Coyote Blog

The media has built an image through shows like Dynasty and Dallas of private companies being battlegrounds for petty feuds and revenge plots, all played out with little concern for the actual performance of the business.  While I suppose that such things do happen, I have worked in a lot of large companies and have seen a lot of stupid stuff, but I have never seen the pettiness you will find in the average government office:

In his first day as DA, Nifong had fired a longtime rival, Freda Black.
She quickly made clear her intent to run in 2006. Well-known from her
work in a high-profile murder trial, Black soon became the
front-runner. Nifong knew that Black would fire him, as he had fired
her, the first chance she got. His concern, he told his initial
campaign manager, Jackie Brown, was not that he cared about being DA;
he needed another three years in the Durham DA's office for his pension
to fully vest.

Ooh, I am in charge, now I can seek revenge on all the people I don't like.  How petty can you get?  Its absolutely assumed here that the first thing a newcomer will do is fire all the people who have rubbed them the wrong way over the years, without regard to performance or capability.  And we want to make these folks our masters?

From San Francisco, of course! via Market Power

Prop. G obligates the
Planning Commission to conduct a hearing for any chain store (also
known as "formula retail") proposed in neighborhood commercial
districts.

Formula retail is defined as any retail sales establishment with 11
or more stores in the United States that maintains two or more
standardized features, including decor, facade, color scheme, uniforms,
signage or a trademark.

Incredibly, freaking 58% of the voters passed this turkey.  It's hard to know where to start, but here are a few thoughts:

• Equal protection?  Anyone?  Buehler? 
• One of the most obvious punishments of success I have ever seen.  If you only have one store, you are fine.  But if you are succesful and your concept flourishes and you have many stores, then you are automatically penalized.
• One of the single most anti-consumer pieces of legislation I have ever seen.  Stores using a proven formula that has been succesful in other areas have a sort of consumer good housekeeping seal of approval.  They are by definition retail establishments where many consumers have already voted with their wallet "we like this."  So in effect, proven customer favorites are penalized vs. less proven concepts.  What an odd zoning concept when you put it that way -- we don't want anyone doing business here that has already proven themselves to be succesful with customers.  We only want you if you have no proof customers want what you are selling.

The other night I was staying in Arcadia, CA (a suburb of LA near Pasadena) on what I was told was the old Route 66.  There were a ton of restaurant choices, many of which I did not recognize, and there was a Chile's, which I grew up with in Texas.  I am positive some of those restaurants would have provided me a more satisfying meal than Chile's.  I am also sure some would have been worse.  Sometimes I am in the mood to find something new, but that night I just wanted a predictable experience.  All that stuff San Francisco is trying to penalize -- those standardized features -- bring real value to many consumers.

I almost never post about politics, because I don't really have a horse in the Democrat-Republican race.  However, this post from Kevin Drum quoting E.J. Dione kind of tickled me.  They claim Democrats are winning the suburbs from Republicans, which I have no particular reason to dispute.  But the whole concept of Democrats competing in the suburbs is kind of funny to me.  Almost at every turn, the Left tends to use the suburbs as its great cultural whipping boy.  We hate your SUV's and your lack of public transportation and your large houses and your Walmarts and your churches and your private schools and we take your money and send it to the city centers which culturally we have much more affinity for, but thanks for voting for us.

Over at Climate Skeptic, I discuss Anthony Watt's preliminary findings as to the quality of measurement in the surface temperature installations that are used to measure global warming.  If we call global warming "the signal", then the signal is currently thought to have been about 0.6C over the last century.  However, Watt has good reason to estimate that 85% of the US Historical Climate Network has installation biases that create errors from 1-5C,or about 2-8 times the signal.  And these are not random biases that cancel out, but tend to all bias the numbers higher, leading to systematic over-estimation of temperature increases.

Over at Climate Skeptic, I discuss Anthony Watt's preliminary findings as to the quality of measurement in the surface temperature installations that are used to measure global warming.  If we call global warming "the signal", then the signal is currently thought to have been about 0.6C over the last century.  However, Watt has good reason to estimate that 85% of the US Historical Climate Network has installation biases that create errors from 1-5C,or about 2-8 times the signal.  And these are not random biases that cancel out, but tend to all bias the numbers higher, leading to systematic over-estimation of temperature increases.

