Sleepless in Midland

Blogger Appreciation Day

I ran across this at a couple of blogs, so it must be unofficially official -- Blogger Appreciation Day. Verified here, here and elsewhere in the blogosphere. And best of all, it's quadrennial. What a great way to celebrate leap year.

So here's a shout-out to some blogs I appreciate:

Archaeotexture -- Where Jeff gives us a perspective we should appreciate whether or not we agree. And he's got great taste in movies, but dammit, he doesn't do way enough movie reviews.

The Fireant Gazette -- Where we find Eric, the guy I would definitely go to before doing any Fracking.

The list could go on, but let's finish with That Janie Girl, a delightful and entertaining blogger who loves hunting family members and dogs. [I had to do that, sorry. Should read: "loves hunting, family members, and dogs, but not necessarily in that order."]

If your blog isn't listed, don't take it personally, I still appreciate you. I'll catch up in 2016.

We're number 9

That's the rank the Tax Foundation gives the state of Texas in its 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index. Go to their site to get more details or click on the thumbnail on the right to see a bigger version of their map.

There's one little quibble, though. They've got Texas ranked at #7 in the category for "Individual Income Tax." Texas voters are very proud of the lack of an individual income tax.  But the other states with no income tax get a #1 in that category, and their Report PDF says this:

The seven states without an individual income tax are, not surprisingly, the highest scoring states on this component: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

What gives?  Why didn't Texas get a #1? Drill down and there's this:

The seven states with no individual income tax of any kind achieve perfect neutrality. Texas, however, receives a slight deduction because it does not recognize LLCs or S-Corps.

The state of Texas clearly does recognize them.  But TF is right. The state just doesn't exempt limited liability corporations or sub S corporations from franchise taxes -- good information for any prospective business builder to know ahead of time.

Oh oh oh Obama, you take such a great photo

It's been a while since we've done this. And now that Mr. Obama's own campaign is flouting his rule regarding Pete Souza's official White House photos (via Instapundit), it's high time we did it again.

Previously:
Those White House Photos were begging for captions,
President Obama's rose colored glasses and
Obama and a cute little baby.

Lawn Lions - West Texas New Grass

Out here in drought plagued Midland, Texas, the air is dry, the ground is hard and the soil is barren, except for some hardy plants that seem to defy the lack of water and laugh at the drought.

They used to be called weeds, a weed being a plant that is growing in the wrong place. But with no water for lawns, a hardy weed that can thrive in this harsh environment has earned the right to live, and in the case of the Dandelion, respect for simply surviving.

"Dandelion" sounds so weak for such a tough plant. Maybe "Lawn Lion" is a better newspeak moniker for this former weed, this tough survivor.

There was a time not so awfully long ago when the nanny-crats would send stern letters threatening fines if homeowners tried to let their yards go back to nature. But in light of the severe water rationing, homeowners are damned if they water their lawns and damned if they let their land go native. The municipal code just keeps getting bigger. They don't weed out the obsolete rules, and we are at the mercy of the code enforcers' discretion. But maybe, just maybe they'll relax their vigilance this season and enjoy the new look of the land.

Lawn Lion. The king of the back yard jungle.

Texting makes you stupid -- HHOK

That's from Amara Angelica at kurzweilAI.net. And the presumption is that texters learn their own vernacular which consists of abbreviated words and acronyms and don't get exposure to media that use big words. Then when tested, they reject words they don't know rather than acknowledging them as possible words.

Maybe. Seems to me the lingo is simply a continuation of what youngsters have always done -- use words and phrases the adults don't know to demonstrate how much cooler they are than the grownups.

BTW, "HHOK" means "Ha ha only kidding." See the list here and get hip. Don't be L7, daddy-o.

Inflation at the gun range

Members of the Midland Shooters Association in Midland, Texas, got a rude awakening the other day when notice arrived that the annual dues were going up.

The last price hike was in 2006 when the annual dues went up 33.3% to $100. Adjusted for inflation, today it would take about $113 to buy what that $100 would buy back then. But that's the ordinary inflation everyone else experienced. It's different in boom town. When the good times roll anyone who can get away with it hikes their prices. And this time the MSA raised their member price 100% to $200. Ouch!

