Last Minute Costume Idea

Jonah Goldberg suggests Looting New Orleans Cop: Uniform plus DVD player or other pricey electronic equipment.

Update: I heard a story on the radio this morning about Halloween in New Orleans. They interviewed a man who went as a flooded house, complete with high-water mark and the symbol that indicates a house has been searched. People went as FEMA employees, relief workers and even as mold.

Happy Halloween

What Was I Thinking?

I decided to make a Halloween costume for Mia this year. It was going to be so easy. Needless to say, I spent the afternoon at my mother-in-law's watching her sew it. I did work the hot glue gun to make the tail (She's going as a dog). But it's cute and Mia is very excited about it.

My Kind of Zombie Movie

I saw a great Halloween movie last night. Billed as "a romantic comedy -- with zombies", Shaun of the Dead is very funny and not at all scary. Shaun is sleepwalking through his life. Same dull job every day, same dull pub every night. Combine that with a night of heavy drinking after his girlfriend dumps him, and it takes Shaun 24 hours to even notice there's a zombie invasion. Conservative angle: No guns in London, so they have to improvise with shovels, golfclubs and, of course, cricket bats. See the trailer here.

For another funny Halloween movie see The Nightmare before Christmas.

Can't Please the Pundits

...if you're a Republican, that is.

Tonight, discussion on the local pundit show turned to our Senator, Jim Talent. One of the pundits mentions that a bill he co-sponsored increasing funding for Sickle Cell anemia treatment passed. Then another pundit giggles"Wasn't he out front with a resolution to honor Rosa Parks?" The first pundit smirks "Transparent. Trying for the black vote." Then they all laugh at him. Ha. Silly Republican. Thinking black people would vote for him.

But, of course, back in June these same pundits were horrified by Gov. Matt Blunt's decision to allow the Confederate flag to fly over the cemetery at the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville for one day (Confederate Memorial Day). The flag had been flown there until Gov. Bob Holden banned it in 2003. Arghhh! Think of the black people, said the pundits. I doubt many black families celebrate Confederate Memorial Day with a trip to the Confederate cemetery, but OK...let's think about them.

Are the pundits are suggesting we should take down the flag (on the one day that it's not already down) because that would be an act of authentic caring about black people, but let them die of Sickle Cell anemia, because, hey, that's just silly Republican pandering?

I'm no fan of the Confederate flag. It's just annoying that Talent gets knocked for pandering while Blunt (who probably can count the blacks who voted for him on his fingers and toes) gets knocked for not pandering.

Just in time for Halloween-

Frank Martin gets scary:

For those of you not familiar with the Mount Blanc, it was a cargo ship that was filled with ammunition and explosives that violently exploded after a collision with another ship in Halifax harbor. The effect of the explosion was staggering. Manhattan project scientists, to estimate the possible effects of the Atomic bomb used the explosion of the Mount Blanc as a model for the damage that might be caused by an atomic bomb. This explosion devastated the towns of Halifax and Dartmouth and was so strong that it generated a Tsunami wave that engulfed areas of the town that had just been leveled by the explosion.

And it was all accomplished with nothing more sophisticated than common turn of the century explosives and a simple maritime accident.

Underlining, once again, the fact that weapons of mass destruction don't have to be high-tech to be devestating.

The baseball equivalent of Nascar

That's how Cubs fans view the White Sox, according to Aaron Freeman. He says it's a class thing. I guess we North-siders are a bit snobish. If you're from Chicago, don't miss this commentary on his game attempt to root for the Wh- wh-white Sox.

Cool Geography Site

This site has map games from easy to advanced for every region of the world. It calls out a name and you click on the correct state or country. Or you can drag and drop states or countries into their correct location on a blank map. Or if you're really a glutton for punishment, you can try bodies of water or geographical regions. Hubby and I stayed up past our bedtime naming all the European capitals. Yes, we're nerds.

Quote of the Day

Regarding U.S. opposition to the UNESO treaty that allows nations "to control the import of entertainment from other countries," Lileks says:

Imagine that! The killjoy nation. Monarchy, Communism, Fascism, Socialism, now Tribalism – the US never quite joins in the fun. Everyone else jumps off the bridge, and we hang back, taking notes. Like we’re special or something.