I am sure everyone has heard that Arctic sea ice is, as the National Geographic described it, at an "all-time low."  Of course those would expect the words "all-time" to mean just that will be disappointed to learn that they really mean "since 1979 when we started measuring it by satellite."

At Climate Skeptic, I write that it has come to my attention that the earth has two poles, and it's odd no one talks about the other one.  Maybe they forgot?  Well it turns out that Antarctic sea ice is at an all time high (using the term in the same way that National Geographic does). 

As an end note, I also discuss Glacier Bay, Alaska.  It turns out the glaciers there are retreating, but about 99% of the retreat occurred between 1793 and 1907. 

I hesitated to even post this link, because if you haven't been following the Rack & Roll / Manassas Park story for a while, it is so rich and convoluted that it's almost impossible to catch up.  Like starting to watch the Sopranos in the sixth season.  But Radley Balko has a long update.

Here is the short answer.  A group of folks in Manassas Park, VA, both in and out of the town government, want to take the land where the Rack & Roll pool club and bar sits for a lucrative off-track betting establishment.  As part of that effort, they have worked to deny the owner his liquor license and his business license.  The town has also harassed the club with numerous over-the-top raids, including a full-on 60-man SWAT raid.  The town has in the past tried to portray the club as a haven for drug dealing, in part by having police pay the club's bouncer to allow and/or encourage drug deals on the property and then tip police to them.

The owner has been standing up for himself, and has taken to video-taping the premises at all times and recording interviews with employees and customers.  A lot of the back story is here, start at the bottom.

In this most recent update, the owner addresses the other major charge being used to pull his licenses -- that he allowed lewd behavior on site, specifically girls flashing their boobs on the dance floor.  He has impressive evidence that he threw out anyone he caught doing so, and instructed his other employees to do the same.  In fact, the flashing seems to have occurred when the owner was not present, and was led and encouraged and photographed by the club's DJ.  Ironically, the DJ is the Manassas Park vice-mayor.  So the town is trying to shut the club down for activities opposed by the club's owner but encouraged by the town's own official.  Bizarre.  Now the town finds itself the proud owner of a file of soft-core child pornography, in the form of pictures from the club taken by their vice-Mayor of topless girls, several of whom may have been under-age  (apparently VA law allows under-age patrons as long as they are not served alcohol).

After NASA was forced to restate its US temperature data downward, James Hansen argued that the US doesn't matter.  After it was observed that long-term temperature measurement is flawed in South America and Africa, James Hansen agreed and argued that South America and Africa don't matter.  Since oceans cover 75% of the globe and we have no long-term temperature record for these oceans or for Antarctica, I ask the question at Climate Skeptic:  What does matter?

I am a big fan of Consumer Reports the magazine.  However, Alex Tobarrok identifies a priceless quote highlighting the befuddled technocrat:

Not so long ago you could count on most washers to get your clothes
very clean. Not anymore. Our latest tests found huge performance
differences among machines. Some left our stain-soaked swatches nearly
as dirty as they were before washing. For best results, you'll have to
spend $900 or more.

What
happened? As of January, the U.S. Department of Energy has required
washers to use 21 percent less energy, a goal we wholeheartedly
support. But our tests have found that traditional top-loaders, those
with the familiar center-post agitators, are having a tough time
wringing out those savings without sacrificing cleaning ability, the
main reason you buy a washer.

How can they "wholeheartedly support" such a goal when they themselves have demonstrated it effectively castrates an important consumer appliance?  How can they support a goal that effectively raises the price of a washing machine that actually cleans clothes to $900 or more?

It is often said that capitalism won over socialism in the late 20th century, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of powerful Asia market economies.  Be that as it may, this statement certainly does not apply to American university campuses.  In the ivory tower, capitalism is still the number one whipping boy. 

An interesting illustration of this is Jacob Sullum's review of a pair of books that attempt to debunk the myth that being mildly overweight is deadly.  This is a rich topic, given some of the really bad science that has gone into trying to make being overweight the next smoking, and the review is worth a read.  However, this part caught my eye:

Both he and Campos blame the unjustified obsession with weight and the
cruel vilification of fat people on capitalism, which, they say, prizes
self-discipline and stigmatizes those seen as lacking it. To be fair,
Campos more specifically blames a pro-capitalist Protestant asceticism
that encourages the pursuit of wealth but frowns on those who enjoy it
too much. There's an element of truth to this analysis; a similar
ambivalence regarding pleasure helps explain American attitudes toward
sex, drugs, and gambling.

