I've never been to Vancleve, Kentucky, but last year's somewhat-unintended slide through a series of small Kentucky towns persuades me that I'd probably like the place. Only two things do I actually know about Vancleve: it has a long-established gospel radio station (WMTC AM/FM, the call letters meaning "Win Men To Christ"), and it's the home of the Kentucky Mountain Bible College, which for some time now has been trying to rid itself of its telephone number, which, like other numbers in Breathitt County, starts with 666.

Telephone companies move slowly, when they move at all, and I don't know if this particular bout of slowness is at all related to the need to conserve phone numbers to keep from adding more and more area codes, but finally the school has won: if you're wanting to call them, you need to call 693-5000.

Akron, Ohio may be the Rubber City, but the fact is, more tires are made in Oklahoma than in any other state. And Michelin North America, whose Uniroyal Goodrich unit has a huge plant in Ardmore, is about to spend $200 million to expand the facility, including $25 million kicked in by the state as incentive money.

Employment at Michelin will grow to about 1850, still smaller than Goodyear's Lawton operation, which started an expansion program of its own last year to will bring its workforce up to 2400. Bridgestone/Firestone operates a plant in Oklahoma City which employs about 1800.

Now get out there and drive. :)

Meet Jeffrey Schimandle, MD, non-practicing orthopedic surgeon in Oklahoma City. He became non-practicing rather involuntarily in 1999 following reports that he was swiping pain medication intended for patients for his personal use. This year Dr Schimandle applied for reinstatement, and got it; and within seconds of getting it, he whispered what The Daily Oklahoman called "a two-word, gender-specific obscenity" to the licensure board's attorney.

Said attorney is Elizabeth A. Scott, who also serves as an assistant attorney general; charges were brought, and Friday Dr Schimandle's license to practice was pulled yet again — not because he called Scott whatever it was he called her, but because he denied having said it. He can apply for reinstatement next year, if he can keep his mouth shut.

As for that "two-word, gender-specific obscenity", well, I'm not quite sure what the good doctor actually said, but I'd be surprised if it's truly gender-specific. Even in Oklahoma.

The reaction to the news that a Chicago venture-capitalist group will front the bucks for a liberal radio network has been mostly yawns, with occasional remarks along the lines of "So what's NPR, chopped liver?" Certainly nothing in recent radio history would suggest that this venture could possibly make enough money to stay out of the red, let alone raise Rush Limbaugh's blood pressure, but hey, it's diversity, right?

Mark W. Anderson, writing as The American Sentimentalist, has some thoughts on this from a present-day liberal point of view, and they go like this:

Some of these concerns make a certain amount of sense, and some of them bug me. The preservation of the "socio-economic make-up of urban neighborhoods", for one, strikes me as folly: if these neighborhoods were so wonderful, it seems to me that the property values would be sufficiently high that no one would be all that anxious to tear them down and start over in the name of gentrification. And the biggest improvement that could be made in the incarceration rate of African-Americans, I suggest, would be getting fewer of them to commit crimes in the first place.

Still, Anderson is right about the crux of the biscuit: things aren't hunky-dory for everyone, and if a bevy of AM-band leftists can actually contribute something to the debate, more power to them. They'll have to give up their Thou Shalt Not Offend Anyone posture, though; commercial talk radio is no place for mild-mannered Cory Flintoff types.

About every three or four days, someone Googles up the phrase "damhnait doyle anal sex", which last I looked produced four results, three of which had something to do with me and none of which had a whole lot to do with Damhnait Doyle, a young singer from Newfoundland whose first two albums are often played in this household. Specifically, there was the one archive page which mentioned Ms Doyle, and the other two words were separated, not only from the reference to her, but from each other as well, but yes, all four words are on the page, so Google brings it up. I duly posted a report of the first incident to Disturbing Search Requests; my original post thereupon and an archive page containing it are the other two pertinent results.

The recurrence of this search has been something of an annoyance, but it did pay off this evening: it prompted me to see just what she's been up to, since it's been nearly three years since Hyperdramatic came out, and would you believe, she released a new album last week. Not in the US, of course; but this problem is easily remedied by a trip to HMV.com, which is happy to take my American dollars in exchange for Canadian content. So to my anonymous searcher(s): thank you. However, please be advised that I have no idea as to the young lady's sexual proclivities, and I would not be inclined to discuss them if I had.

Does this startle you?

I wonder if an entire company has ever up and quit....

Two words: Jewish bikers.

You gotta love it.

(Muchas gracias: Max Power.)

I've learned to be suspicious of these, but in view of last week, I need all the warmth I can get.

There was actual sunshine today after about 3 pm or so, and while the temperature is still on the low side (lower 40s), it beats the heck out of what we've been getting, and besides, we haven't seen the sun since Washington's birthday.

More to the point, perhaps, was the Austin-Healey Sprite (of course, a Bugeye) tootling along the boulevard, its driver apparently utterly unconcerned about being surrounded by vicious-looking vehicles like the Pontiac Aztek, an automotive boîte du merde that is as ugly as the Sprite is cute.

And while Bugeyes aren't very fast — apart from being about 43 years old, they have only about 43 horsepower — there's a certain thrill in driving the living whee out of something in an effort to stay just ahead of the traffic flow.

Besides, it was painted green, and British racing green at that. Just try to tell me that's not a sign of spring.

Two songs, actually.

Go see what McGehee hath wrought, or hath writ, or anyway hath posted.

The good thing about the new kids upstairs (actually, judging from brief appearances, they're probably close to 40) is that they seem to be encumbered with neither loud offspring nor industrial-strength stereo.

The bad thing about the new kids upstairs is that while they seem to spend a fair amount of time in bed, not much of that time is devoted to, um, sleeping.

Which, of course, inevitably means that not much of my time is devoted to sleeping. (Noise reduction in the construction of multi-family units, as a priority, ranks somewhere between feng shui positioning and gemstone settings for bathroom fixtures.)

Eventually adjustments will be made, as they must, but for now I'm too tired to contemplate them.