You know you're bureaucratic regulations have gone too far...

when NPR starts mocking you. How Many Euros Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb? That's the title of Scott Simon's interview with a priest from Suffolk, England who had to pay £1300 instead of the former £150 to have 6 lightbulbs changed that hang about 40 feet up in this church. He used to hire a guy with a ladder to do it, but since the EU's "Working at Heights Directive" came out, they have to build scaffolding under each lightbulb. When Simon jokingly suggests the parish use candles, the priest replies that he'd than have to comply with the EU directives on heat and fire.

South Park takes on Katrina Coverage

Newsbusters has a film clip of South Park lampooning media coverage of hurrican Katrina. Here's a bit:

Mitch: “We’re not sure what’s exactly is going on inside the town of Beaverton, Tom, but we’re reporting that there’s looting, raping and, yes, even acts of cannibalism.”

Tom: “My God, you’ve actually seen people looting, raping and eating each other?!”

Mitch: “No, no we’ve haven’t actually seen it, Tom. We’re just reporting it.”

(via Ace)

Ashamed of my Senator

I'm watching Kit Bond (R-MO) trash Coburn: "These amendments won't save money." Really? Bond mentions that Coburn would be more credible if he had some amendments targeting Oklahoma spending. He's right, and Coburn has offered up some museum Bond mentioned.

Club For Growth has comments on C-Span's coverage here.

Update: Patty Murray (D-WA) just threatened every other senator that if they vote for Coburn's bill their own projects will be attacked, regardless of merit. Paraphrase: If you vote for this, you're project might be next. Nice.
Update: John Hinderaker noticed, too: "Nice state you got here, too bad if anything should happen to it"

Update: My other Senator, Jim Talent, voted NO on the motion to kill the smaller Coburn amendment. Yeah, Jim.

Visiting Dachau

PunditGuy visited Dachau concentration camp yesterday. He has pictures and thoughts here. (via The Anchoress)

I will only add this to his observations. One thing really shocked me when I visited five or six years ago. Just as you are entering the camp, there is a huge map on the outside wall of one of the buildings. It's a map of all the concentration and labor camps in greater Germany, circa 1944. I couldn't find that exact image, but it looked a lot like this (follow link or click picture to enlarge):

Note the box that says "Solid squares represent select camps. Because of the map scale, not all camps can be shown or labeled." The map at Dachau is about 10 x 15 feet, so all the sub-camps are shown. It's an amazing site. I had been under the impression that most camps were outside of Germany proper. But it was mainly the death camps that were outside the Reich. Germany was, in fact, covered with camps. A chilling reminder of what a real police state looks like.

It's Not Easy To Make Tom Delay a Sympathetic Character,

but Ronnie Earle is giving it his best shot. From the Media Blog:

"Astonishing, Astonishing" That's Tom DeLay's attorney Dick DeGuerin on the revelation that Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle, pressed finally to show his evidence now that he has his indictments, does not have the document on which he rested his entire case against DeLay: a list of seven Texas House candidates, which DeLay's Texas PAC allegedly sent to the RNC with a check and instructions to divide it among the candidates' 2002 election campaigns.

I can't wait to hear the explanation for this.

If It Ain't Broke...

According to this IHT article, Iran is the standard-bearer of the movement to wrest supervision of internet from the United States. If that doesn't tell you it's a bad idea, know that Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba and Venezuela are also on board. I'm sure the dictators of those lovely countries have nothing but the best of intentions towards the information superhighway. And yet, the EU wonders, if it should side with that evil cowboy or those loveable mullahs? Guess which way it's leaning?

(via Cuanas)

Nutty Professors

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran an article (subscription only, reprinted in full here) on professors with Aspergers deciding whether or not to disclose their diagnosis. I like this part:

...academe is generally considered a more welcoming environment than most for people with autism. They get paid to talk at length about their area of interest in a realm where eccentricity and limited social skills are often seen as signs of genius rather than cause for scorn.

"Universities are probably the place where we get the kindest treatment, where we are respected and valued the most," says Mr. Perner.But, as quickly as the words come out of his mouth, he stops himself. "I tend to romanticize the university. There are definite challenges."

Since Mia started talking, she's been displaying an impressive vocabulary, even though mommy is the only one who understands most of it. As for her future prospects, lately I've been thinking less about WalMart greeter and more about quirky MIT student. Maybe she'll have a knack for the hard sciences (like her daddy). Afterall, as someone (can't recall who) once said "NASA is the world's largest sheltered workshop."

