Hmmm....

Since I just got back from the west coast late last night, do I get to call tonight's insomnia 'jet lag'?

Since I'm awake anyway: One thing that I didn't mention in this post, but which I think you'll agree qualifies as relevant, is that I'm pretty strongly prejudiced against greatest hits records as a general rule. My thinking, if you can call it that, is that buying a greatest hits record is tantamount to acknowledging that you are incapable of liking music that you haven't heard before. All and still there are lots of records out there, more than I could possibly have time to listen to, and a body needs find a way to cut through the crap and get to the good shit. So that's the context in which I asked whether there weren't, after all, some bands/artists who were better represented in compilationary form.

Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair

Howard Schnellenberger coached the Oklahoma Sooners for just over a season in 1995, putting up a 5-6-1 record. Upon his hiring he predicted, "They'll write books and make movies about my time here." Instead, this:

Prince finished 17-20 in three seasons at KSU. It was the the second-shortest coaching tenure in Big 12 history behind the two seasons Dave Roberts coached at Baylor. |ESPN|

How's that working out for you?

Remember how the Reagan administration became a laughingstock for allegedly trying to classify ketchup as a vegetable?

This week, the Obama administration warned that Cheerios are a drug. |The Fever Swamp|

To review the ketchup incident, what happened was that the Reagan administration, seeking to save money on free lunches for poor children, attempted to classify ketchup (and, it should be noted, pickle relish) as a vegetable. They were rightly criticized on the grounds that the point of the free lunch program was to ensure that those children had at least one nutritious meal a day. And, yes, they were ridiculed.

As for Cheerios:

In a warning letter, the FDA cited the claim that “you can lower your cholesterol by 4 per cent in six weeks” by eating Cheerios regularly.

It objected to Cheerios’ assertion that “eating two 1½ cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol”.

The claims – a central plank of Cheerios marketing for more than two years – go beyond the tightly defined health benefit claim for foods with soluble fibres, such as Cheerios, approved by the FDA for use in food marketing.

Dr Steven Sundloff, head of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety, said the action was “not to impugn Cheerios”, which he called “a product that can be part of a healthy diet”.

But he said: “The packaging clearly carries a drug claim.”|Financial Times|

To get the reading comprehension business out of the way, the Obama administration is claiming that Cheerios are NOT a drug.

But let's not be fooled into thinking that the folks over at The National Review^[1] weren't able to figure that out. The point here wasn't to expose hypocrisy. They're following Alinsky's playbook, rule number five. In case you don't have the playbook memorized, that's the one about ridicule being your most powerful weapon.

Got doubt?: The very next entry over at the Swamp reads, verbatim and in full, "Naturally, the Internet has taken to the frying pan." Reading that, you might think that some fevered yet enterprising fellow traveler has almost instantaneously whipped up a this-is-your-brain-on-cheerios parody. But, no, the link is to a web video of somebody cooking Cheerios in a completely apolitical fashion.

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1 -- Have I, by referring to the NRO's daily blog as 'the fever swamp' contributed to the sense that they are imbecile's who shouldn't be expected to know their assholes from their eyeballs? Possibly.

Hmmm

I'm listening to some old Jerry Lee Lewis records and wondering when, and maybe more importantly why, did rock stop swinging?

and thus i cannot sleep

A correlation has been observed between the US GDP and the number of sunspots as well as between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the number of sunspots. The data cover 80 years of history. The observed correlations permit forecasts for the GDP and for the stock market in America with a future horizon of 10 years. Both being above their long-term trend they are forecasted to go over a peak around Jun-2008.©2007 Elsevier Inc. | via |

The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.

There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.
...
Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

According to Prof Louise Hara of University College London, it is unclear why this is happening or when the Sun is likely to become more active again.

“There’s no sign of us coming out of it yet,” she told BBC News. | via |

Stephen King insults some of his readers, but he has a point.

via D. Fireball,

“The question is, how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys,” Stephen King wrote in an e-mail message. “And to what end? My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer.”

On the one hand, it's easy for Stephen King to say this. He might not miss a few hundred dollars here and there in revenue lost to book piracy.^*

But on the other hand, he's totally right. Be it music, movies, books, or recipes, there are some bootleggers who would otherwise never be exposed to that intellectual property, because they would never, ever, evereverever, pay full market value for it.

On the gripping hand, the real victims of piracy are second-hand stores and libraries, and both are institutions for which I have many positive feelings... which are rapidly turning into just "nostalgia." (Been nice knowing you, Dusty Bookshelf and Manhattan Public Library!)

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^* Book piracy, brought to you by the letter RRRRRRRR!

Getting around to the due dilligence

Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world's largest particle collider, and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.