A moment of noise, if you please — silence wasn't his thing — for R&B legend Hank Ballard, who died yesterday in Los Angeles.

Ballard's Midnighters (originally the Royals, but confusion with the "5" Royales dictated a name change) scored many R&B hits, starting with the salacious "Work With Me Annie" in 1954. But he's perhaps best remembered for a throwaway B side, the flip of 1959's "Teardrops on Your Letter", a bouncy little number called "The Twist", which in a soundalike version by Chubby Checker — Ballard once said when he first heard Checker's record on the radio in 1960, he thought it was his own — became the only record to hit #1, drop off the charts completely, and then hit #1 again the next year, in the midst of dozens of Twist records.

Depending on whom you believe, Ballard was 66, or maybe he was 75. All together now:

The Timekeeper is back in the States and up to full fearsome strength. Not that it takes a whole lot of strength to fisk a high-school senior, but in four years or so the recipient will be a college senior and produce even higher cranial durometer readings, so the time to strike is now.

The student in question offers this startling revelation:

Rebuffed by a teacher who pointed out that, hey, this is English class, not a women's studies course, she exploded:

To which the Timekeeper responds:

As she gets bitter, he gets better. Read the whole thing. (Good to have you home, Keep.)

Somebody got here last night via a Google search for "mister rogers" illuminati.

Fnord.

According to David Pearce, a state representative from Warrensburg, Missouri, the Show-Me State is not doing enough to limit the size of the state's deer herd, and he has introduced a bill (HB 386) to make the Department of Conservation liable for the first $250 of damage caused by deer/motor vehicle collisions.

Pearce himself has run into this situation; last year he hit a deer on Missouri 13 not far from home. Total damages came to $2400, of which Pearce's out-of-pocket expense was, um, $250. The Missouri Highway Patrol reported 5482 collisions with animals during 2001.

Conservation objects to the bill, saying that it would distract them from their primary function, to manage the herd; Pearce counters that if they'd managed the herd better, there'd be no need for the bill.

Tomorrow, HB 386 gets its first committee hearing.

If I'm reading Spiced Sass correctly, the problem with these proposed World Trade Center replacements is a lack of, well, divinity, something that's manifest elsewhere in society as well:

Not that a return to things churchly is necessarily the answer either:

The precise mechanism which determines the sense of transcendence in architecture (and elsewhere) is assuredly beyond my comprehension, but, to borrow a phrase, I know it when I see it.

Former Congressman J. C. Watts is not lacking for titles these days. In addition to his gig as a columnist for The Sporting News, he's now on the board of directors of Dillard's, the Arkansas-based department-store chain.

In his new capacity, perhaps Watts can figure out how come Dillard's keeps getting into racial hot water. In 1996, the chain was sued after an African-American customer claimed that she was denied a routine cologne sample; the case wound up before the US Supreme Court, which declined to review the verdict or the $1.2-million penalty against Dillard's. And this was only the most visible of a number of cases in which the store was charged with some blatant form of discrimination.

It's Carnival of the Vanities #24, brought to you by the one and only Acidman. This week's edition features nearly three dozen articles by bloggers near and far, annotated and collected in fine style with just a hint (okay, maybe more than a hint) of that patented Gut Rumbles reflux. As always, miss this at your peril.

When last we heard from the pseudonymous Ms Hawkings, she was trying to promote a Web site that sold T-shirts by persuading the unwary that somehow they'd been mentioned by CNN. I disposed of that notion quickly enough, but she's had almost three months to recuperate, and now she's back with a new, um, deal.

This time at <jhawkings@martsgroup.com>, which seems to be based in Moscow, she's pitching a list. And not just any list, either:

I don't do B2B, being neither B nor B, but regardless, I fail to see the value of this service; I can click on those links just as easily as "Jennifer Hawkings" can.

And in fact, I tend to think that this is not the same person as before; this seems like part of an effort to create a fictional spokesperson for spamdom, the email equivalent of Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemima or Alfred E. Neuman. And hey, who knows? Maybe someday, instead of being spammed, you'll be jennifered. Who — excepting perhaps Simon Lamont — could possibly object?

LBJS Broadcasting, the six-station group in Austin controlled by the family of Lady Bird Johnson, is selling out. Emmis Communications, owner of 21 radio stations and Texas Monthly magazine, is buying the Johnson family's 50.1% interest for $105 million. (The S in LBJS, David and Bob Sinclair, retain their 49.9% equity, but Emmis has an option to buy them out after five years.)

Originally, there was just the one station: KTBC, a low-powered AM daytimer acquired by Lady Bird for $17,500 in 1943. Being married to a Congressman paid off, though; the FCC soon approved an upgrade to full-time operation and 5000 watts. KTBC-TV soon followed, and by some strange coincidence it was the only commercial VHF TV allocation for Austin; competitors were forced to the struggling UHF band. (KTBC-TV is now owned by Fox Television Stations; the allocations haven't changed, though a UPN affiliate parked itself on channel 2 out in Fredericksburg, hoping to get audience from both Austin and San Antonio.)

The sale is subject to FCC approval, though no objections are expected. Flagship stations KLBJ-AM (formerly KTBC) and KLBJ-FM will retain their call letters.

The winds shifted around to the southwest yesterday, and the temperature climbed to a balmy 71 degrees.

Then the sun set, and the winds resumed their northerly angle of attack, and this morning it's snowing and the wind-chill factor is around 8.

It's enough to make you want to go buy a couple of SUVs and drive around town all day in second gear.

TeeVee's Ben Boychuk disposes of this New Blacklist horsepuckey with due dispatch:

Boychuk titled this piece Joe McCarthy is Back, And This Time, He's Pissed. Trademark infringment, I'd bet.

It probably wasn't any big surprise that failed Congressional candidate Walt Roberts entered a guilty plea to various counts of conspiracy; many of us have been wondering just where this good ol' boy was finding all this campaign financing.

Now the finger has been pointed, and it's pointed toward Senator Gene Stipe, a McAlester Democrat, whose own fingers have been found in all sorts of Oklahoma pies over many years. Chris at Fly Over Country says there's a 90-percent chance they're gonna nail him this time; I think that's a tad high, but I won't shed any tears if Chris is right.