With roughly 3,800 members that would bring in a cool 3/4 million dollars per year. No small sum. And it's a wonder some entrepreneur hasn't thought about starting a pay-to-shoot range to capture a chunk of that money.

Meanwhile, would it be setting the bar too high to expect the MSA shooting ranges to be 100% better next year?

Beware of spam bearing malware

Oh those cybercriminals are so tricky. They send a legitimate looking email with an attachment, and the Windows user caught off guard decides to download the attachment to see just what it is. As Dorothy Parker said, there's no cure for curiosity.

Sophos' blog Naked Security alerted readers to two such scams this week. One claims to contain an HP Officejet scan. See samples here.

Attached document was scanned and sent
to you using a Hewlett-Packard HP OfficeJet 81998A.
Sent by: BETTYANN
Images: 0
Attachment Type: .HTML [Internet Explorer]
HP Officejet Location: -

The names and numbers vary, and the attachment looks something like this:

HP_Document_02-22_OFCJET84014.htm

Again, the numbers will vary. But the attachment is an HTM document which contains a malicious script which will send the browser to another site which may contain more malware.

A similar malware scam is in the form of an email claiming to be about a Changelog. That one contains an HTM document, too.

Safest bet, don't download attachments with HTM suffixes.

The case for optimism, with a little pessimism thrown in for good measure

Here's the first paragraph from a review written by Michael Shermer of the book "Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think" by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotle:

If every image made and every word written from the earliest stirring of civilization to the year 2003 were converted to digital information, the total would come to five exabytes. An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes—or just think of it as the number one followed by 18 zeros. That's a lot of digital data, but it's nothing compared with what happened from 2003 through 2010: We created five exabytes of digital information every two days. Get ready for what's coming: By next year, we'll be producing five exabytes every 10 minutes. How much information is that? The total for 2010 of 912 exabytes is the equivalent of 18 times the amount of information contained in all the books ever written. The world is not just changing, and the change is not just accelerating; the rate of the acceleration of change is itself accelerating.

That's an astonishing amount of information. Moore's law, the famous 1965 prediction that the number of transistors on a chip would double in 18 months, turned out to be fairly accurate. But now it seems quaintly old fashioned.

The concept of exponential advancement affects everything technology touches. And the message to doomsayers, according to Mr. Shermer, is that technology will raise the standard of living for everyone on the planet. And that's probably right. He's also probably right to say "The biggest hurdles, however, are not scientific or technological but political."

If today more people have access to a cellphone than to a toilet, that suggests it takes less of an investment to get them the cellphones than toilets. If a country doesn't have adequate protection of property rights, there won't be the foundation on which to build the infrastructure necessary to provide them with toilets.

But a bad government is an obstacle that can be overcome. So the glass is half full or half empty, depending on our ability to take a realistic approach to the impediments that appear in the path.

But just so we don't leave too happy, be sure to read the latest piece from Stewart Baker decrying "Moore's Outlaws," cyber-criminals "whose ability to penetrate networks and to cause damage is increasing exponentially thanks to the growing complexity, vulnerability, and ubiquity of insecure networks. If we don’t do something, and soon, we will suffer network failures that dramatically change our lives and futures, both as individuals and as a nation."  Dang.  A half empty glass.

A safety net for the DNC

Democrats are all about safety nets, and old school liberals probably thought of that as a safety net for the sick, the poor, the underprivileged, etc.

But the Democratic National Convention has a safety net of its own in the form of a $10 million line of credit provided by Duke Energy. If the company has to make good on that the shareholders will probably be very forgiving since Duke itself received a whopping government "stimulus" in 2009. From The Washington Free Beacon:

Just as Rogers has helped fund Democratic politicians, they, in turn, have helped steer massive amounts of federal funding to Duke Energy. The 2009 stimulus package, for instance, was a boon for the company: Duke received federal grants totaling $230.4 million for a number of “green” energy projects including “smart grid” development and wind energy storage.

"Rogers" in the quoted paragraph is Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, and coincidentally, co-chairman and lead fundraiser for the Democratic National Convention host-committee.

This comes to us via Tim Carney who notes that with all the attention liberal news outlets give to money in politics they seem remarkably silent on this one.

