A Formidable Feline

Okay, I admit it: I'm a sucker for cat stories. Today the AP has a "sensational" one (in two versions).

Residents of the neighborhood of Sunset Circle say they have been terrorized by a crazy cat named Lewis. Lewis for his part has been uniquely cited, personally issued a restraining order by the town's animal control officer.

"He looks like Felix the Cat and has six toes on each foot, each with a long claw," Janet Kettman, a neighbor said Monday. "They are formidable weapons."

The article mention's Lewis's "catlike stealth," and even the headlines call him "crazy," so I'm surprised the word "mutant" never appears, since he's polydactyl and all.

How It's Supposed to Be

A nice treat: A beautiful story from the AP about truckstop ministries. And here's some food for thought:

"There isn't a product that you're wearing that hasn't been handled by a trucker," said Bob Hataway, a former truck driver who will lead Thursday's prayer at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.

The ending is a killer.

God bless em.

Early Decision?

More Bush inanity, except this time, it's from the one in Florida: "Fla. High School Seniors May Pick Majors" . . .

The Florida House passed a bill Thursday that would make Florida the first state to require high school students to declare a major, just as college students must do. [...]

Bush and others say that requiring high school students to declare a major and concentrate on a particular field could prepare them better for college and the working world and reduce the dropout rate by making school more interesting.

Show of hands: How many could have intelligently picked a "major" at the age of 16 or 17? Anyone? Bueller?

The "logic" behind this legislation is ridiculous on its face. Clearly these lawmakers have no experience with most European secondary school systems, where very early major selection produces students who have disturbingly little competence outside an extremely narrow range. Europeans intend their students to pick (or be placed in) a subject, then stick with it. The problem is that--ahem!--human beings don't work like that. Most of them need to be exposed to lots of different things before they know enough to choose.

A real solution here is obvious and long overdue: Allow high school students greater flexibility in course selection, and shrink the "core" that all students must take. That way, everybody's happy, and there's no bogus pigeonholing of kids in their mid-teens. The absence of early major selection is one of the few strengths of the American educational system, and it's no surprise that a Republican governor--and a Bush, no less--would try to destroy this advantage.

So Very Tiny

Samsung is coming out with a new washer that uses silver to clean clothes, according to Reuters:

The South Korea-based manufacturer said in a statement that its new front-loading washer, which will start selling in the United States this month at a suggested price of up to $1,399, injects tiny silver ions into the tub during the wash and rinse cycles to sanitize clothes.

That's great, but "tiny" silver ions? Why not large silver ions? Wouldn't they get the clothes even cleaner?

I love that phrase, though--"tiny ions." It's very evocative somehow.

But surely the washer doesn't really "inject" the ions. The washer doesn't have an "ion injector," does it? Sounds like something you'd see at Los Alamos. They must mean that some part of the tub is just made of silver, right?

Don't Be Juicin'

In the science news: It's not a good idea to mix your meds and your, uh, grapefruit juice, according to a report in The New York Times:

In 1989, a group of Canadian researchers studying a blood pressure drug were astonished to discover that drinking a glass of grapefruit juice dangerously increased the drug's potency. [...]

"People didn't believe us," Dr. Bailey said. "They thought it was a joke. We had trouble getting it published in a major medical journal."

Tell your folks.

"Coming Back to Haunt Him"

The people continue to come around. From the Washington Post:

Three years of upbeat White House assessments about Iraq that turned out to be premature, incomplete or plain wrong are complicating President Bush's efforts to restore public faith in the military operation and his presidency, according to pollsters and Republican lawmakers and strategists.

The last two weeks have provided a snapshot of White House optimism that skeptics contend is at odds with the facts on the ground in Iraq.

Vice President Cheney said Sunday that his 10-month-old claim that the insurgency was in its "last throes" was "basically accurate" and reflects reality. Since Cheney's original comment, on at least 70 days there have been violent attacks that in each instance killed more than 10 people. [...]

Pollsters and some congressional Republicans said the administration's sunny-side-up appraisals, instead of lifting the public mood, may now complicate the task of sustaining support for a long-term military commitment in Iraq. The loss of trust, they said, is affecting Bush's presidency more broadly, as polls show his public support at a nadir. [...]