Way back in 1980, Vince Vance and the Valiants put out a single that resonated with a lot of us: they reworked Fred Fassert's doo-wop ditty "Barbara Ann", previously a hit for the Regents and later for the Beach Boys (with Hal and his famous ashtray), into the impossible-to-misinterpret "Bomb Iran". I still have the 45, on Paid Records #109.

It was of course inevitable that with the return of unrest to the Middle East (what, was there ever actually rest there?), Vince Vance too would return, and Sparkey's heard the new single, which is of course called "Bomb Iraq". And what's more, he's provided a link to download it in MP3 format if you want it. Which you do.

Two words: bacon martini.

Bless you, Weetabix. ("Pretty hot, but in a Ned Flanders kind of way?" Now that's descriptive.)

According to at least one poll, Oklahomans favor the establishment of a state lottery by a three-to-one margin. I find this surprising, since the issue has been up for a state vote before and did not come close to passage.

A few minutes before the poll results were announced, the State House had an announcement of its own: House Bill 1278, which would put the establishment of a lottery on the ballot, had failed, 52-49. Most Democrats voted Yes, most Republicans voted No, but there were defectors from both sides.

I expect Governor Henry will be back with a similar proposal next year, but for this session, it's dead.

Jeff Lawson is persuaded that it's time to get down to business:

Let me amplify: "War sucks."

This does not now, did not ever, equate to "War must be avoided at any cost."

And the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein will not magically result in Iraqi democracy. As Mark W. Anderson points out:

Still, if the blinding flash alone likely can't do the job, the lack of the blinding flash certainly won't — at least in this case.

I don't think of myself as being a particularly enthusiastic warmonger. On the other hand, I don't believe in procrastination either — though I probably should have posted this yesterday.

Fritz Schranck has come up with a plan for getting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to talk, a plan which involves, among other things, essence of spirit duplicator, algebra, and Ben-Gay^®.

Of course, I would just as soon not know where Fritz picked up this particular area of expertise, but if his recommendations are half as mind-warping as they appear to be, the problem won't be getting our captive to talk — it will be getting him to shut up.

I figure, if I'm going to drone on in my usual monotone, I ought to have a backdrop that is closer to monochrome.

Besides, in tests on a 33.6k dialup, it loads 0.4 second faster.

The estimable Goof Beyou, who has been keeping tabs on the state-lottery measure (and keeping track of my fumbles on the story), has yet to weigh in on the prospects for getting the bill passed during its reconsideration phase, though I'm sure we'll hear from Beyou shortly.

In the meantime, House Republican leader Todd Hiett seems miffed at the prospect of seeing this bill again: "At this point," he said, "we should move on and do the people's business." Apparently Hiett's concept of "the people's business" does not include the possibility of voting on a controversial measure. All by itself, this ought to be enough to get him onto Frosty Troy's 10 Worst Legislators list this summer.

Once upon a time, there was Poet and Peasant, hosted at Blogspot, and it was good.

Then there was Reflections in D minor, running Movable Type, and it was better.

Now there is the new and improved Reflections in D minor, and it's a pMachine.

One thing about Lynn: she's determined.

American assets owned by President Robert Mugabe and about seventy other officials of the government of Zimbabwe have been frozen by the Bush administration.

President Bush took the action, according to the official order, because of ongoing political violence and a breakdown in the rule of law, for which Mugabe must take responsibility. The freeze follows a similar order imposed by the European Union in February. For the crumbling Zimbabwean government, this could be the last straw.

"Bad Love Songs For Corporate Drudgery Volume VI".

That's what Fraters Libertas' the Elder must endure out there in Cubicle City, and in between periods of mind-numbing boredom he roused himself just enough to deconstruct Air Supply's "Even the Nights Are Better", which apparently makes even less sense when analyzed.

Advantage: 42nd and Treadmill, since they haven't yet complained about my semi-burly JBL Harmony at deskside, pouring out Carl Kasell and Karl Haas and the Kinks.

Opposition to the proposed Oklahoma lottery comes from many quarters, but much of it emanates from the state's churches, dominated by conservative Christian denominations who have no qualms about calling 'em the way they see 'em.

Leaders of five of those denominations have signed a letter to Governor Henry asking him to give up the idea of a lottery, and urging him to set up a "task force made up of business, government, church and education leaders to seek long-term solutions for education funding."

The Guv, himself a Southern Baptist, says he appreciates the input but still would like the lottery put to a state vote. Personally, I think the task force idea might fly even without direct government involvement, though there's always the question of whether the state will give a reasonable hearing to the ideas of non-politicians.

Now if someone asked me this:

I'd respond something like "Because if it weren't secret, the place would be crawling with angry environmentalists."

But the question is not for me.

What would you say to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man behind September 11th?

Jeff Jarvis has thought it over. (He's also vlogged it, for which you'll need broadband.)

Ever been to Farwell, Texas?

Neither have I. And I can't think of any particular reason to go there, unless I were driving to, say, Clovis, New Mexico, where Norman Petty and Buddy Holly created a unique rock-and-roll sound, in which case Farwell is the last town in Texas before crossing the border.

And that's actually an issue. According to the 1859 survey defining the border between Texas and New Mexico, the dividing line is supposed to be right on top of the 103rd meridian. The New Mexico/Oklahoma line is along the 103rd. But the Texas border, as drawn, was about three miles west of it, which makes for a weird-looking jog in the state map, and towns like Farwell, Texas are supposed to be in New Mexico.

At least, that's the argument being made in Santa Fe, where a bill has been introduced into the legislature to seek return to New Mexico of this narrow strip of land. Three miles doesn't sound like a lot, but we're talking Texas here, and the strip, which covers the western edges of ten Texas counties, includes 603,000 acres of land, more than 900 square miles. New Mexico's draft constitution in 1910 claimed the border should be on the 103rd meridian as intended; a Congressional investigation was convened, to which New Mexico, not yet a state, was not invited, and Congress opted to leave the border in place. Apparently dark hints from Austin suggested that if New Mexico really wanted to become a state, they would shut up about the border; they did, and they did.