Prison Break Mexican Style

The TV show Prison Break, with a likable mastermind striving for justice in a rigged system, had an entertaining run on American TV. But those heroes were nowhere to be found in the recent story from Mexico.

What was originally reported as a prison riot is now revealed to be have been a break-out scheme. And it worked for 30 dangerous Zeta cartel members. Not so lucky were the 44 rival gang members killed in the affair. Quote:

All of those killed, [Rodrigo Medina, governor of Nuevo Leon] added, were from the Zetas' bitter rival, the Gulf cartel. The two gangs, former allies, are now at war for control of part of Mexico's drug trade and other criminal enterprises.

"We can say without a doubt that this was premeditated and planned," Medina said at a news conference, where he announced a nearly $800,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the escapees.

"This isn't a thing where, in the middle of a riot, it occurred to these people to escape." Medina said. "There was a plan, which undoubtedly relied on the complicity of some officials."

The prison was in Apodaca in the state of Nuevo Leon which is just across the border in Southeast Texas.

Planning a vacation in Mexico? Joe Queenan looks for a silver lining and suggests Darfur, Syria or Iran instead in Dying to Go to Acapulco—Literally.

Kudos to U.S. Attorneys in the Trey Scott Atwater case

State and federal prosecutors have a tremendous amount of power over, and responsibility to, civilians. We expect them to uphold the law and prosecute the guilty. But we also expect them to free the innocent, and when they do the right thing they deserve our gratitude.

The Atwater case struck a chord with many of us when it appeared as though one of our brave soldiers was about to be turned into a criminal because of a careless mistake. He's the guy who was arrested for having two blocks of C-4 explosives in his backpack when he tried to fly back to his base from Midland International Airport on new years eve. Discussed previously.

There was no evidence that Sgt. Atwater intended to harm anyone, or in fact, that he even knew he was carrying C-4 around with him as he flew home for the holiday.

The U.S. Attorney’s office gave great weight to that, and last week they filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. MyWestTexas.com alerts us to that and links to a copy of the motion.

In our previous discussion of this case we noted that the statute under which Sgt. Atwater was charged, 49 USC 46505, did not require that the defendant actual intend to commit the act, i.e., actually know the explosives were there and intend to carry them onto the plane. However, the U.S. Attorney's office did their homework and cited a couple of cases in their motion, U.S. v. Garrett and U.S. v. Arias-Izquierdo, as holding that "felony punishment requires proof of actual knowledge."

It's good to know that some judges take seriously the old fashioned notion of distinguishing carelessness from criminal intent. Sometimes judicial activism isn't such a bad thing.

And here's a tip of the hat to U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman, Assistant U.S. Attorney Austin M. Berry, the other Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and all the investigators and researchers who worked on this case on behalf of the government and came to the right conclusion.

Our neighborhoods broken down by age

There's a fascinating interactive chart based on Census data found at TexasTribune.org that lets the user view the age distribution within areas of major Texas cities. Select your city, then click an age group to see an approximation of how many people that age live in the various regions within the city.

Click Interactive: The Age Divide of Texas Cities to explore neighborhoods of select cities.

Do people of a certain age gravitate to neighborhoods with others of that age? Seems that way.  As the article notes, as the distance from the city center increases, so does the age of the population.  And that raises another question:  Are downtown revitalization efforts that are designed to draw young people really necessary?

Dog TV

This is why the terrorists hate us. We are so opulent that we can have a tv channel exclusively for our canine companions.

It's DogTV.com.

Wouldn't want the little four leggers to get bored.

Update 2/19/12: Tony Billmeyer of Newsy.com emails this link to New Cable Channel Caters to Canines, an informative news video about the channel.

Syncing along with the music

A news show with a piece about the Grammy presentations featured a short shot of Taylor Swift performing. When I see a singer with a microphone covering her mouth, I wonder if the words on her lips are the same ones in the song that's playing.

Apologies to Ms. Swift's fans, but the cynic in me says she's hiding her mouth with an over sized mic for a reason.

Shooting the finger -- them's fightin' words in Texas

Midlanders were enlightened this morning by the MyWesttexas.com report about the arrest of 27 year old Sean Rafael Roane following a confrontation with a peace officer.