Perhaps the most famous rosy statement came nearly three years ago when Bush proclaimed: "We have seen the turning of the tide" under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." Since then, more than 2,300 Americans have died in Iraq.

Maybe the American people are actually starting to have some kind of allergic reaction to the administration's bullshit?

Until recently Bush was a surprisingly adept manipulator. It looks like the suckers who bought what he was selling are now beginning, gradually, to realize that saying something does not make it so. Slowly, now, they're getting a taste of what's it's like to live and work in the reality-based community.

$13,888 Per Year

From today's AP wire:

A man who spent 18 years behind bars for allegedly attacking a woman in her home has been released after DNA testing excluded him as the attacker.

"I don't know how to apologize. I don't know where to start, but I'll start with me and 'I'm sorry,'" District Judge John Creuzot said Monday as he released Gregory Wallis, now 47. Creuzot was not involved in the original trial. [...]

Wallis was a 29-year-old warehouse worker when he was convicted in 1988 of burglary with intent to commit sexual assault and sentenced to 50 years in prison. [...]

Like others wrongly convicted in Texas, Wallis is eligible for up to $250,000 in compensation for the years he spent behind bars. He said he was he looking forward to enjoying a steak dinner and going fishing.

"Up to $250,000."

So he's eligible for "up to" $13,888 per year for each of the 18 years he wrongly spent behind bars, interest-free. At least Wallis's current judge said he's sorry.

That better be one hell of a steak dinner.

In Memory of Sir Humphrey

There have been some really entertaining stories today about a kitty named Humphrey, recently deceased, who for much of his life lived at 10 Downing Street working as "chief mouser." The Times offers the following digest of his bio:

Humphrey, a long-haired black and white, was a stray before arriving in Downing Street in 1990

He was named after the fictional mandarin Sir Humphrey Appleby

While the cat resided at the Cabinet Office his food is understood to have been on its budget

His chosen vantage-point was atop a vent that pumped hot air from No 10

He narrowly avoided the wheels of President Clinton's two-ton Cadillac

"Pumped hot air from No 10."

Many of the stories are accompanied by a photo of Cherie Blair holding Humphrey. Though the pictures vary, there is a recurring theme: The painfully awkward expression they share. Apparently the pictures were staged and released to convince the British people that she did not have him killed, as had been alleged at one time.

There are many quite hilarious chapters to his story that are now being told, if you're interested:

The BBC mentions the "hostage-like" photos that were taken to prove that Humphrey had not been iced by Mrs. Blair.

Reuters remembers how the "fur flew" during the same affair, calling him "Humphrey, cat of scandal."

The Daily Telegraph is going all out, though. Today their writer George Jones has come clean in "Humphrey the cat: my part in his downfall." They're also linking to articles from their extensive, and free, archives. From March 2005, they have "Humphrey...the Downing Street dossier." From May 1997, they have "Trappings of family life threaten Humphrey's patch," followed in November of that year by "More questions over how No 10 handled the kitty," "Prove Humphrey is alive, demands Alan Clark," and "No 10 lets the cat out of the bag."

The AP article mainly just rehashes what the British press are saying.

Rest in peace.

800,000,000 Gallons

. . . of water are wasted in the UK per day by the water companies themselves. See the full report from today's Daily Telegraph.

At least the UK is recognizing the full scope and nature of the problem; in most countries, water waste is put down exclusively to the negligence of users. I wonder how many hundreds of millions of gallons are quietly "haemorrhaging" elsewhere.

From the Gay to the Roaring

Thanks to an article in today's New York Times, the Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project at beautiful UC Santa Barbara is about to receive a well-deserved influx of new visitors. The Project is a treasure trove of great old pop tunes from the Gay Nineties to the Roaring Twenties, carefully recorded from the original cylinders, and almost all of it is freely downloadable and streamable. (One criticism: They really ought to offer the files in FLAC format instead of WAV; it would save everybody time and bandwidth.)

A word of warning, though: Approach the archive with care. Once you pop, you can't stop.