That was 1912. Ninety-one years later, why pursue this? A clue might be found in the wording of the bill:

I suspect the Texans are chuckling, but if I know Texans like I think I do, they won't take this lying down. Especially in Farwell.

John Paul II is still alive and kicking, but speculation as to his successor at the Holy See is rampant. One Spanish site has already winnowed down the 185 members of the College of Cardinals to an even dozen. (Who was that in the corner muttering about "March madness"?)

Meanwhile, Jesus Gil analyzes the results. What is perhaps most surprising is that five of the top seeds — um, perceived front-runners — come from Latin America. The Italians, of course, have four, but the balance of power has been shifting away from Italy ever since, well, the election of John Paul II.

It takes a two-thirds majority of the College to elect a Pope. Fortunately, they don't have to deal with things like butterfly ballots.

Tuesday, Senator Frank Shurden (D-Henryetta) expects a vote on Senate Bill 835, which proposes yet another cockfighting election, though this one will be limited to settling the penalties. Under State Question 687, passed last fall, taking part in a cockfight is a felony; Shurden wants this reduced to a misdemeanor, and he apparently thinks that while most people in Oklahoma do support the ban, which passed with 56 percent of the vote, they don't necessarily want people hauled into the pen for a year or more for it.

The House has already passed a similar measure, which suggests that Shurden might actually have a chance of getting this through. The anti-cockfighting forces are, unsurprisingly, highly incensed at all this. Meanwhile, there are legal challenges to SQ 687 in more than two dozen counties. We haven't heard the last of this issue by any means.

I still have an actual rotary phone. You know, the kind that dials with a dial; you stick your finger in and move it around in circles and...uh, never mind.

This sort of thing would never do for the Oval Office, as The Third Kind's Phil illustrates.

Some people keep "delightful" and "silly" far apart in little mental boxes, lest the two meet and contaminate one another like chocolate and peanut butter.

Not being one of those people, I direct your attention to the Periodic Table of Haiku, a perfectly legitimate scientific tool with a three-line verse attached for each chemical element. (Scansion isn't always perfect, but what the hell; you try writing something about molybdenum in 17 syllables.)

(Via Fark)

Justice and Development (AK) Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, barred from running for office last fall, easily won a seat in the Turkish Parliament in Sunday's elections, which assures him the position of Prime Minister and puts the question of support for the US war on Iraq back on the table. One newspaper reports that Erdogan plans to dismiss four Cabinet members opposed to the US plan to attack Iraq from across the Turkish border.

Wednesday, Prime Minister Abdullah Gul is expected to resign in favor of Erdogan. While polls indicate Turks generally oppose the US deployment, Erdogan has supported it, and has already hinted that he'll call for a new parliamentary vote to try to get it approved — and as Prime Minister, he'll be in a far better position to push for it.

Americans have lots of thoughts about things automotive. (This is, in case you've forgotten or you've been living in Berkeley for the last ten years, because we actually have lots of cars and we get to drive them all over the place.) Inevitably, some of those thoughts prove to be erroneous, egregious, or downright excruciating (cf. an otherwise perfectly innocuous Honda Civic with two-thirds of its bodywork covered in bubbly decalcomania and its exhaust terminating in a Folger's can).

There is one thought which borders on the universal, though: the thought that the so-called Check Engine Light is a conspiracy against the laity, that the evil little glow means only that your local wrenchman has a boat payment due. At least once a week, I get an anguished letter from some poor soul asking how to shut the thing off, and I'm running out of variations on ways to say "Take it to the shop and have the farging codes pulled."

The truth of the matter is simply this: modern engines run with extremely tight calibrations to meet extremely tight (and becoming more so) emissions specifications, and if any one component of the twenty bazillion or so under the hood isn't pulling its weight, the Malfunction Indicator Light (to give it its correct name) snaps on and the engine computer records the appropriate error code. Unless you know what that error code is and what it means — and I, buried in email, certainly can't read it from here — you're out of luck. And present-day OBD II-equipped vehicles don't give up their codes to just anyone: you need the appropriate scan tool.

Which, of course, is part of the conspiracy. If you don't want to pay the dealer $75 to pull the codes, you probably also don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for your very own scanning device. But the unpleasant fact is this: the shadetree mechanic is well on his way to dropping off the Endangered Species list and into extinction. The techniques that used to work to squeeze a couple more months out of a worn set of points don't mean a thing to a mass airflow meter. And given the fact that most people think they're more mechanically inclined than they really are — myself included — twelve or thirteen times out of ten they're going to make matters worse by trying to fix these things themselves.

Please. Take it to the shop and have the farging codes pulled.

If the phrase "Clear Channel" makes you break out in hives, this is for you.

In its last couple of years before it packs up and moves to Dallas to play with the big boys, AM daytimer KJON, just about the last station in Anadarko (KRPT-FM is moving northward toward the Oklahoma City market), has decided to stick to what it likes, and screw the consultants and their Armani-suited ilk.

So KJON's country format eschews the Shanias and the Faiths and the Dixie Chicks and plays stuff from the age of 78s, when you could still have a first name like "Red", when people heard the Wabash Cannonball and knew it was a train. The station manager says he's playing for guys on tractors, and you gotta believe it's true.

The Daily Oklahoman has a piece about KJON today, and it's worth your time even if Webb Pierce and Ernest Tubb don't mean a thing to you, simply because it illustrates the point that "non-corporate" radio does not necessarily mean stuff like NPR, which is waiting on a check from Archer Daniels Midland even as we speak, nor does it inevitably imply a staff with a whiter-shade-of-pale complexion from sitting in their bedrooms for ten years playing Nick Drake records.

My boss is seeking an answer to this:

I'm inclined to think "anything bubbly," but I am no expert on such matters.

The Palestinian Authority, the government (except it isn't) of a nation (except it isn't) in the Middle East (well, it is that), has decided that it needs a prime minister.