According to the Felony Complaint PDF, this is what precipitated the confrontation and the ultimate arrest.

Meiner advised that he was driving his Midland Fire Department issued emergency vehicle, with appropriate markings, and had pulled out in traffic in front of Sean on the 4300 block of Raleigh Ct and noticed Sean shooting the finger and yelling at him. Meiner stopped at the stop sign at Raleigh Ct. and Midland Dr. and exited the vehicle. Meiner approached Sean's vehicle at which time Sean exited his vehicle and pushed Meiner.

Meiner attempted to push Sean off of him and identified himself as a peace officer. Sean pushed Meiner again and attempted to punch Meiner striking him in the left ear.

In short, the law officer confronted the defendant because the defendant yelled and flipped him the finger. One would think our constitutionally protected right to free speech would allow us to say what we wanted, either with our voices or sign language. So when do words and gestures become criminal acts?

In Texas it's when they tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. See Texas Penal Code Title 9 Chapter 42.01:

PENAL CODE
TITLE 9. OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER AND DECENCY
CHAPTER 42. DISORDERLY CONDUCT AND RELATED OFFENSES
Sec. 42.01. DISORDERLY CONDUCT. (a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly:
(1) uses abusive, indecent, profane, or vulgar language in a public place, and the language by its very utterance tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace;
(2) makes an offensive gesture or display in a public place, and the gesture or display tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace; ...

OK, in this case the fight broke out only because the law enforcement officer reacted. Shouldn't LEOs be a little bit less thin skinned? Absolutely, but the legal standard is an ordinary person, not a cop.

That's the ruling in Estes v. State, 660 S.W.2d 873, Court of Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth. (1983) which involved a student who shot the finger at the high school principal inches away from his face at the graduation ceremony immediately after receiving his diploma. No fight broke out, nevertheless the court held that even though the principal was a professional in the field of adolescent education, that gesture to an average person could have constituted "fighting words".

But wait. In our case they weren't inches apart, they were in separate cars when the finger made its appearance. Is that still "fighting words?" That was the situation in Coggin v. State, 123 S.W.3d 82, Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, Austin (2003). Coggin flashed his lights to get another car to pull over so he could pass. As he passed he "shot the bird" at that other driver which made that driver and his passenger so angry they called 911. And that's all they did. The court held that the bird did not tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace and that the bird shooter committed no crime.

Whether the fire marshal in our case was so insulted by that finger that he took it as fighting words is something only he knows. Since Mr. Roane threw the first punch anyway, they just might have been. Or was Mr. Roene provoked into reacting? That's what juries are for.

So Texans be careful. In some cases flipping the bird is fightin' words.

Now you should know that this isn't legal advice, this is merely a blog post. And if you had the patience to read this far you probably don't need any driving tips, but just in case, please help the traffic flow a little smoother by choosing your gestures carefully.

Obama's Truth Teams

1984 is coming. There's an anachronism if there ever was one. It was on a bumper sticker seen long ago warning of a coming to life of George Orwell's "1984," a futuristic story of repression and the propaganda used to manipulate people into submission.

All of this comes to mind as we learn from Bluegrasspundit.com of President Obama's campaign to use websites to manipulate the facts. News.yahoo Tells us all about it.

Let's take one of those website, KeepingHisWord.com. The goal is a laughable attempt to convince his followers that he kept his 2008 promises. Here's a sampling:

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil

“This time we cannot fail.”
—President-elect Barack Obama commits to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, December 16th, 2008.
New research published this week by Bloomberg reports that “the U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency.”.

That, we are to believe, is Mr. Obama keeping his word. The truth is that any progress toward energy self-sufficiency was made in spite of, not because of, Mr. Obama. Any increases in production came about because of the oil boom in North Dakota, something which Mr. Obama had nothing to do with.

In fact, most of his efforts have been directed at decreasing production. You'll recall that he halted drilling in the Gulf after the BP blowout. That certainly did not help achieve energy self-sufficiency. And closer to home, the Obama administration is trying to use a lizard to handicap oil and gas producers in Texas and New Mexico.

