that comes with the manual thumb safety.
I do not have any information on any other calibers coming out with the manual safety.
Thank you for your interest in Springfield!
Enjoy the day!
Trisha
Customer Service Representative
Springfield Inc

Thank you, Firefighters

Those of us who read the letters to the editor in the newspaper inevitably run across a very sincere letter from a grateful citizen thanking some unnamed firefighter or EMT for helping that person in a time of distress. Those letters are always touching. And I'm sure the readers of those letters share those letter writers' feelings of gratitude for those dedicated people who do that difficult work.

Last week the Midland Fire Department held its annual awards banquet to hand out honors to the MFD employees who have accomplished something above and beyond their regular duties on the job.

There were awards to people in other departments -- Street and Transportation -- for their help with various aspects of fighting fires. Also, those unsung heroes, the unpaid members of that volunteer group, the Midland Citizen Fire Academy Alumni Association, got an award for their willingness to drop everything and go help quench the thirst of hot, exhausted firefighters as they fight a big one.

A MDA representative was given 15 to 20 minutes to show her own slide show and hand out her own awards to the local union members who helped collect donations for the MDA in the annual "fill the boot" campaign. To this outsider it seemed odd that so much time was allowed at a city banquet for what was essentially a union activity. But when the Chief got up to explain how much the "fill the boot" campaign meant to him when he was among the ranks it all made sense.

And the food? Food, food, glorious food!

The Midland Country Club sure can put out a spread of edibles. That's some mighty good eat'n, my friends!

Soggy Doggy Splash Day 2008!

It's happening again! I had just about given up on seeing another one of these, but here it is! Another doggy splash day in Midland, Texas.  Tina Jauz' news release tells us all about it, as follows:

SOGGY DOGGY SPLASH DAY

The City of Midland’s Animal Services and Parks & Recreation Divisions invite all dogs and dog owners to the fifth annual “Soggy Doggy Splash Day” on Saturday, September 13, 2008, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., at Doug Russell Pool, 900 N. Midland Drive. The entrance fee for each dog is $1.00 and each person is $1.00 with children two and under being free.

This is a great opportunity for you and your dog to cool off at Doug Russell Pool and enjoy the companionship of fellow dog owners.

In an effort to ensure that all dogs and their owners have a safe, enjoyable experience the staff of Animal Services and Parks & Recreation remind you of the following:

* Dogs must be accompanied by a responsible person 16 years or older
* Dogs must be on a leash outside the fenced area of the pool
* Dogs must be properly vaccinated and licensed or show proof of vaccination
* Pet owners are responsible for cleaning up after their pets
* Minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times

Lifeguards will be on duty, so dog owners are invited to swim with their pets if desired.

Call the Animal Services at 685.7420 for more information.

The money raised by this event will be used to help purchase amenities for Hogan’s Run Dog Park.

Media Contact: Paul O’Neill/Director of Animal Services at 685.7424

This will be the fourth one of these since the summer of 2004. Check out Soggy Doggy Splash Day 3 for some photos of the one in 2006. (They skipped 2007.)

West Texas Biathlon 2008

It was the annual biathlon out in the raw country near Pecos, Texas. Who says there's nothing to do in West Texas?

Texas Falcon checked in again, having run 'n gunned in the Run-n-Gun-in-the-Sun again this year. (Last year - click.)

It took place on August 15 and 16, 2008. The shooters had to run or walk the six mile course, and at four stages along the way they had to ring the gong, i.e., shoot at and hit metal targets 200 and 300 yards away. The time counted for half and accuracy counted for the other half for scoring purposes. The event this year drew 32 shooters.

Thanks T.F.

Medical Marijuana in California

Ever wonder how hard it is to get medical marijuana in California? Check out this article, man:

Sometimes I can't believe how Californian California is. Women walk around half-naked, waiters call patrons "dude," and medical marijuana is legal. But I wondered just how legal. Could anyone buy it? Even me, who doesn't have cancer, AIDS, arthritis, glaucoma or even any previous pot-smoking experience?

Medical marijuana isn't really legal -- in 2005, the Supreme Court said federal anti-drug laws trump state laws -- but California and 11 other hippie states have been flipping off Washington for years. ...