Their next move, logically, should be the naming of an ambassador to the Sovereign Apartment Nation of Travistan.

There was yet another ad on the radio this morning for Botox, and after the usual revulsion ("People are injecting a known toxin into their faces? Ewwww....") passed, I started wondering: Can other Nasty Substances be pressed into useful work? Can salmonella help your lawn? Does smallpox have a future as an industrial lubricant? Will anthrax kill termites?

Okay, it's too early in the morning for such things, and anyway it's been more than thirty years since I set foot in the lab. But who back then would have predicted that botulinum would have a commercial application?

In light (if "light" makes sense in this context, an arguable premise) of recent world developments, The Skeptician offers an updated United Nations logo, approved 14-0 by the Security Council. (France, of course, abstained.)

(Muchas gracias: Emperor Misha I, who notes, "We hope to see it proudly displayed at the new UN headquarters in Harare.")

The ever-erudite David "Clubbeaux" Sims notes that the Netherlands, Europe's ostensible Party Capital, is likely to become the first European nation to adopt Islamic law, and explains exactly why:

A moral vacuum being filled. And just in case you missed the point:

Now you know how we got to be the Great Satan. "It's no wonder," says Sims, "Europe wants to sit this one out." Of course. They don't want to piss off their new masters.

West Hartford, Connecticut has spoken, and restaurant co-owner Bob Potter will comply: his new Mexican eatery there will not bear the name "C. O. Jones".

Customers of Potter's restaurant in New Haven don't seem to object to the name, or to the ballsy Mexican cuisine served, and so far there has been no uproar about a third location, to open in Storrs this spring, but West Hartford is evidently more testy than tickled.

Senator Gene Stipe (D-McAlester), who has served in the state legislature since the French and Indian War, has abruptly resigned his seat, as projected by Chris at Fly Over Country a week ago.

Stipe's departure may or may not have something to do with the fallout from the failed Walt Roberts for Congress campaign of 1998, the investigation from which has so far resulted in charges against three individuals, one of whom is Stipe's assistant at his law firm. Stipe himself has not been named as a defendant.

As noted by Chris:

In defense of Stipe, he had better hair than Jim Traficant. And really, that's about it.

I wouldn't have thought it possible — and, in fact, said so — but Governor Henry's lottery bill isn't quite dead yet. When the vote for reconsideration came around, three Republicans who had opposed the measure the first time through voted for it, so instead of failing 52-49, it now passes 52-49 and will go on to the Senate.

Wayne Pettigrew, who represents a section of Edmond, was frank about the reasoning behind his switch:

The future of the bill in the Senate is unclear. Still, the fact that it got this far borders on miraculous.

Huntington, West Virginia. The city council is discussing the ongoing practice of cannibalizing old vehicles for parts. Council chair Cal Kent comes up with the following quip:

A reference to Mexican ingenuity? A tribute to the Huntington motor pool? Tom McCallister, another member of the council, decided it was an ethnic slur, and called for Kent's ouster; Kent subsequently apologized.

(Via Tongue Tied)

Reason's Jeff Taylor, on that mawkish country hit that's all over the airwaves:

Although what I really want you to read is a comment affixed to Taylor's post, signed by the pseudonymous (I assume) Garth Strait:

My dislike for "God Bless The USA" is on record, so to speak. And truth be told, I have no particular objection to blatant emotional manipulation. But Nashville is hardly alone in its Us vs. Them insularity; there's a whole anti-Establishment Establishment out there, vending its debatable (though hardly ever debated) message to every genre there is.

And, if nothing else, this justifies someone like Shania who doesn't want to change anyone's hearts or adjust anyone's attitudes: she just wants to lay down some spiffy tunes. As virtues go, it's one of the best, if you ask me.

I hold this truth, spoken by Susanna Cornett, to be self-evident:

This is the idea behind The Home Front. Why? Mike Hendrix, who created the site with Ms Cornett, explains:

That's why. Most of you, I suspect, didn't really need the explanation.

Do not ask so-called Value-Added Resellers for technical advice. You will have better luck getting diet hints from Krispy Kreme.

What's the appropriate gift for the 25th anniversary?

Right you are: linkage.

Jay Caruso's Daily Rant hosts the 25th edition of Carnival of the Vanities. As always, it's the best of the blogs, compiled and unedited, and this week it's guaranteed CGH-free, since I didn't send anything.

Well, not to me, anyway, but I still believe in all that hearts-and-flowers stuff.

And here's another reason why.

Equinox, schmequinox; you know it's spring in Oklahoma when God's own tympani roar out of the sky and the rain falls hard, sometimes in drops that cut through your very skin and sometimes in little clumps of ice the size of a golf ball. Add to this the inevitable electric light show, and you've got a storm to reckon with; the one we got late last night dumped an inch of rain in half an hour, and while I didn't see any ice balls with "Titleist" enameled on their dimpled surface, there were lots of chunks the size of M&M's. Peanut, not plain.

I celebrated the event by verifying that my air conditioner wasn't working — something one must do yearly, after all — and pulling Silvetti's dance number "Spring Rain" off the shelf where it's sat for the last twelve months or so. You know there's been a shift of some sort when I start playing the disco stuff again.

All in the Family creator Norman Lear will collaborate with Trey Parker and Matt Stone on several episodes of their Comedy Central series South Park.

[Insert terlet joke here]

This makes a certain amount of sense; Parker and Stone, like Lear, built their reputations by pushing the envelope without rendering it completely unreadable. And Lear's status as a full-fledged Hollywood liberal obviously didn't bother Matt and Trey, though it's unlikely they'd want to work with the likes of, say, Barbra Streisand.

And mister, we could use a man like Eric Cartman again.

When I am called to answer for my heinous life, I am going to demand mucho credit for time served based on the events of this day, which combined the worst 42nd and Treadmill has to offer (and believe me, they can dish it out in spades) with a crowning insult from an unexpected place.