Let's not forget that he vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline which would have brought Canadian oil to Gulf Coast refineries. True, that oil would be imported, but Mr. Obama's veto does nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And surely all but the most loyal Obama supporter would agree that it would be better to import oil from Canada than from the Middle East.

Let's ignore the newspeak and get right to the point. They're "half-truth teams."

Garland Leon Martin

The other day the morning paper contained a short version of an article by AP writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins titled "New Science being used to fight arson conviction." It's not available at the MyWestTexas.com website, but the extended version is available at Guardian.co.uk.

The gist of it is that some arson convictions in the past were obtained with testimony of expert witnesses whose conclusions were based on theories have since been shown to be invalid. For example, a V shaped pattern on a burned wall was thought to be evidence of arson because it pinpointed the spot where the fire started. Newer theories suggest that the V might indeed point to the starting place, but they don't prove the fire was deliberately started. Additionally, the experts might have testified that certain patterns on the floor proved that an accelerant was used. Newer theories hold that such patterns can develop without the use of accelerants.

There's no reason why Mr. Welsh-Huggins should have mentioned any local cases, but there was such an arson/murder case in Midland, Texas, roughly 14 years ago involving a defendant named Garland Leon Martin.

According to a case summary at InnocenceProject.org, Mr. Martin was charged with murdering his common law wife Marcia Pool, her three year old son, and their 20 month old daughter who died in a fire in Midland County on 2/25/1998. At the trial, Fire Marshal Dale Little testified that he found a pattern on the floor which he said was evidence of the use of an accelerant. Samples were tested, and Armstrong Laboratories director John Corn testified that they tested positive for Norpar and deparaffinated kerosene. "Based on Armstrong’s results, Little testified that he believed the cause of the fire was arson and that the liquid poured in the house was lamp oil."

The defense countered that there were 268 patents for common household items containing Norpar other than lamp oil. Defense experts testified that Mr. Little was wrong about the pour patterns and the location of the starting point of the fire, and further, that Mr. Little neglected to investigate a possible accidental cause.

There was other circumstantial evidence, and the jury was ultimately convinced that Mr. Martin was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and he is currently serving a sentence of life times three.

Post script. Info about this case has been in my "pending" file for a few years. And one of the initial web searchs pulled up a page for Mr. Martin at Writeaprisoner.com where prison inmates advertise for pen pals. His listing is no longer there, but at the time it contained a photo of a rather handsome man. However, it was not a complete photo, someone had been cut out of it. Yet all we could see of that other person was part of an arm that appeared to belong to an adult female.  Draw your own conclusions.

It ain’t easy being a guy

What's a modern guy gonna do? It must be tough for young men these days trying to figure out where they fit in a feminist world.

Those of us who have had women's rights pounded into our thick skulls for years know better than to say women have a tendency to send send mixed signals on the subject. But this doesn't help.

Rick Santorum caught hell recently for an answer he gave to a question about easing rules against front line roles for women in combat. Here's part of his response:

... I do have concerns about women in front line combat. I think that can be a very compromising situation where, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.

What emotions could he mean? He's not talking about emotional women. He's talking about the tendency of men to want to protect women. Put a damsel in distress and a man's instinct takes over.

However, real women are independent, confident and self sufficient. They don't want that protection. Until they need it. Do we need a reminder of all the hand wringing about how some men on the Costa Concordia didn't observe that old fashioned women-and-children-first thing from the days before feminists rewrote the rules?

We won't call these mixed signals. Let's just say it's nuance.

Liquefaction

There was a documentary about dinosaur bones on the TeeVee the other day, and a new word popped up: Liquefaction. New to me anyway.

Seems that those dinosaurs got caught up in an earthquake that encased them in liquefaction which preserved their bones.

Liquefaction occurs when an earthquake shakes the soil, saturates it with groundwater, and turns it into mud. It acts like quicksand and swallows anything on the surface. Once the shaking ceases and the water subsides, the ground hardens. It's not instantaneous, but if anything got absorbed into the slush and wasn't removed rather quickly it was stuck.