Rather, Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama say mini black holes could exist for much longer — perhaps even more than a second, a relative eternity in particle colliders, where most objects decay much faster.

Under such long-lived conditions, it becomes a race between how fast a black hole can decay — and how fast it can gobble up matter to grow bigger and prevent itself from decaying. |FOXNews|

Forty miles over Texas, six years ago

The suit protects the crew in many scenarios; however, there
are several areas where integration difficulties diminish the capability of the suit to protect the crew. Integration issues include: the crew cannot keep their visors down throughout entry because doing so results in high oxygen concentrations in the cabin; gloves can inhibit the performance of nominal tasks; and the cabin stow/deorbit preparation timeframe is so busy that sometimes crew members do not have enough time to complete suit-related steps prior to atmospheric entry.

As Columbia entered the atmosphere, one crew member was not yet wearing the ACES helmet and three crew members were not wearing gloves. Per nominal procedures, the crew wearing helmets had visors up. There was a period of about 40 seconds after the orbiter loss of control (LOC) but prior to depressurization when the crew was conscious and capable of action. Part of this short timeframe was undoubtedly employed in recognizing that a problem existed, as the indications of LOC developed gradually. The crew members could have closed their visors in this timeframe but did not. The SCSIIT attributed this to the training regimen, which separates vehicle systems training from emergency egress training and does not emphasize the transition between problem resolution and a survival situation. Once the cabin depressurization began, the rate of depressurization incapacitated the crew so quickly that even those crew members who had fully donned the ACES did not have time to lower their visors.

Source: Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report, p. 28 (via).

It's a new world out there

Leading political figures in the Chicago area have turned out to support the sit-in -- including the former South Side state senator who was elected president last month.

"Number one, I think that these workers, if they have earned these benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments," Obama said during a news conference Sunday.

"And, number two, I think it is important for us to make sure that, moving forward, any economic plan that we put in place helps businesses to meet payroll so that we're not seeing these kinds of circumstances again." |CNN|

Meet the David Gregory

On the one hand, he's the consummate empty suit, eager to be won over by fatuous arguments so long as they are presented seriously by serious people who are serious about being political moderates. To take a recent example, see the shining shitpile of his performance during the auto bailout fiasco, when Gregory was always eager to bask resplendently in the light of worries that bailing out the auto companies would be throwing good money after bad. On the other hand, Russert's Meet the Press was the creche for high Broderism, so Gregory provides continuity with the tradition.

How bad is the economy?

Collection agents don't have time for me anymore.

RE: Palin and Couric

Journalistic standards do not allow mainstream media analysts to simply say "Oh my fucking God!" and be done with it, so we can expect some real artistry in the reaction pieces.

Documents!

On Aug. 28, Van Flein deposed Michael Mongale, a state manager with the workers' compensation division. Monagle said there was no truth to rumors that the governor or her office had requested Wooten's workers' comp file.

"Absolutely not," said Monagle, who said that the file is "in my office in a locked file cabinet" for safekeeping.

However, John Cyr, executive director of the Public Safety Employees Association, the union that represents Wooten and other state troopers, disclosed a document that appears to contradict Monagle’s sworn deposition.

A routing slip dated Aug. 21 from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development shows Wooten’s workers comp file was pulled and sent to the attention of Mongale.

“Wooten, as requested,” the routing slip says, which was made out to the attention of “Mike Mongale.”

“A request came in to return all of Wooten’s [worker’s comp] files to Juneau [the state capital],” according to a note and routing slip faxed to Cyr from the worker’s compensation division. “The person who asked to route the files was told the files were being copied for the governor.”

Under Alaska’s strict privacy laws, Wooten would have had to provide written authorization to allow such access. Cyr said the governor does not have the authority to peek into the private employment and medical files of state employees. |Jason Leopold|

Emphasis added.

I want to know who wrote the note. Is it the person Branchflower deposed? More broadly, I'd like to see the provenance of the routing slip established. Looking at it, there seem to be plenty of clues.

But really, that's just the beginning of the potential document trail here. As Leopold reports, there was a coordinated campaign within the highest echelons of the Governor's office to intercede in a workers compensation case. This campaign featured, among other things, First Dude Todd Palin stalking Trooper Wooten in hopes of snapping an incriminating photo. What he came up with was a picture of Wooten riding on a snowmachine while on light duty following surgery for a back injury that he received while on duty. Todd Palin then passed it along to the Frank Bailey, who wrote up a report on official stationary and forwarded the material to the Workers Compensation Office.

Moreover, it is clear that this campaign -- it was too open and flagrant to call it a conspiracy -- was not isolated, but was part of a pattern of investigation aimed at finding a pretence, any pretence, to justify sanctioning Wooten. And there are a lot of documents waiting to be revealed. For example:

Cyr said more than 1,000 e-mails were exchanged between Bailey, and Sarah and Todd Palin, and other officials during this period that, if released, would show that Palin had used her office to keep tabs on Wooten.