I'm stopped at the grade crossing. The lights are flashing and the barriers are down. No train in sight. A few people have slid between the barriers, which I'm not going to do. Finally the lights go off and the barriers rise, and I slowly creep across the tracks. Too slowly; the right-side barrier suddenly falls and catches the roof of the car.

Damage: not a whole lot. Odd pattern of scratches, no scrapes or dents. But Christ on a crutch, what a way to end a perfectly horrible day.

If tomorrow is no better, I have probably just enough drugs on hand to OD.

In the absence of anything useful from this corner (like that's news), let me point you to an example of what happens when Susanna Cornett of cut on the bias brings out the industrial-strength Fiskars. To be sheared: a Dowd-y fellow from the Lexington Herald-Leader who (1) really, really doesn't like the President's war plans and (2) mixes metaphors faster than Tom Cruise mixes drinks. You really need to read the whole thing to get the full flavor, but since it's traditional to provide an excerpt, here's her explanation of why France is not our friend:

I guess she's not going on vacation with Rod Dreher. No matter, though; she's in her element, and the offending scribe from the old weird Herald will never be the same.

Now you know why I fear her so. :)

The parcel from HMV.com arrived this week, and surprises lay within. Most delightful of these was the complete absence of those irritating top-mounted title strips that never quite peel off the jewel box. (The Canadians have more sense about this, eh?) More offputting was the discovery, inside one of those jewel boxes, of an actual copy-protected disc.

On my desktop, Windows Media Player kicks in when presented with an audio CD, unless something else is set to autorun. (This is the case with so-called "enhanced" CDs that contain extraneous stuff of variable interest.) On Davnet by Damhnait Doyle, that "something else" is a little player utility that claims a bitrate about a third of what would be considered acceptable for ripping. The disc directory structure looks nothing like that of a proper audio CD.

I didn't have any particular plans to copy this disc, but I don't much enjoy having a red flag waved in my face either. And anyway, the history of copy-protection tells me that no scheme remains unbreakable for more than a few moments. So the major issue here is "Does it work properly elsewhere?" It plays in the car just fine. My JBL Harmony complained in spots, but then it's finicky; it's occasionally had difficulties with mundane Time-Life discs.

I suppose the next step is to report this to Fat Chuck's, and to grumble when called upon.

Many have tried, many have failed, to draw plausible parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.

Andrea Harris has succeeded:

Not to mention those who depend on pimps for their livelihood or for their moral guidance.

Next on the to-do list is determining whether we've improved our handling of hot rocks.

Matt at Overtaken by Events has had it up to here with politicians who proclaim their lame little legislation to be a "Bill of Rights For [insert name of group]." While the specific target of his wrath is Charles Schumer's godawful cell-phone proposal, a measure so clueless you'd think it had originated with the junior senator from New York, it's not just Schumer who cheeses off Matt:

Which it is, though I'd suggest that it's even more annoying when the legislation in question seeks to extend government power, as does the Schumer proposal, rather than to limit it, as did the original Bill of Rights.

I never did quite understand the business model at Epinions.com. Paying consumers for their product reviews sounds like a heck of a good idea, but who's going to read them, and where does the money come from?

Well, it obviously came from somewhere, because the company was actually in the black, and now it's being acquired by shopping site DealTime for some unspecified sum. And I have to assume that some of the reviewers were making a few bucks; I wrote a handful of pieces for them (though none lately) and earned a smidgen under $100, which, while it isn't a lot, is more than I'll likely ever make off blogging.

Hmmm. I wonder if there's a shopping blog out there?

C. D. "Dodd" Harris IV is persuaded that this new abortion bill, hailed as a victory by abortion foes, is actually anything but:

The President will certainly sign it, and it will almost immediately be challenged in the courts. Dodd thinks if it gets to the Supreme Court, it will be struck down, perhaps for the very reasons he cites. I'm not so sure you can get five of the Supremes to reject it, but the point is this: whether you consider D&X a routine medical procedure or a heinous violation of the Hippocratic Oath, the Congress does not have the Constitutional authority to regulate it. (Which is why, of course, that lame bit about "in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce" was thrown into the bill to begin with.) If they're going to ban these procedures, and I have no doubt that they are — it's damnably hard to defend something that gruesome — they need to do it on a basis that will pass Constitutional muster: state by state, county by county if necessary, until one of those jurisdictions comes up with a ban that stands up to any challenges. It can be done. Eventually it will be. In the meantime, the current bill may be useful for rallying the troops on either side of the issue, but otherwise it's just window-dressing, and not particularly attractive window-dressing at that.

"Which Humor Troubles the Disposition of YOUR Body?"

Did you really need to ask?

Your humor is: yellow bile
Your personality is: choleric
Your season is: summer
Your element is: fire
Your qualities are: hot and dry
Your color is: yellow
Your organ is: the liver
Your lunar phase is: the full moon
Your opposing humor is: phlegm

When yellow bile dominates, an individual is quick to anger. Choleric personalities (cholera meaning yellow as in yellow fever) are often violent and vengeful.

Black Hellebore, which is known for its laxative properties, purges lower tracts of phlegm and choleric humors.

Avoid herbs with a bitter taste, as they are most likely to promote yellow bile.

Choler is hot and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, and gathered to the gall. It helps the natural heat and senses.

(Muchas gracias: LAN3 at The Sound and Fury, whose humors are far better balanced than mine.)

Julie Peterson, speaking for the University of Michigan on the value of their (and presumably other) affirmative-action programs, as quoted in the Michigan Daily:

John Rosenberg boils this down to the essentials:

"We're not letting you guys in because you need a break; we're letting you guys in because we, personally, are devoid of soul. Uh, Microsoft Word to your mother."

And the Law of Unintended Consequences (a cousin of Murphy's, no doubt) proves itself supreme once more.

Silflay Hraka's Bigwig has been lately plying his Muse with brewskis or something; whatever the circumstances, the result has been some scathingly good tunage. Most recently, he's unveiled a sea chantey for 21st-century pirates (you know who you are) and a not-quite-lighter-than-air followup to Madonna's "Vogue".