You can see an example of that in this video. It has the appearance of an amateur news report after an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, roughly one year ago. At about the 16 second mark we see a car with its wheels stuck in the muck. After about another ten seconds in the video we see the hapless owner digging it out with a shovel, and the substance appears to have the consistency of not quite dry cement. Pretty amazing.

Speaking of earthquakes, hold onto something while you read The First 15 Minutes After the Big One, a hypothetical scenario of the minutes following a shift in the San Andreas fault producing a 7.8 earthquake epicentered 100 miles from Los Angeles. Via Newmarksdoor.com.

Court: Our animals can't sue us for freedom

Critics are quick to pounce on judges that try to take away our rights. So we should compliment the ones who rule to maintain our rights.

In this case it's the right of humans to not be sued by animals. The story is in USAToday.com which tells us that PETA attempted to use a technicality to get a ruling that the whales at Seaworld were being held in violation of the 13th Amendment which says:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The authors and everyone who voted for ratification of the amendment in 1865 thought it was supposed to apply to human slavery. That was so well understood at the time that they didn't think it necessary to spell it out in any more detail. Can you imagine the reaction back then if someone suggested it might someday be applied to animals?

That didn't stop PETA which went to court to try to squeeze whales through the loophole. Fortunately, the court ruled against them, and the unintended consequences of a bad ruling were avoided.

Otherwise, courthouses would be full of household pets suing their owners for freedom, or maybe just for better conditions. Dogs probably wouldn't sue. But cats? I'm not so sure.

Plaintiff, Fluffy, hereby sues Owner due to the fact that Owner, in a cruel and inhuman manner, forced Fluffy to choose between dried cat food and starvation when in fact Owner could very easily afford fresh salmon.

Humans are still top dog. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Peter Funt the 99 percenter

The market place functions when there's a meeting of the minds of the buyer and seller based on their perception of the supply and demand. When their minds meet the buyer and seller each walk away from the transaction with something they value more than what they gave up.

Today's Wall Street Journal contains a rant from Peter Funt about a proposal in California to allow drivers to pay a premium to use the car pool lanes while driving solo. His complaint is expressed in the title: "How Government Coddles the 1%, There's class warfare in America, all right." The filthy rich have it so much better, you know.

But he's right about one aspect if he could only acknowledge it. It's a monopoly situation with the government controlling the monopoly. They could privatize the roads and let the owner make them toll road where everyone pays, rich and poor alike. Instead, the proposal provides a fast lane option for paying customers. Seems like a way for the rich to pay their fair share -- if that's a phrase Mr. Funt would like -- and get something in return.

California's problem isn't that they are trying unorthodox ways to increase revenue, it's that they need so much revenue to begin with. There's where Mr. Funk's argument goes into the ditch. Californians have for far too long tolerated the government that led them to this situation. And now parts of the government are corrupted by the thirst for revenue. And, according to some reports, police in many California communities are not there to serve and protect but to ticket and collect.

Reminds me of the gasoline shortage and the long lines at the gas stations a few decades ago. I was living in Houston at the time, and one enterprising station owner there experimented with the concept of a higher price for those who were willing to pay more to avoid the lines. That was the market place at work. But no. The populists were up in arms at the very idea that some people could have an easier go of it simply because they were willing and able to pay for it. There was such a public outcry that the station owner canceled the program and shrunk back into obscurity. There's the 99% at work.

Here's the link to Peter Funt's article. Oh damn. It's behind the pay wall. Wouldn't you know? You have to pay to read it.

Short spree for this bank robber

This seems like a rather remarkable feat of law enforcement action. Yesterday (Thursday 2/9/12) just before 4pm a Bank of America branch bank was robbed in Midland, Texas. (Photo source.)

Then around 10 hours later a suspect was arrested about 20 miles away. See CBS7.com:

February 10, 2012
UPDATE 2:54 PM
In a joint investigation, the MPD and FBI have arrested Mark Willman (DOB 9/30/69) for the bank robbery at 4309 Garfield on February 9, 2012
Update 10:15AM
The FBI is confirming that the bank robbery suspect from the Bank of America Thursday afternoon has been arrested and is in federal custody.
He was arrested at 1:20AM at a hotel in Odessa.
He is expected to be federal court this afternoon.