On the other hand, this professor from the Maryland Institute College of Art seems to think Autism is a catch-all term for every annoying personality trait and character flaw. She conflates autism with untreated mental illness and then suggest universities not give tenure to autistics (instead of not giving tenure to the untreated mentally ill):

Candidates' disabilities should not prevent them from getting hired. But, at the same time, we are all affected by our experiences. And if I am ever put in the position of casting my vote in the hiring of a midcareer candidate with no previous record of tenure -- especially if he or she seems ... well ... just a little bit odd -- I might, like Bartleby, prefer not to.

Perhaps she was one of the challenges to which the above referenced Mr. Perner was refering.

Mystery Illness #3342

Mia started running a high fever last Thursday. Knowing her class is taking a field trip to the pumpkin farm Monday, I rushed her to the doctor on Friday to get the antibiotics for the presumed ear infection so she would be well in time. Well, her ears were fine. After being scolded many times for waiting 5 days or more to bring her in (she never complained of ear pain), I have apparently become one of those mother's who rushes her child to the doctor for a cold. Sigh. Sure enough she was fine by Saturday afternoon. Of course, 30 minutes ago, in the car on the way to the store, she barfs. What the....?

So I wonder aloud if I should let her go to the pumpkin farm. She says "No Pumpkin Farm." What, don't you want to go to the pumpkin farm? "No!" It appears I am the only consumed by whether or not she will be on the field trip. She couldn't care less. So she stays home.

What You Really Learn If You Study Engineering in College

Kenneth DeRosa, at Kitchen Table Math, goes off on K-12 math education. Regarding the 2/3 of students who start, but don't finish, engineering programs, he says:

Eventually, it all ends in tears (or an extra year of college after you’ve transferred to a nice soft major like human resources, communications, women studies, etc). So you lash out and look for someone to blame...

7. Like your college engineering department. Wrong. The train was slipping off the tracks well before they came into the picture, most likely sometime in elementary school. Don’t blame them because the train finally derailed at their station. Don’t be like the drunk who’s looking for his lost keys under the streetlights because that’s where the most light is. A career in engineering or in one of the hard sciences was effectively foreclosed to you by the 8th grade,. Most likely, you would have been none the wiser had you stayed in the soft fuzzy land of almost every other undergraduate field of study. Everyone would have been happier too because, well, you don’t know what you don’t know. Anyway, you can at least find solace in the words of Homer Simpson when he said to Lisa and Bart after they failed: “Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.” But why blame yourself when you can blame the real culprit...

8. Your rotten K-12 education.

Harsh, but it definately echoes my experience with math.

More Dumb Criminals

Here's a story to give you a warm fuzzy feeling. Seems some kid thought he'd knock over a cigarette store. I guess he didn't count on that reserve police officer being in there. See the amusing take-down here.

Saints and Soldiers

We saw a good war movie last night. Saints and Soldiers is about four American soldiers who escape the Malmedy Massacre during the Battle of the Bulge and are trapped behind enemy lines.

I was amazed to find out afterwards that it was shot for under a million dollars in less than a month. They used WWII re-enactors (who knew?) who came from all over the country at their own expense for the chance to run around in their uniforms and shoot at things. Lucky for film makers that people have such odd hobbies.

The main character is (presumably) a Mormon. Some Amazon commenters found this horrifying, as if a religious character means a "Bible Movie". But the character never really preaches to his commrades, except to insist that most Germans were just like them only in different uniforms. He keeps two of his buddies from executing a German soldier they capture, but shoots plenty of other Germans when he has to. I thought it added a bit of moral complexity to the movie.

Campus Bombers I Have Know

All the recent campus bombings reminded me of my own brush with the criminal element in college. Way back in '91, two guys I knew casually (friends of friends, we attended the same parties) figured they'd try their hand at building a pipe bomb. Having constructed one, they went out looking for a good spot to try it out. They decided on a campus police car. Bad choice. "Using explosives at an institution receiving federal funds" is a federal crime. The ringleader got 27 months, the follower got 21 months.

And, in a way, they were lucky. The campus police officer who found the bomb picked it up and moved it. It exploded shortly after he put it down. They'd have got closer to 27 years if he'd have been killed.

Woo Hoo

2 weeks and three-hundred dollars later, I'm back on-line. Turns out it was just a bad modem all along, but my hubby, who handles all things technical around the house, couldn't be bothered to look into it until last weekend. Afterall, he has high-speed internet at work, so what's the rush?