I hope he and the Muse get along better than, say, Miles Green and Erato, or at least Albert Brooks and Sharon Stone.

By now, the 419/Nigerian Scam is old news. Been there, done that. And yes, there's a T-shirt.

How come I never think of things like this?

If you've dialed somebody's 800 number, you might be talking to someone in Oklahoma; the state now boasts some seventy call centers which employ 35,000 people. One of the biggest is the AOL facility in Oklahoma City's Shepherd Mall, which has nearly 1500 staffers.

Why here? Three reasons come to mind:

• We're in the middle of the country, so it's possible to catch both coasts with minimum shift change.
  
• We're awash in fiber connections.
  
• We work cheap.
  

Well, okay, we're not as cheap as Bombay or Manila, but we're marginally easier to understand on the phone.

Back around the Dawn of Video, Michael Medved and his brother Harry put together an orange-crate-coffee-table book called The Golden Turkey Awards, which purported to list the Worst Movies of All Time, the worst being Edward D. Wood Jr.'s messterpiece Plan 9 from Outer Space. Now anyone who's seen even one episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 knows that there are films out there that make Plan 9 look like Citizen Kane. Did the Medved brothers do any actual research on this book, or did they choose to rely on shtick and snark?

I can't tell you what Harry was thinking, but it seems to me that Michael's career since then has been nothing but shtick and snark. His "Hollywood hates America" premise is all over the place these days. And were I a failed screenwriter with an axe to grind, I suppose I'd keep the wheels spinning as long as possible myself.

Soundbitten's G. Beato has analyzed the situation, and he has reached the following conclusion:

I don't know how extensible this premise is, but I've always wondered how popular Ann Coulter would have been had she looked more like Golda Meir.

An impatient Tim Blair declared last week:

The likelihood of this, I fear, is very low, but the collectibility of such an issue would be extremely high, and ten years from now the price for a single copy would be somewhere around:

Suddenly mere tip jars seem inadequate.

NewsOK.com, the joint venture of The Daily Oklahoman and KWTV, has decided that if The New York Times can do it, so can they. Starting later today, you'll have to do the registration bit to get access to any NewsOK content.

It could be worse. TulsaWorld.com not only demands your demographic information but a monthly check as well.

There has been much handwringing in the past few weeks over the very idea that the United States might actually seek to remove a dictator without the consent of the international community. I've thought this over, and the more I think about it, the more I think that it's not a community at all.

Seriously. Each of the nations in the United Nations, as you might reasonably expect, is basically looking out for its own interests. If there's any sense of "community" at all, it's found in the temporary alliances among nations who seek to curry favor with, or extort money from, larger nations. The archetype for the leader of this type of community is Tony Soprano. At best, we're in an International Trailer Park: we're stuck next to one another and those damn people around the corner won't pick up their yard and someone else is trying to tap into our utilities. Under the circumstances, it's hard to blame the Bush administration for making noises about packing up and moving out.

"But they're our neighbors!" I hear you cry. Fine. Let them act like it for once.

Catalog retailer Spiegel — besides its own huge fashion book twice yearly, it also produces the Newport News and Eddie Bauer books — has filed for bankruptcy protection. Spiegel had been ailing for some time and had been delisted from the Nasdaq last year.

Spiegel's glory days, I suspect, coincided with the golden era of TV game shows, to which they often supplied prizes, always identified as coming from "Spiegel, Chicago 9, Illinois." (The arrival of the ZIP code, which rendered it "Spiegel, Chicago, Illinois 60609," seemed to deflate the announcement somewhat.) Their catalogs grew increasingly stylish, even arty, in recent years, and were sold at newsstands.

The effect the company's reorganization will have on director Spike Jonze, heir to the Spiegel empire, is unclear.

I was squishing my way down to the mailbox when F. (not necessarily her real initial) poked her head out of her door and acknowledged my presence.

In response, I pointed to the big elm tree out front and said, "What do you think? Dead?"

"Think so," she replied.

The big elm tree is about thirty percent less big this spring: a winter ice storm broke away one of the three major limbs, and while everything else is gradually going green — well, except the cottonwood trees along 42nd, which are already sprouting Q-tips — this tree is still barren, its branches grey, almost black in the March rain.

One does not romanticize trees on the prairie; they are there, and eventually they are not there, and you're supposed to shrug and go on. It's different in the Midwest, as H. Allen Smith once explained:

I looked at the big elm again, and maybe I did, maybe I didn't, see the faintest hint of green along the lower branches, the tender beginnings of a leaf or two or a dozen or a thousand. Then again, I was born in Illinois.

Curiously, so was H. Allen Smith.

The countdown has begun.

"The tyrant will soon be gone," said the President.

One down, too many still to go — but it's a start.

With war now more or less inevitable, the state legislature has been working up fresh measures to deal with the possibility of terrorist attacks. Each of these bills has passed one house and must be approved by the other to become law.

HB 1467, perhaps the most controversial, empowers the state to quarantine individuals and property exposed to infectious diseases distributed by biological weapons.

SB 509 authorizes the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to investigate acts of terrorism, and instructs the Attorney General to seek judicial authority for electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects.

SB 696 would set up vaccination programs, contingent upon receiving federal funding.

Meanwhile, the state's Congressional delegation (four Republicans and one Democrat in the House, two Republicans in the Senate) has declared itself to be in full support of the war effort.

Right on the heels of the President's address last night, ABC-TV ran a special called The Failure of Diplomacy. Chris Anderson at Queen City Soapbox takes issue with the very title:

Diplomacy, according to Will Rogers, is "the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock." Rocks are now in position.

I took a look into alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1950s this afternoon, and some yobo had hung a recording out on the line with the notation "Someone Make G. W. Bush Listen to this".

The song? Jackson Browne's "Lives in the Balance".

Not what I'd call a 1950s title by any stretch of the imagination. I was going to chide the individual posting the item, but someone beat me to it, opening with the following:

Only in Usenet (and ASCII sort routines, I suppose) would "off topic" come before "offensive".