MyWestTexas.com is very good about posting warrants, so if they do it this time hopefully we might get more details on how the FBI and MPD identified and captured him so quickly.

P.S. KWES.com says the hotel was the Royal Inn, a hotel that must be so exclusive it isn't even listed at Hotels.com.

A liberal, a moderate and a conservative walk into a bar

Santorum supporter tells a joke at CPAC :

A liberal, a moderate and a conservative walk into a bar.

Bartender looks up and says, "Hi Mitt."

As seen on TV, C-Span's CPAC coverage.

Ginsberg has a point

Conservative talk show hosts have been blasting Ruth Bader Ginsberg lately over her remark that the U.S. Constitution might not be the best model for a new country's constitution. She favored the Canadian and South African constitutions, and while constitutional scholars might be able to find weaknesses in those two, the U.S. Constitution isn't exactly perfect, either.

Take the Second Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It took over 200 years for that language to get some clarification in District of Columbia v. Heller. (Ginsberg was on the wrong side, by the way.)

The reason the U.S. Constitution works so well is because the people in the U.S. have so much faith in it as a founding document. Without that faith it would be a useless piece of old paper, and perhaps that causes a little bit of insecurity at the mere mention that it wouldn't serve as a good model for others.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize Justice Ginsberg, but her suggestion that there might be better constitutions shouldn't be one of them.

For more, see Ganging up on Ginsburg — way too quickly via Volokh.com.

IRS just trying to be helpful

Most people probably have a love/hate relationship with the IRS. The IRS folks are just doing their jobs. The politicians are the real enemies. They created an incomprehensible tax code monster and tasked the IRS with the responsibility for enforcing it. But it seems, at least to this lone observer, that the people at the IRS are fully aware of the monster and really do want to make it easier for us.

So from time to time they come up with little things that do seem helpful. For example, there's an IRS app for smart phones with which the user can check the status of a refund. Or he/she can use it to watch IRS videos, like this one telling about the App. Whether the IRS could use the App to track the taxpayer down isn't mentioned.

Then there's the exempt organization search engine which really does look useful. Not too long ago many small exempt organizations got caught off guard because they didn't know that all exempt organizations, not just the biggies, were required to file some variation of the form 990 each year. And those that had not filed one for three consecutive years lost their exemption status, at least until they could get it reinstated. Tax accountants probably made a killing that season.

Anyway, potential donors can use that search engine to find out whether those little groups soliciting money were savvy enough to have filled out a simple online form. Very handy info to know.

British TV show wants Midland family for twin city family swap

This really sounds intriguing, if it isn't a scam.

There's an outfit called Knickerbockerglory that is looking for a fun family in Midland, Texas, to swap places with a family in Wirral, North West, England, which they say is Midland's twin. The following is an email I received this afternoon.

Hi

I hope you are well,

I'm currently working on a brand new exciting primetime TV series called 'Twin Towns' where families from the US will swap lives with families from the town their home town is twinned with in the UK.

We are looking for families from Midland, Texas who will get the chance to have an all-expenses paid trip to the UK where they will spend a week living in Wirral, North West which is the town that is twinned with your own.

The family we choose will get to act as US ambassadors for Midland and will get to see how the other half live by living the life of the British family they swap with. A family from Wirral would also swap lives with them and would get to see what fabulous things Midland has to offer.

We are looking for fun families who would be available for a week between the dates of 16th April and 31st June and would be interested in being on television.

I've seen your blog online and wondered if this is something you might be interested in or I wondered if you could help us spread the word to other people who might be interested in this exciting opportunity by potentially putting the ad below on either your blog or any social media site you might have. Also if you do know of any families yourself who you think might be interested please can you pass on our details or alternatively recommend them to us?

Do let me know what you think and I would be highly grateful of any help you can give me on this.

Kind Regards

Sarah

Would you and your family like an all-expenses paid trip to the UK as part of a brand new primetime TV series?

Would you like to spend a week living in a UK town that is twinned with your own?