Read the whole thing.  Via Kuro5hin.org.

Cheech and Chong, call your doctor.

Google, the new Microsoft

There was a time when Microsoft was the bully of the block ready to bludgeon or buy any entity that dared try to compete with it. That's yesterday's news. Google is the new bully.

Jeff at ArchaeoTexture tells us in From Your Blog to Their Blog, and Back about how Google's new Chrome browser had a sneaky little provision in the terms of service agreement which gave Google the license to do basically anything it wanted with any content someone produced using Google products or services.

Oops, they got called on it. And they've changed the agreement to make it little more user friendly.

Google is a huge corporation beholden to its shareholders, and profit is the overriding motivator. And Google is collecting tons of data about the users of its online services. Should we be concerned about that? At least one writer thinks so, see The Real Google Agenda:

Then there is Google’s odd acquiescence to the demands by authoritarian regimes around the world, especially China, to censor its search operations in those countries. These actions, inexplicable at the time, only become clear when one assumes that Google’s real business now is not providing a service to its users, but in owning the world’s data.

Information is power, and Google users have little choice but to trust Google to use that power for good and not for evil. In the meantime, I try to use the alternate search engines first then Google if I'm dissatisfied with the results.

In this corner, McCain/Palin

Many of us out here in flyover country have been more than just a little put off by the star struck hysteria displayed by Barack Obama's fans. He is running on nothing more than the glow of his personality, so maybe that star treatment is the only appropriate response for those who are pulled into his orbit. But one thing missing from the media noise is a gushing description of Mr. Obama's accomplishments: "There's only one man who could have organized that community ..."

And there are many of us out here in flyover country for whom Mr. McCain was not the first choice in the primary. The media critics were lukewarm about Mr. McCain's convention speech, including the increasingly tiresome Peggy Noonan -- note to Ms. Noonan, Ronald Reagan isn't coming back, get some grief counseling. But while Mr. McCain has his faults, by golly, he's looking better all the time. If he's not the best man for the job, he certainly is the best man running. And by the way, I liked his speech.

It was a gripping story he told about his time as a POW. John McCain is a true hero, and he probably endured much more abuse than most of us could have. Mr. Obama has certainly never been tested this way, and based on how Mr. O has implied that, should he be elected, his communication skill would be this nation's best weapon against our enemies, we could probably assume that had he been in Mr. McCain's shoes back then he would have talked his head off. I almost said "negotiated," but there probably isn't much doubt that the captors would have gotten whatever they wanted from him.

And in the VP corner, Sarah Palin. She certainly is a welcome addition to the election match up. And as an outsider watching all of this happen on the TV screen, the computer monitor and the newspapers, I have to share the enthusiasm that so many people have for Ms. Palin. Let's give her the rock star treatment.

Post Script: It's a moot issue now as to how the U.S. handles terrorist captives. But when water boarding was on the front pages one of the arguments against it was that torture doesn't work. It does work. John McCain put that argument to rest the other night in his acceptance speech. In his own words: "But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me."

Wendell Pierce on New Orleans (from "The Wire" commentary)

The commentaries on those DVD can often be very enlightening, not just about whatever happens on screen, but on other things as well. In this case it was Louisiana politics, and something actor Wendell Pierce said brought to mind an article about Bobby Jindal from last year.

It was season five, episode one of The Wire with the background commentary by Wendell Pierce and producer/director Joe Chappell. Following a scene depicting some Baltimore back room city hall dealings Mr. Pierce started talking about his home town of New Orleans. The city hall scenes in "The Wire" are pretty good, but are they realistic? Never having been in a city hall back room, I wouldn't know. But, let me quote what Mr. Pierce said about his celebrity status and how the Louisiana politicians rode his coat tails. It's not naughty or juicy, but it's an interesting peek he gives us into Louisiana politics. Transcribed by me, to wit:

"The Wire," Season Five, Episode One, commentary at around the 47 minute mark -

Wendell Pierce: To show you the power of the media, that kind of happened to me in New Orleans where a story came out that, you know, Wendell Pierce, actor on "The Wire," was coming home to Pontchartrain Park to rejuvenate his neighborhood association. And the response that I got from the paper, I mean, Senator Landrieu's office called me and, uh, the mayor's office, called me. And the concern of how they are perceived and the power of the media is very, very palpable to them, they know, and they wanted to make sure they were in line with me, because I got so much press. And I'm trying to utilize that as I go forward.