Pants on Fire

From The Washington Post, "Advance Workers for Bush Impersonated Reporters":

A Mississippi couple whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina said two men who later identified themselves as Secret Service agents pretended to be Fox News journalists when surveying their neighborhood in advance of a March 8 visit from President Bush.

The men arrived on March 3 at the site of the beachfront home that Jerry and Elaine Akins are rebuilding in Gautier, Miss., Elaine Akins said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"They didn't show any cards or anything," Akins said. "They just came up and said they were with the media, and then they said they were with Fox. They just talked to us and asked us about rebuilding our house. Then, after everything was over with, they approached us and they were laughing, and they said: 'You know, we really weren't with Fox. We're government, Secret Service men.' " [...]

Tom Mazur, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said he did not know who the men were but they were not Secret Service officials.

"I checked with our people down there in Mississippi who were involved in the advance, and it was not Secret Service people who identified themselves as members of the media," Mazur said. "We wouldn't do that." [...]

Akins said she does not mind that the men temporarily misled her about their identities.

"What could they do?" she said. "They couldn't walk up and tell us who they were, because then we would have been a lot more suspicious about the president coming."

"We didn't know" about Bush's visit "until about an hour before the president actually got there," she added. "I think they handled it great."

Okay, so first they lied to this woman's face, then laughed in her face as they lied to her again--and she thinks they handled it just great. (Yup, sounds like she's a Fox News viewer, alright.)

Personally, I would mind.

The Tangled Web

"Some folks overseas," like me, believe Bush to be criminally inept. Then again, I'm sure he would strongly disagree. Here's an interesting insight into the propaganda machine:

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" - conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making. [...]

A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as "a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.

"It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people," Fields said. "All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff."

A painful, unspoken aspect of this report is that Bush likely doesn't even understand the nature or function of the rhetoric he's being told to spout. He's omitting nuances of debate which, given his past performance, he seems unable even to perceive.

A Million Wasted Years

From the BBC, "Earth could seed Titan with life":

Dr Gladman's team calculated that up to 20 terrestrial rocks from a large impact on Earth would reach Titan. These would strike Titan's upper atmosphere at 10-15 km/s. At this velocity, the cruise down to the surface might be comfortable enough for microbes to survive the journey.

But the news was more bleak for Europa. By contrast with the handful that hit Titan, about 100 terrestrial meteoroids hit the icy moon.

But Jupiter's gravity boosts their speed such that they strike Europa's surface at an average 25 km/s, with some hitting at 40 km/s. Dr Gladman said other scientists had investigated the survival of amino acids hitting a planetary surface at this speed and they were "not good".

"It's frustrating if you're a microbe that's been wandering the Universe for a million years to then die striking the surface of Europa," Dr Gladman said.

Asked after his presentation by one scientist whether he thought microbes would be able to survive Titan's freezing temperatures, Dr Gladman answered: "That's for you people to decide, I'm just the pizza delivery boy."

These are interesting theories and all, but the whole idea of microbes' surviving a massive planetary impact, then surviving a launch into interplanetary space, then surviving hundreds of thousands of years at near absolute zero, bathed in radiation, then surviving atmospheric reentry . . . doesn't it strain credibility just a tad? I know life is tenacious, but microbes could colonize a planet after that?

An American Holocaust

What other term could accurately describe the near-extermination of Native Americans, now almost completely forgotten? One count in the indictment:

President Andrew Jackson gave the order that started the Trail of Tears, the cruel removal of American Indians to west of the Mississippi River. Now Jackson's plantation home near Nashville, the Hermitage, has been named as an official site along the historic trail that commemorates the Trail of Tears.

Hermitage Executive Director Patricia Leach said the recognition Wednesday opens a new chapter in Jacksonian history by acknowledging one the darkest periods in his presidency.

Jackson issued the order in 1830 to forcibly remove more than 16,000 Cherokee from their homes in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia. Hundreds died during the trip west in 1838 to what is now Oklahoma; thousands more died after relocation.

Whether you're packed into a traincar in Poland or forced to walk a thousand miles from your home in Alabama--is there a real difference?

To this day the American government has never chosen to deal honestly or fairly with Native Americans. At least in the past few decades, they've started to be slightly more forthright about this choice.