But wait!  Aren't most of the folks like the food nazis who are launching government obesity campaigns leftists?  They are, and Sullum makes this point:

But it does give you pause when you consider that the obesity
obsessives also blame capitalism, for precipitating the current crisis
by making food plentiful, inexpensive, appealing, and convenient. New
York University nutritionist Marion Nestle, for example, blames
America's adiposity on "an overly abundant food supply," "low food
prices," "a highly competitive market," and "abundant food choices,"
while Kelly Brownell claims restaurants exploit consumers when they
give them more for less, since "people have biological vulnerabilities
that promote overeating when large portions are available, a strong
desire for value, and the capacity to be persuaded by advertising."

Great.  So capitalism causes obesity as well as anti-obesity.  You can't win.

Henry Payne has an interesting tidbit:  The government is now concerning itself with what cars its employees purchase.

Your tax dollars at work. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last week sent an email urging its 67,000 employees not to buy SUVs, lecturing that fuel efficiency should be their "top priority" when buying a car.

 

"Every
new sport utility vehicle on the road produces 60 percent more climate
threatening CO2 emissions than a smaller vehicle," said Energy News,
a quarterly newsletter from a department that has nothing to do with
energy, but everything to do with energy morality apparently.

 

"The
toll that vehicles take on the environment includes air pollution, oil
spills, pollution of our water supplies, and damage to natural
habitats," continues the HHS sermon. "In order to really cut CO2
emissions, higher fuel efficiency in all vehicles will be essential."

American auto makers were not amused by the recommendation to buy Toyotas or Hondas. 

This surprises me not at all.  A few weeks ago, I had an EPA audit of a marina and store I operate in Colorado (the report in all its glory is here).  In that audit, the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that we begin selling fair trade coffee in our store.  What that has to do with emissions into the lake, I have no idea.  They also recommended that I put an environmental message on our shopping bags, replacing the current boating safety message.  The audit did say that they could not require these two things.  Well, give them some time, they will probably make it a requirement soon.

Increasingly MADD and the tea-totaling Nazis are after parents who allow kids to drink alcohol at home.

Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2004 found
that adolescents whose parents permitted them to attend unchaperoned
parties where drinking occurred had twice the average binge-drinking
rate. But the study also had another, more arresting conclusion:
Children whose parents introduced drinking to the children at home were
one-third as likely to binge....

In fact, the American Medical Association has actually put out press releases
lamenting the fact that most teens get their first sip of alcohol from
their parents. I'd say that's exactly who ought to be giving it to them.

While I have no intention of throwing wild parties and getting my kids' friends drunk, I do intend to introduce alcohol as well as a respect for it at the dinner table, just as my parents did.  I am a firm believer that letting you kids drink a bit in the very controlled home environment is the best possible way to take the edginess and mystery out of drinking -- after all, how cool can it be if you do it with your parents.

While we can argue about the projected impacts of man-made global warming (my skeptics site here), it is almost certain than any solution that puts a real dent in CO2 production will bar from the middle class about a billion people who are just climbing out of subsistence poverty.  TJIC notes a particularly odious proposal by environmental groups to encourage human power over industrialization in the third world:

See, first world Volvo-driving environmentalists!  We can help
the Third World! All we need to do is build them human hamster wheels,
so that they can set their children to work pumping water, instead of
using nasty diesel pumps (like we do here in the First World, while our
children attend soccer practice or piano lessons).

Don't miss the really awful animation from the environmentalist's site.

The government is worried that you will do harm to yourself if you self-medicate pain pills.  So what is their response?  They will throw you in jail for 25 years.  Yeah, much better to have someone rot in jail for a quarter of a century than make a bad decision that only affects himself.

For years, banks have been sued for "red-lining" poor neighborhoods, meaning they were accused of purposefully avoiding doing business in these poor areas.  National retail chains have been accused of something similar, causing poorer the oft-commented-on irony that poorer neighborhoods often have the highest retail prices.