Could you and your family act as US ambassadors for the town you live in? If so we would love to hear from you - please email
[email protected]

Sarah Speirs
Casting Producer

Knickerbockerglory
The Ugli Campus at Centre House
56 Wood Lane
London W12 7SB

0208 740 6300
07912 732 479
[email protected]
www.knickerbockerglory.tv

I telephoned the Better Business Bureau to inquire if this is a known scam, but they had not heard of it. The fellow who took my call did note that foreign scammers will typically ask for money in the form of a deposit or fee. So if you respond, and they ask for money, drop it like a scalding hot crumpet. Otherwise, have fun and please drop us a line!

Update: I emailed the address at the Knickerbockerglory.tv contact page and received a reply from Jonathan Stadlen, the managing director. And he assures me that the show "Twin Towns" has indeed been commissioned as a 10-part series for broadcast on UK tv and is not a scam.

Fighting computer viruses

It seems that every few weeks we hear about some big database getting hacked by villainous characters and their malware viruses. Most individual computer users have some sort of anti-virus program running on their machines. So it's always interesting to see the unique approaches the big guys come up with for computer protection.

According to a January 2012 news report, the Japanese Defense Ministry awarded a three year contract to Fujitsu in 2008 to develop an anti-virus virus. That would be a virus assigned to hop from computer to computer in a search and destroy mission to locate and wipe out an enemy virus. They've tested it on a closed system and concluded that it works. But Sophos Naked Security says that it's a bad idea for a variety of reasons, not least of which might be unintended bugs developing from the fix in all those computers healed by the anti-virus virus.

Here's an approach that looks like more fun -- feed hackers fake info. This protection system sniffs out website users who are using automated tools that look for system weaknesses. Then the system plants a supercookie onto the offender's computer so that it can be identified when the offender returns. According to TechnologyReview.com, the goal is to play tricks on the offender. Excerpt:

Mykonos's software creates the illusion that the hacker is making progress. "We can intercept their scans and inundate them with fake values," says Koretz. "It takes much longer [for an attacker to scan a site], and the results are useless."

A scan that might usually take five hours could take 30, Koretz says. Other tactics include offering up dummy password files, which can help track an attacker when he or she tries to use them. "We'll let them break the encryption and present a false login page. We have the ability to hack the hacker," says Koretz.

As a promotional tool to impress potential clients, Mykonos engineers have built versions of the company's software that taunt attackers. One directs a hacker to a Google Maps search for nearby criminal attorneys. Another parodies Microsoft's now-defunct anthropomorphic paper clip, Clippy, with the message: "It looks like you're an unsophisticated script kiddie. Do you need help writing code?"

One of my childhood friends would like that. He had a clever/cruel trick he would play on passers by. He wrapped a brick in Christmas paper tied with a nice bow which he then placed in the street. We hid and watched as the glee of someone who thought they were getting something for nothing turned to the frustration of being had.

A good laugh for dog lovers

Anyone who either likes dogs, dislikes busybodies, or enjoys a good retort should appreciate this. It's a letter from novelist E.B. White dated 4/12/51 to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in response to an alleged complaint from the said ASPCA that Mr. White was harboring a dog without a proper license.

Mr. White's letter implies that Minnie is a very coddled canine. Here's an excerpt:

Dear Sirs:

I have your letter, undated, saying that I am harboring an unlicensed dog in violation of the law. If by "harboring" you mean getting up two or three times every night to pull Minnie's blanket up over her, I am harboring a dog all right. The blanket keeps slipping off. I suppose you are wondering by now why I don't get her a sweater instead. That's a joke on you. She has a knitted sweater, but she doesn't like to wear it ...

Read the whole thing at Lettersofnote.com. You'll be glad you did.

Photo source: Wikipedia.org.

It depends on your perspective

Sometimes a problem might appear insurmountable. But if you step back and look at it from a different angle you might get a completely different perspective. For example, well, see for yourself:

Freie arbeiten via Kaspar Allenbach.

Withdrawl

That word shows up at the Midland Independent School District website, and it's either a typo or a misspelling. They meant "withdrawal," but it sounds like something out of a Jeff Foxworthy redneck dictionary.

You might be a redneck if you talk withdrawl, especially with a Southern drawl.

To be fair, it was probably written by an administrator and not an actual classroom teacher.

Sorry to dwell on this, but I just can't get that word out of my head. Use it three times and it's yours forever -- Robo-ed.