American Pi

Hey, I know three digits:

A high school student Tuesday recited 8,784 digits of Pi - the non-repeating and non-terminating decimal - likely placing him among the top Pi-reciters in the world.

Gaurav Rajav, 15, had hoped to recite 10,790 digits and set a new record in the United States and North America. But he remembered enough to potentially place third in national and North American Pi recitation and 12th in the world.

His ranking should be verified by the Pi World Ranking List within two months.

"I'm kind of disappointed, but I guess I did OK," said Gaurav, a junior at Salem High School.

Okay, two things:

1. That's right, the term is "Pi-reciter."

2. 10,790 digits would be a record . . . but only for North America.

God bless Gaurav, but I have to wonder if, when he's old and gray, he'll look back on this time in his life and be happy he spent hundreds and hundreds of hours memorizing digits of Pi. I strongly suspect he'll find himself wishing he had spent a bit more time and energy on "other activities."

A Dry "Well"

The "President" has been meeting with seniors--taking on their tough questions.

Another audience member brought up disparities between hospital costs for patients with and without insurance. That got Bush going on a favorite topic of late - how health care consumers have much less information about the price of services in advance than with other types of purchases.

He got a bit tripped up when making the comparison to vehicle shopping - something he has not done for years.

"When you go buy a car, you know exactly what they're going to charge you," he said, drawing laughs - and then adjusting his remarks.

"Well, sometimes you don't know," he said. "Well, you negotiate with them. Well, they put something on the window that says price."

Well, they're telling you some rough estimates. Well, there are numbers involved.

Oh well.

They're Coming Around

Slowly but surely. From Reuters, "Bush battered by US pessimism, leadership doubts":

Deep doubts about the Iraq war and pessimism about America's future have shattered public confidence in President George W. Bush and helped drive his approval ratings to their lowest level ever, pollsters say. [...]

Bush's approval rating dipped as low as 33 percent in one recent poll after a string of bad news for the White House, including uproars over a now-dead Arab port deal, a secret eavesdropping program, a series of ethics scandals involving high-profile Republicans and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. [...]

A majority of Americans, 56 percent, believe Bush is "out of touch," the poll found. When asked for a one-word description of Bush, the most frequent response was "incompetent," followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." In February 2005, the most frequent reply was "honest."

"The transformation from being seen as honest to being seen as incompetent is an extraordinary indicator of how far he has fallen," Kohut said.

I suppose the moral of the story here is that the majority of Americans are--to put it gently--really, really slow.

Sign Here

The Daily Mail does lean toward the sensational, but if this story is true--and it appears to be--it is terrifying indeed:

The doctor battling to save the lives of six men who took part in a drug trial said today he's never dealt with a case like this before, describing the set of symptoms as 'unique'.

The men suffered inflammation which had subsequently affected other parts of their body, including their internal organs. [...]

"We do not know exactly what triggered the reaction," he said. [...]

Dr Suntharalingam refused to comment on reports that one patient's head had swollen to three times its normal size but said: "This sort of condition does require fluid and that does cause swelling. That swelling does go away on recovery but it's very distressing for the families to see. It is one aspect of intensive care that gets better as the patients get better." [...]

A volunteer taking part in the trial who was given a placebo and therefore escaped the effects described the appalling scene on the ward. [...] "The test ward turned into hell minutes after we were injected. The men went down like dominoes. First they began tearing their shirts off complaining of fever, then some screamed out that their heads felt like they were going to explode." [...]

He had no idea he was putting his life at risk by volunteering. "There was nothing on the form saying, "this could kill you, sign here."

The "remuneration for inconvenience" the subjects received was a whopping £2000. For that amount, hell, I would have done it.

Complete story: "Drug trial doctor reveals 'unique' symptoms"

Decisions

From Bruce Sterling's closing speech at SXSW:

"If I've learned anything from hanging out with the Eastern European dissident crowd," he said, "it's make no decision out of fear."

Damn straight. See the full report from CNET: "Sci-fi author laments state of world."

¡Siempre en nuestros corazones!