The City of Los Angeles seems to like this practice and wants to pass new legislation aimed at further limiting retail choices in poorer neighborhoods:

"Amid worries of an obesity epidemic and its related illnesses,
including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, Los Angeles
officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new
fast-food restaurants -- a tactic that could be called health zoning."
Zoning restrictions on fast-food outlets in towns such as Concord,
Mass. and Calistoga, Calif. are typically based on traffic or aesthetic
concerns, rather than a determination to second-guess what residents
choose to eat. The proposed L.A. restrictions would not be city-wide
but would instead be specifically targeted to the city's poorest
sections in and around South Central. Mark Vallianatos, director of
something called the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College (more about it), says "bringing health policy and environmental policy together with land-use planning" is "the wave of the future."

Jesus, the Center for Food and Justice?  Another clear leading edge of health care as the Trojan Horse for fascism, which I have been warning against for years.

One of the arguments for banning adult legal access to drugs like marijuana (and even allergy medications) is that it helps to prevent abuse of these drugs by underage kids.  This would be nice to test in a true control group setting, but we really don't have the opportunity under current laws to do so.  But we can work by proxy.  We can compare drugs that are illicit for everyone, like marijuana, to drugs that are legal for adults but not for minors, like tobacco. 

If drug warriors are correct, teenage tobacco use should be much higher than use of other illicit drugs.  This is particularly true because the proxy is an imperfect one, since the tobacco is a far less intimidating drug to try than, say, heroin.  However, it turns out not to be the case.  The new figures our out from our friendly US Government drug warriors, and it turns out that tobacco use is barely higher among teens than illicit drug use.

For example, the study shows that past month tobacco use among kids 12-17 was 12.9% in 2006, while past month illicit drug use in the same group was 9.8% (tables G.16 and G.7).  That's lower, but certainly not decisively so.  Both of these use numbers have fallen since 2002 at about the same rate.

Even more interesting are the figures for the number of kids 12-17 who had initiated use of certain substances in the past year (table G.26).  In that year, 2.45 million had initiated cigarette use, but 2.79 million had initiated illicit drug use.  Further, when asked if certain substances carried "great risk" in trying to purchase them, 68.7% of underage cigarette smokers said yes (table G.25).   This response was 10 or more points higher than that of teenage occasional users marijuana, cocaine, or even heroin.  In short, teenagers are saying it is more difficult and/or riskier to support cigarette use than it is to support a weekly marijuana, cocaine, or heroin habit -- exactly the opposite of the drug warriors' argument for prohibition  (but consistent with the libertarian argument that bringing these drug sales above ground will make underage purchase more visible and easier to combat).

HT: Hit and Run for the link

The laptop I bought my kids 6 months ago is rapidly becoming the worst purchase I have ever made.  Not because the laptop is bad, but because of a momentary lack of diligence I bought one with Vista installed.  It has been a never-ending disaster trying to get this computer to work.  A while back, I put XP on a partition and my kids spend most of their time on XP since, well, it works.  Vista does not.  It is the Paris Hilton of OS's -- looks pretty but does not work.

In particular, the networking is an enormous step backwards from XP.  The wireless networking was a real pain to get set up in the first place, in contrast to XP and my wife's Mac which both worked and connected from the moment the power switch turned on. 

Now, we are getting two new errors.  First, at random times, the computer will stop being able to connect to the internet.  It will have a good wireless signal, and see other computers on the network fine, and the other computers on the network will see the internet, but Vista does not.  Just rebooted the computer into the XP partition, and XP sees the Internet fine -- its just Vista that is broken.

Second, and perhaps even more inexcusable, I have to reinstall the printer driver in Vista at nearly every log on.  There is a bug in Vista such that laptops that move off the network and come back will find that the network printers are now marked "offline" and there is nothing one can do to bring them online short of reinstalling the drivers.  Really.  I thought I was doing something wrong, but searching the web this is a known problem.  None of the suggested workarounds are working for me.

Vista is rapidly becoming the New Coke of operating systems.  I have had every version of windows on my computer at one time or another, including Windows 1.0 and the egregious Windows ME, and I can say with confidence Vista is the worst of them all by far.  More: corporate demand for upgrading to XP from Vista;  DRM hell in Vista;  how I set up dual-booting on a Vista machine; and what happened to the File menu?