Cyr said he filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of the union to obtain the e-mails, but the governor’s office said it would cost the union $88,000 for the documents. |Jason Leopold|

What a load of horseshit. File that ULP Brother Cyr!

In terms of Branchflower's investigation, Palin is already claiming executive privilege for the emails. We'll see how that goes. I say, somebody should pony up the eighty eight grand.

Bonus Content: Primary sources you say? Here's Cyr's complaint (pdf!), which is the document upon which much of Leopold's article is based. For my money, the best reading is Section 2, in which Cyr lays out the law regarding confidential information contained in personnel files. Short summary: the law distinguishes between use, disclosure and acquisition of confidential information, explicitly prohibiting all three when advancing a personal interest.

Two Americas

While Palin was being introduced to the world at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, today, thousands of miles away in an Anchorage office, Branchflower was preparing to interview principals in the case, French said.|source|

Read the whole thing.

(via)

Women's ten meter air rifle

Really?

Fencing

Item: Zagunis!

Item: I can't help but wonder: do those fencing masks filter the air at all?

Item: Fencing is one of those sports that it's best to get out of the way early, don't you think?

Item: Coincidentally, I assume, just this evening I found myself wondering how the epee could possibly have found its way into any nation's armory.

Item: Jacobson is the Monica Seles of fencing.

Item: Oh. I guess everybody is the Monica Seles of fencing. My bad.

Item: Apparently, the announcers are required to say, "Jacobson is very analytical. A Yale graduate" once per match. Anyone surprised to learn that our best fencers are Yale graduates? Howzabout, anyone surprised to learn that our best fencers are the children of Yale graduates?

Item: Not for nothing, I think fencers are among the last true amateurs.

A guy walks into a doctors office with a carrot in his ear and a piece of celery up his nose. The doctor told him he wasn't eating right.

I see that IHOP is running a special featuring, among other things, 'Kansas Carrot Cake'. I can't say for certain that I've ever had carrot cake outside of Kansas, but then again the only places I can recall encountering carrot cake are weddings, funerals, and university dining halls. Anyway, I find myself wondering: in the American culinary imagination, is carrot cake associated with Kansas?

I find it hard to believe that it could be so. Truth be told, I can't think of any distinctive foods of Kansas. I guess you could make a case for sunflower seeds, but it's not like there's a sunflower seed festival in Topeka^[1] or anything.

Somewhat relatedly, I've lately been craving a runza. Which, of course, is the distinctive delicacy of Nebraska.

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1 'Topeka', according to folk Kansas etymology, means 'a good place to dig potatoes'.

Gonna need a button for this

There's now an RSS feed for the comments on this blog. Here's the long URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/CommentsForTheBellman

Addendum: I've added a recent comments widget to the sidebar. Let me know if it blows up in your browser or significantly affects load times.

Double Plus Addendum: I'm not even remotely sure that it works, but I tried to build an RSS feed including both content and comments. Here's the long URL:

feed://www.rssmix.com/u/23378/rss.xml

The levers of power are almost within my reach

Here's a first^[1]. Flipping through the channels on super basic cable I saw somebody I actually know on C-SPAN. Wow.

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1 Ok, technically there was also that time when I was watching a blogger panel from YearlyKos and one of the questions from the audience came from an oddball Ann Arbor local who signs up for public comment at all of the city council, county board, and regents meetings. But (a) I have assiduously avoided making that guy's acquaintance; and, (b) I was streaming YearlyKos over the internet rather than watching it on TV.

Reader participation Wednesdsay, annoying science reporting edition

I can't quite decide which paragraph from this article is more annoying.

Sample A:

There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is learned about it. But as galaxies go, it's practically a neighbor. At only 120 trillion miles away, the red dwarf star that this planet circles is one of the 100 closest to Earth.

The first problem here is right on the surface. Planets and galaxies are different sorts of things that exist on different sorts of scales, so telling me that the new planet is 'practically a neighbor' for a galaxy doesn't tell me anything at all. But then things actually get worse, because now my curiosity is piqued. How far away is this new planet? Oh, 120 trillion miles. What the hell does that mean? Just that if I were to drive I'd have to fill the tank 400 billion times and if I were to fly I'd get a bunch of free round trip tickets. Twenty lightyears is the right answer. Six parsecs also would have been acceptable, but only because I'm a geek.

Sample B:

Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the "Goldilocks problem." They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.

And now we see why the article had to be so dumbed down. The only cultural knowledge that the reader is expected to have is knowledge of fairy tales. Let me suggest, though, that Goldilocks' real problems only began after she found porridge that was just right.