It's fascinating to leaf through blogs with the "Next Blog" button up top; you get to see stuff you'd absolutely never see otherwise. I just found what appears to be an exhaustive look at a Chilean middle-school class; some of the photos are priceless. Also found an extremely sweet little baby looking at flowers. Talk about baby fat! That baby is adorable.

The other day I found a blog, I'm guessing from somewhere in Asia, written in the most fantastic English patois I've ever read--I just managed to track it down again. Here too, parts are priceless, like entry "004":

ooh, friday was great, i tell you, pure gossips. most the teachers in this school loveee to gossip! that's a good thing! i hope i get fun tutors, like miss chia hor elanornor! we had personal tutorials today. then tsk tsk miss chia. while having a 2:1 with miss huang, her students made her signed withdrawal forms for chemistry, urgh, they pointed to us their F F F, hell scaring us alright. oh man, after school went to plaza sing by forced AGAIN. what crap. we walked down to paradiz centre to shoot balls but it's so ballzz! cos it was freaking hot and sunny! i almost melted. well for the fun of it, like what lynn said this is "just some gathering to bitch about certain shit".

Ballzz indeed.

Your Cover's Blown

And now, the most important reason for Americans not to put their lives on the line as covert agents: CIA ineptitude.

From today's Chicago Tribune article "Internet blows CIA's cover":

She is 52 years old, married, grew up in the Kansas City suburbs and now lives in Virginia, in a new three-bedroom house.

Anyone who can qualify for a subscription to one of the online services that compile public information also can learn that she is a CIA employee who, over the past decade, has been assigned to several American embassies in Europe.

The CIA asked the Tribune not to publish her name because she is a covert operative, and the newspaper agreed. [...]

When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States.

Given the astonishing incompetence outlined in this article, normally you'd expect some heads to roll . . . because Americans won't stand for this, dammit!

But those days are gone. Unfortunately, as with so many catastrophes before, Americans will quite willingly stand for this, and the heads that roll will be those of the agents themselves, not their superiors'.

If I were to publish a US government affairs newsletter, I can think of no better title these days than The New Low. That's all we're getting: An uninterrupted stream of New Lows. So when will the country hit rock bottom? What qualifies for rock bottom now, anyway?

What's the 411?

Free directory assistance . . . gotta love it. From the NYT:

Already, two new services — 800-FREE-411 and 800-411-METRO — offer directory assistance free of charge, though users have to listen to advertisements.

Tell em Lef sent ya. And call me!

Bad News

Governor Ann Richards is a real Texas hero. She's so easy to love--and respect. Many still remember her stunning, searing, utterly winning condemnation of Bush the Elder at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

So today's Chicago Tribune brought some very bad news. The last part is a real mindblower:

Ex-Gov. Richards has esophageal cancer
Published March 9, 2006

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Former Gov. Ann Richards said Wednesday that she has cancer of the esophagus and will undergo treatment.

Richards, 72, received the diagnosis Tuesday, a spokesman said.

Richards, a Democrat, was governor from 1991 to 1995, losing a re-election bid to George W. Bush.

"I have a very treatable kind of cancer," she told The Dallas Morning News. "They know what to do. So I'm really pretty sanguine about it."

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society said that esophageal cancer will be diagnosed in about 3,300 women this year and that about 3,000 of them will die.

Get well soon, Governor. I'd much rather see a President Richards (talk about comeuppance!) than another President Clinton.

The End of Empire

From the NYT: "Seeking a Willing Heir, an Aristocrat Turns to America"

Sir Benjamin, who has a head of snowy hair and a prosperous-looking, ruddy complexion, was not supposed to inherit the baronetcy or Maunsel House, which belonged to his uncle. [...] When he took possession of Maunsel House, it was a ruin, his surviving aunt confined to just two rooms.

"She lived on Mars bars and Milky Ways," he said. "She drank for Somerset. She had about 18 different driving offenses — hit and run, driving over a policeman's foot. When she died, she left £22.50, and she didn't leave it to me." Once, Sir Benjamin said, the aunt set the house on fire, hoping to collect insurance, only to have the fire fizzle out because of the pervasive dampness.

I love this story, but "she drank for Somerset"? I can find no other examples of this phrase in any form, anywhere.