Looks like the XP partition is soon going to be the only partition.  But recognize how serious this step is:  Laptops, unlike desktops, have more model-specific device drivers.  For example, instead of one Nvidia graphics driver for all cards, you tend to need the driver for your specific card in your specific computer model.   The computer I have has never and will never publish XP drivers.  I have found drivers that work for XP for most things, but not for sound.  So I will be giving up a substantial piece of functionality -- sound-- in exchange for never having to swear at Vista again.

Good news this week:  James Hansen and NASA have now deigned to release for scrutiny their taxpayer-funded temperature aggregation and adjustment code.  I go in more detail and explain why this matters over at Climate Skeptic.

By the way, if you are wondering why I have calmed down a bit on climate of late here at Coyote Blog, it is because I have decided that my climate work really was diluting what I want to do here at Coyote Blog, and it really deserved its own home and audience.  I have begun archiving old posts over at Climate Skeptic, and I will do most of my new posting on climate there.  Those interested in the climate issues are encouraged to bookmark the new site and/or subscribe to its feed.

For a little while, I will still mirror the headlines over here at Coyote Blog (after all, the paint is still so wet over at Climate Skeptic that I don't think Google has found me yet -- a few blogrolls wouldn't hurt, hint, hint.)

Also, in the next few weeks I plan release my own video on issues with catastrophic anthropogenic (man-made) global warming theory.  The core of this video will be based on this skeptics summary post and my 60-second climate overview as well as my free 80-page skeptics primer, of course.

Robert Samuelson makes the point I made here:

The standard story is that poverty is stuck; superficially, the

statistics support that. The poverty rate measures the share of

Americans below the official poverty line, which in 2006 was $20,614

for a four-person household. Last year, the poverty rate was 12.3

percent, down slightly from 12.6 percent in 2005 but higher than the

recent low, 11.3 percent in 2000. It was also higher than the 11.8

percent average for the 1970s. So the conventional wisdom seems amply

corroborated.

It isn't. Look again at the numbers. In 2006, there were 36.5

million people in poverty. That's the figure that translates into the

12.3 percent poverty rate. In 1990, the population was smaller, and

there were 33.6 million people in poverty, a rate of 13.5 percent. The

increase from 1990 to 2006 was 2.9 million people (36.5 million minus

33.6 million). Hispanics accounted for all of the gain.

Consider:

From 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased 3.2 million,

from 6 million to 9.2 million. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic

whites in poverty fell from 16.6 million (poverty rate: 8.8 percent) in

1990 to 16 million (8.2 percent) in 2006. Among blacks, there was a

decline from 9.8 million in 1990 (poverty rate: 31.9 percent) to 9

million (24.3 percent) in 2006. White and black poverty has risen

somewhat since 2000 but is down over longer periods

This is not a ding on immigration, as readers will know I am a supporter of open immigration.  But it is an important context to have when evaluating poverty numbers.  The drop in black poverty in these numbers is an ENORMOUS piece of good news that I bet you have not read anywhere.

Robert Samuelson makes the point I made here:

The standard story is that poverty is stuck; superficially, the

statistics support that. The poverty rate measures the share of

Americans below the official poverty line, which in 2006 was $20,614

for a four-person household. Last year, the poverty rate was 12.3

percent, down slightly from 12.6 percent in 2005 but higher than the

recent low, 11.3 percent in 2000. It was also higher than the 11.8

percent average for the 1970s. So the conventional wisdom seems amply

corroborated.

It isn't. Look again at the numbers. In 2006, there were 36.5

million people in poverty. That's the figure that translates into the

12.3 percent poverty rate. In 1990, the population was smaller, and

there were 33.6 million people in poverty, a rate of 13.5 percent. The

increase from 1990 to 2006 was 2.9 million people (36.5 million minus

33.6 million). Hispanics accounted for all of the gain.

Consider:

From 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased 3.2 million,

from 6 million to 9.2 million. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic

whites in poverty fell from 16.6 million (poverty rate: 8.8 percent) in

1990 to 16 million (8.2 percent) in 2006. Among blacks, there was a

decline from 9.8 million in 1990 (poverty rate: 31.9 percent) to 9

million (24.3 percent) in 2006. White and black poverty has risen

somewhat since 2000 but is down over longer periods

This is not a ding on immigration, as readers will know I am a supporter of open immigration.  But it is an important context to have when evaluating poverty numbers.  The drop in black poverty in these numbers is an ENORMOUS piece of good news that I bet you have not read anywhere.