Joe Chappelle: And when they would contact you could you get a sense of their specific agenda? Would you ...

WP: Always got the agenda, you become about very clear about that.

JC: Could you use it to do what you needed to do, or is it something you had to, was it there that was ...

WP: I'm using it now, yeah, it's uh, "Well, that's great I really need your help, but THIS is what we really need," you know.

JC: Have they been forthcoming?

WP: They have been forthcoming. I'm sorry it takes that sort of attention to get people to move.

JC: It's celebrity, right?

WP: Celebrity should be traded on the stock exchange. It's a very, very tangible thing.

Well, if that's what it takes to get the old guard Louisiana politicians to move, then go for it, Mr. Pierce.

It brings to mind this account of how the Louisiana politicos were more concerned about how they looked on tv during the hurricane Katrina saga than they were about the people they were supposed to be looking out for. Quote is from Bobby Jindal saves Louisiana last year at Redstate:

A few days after the storm, there was a meeting of the Louisiana principals. Blanco was there, FEMA’s soon-to-be-infamous Michael Brown, a handful of Congressmen, and every local political staffer worth shaking a stick at, and some not even worth that. It was supposed to start at Noon. At 12:30, it still hadn’t. People were milling around, chatting, giving quotes to reporters.

Jindal surveyed the room for a few minutes. Then he saw Blanco and the others pause to look at a television in the corner—it was footage from another press conference they’d had the previous day, broadcasting on CNN. The politicians all stood around, watching themselves on the screen.

Jindal turned to his chief of staff, and said, "Let’s go. "

Those old Louisiana politicians really must have craved that media attention.  Hopefully Mr. Jindal can set a good example by doing good and not by media manipulation.  Good luck to you, Governor Jindal. Louisiana needs you. And if Wendell Pierce ends up campaigning for some of those other good old boys and girls we'll know it's a back scratch payback.

A man's gotta have his toys, er uh, tools.

In this case, it's the Skeletool. It's a neat Leatherman knife, pliers, screw driver, and of course, a bottle opener for those times when twisting just won't do the job.

Do I need it? Nah. And after carrying it around for a day it's starting to weigh me down. But, it looks so cool, like something a T-800 might have.

The photo shows the Skeletool on top and an older Leatherman model below. By the way, the older one was under a seat in a rental car I picked up at an airport. What do you bet someone ditched it there rather than hand it over to the TSA?

Rainy day diversions -- Noah's Blog

Excerpts from Noah's Blog:

Day 1
Rain.

Day 2
Rain.

Day 3
Rain.

Day 4
Rain.

Day 5
Rain.

Day 6
So I was loading up the last of the animals last week when I walk past my neighbor Roger, the Molech-worshipper. He looks up and says "Hey, looks like rain."

True story.

See the whole thing at Wittenburg Door.

More art insulting to Christians

See BBC, excerpt:

The artwork was part of an exhibition at Gateshead's Baltic Centre featuring several plaster figures with erections, including ET, Mickey Mouse and Jesus.

Worst take, so far:

[The gallery's soon to be director, Godfrey Worsdale, said] "If it is good art we have a responsibility to show it."

Best take, so far:

Mrs Mapfuwa, of Brentwood, said Baltic would not have dared depict Mohammed in such a way.

(Via Fark.)

ScrappleFace on Sarah Palin's unborn grandbaby

Obama Begs Palin: Don’t Punish Bristol with a Baby

“Gov. Palin,” said Sen. Obama addressing himself to her personally, “you tried to teach your daughter about morals and values, but she made a mistake, and she shouldn’t be punished with a baby.”

As a goodwill gesture, Sen. Obama offered to pay for Bristol Palin’s abortion “at any time between now and the scheduled moment of birth.”

Funny stuff.  Only ScrappleFace could make that up.