Down with the Swirl

My favorite episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is "Children of Time," in which the cast, while exploring the Delta Quadrant on the starship Defiant, find a planet populated by their own descendants. (The crew learns from their progeny that an accident will send the ship back in time hundreds of years, with no hope of rescue, and that they will then be forced to begin building new lives on this world.) It's a terrific story with all of the best that Star Trek has to offer--real character development, deep insight, rich humor, moving portrayals, thought-provoking science, etc. There's a major disappointment here, though: The descendants are somehow all-white or all-black. None appears to have a mixed racial background. Evidently, in the twenty-fourth century, skin color still plays a major role in the mating choices of even the most enlightened beings, under even the most difficult of circumstances. Thus the one descendant of Worf we see is very dark-skinned; the Siskos are obviously of African descent; the O'Briens still look very Irish. Instead, wouldn't it have been so much more realistic, and inspiring, to have some non-obvious casting decisions here--a light-skinned person named "Sisko," for example, or a dark-skinned "Bashir" or "O'Brien"? Or a "Dax" with some North African traits--anything to show us that race didn't matter to the crew when they finally started to pair off?

Actually, all of the Star Trek series suffer from this problem: Too few non-Europeans, too few people of mixed race. On Enterprise the situation is halfway understandable, given that the action is only a few generations removed from the present day. In the Next Generation era, however, the same situation is an insult to viewers' intelligence. We're to understand that poverty and inequality on Earth can be eradicated in a matter of decades, but that, for whatever reason, whites and blacks won't get their freak on?

If the producers feel they must have regular cast members who are apparently all-white, all-black, all-Asian, whatever, that's one thing--Hollywood is by no means known for its promotion of diversity. But in one story, one episode, dealing with an extremely limited genetic pool like the crew of the Defiant . . . for the crew's descendants not to be depicted as multiracial is pathetically short-sighted.

I love Star Trek, but it would be so much better if they had ever been down with the swirl.

Lawd, Lawd

Oh Lawd.

"The Excel spreadsheet started off to working, with its hourglass running hard there on the screen," Broonzy said. "But old Wally Peters had his pencil filling columns, throwing graphite off like locomotive steam.

"It threw graphite like a smokestack throwing steam," he added.

From The Onion: "Modern-Day John Henry Dies Trying To Out-Spreadsheet Excel 11.0."

Where are the accents?

Speaking of The Practice, why did so few people on there speak with a Boston accent? (Same goes for Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal, etc.) Except for the occasional judge, or ruffian from Southie, nobody on there was dropping their R's. I wanted to heah some real cleah regional dialect, but no. Same deal with King of the Hill--ingenious show, except for the dearth of authentic American Southern English. Some of the actors are good at it--like Stephen Root (always excellent), and the incredible Kathy Najimy--but most couldn't pass as Southerners. A nadir was reached when both Hank and Peggy mispronounced "Vidalia" (the onion variety, of course) as though it were a Spanish word. For the record: It's vy-DAY-lee-uh. Surely any real Texan would know how to say "Vidalia"? Even I know how, dammit!

But yeah, I know why we don't get more "local color" from American TV, or any TV for that matter. Big Entertainment is afraid we won't "identify." Interesting to see the bias against certain areas, though: Jeff Foxworthy can't get on Letterman because he's "too regional," and The Sopranos is . . . a megahit.

Y'all take care, now.

The Google OS

Why doesn't Google throw a few programmers at creating an in-house flavor of Linux that average Joes would want to use? (This would primarily involve spiffing up the woeful Linux GUI.) They could give the OS away for free and own many desktops, particularly in the developing world. Bundle in OpenOffice, Gimp, etc., and you've got a computer that easily rivals Microsoft in quality . . . at just the right price. Hell, I'd even use it.

I'm just sayin'.

Eastbound and Down

From The New York Times, a doozy about long-haul trucking:

Mr. Adams, 47, said that before he began hauling bottled beer for the Abita Brewing Company last year, he drove chemical tanker trucks. "Now that's stressful stuff," he said. "One wrong move and you're in a traffic accident with a bomb at your back."