Today, I made a pretty rookie mistake in seat selection on Southwest.

I was in the "A" group so was almost certain to be able to get an aisle seat.   From the look of the crowd behind me, it was clear that some, but not all the middle seats would eventually be taken.

I am pretty good at taking up a lot of space even without trying (I am 6-4) but when inspired I can really spread out in my aisle seat to make the middle seat uninviting to the average middle seat shopper.  And an empty middle seat looked like a layup on this flight, since only about 7 or 8 would be filled, and several of the rows around me had really tiny people on the aisle.

But then I glanced at the occupant of the window seat.  AARRGGGHHH!  Sitting there was an extraordinarily attractive young female, dressed quite fetchingly with a bare midriff and a short skirt.  At that moment, I knew I was doomed.  No matter how small I made the middle seat look, some twenty-something guy with minimal self-awareness was going to take that seat to try to hit on the girl at the window.  And sure enough, despite the fact he was as big as me and our shoulders were ordained to fight for space for the two-hour flight, he homed in on the middle seat next to me like a cruise missile.  Worse, I had to listen to him trying to pick the girl up for 2 hours.  I will say it was hilarious for about a third of that time as he tried valiantly to feign interest in the hard-core collectivist-socialist drivel she was selling.  I worried towards the end that he might actually be bonding with her as they both came to quick agreement that all their job prospects seemed to much like "work," but fortunately for my piece of mind she shot him down in flames as we were exiting.

From Kevin Drum:

Marc Cooper spends 20 hours in the hospital and tells his story here.  Price of stay without insurance: $116, 749.  Price with insurance: $4,730.  Only in America, folks.

He's not very clear if this was an emergency situation -- like, did he have a heart attack and get rushed to the hospital in an ambulance -- or an important but non-emergency situation.  I will assume the latter by the tone of Marc Cooper's detailed post.

If so, then my first comment is, indeed only in America would he have gotten this procedure without waiting twelve weeks or without traveling to, say, America to get it done more expeditiously,

Second, I wonder:  Did he ask for a price estimate in advance? Did he ask, as most of
us do with all of our large purchases, for a written estimate or
quotation? Did he get such estimates from two or three competitors? Did
he shop around?

Of course not! Because in a system where someone else is paying the
bills, we have no incentive to shop around. So providers have no
incentive to compete on price or to worry about productivity and cost
control.

Sure, this looks like a rip-off.  But if you went in to buy a car, concerned only with the quality of the
car, and never asked the price and then got a bill for $100,000 a few
weeks later, would you be surprised?  Would anyone give you sympathy if you complained you paid $100,000 for the car but admitted you never asked what the price was?

So this is a dead-obvious outcome from the health care system we
have, where no one has the incentive to shop. By the way, I have a high-deductible policy which causes me to
shop around, because costs come out of my own pocket. I ask questions
like, is that extra CT scan really necessary?

It's incredible to me that given this situation, the solution for
this blog's author and most of his readers is not "we should find a way
to have individuals experience both the cost and benefits of care,
because only they can make these tradeoffs for themselves and shop
around for better options" but is instead "lets just turn it over to
the government, since they do such a good job with Iraq and the mail
and our schools."

Finally, I would point out that the author is making some wild assumptions about an insurance statement he probably does not understand (I say that with confidence since no one understands health insurance statements).  His assumption that the walk-in poor would have had to pay $100,000 for the procedure or would have been left to die are demonstrably untrue, since there is just not that much evidence that either outcome is occuring with any regularity.  That is why health care socialization supporters always talk about the number of people uninsured, which is almost irrelevant, instead of the number of people who don't get care, which is a much much smaller, almost vanishingly small number.

The newly announced iPod, which is basically an iPhone without the phone but with all the same screen, interface, wi-fi, etc. looks pretty good.  The only problem I have with it (without having actually held one) is that the storage is pretty thin* at 16GB given that it is such a natural for movies.  Still, I can see having one of these for travel while keeping my current 60GB iPod for my music collection  (and by the way, new, thinner traditional iPods with more memory are also on the way.  160GB, woot!).  This is getting close to what I had hoped the Nokia 770 was going to be, but was crippled by lack of memory.  If they would make a folding wireless bluetooth keyboard work with this, it will be great.