The rest of the response:

Landing at Baghdad may be rather tricky toward the end of the week, but hey, no one said this was going to be easy.

Just in case the events of the week have left you wondering:

You've just read the smooth, well-modulated words of National Public Radio ombudsman Godfrey Dvorak.

Well, okay, maybe you haven't.

The Oklahoma lottery remains stubbornly undead. The Senate Finance Committee, not quite along party lines, approved House Bill 1278, which will now be sent to the full Senate. Governor Henry is now officially optimistic about its passage: asked if the bill had enough votes to pass the Senate, he replied, "I think so."

The revised bill contains a provision which will discontinue the lottery should its presence open the legal door for expanded tribal gaming, which at least indicates that its proponents are aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

According to the Rocky Mountain News, two new firearms measures have been signed into law by Colorado Governor Bill Owens.

Senate Bill 24 mandates that carry permits be issued to residents who pass a background check and a gun-safety course. Senate Bill 25 requires that individual cities and counties comply with state gun laws: they can no longer pass more restrictive measures on their own. SB 25 also bans local gun registries.

(Muchas gracias: Kim du Toit, who objects to the News'  headline writer's characterization of the measures as a "gun rights expansion". Says du Toit: "[T]hese laws don't expand gun rights, they've restored them, you journalistic morons.")

The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee is evidently just as confused as the rest of us: while interest rates will remain unchanged for now, the Fed uncharacteristically gave out no hint of what it's thinking or where it's going.

Analysts, of course, rushed to interpret the Fed's lack of guidance.

From Karen Croft's The Fix column at Salon.com:

And people say (yes, I know you do) I'm paranoid.

I can't wait to see what Rachel Lucas makes of this.

Twenty-six times that we've all shared,
Every week a Carnival, so don't be scared,
Here are all the best from those who dared
To blog, to blog, to blog, to blog.

It seems so distant, twenty-six weeks before,
When the Carnival was new;
Yet each edition, published each Wednesday,
Is still fresher than the morning dew.

Twenty-six weeks, still going strong,
Bigwig's great invention simply can't go wrong,
Wylie down in Norman now takes up the song,
To blog, to blog, to blog, to blog.

Twenty-six times (repeat until fade)

(With apologies to Glen Larson, Bruce Belland, any remaining Preps, and a place 40 km offshore)

The following was dispatched to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President (pro tempore) of the Senate:

It's on.

Fasten your seat belts.

Washington State Grange employees found Jody Mason about 11:45 a.m. Tuesday and asked what he was doing.

He told employees he'd chained himself to the building in civil disobedience Monday night after listening to President Bush's televised ultimatum to Saddam Hussein.

Grange employees explained that he was at the wrong building. The Grange is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for residents in rural areas.

Grange employees obviously have more patience than I.

(Via Fark)

It's almost a mantra here in Oklahoma. Pleasant weather can change in a matter of minutes into something decidedly unpleasant. Large segments of the state's economy are still commodity-based — oil, agriculture, methamphetamine — leaving us highly vulnerable to marketplace volatility.

And, though nobody thinks about it very much, we have earthquakes. Nothing that will make a Californian shudder, but the state is riddled with fault lines, and seismic disturbances are even harder to predict than the weather.

Of course, if you don't like it, you can always wait a few minutes.

I think Ken Layne's called this one on the nose:

Of course, the pursuit of irrelevance has been a favored pastime among French intellectuals for decades; how surprised should we be that the government has nationalized it?

King Kaufman in Salon:

Exactly so. Some people get paid to wail and wring their hands, others choose to do it on a volunteer basis; but most of us have lives to lead, and the process of, um, "regime change" does not occupy center stage in those lives. We are a nation, but we're not all that nationalistic.

And you know what? When the war was being fought on our turf, in the frightening days of September 2001, we took it then, too. We took care of business, we mourned our losses, and we got back to work — and to play. One of the finer aspects of living in the United States of America, I do believe.

Let the games begin.

Delaware's got them, and they've made over $800 million for the state's General Fund.

Oregon's got them too, and they've earned nearly $1.7 billion.

"They" are video lottery terminals, and they won't be coming to Oklahoma; at least some members of the legislature are convinced that if the boxes are allowed in the proposed state lottery, there will be no recourse should tribal-gaming associations choose to use them as well, and the state might not be able to compete with the ubiquitous Indian games. Competition, you know, makes you look like you're serious about this sort of thing, and God forbid we should look like we're serious about gambling.

Oh, well. Kansas doesn't have them either.

Scads of blogs have moved from manual operation to content management systems such as pMachine and Movable Type. It's harder to find one that's gone the other way, from a CMS to manual maintenance.

Not impossible, though.

(And it looks pretty good so far.)

There's a little convenience store on US 62 heading out of Oklahoma City which always seems to be about 12 to 24 hours ahead of the curve on gas prices. This morning, they cut the low-octane stuff I use to $1.459, down three cents.

Some folks may still be unsure of things — Dan Rather's radio commentary this morning went on and on about the grave uncertainty he thinks prevails in Iraq — but the guys who have to make a living off the oil fields have clearly made up their minds already.

The definitive editorial cartoon for today, by Jeff Koterba in the Omaha World-Herald.

Thanks to Geitner Simmons, who saw it first.

When last we heard from Minnesota composer/musician Vicki Logan, she was looking for an audience for her first CD, Chasing Dreams, and hinting that a second would follow eventually.

It took a while, but Finding My Way has found its way to my door, and it's a quite reasonable followup. Logan's melodies, as always, are just slightly off center yet relentlessly tuneful, sort of Enya unplugged; indeed, she takes on Enya's "Only Time" on track 5, and without the usual eleventy-one thousand overdubs, it's almost a whole new melody.

This particular instrumental road is not entirely unknown — Tim Janis, for one, has found his way down it a few times — but it still qualifies as scenic. And maybe that should be the name for this quiet little genre: not boisterous enough for "smooth jazz" and lacking the self-absorption of New Age, "scenic" is perhaps as good a description as any. It's probably not for everyone, but I've always enjoyed the ride.

Is it