* Spoken by the person who thought he would never fill his first 10BM hard drive add-in card on his first PC

OK, I have resisted commenting on Larry Craig.  My reactions are:

1. We are so off topic here it is unbelievable.  For Congress, exercising arbitrary powers over individuals in violation of the intent, if not the letter, of the Constitution:  OK.  Playing footsie in the bathroom: Not OK
2. Are we really going to have a Congressman resign for tapping his foot in a public bathroom while a man who had $100,000 in cash bribe money found in his freezer still sits in office?
3. Why is it that Democrats, against their political beliefs, feel the need to criticize Republicans for being gay while Republicans feel the need to criticize Democrats for having large homes and SUVs?
4. Do we really pay police officers to sit on the toilet for hours and try to catch men who are soliciting consensual sex?  And if so, do they also pay female officers to patrol for the same thing among women?  This is a real threat to us?

David Bernstein has more.  Via TJIC.

Update:  A reader pointed out to me I had a fairly relevant passage in my novel BMOC, when the Senator is confronted with his $50,000 earmark nominally for a "women's consulting company" turned out to be directed at a house of prostitution [edited to remove the more raunchy terminology]:

Taking a deep
breath, [the Senator's aid] said, "Senator, there is a reason that this one is not going
away. I will spell it out: S-E-X. The press doesn't give a shit about a few billion dollars of waste. No one tunes in to the evening news if the
teaser is "˜Government pays too much for a bridge, news at eleven.' The Today Show doesn't interview the
contractors benefiting from a useless bridge."

"However, everybody and his dog will tune in if
the teaser is "˜Your tax dollars are funding call girls, film at eleven'. Jesus, do you really think the CBS Evening
News is going to turn down a chance to put hookers on the evening news? Not just tonight but day after day? Just watch "“ Dan Rather will be interviewing
hookers and Chris Mathews will be interviewing hookers and for God's sakes
Barbara Walters will probably have a weepy interview with a hooker."

"And you know
what?" Givens continued, his voice rising. "The whole act makes me sick. All
these media types are going to be piously turning up their nose at you and
those women, while at the same time making more money for themselves off those
prostitutes than those women ever made for themselves on their back. It's rank
hypocrisy but it's the facts of life in Washington,
and I shouldn't have to be explaining this to you."

"You guys in the
Senate can get away with a lot, as long as long as a) you don't get caught or
b) the scandal is so boring or complex that it won't sell newspapers. Hell, I saw a poll the other day that a
substantial percentage of Americans to this day don't understand or even
believe what Richard Nixon did wrong. But if you polled those same people, every freaking one of them would
say that they knew and believed that Bill Clinton [fooled around with] an intern. What's the difference? Sex. Bill Clinton was impeached and lost his law license, not because he did
or did not commit fraud with Whitewater Development Corp., but because he lied
about [sex with] a young girl."

Many of the very same folks who are vocal critics of the war in Iraq have "Save Darfur" banners on their web site.  I followed one, and clicked around a lot to find out what the hell they thought should be done.  They have some woman on the home page "running for Darfur" but I am not sure that is much of a practical solution.  I see they also want to send in the UN peacekeepers, but they seem to imply the problem is that the government needs to go, and I have never known UN peacekeepers to overthrow any governments (or to do anything really, other than maybe participate in some of the looting themselves).  And I can't believe that any adult really thinks sending aid money to this area with a rapacious government is going to help one bit.

Isn't the only real solution to send in troops, overthrow the old boss, and hang around for a decade or so until the new boss is stable?  And how is that any different than Iraq.

Seriously, I thought opposition to Iraq was about not engaging in wars we don't have to for mainly humanitarian reasons.  I am very sympathetic to this position, but it means that you are just going to have to watch and weep when the inevitable Darfurs come along.  But all this Darfur stuff is making me think that the opposition to Iraq is more about wars started by our guy vs. wars started by your guy.  I think it is perfectly valid to have a discussion about whether we want to try to take on by military force every bad government in the world (see: Cleaning the Augean Stables).  Unfortunately, I think the discussion is instead devolving into whether we should use our army to attack governments George Bush doesn't like vs. those Bono doesn't like.