Actually, it’s been several decades since I was a minor, but these things still cheese me off.

It is an unfortunate fact that this summer, about the only time it’s been below 80 degrees (27°C) is around four-thirty in the morning, if then.

But I still can’t work up much sympathy for this guy:

An Oklahoma City man said he was doing a good deed when he was arrested and cited for mowing his yard and a neighbor’s yard Friday morning.

Phil Ray Gage, 40, was arrested on a complaint of disturbing the peace after a neighbor called police to report him for mowing a lawn at [address redacted, but at least out of earshot] at 4:30 a.m., Oklahoma City police said. He was released by police at the scene after he signed a citation for disturbing the peace.

But Gage said he’s been mowing in the early morning hours for 10 years, and nobody has complained before.

There’s a reference elsewhere in the article to turning off the mower, so presumably this isn’t one of those non-motorized reel-type mowers that makes next to no noise.

On my block, there seems to be an unwritten code: nothing before 8:30 or so. I don’t ever start until 9, and 9:30 is more likely.

Oklahomans for the Arts, Inc. is a brand-spanking new (about a hundred days) advocacy organization that pretty much gives away its premise in its title, which is fine with me.

Like any start-up, they’d like to get some traction in social media, and the best way to do that, they reckon, is to give something away. So they’re giving away an iPad 2 to some diligent follower:

Just follow us on Facebook, Twitter and in the Blogosphere as well as sign up to receive our e-newsletter, The Arts Advocate, and you’ll have four chances to win. You must be 13+ to enter and you MUST be a resident of the State of Oklahoma, which means you live here 12 months out of the year.

Normally I’d hand out a bunch of links here, but they’re using some new tool called Rafflecopter to do the heavy lifting for them, so you need only go to this one link and follow the directions.

Oh, and while the organization seeks to secure public (read: “taxpayer”) funding for the arts in various and sundry ways, this effort is entirely self-financed.

We are told, generally, that members of the family Sciuridae are meek, harmless, and no threat to anyone. The old Norse beg to differ:

In Norse mythology, Ratatosk (“Sharptooth”) is a squirrel, running up and down with messages in the giant tree Yggdrasil, and spreading gossip. In particular, Ratatosk ferried insults between the eagle at the top of Yggdrasil, and the dragon Nidhogg beneath its roots.

Not a task assigned to the meek and/or harmless, though not what you’d call a high-status job either. And apparently it’s in character:

Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell theorize [in Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006] that “the role of Ratatosk probably derived from the habit of European tree squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) to give a scolding alarm call in response to danger. It takes little imagination for you to think that the squirrel is saying nasty things about you.”

Well, nuts to you, pal.

(Prompted by this tweet from Jon G.)

Last time we took a look at Kobi Levi shoes, we saw what appeared to be a semi-conventional oxford with a wad of bubble gum for the heel. At the time, I warned that this was not the weirdest shoe Kobi Levi had ever come up with.

Donna sent me pictures of about a dozen of his styles, mostly due to my presumed status as Curator of the Weird Shoe Museum. (Actually, I thought these guys were doing that.) After staring in disbelief for several minutes, I decided that this one was the least incomprehensible:

Asked for comment, Popeye quipped, “It’s proven through history / That woman’s a mystery.”

I’ve always seen Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy as one of the Good Guys, but I was still just slightly shocked to find this in the old inbox this week:

Wars spring up every day across the globe. Disasters rock our homeland with each season. Corruption infiltrates our economy as millions lose heart. Leaders fall.

Will these circumstances guide our leadership journey?

In our struggle to rise above it all we wish a light would shine, leading us somewhere else. To a brighter place. That light has come. It’s the light of a new day. And each new day begins with you.

Will you allow your circumstances to define you? Or will you seize each day as a new chance to make a difference — to lead when no one else will?

Goodness, can Chick-fil-A do all that? Apparently they can do anything, with the exception of taking care of a case of the Sunday munchies, and you already knew that. The Chick-fil-A Leader Tour kicks off in OKC on, yes, the 20th, and it’s an all-day affair: four sessions, with two short breaks and Guess What? for lunch. Here’s the list of speakers. The local panel, I am told, will be addressing the issue of foster care in Oklahoma.

I won’t be able to pry myself away from work to attend this — it’s at the Lifechurch.TV facility at 178th and Penn — but I’d like to hear from anyone who does, just on general principle.

(Disclosure: Yes, they offered to comp me a pair of tickets, which I am not accepting.)

Thirty years ago, Fort Dodge, Iowa got rid of its parking meters. In July, the City Council voted to buy new meters, the first of which were installed this week.

While my own home town struggles with a new meter design, I suggest that they could learn something from the Fort Dodge experience, in which these four goals were clearly established:

• The system must support itself. This includes any maintenance, upgrades or modifications to the system. If not, then the community’s taxpayers bear the burden to support it rather than the users of the system.
• Generate turn-over in the parking stalls, providing the opportunity for customers to park as close as possible to a business.
• The parking system must be cost-friendly to all users, including customers and employees, while still providing sufficient revenue to be cost-neutral.
• The system must be designed so that it is enforceable.

Any system that doesn’t meet these criteria isn’t worth installing, in Iowa, in Oklahoma, or anywhere else.

(Via this RadishTheGreat tweet.)

Well, she wasn’t up for an MTV Video Music Award, but she did put in an appearance, so to speak:

Then there was this odd little dustup, or maybe it’s only odd if you expected Facebook to make sense:

Rebecca Black’s Facebook fan page went from about 800 fans to more than 73,000 in just a few hours, 10TV News reported.

After seeing the mistake, Black, from Westerville, told everyone that Facebook had the wrong girl.

“I’m running a personal training, health-oriented, self-esteem business,” Black said.

The other Rebecca Black is a 14-year-old singer who is famous on YouTube.

Somehow, Facebook figured they were one in the same and merged both Rebecca Black fan page accounts into one, 10TV News reported.

Um, that’s “one and the same,” thank you, 10TV News. To help ease the pain, here’s an interview with Westerville, Ohio’s Rebecca Black.

Finally, there’s this:

Hi. My name is Benni Cinkle, and I was a 13-year old eighth grader when my life changed almost overnight. I am that girl in pink who dances awkwardly in the night scene of the “Friday” video that went viral online in the Spring of 2011. Ever since then, I’ve been talking to people all over the world and working to help raise money and awareness for the causes I believe in!

And, um, recording a single.

Seriously, did anyone imagine that someone could kick off a career by dint of sitting on Rebecca Black’s right, eh?

Ho-hum. Another day, another ill-informed bureaucrat:

To show her support for American workers, President Obama’s labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in. The problem: the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.

Of course, the “domestic-content” figure you see on the Monroney sticker includes, by law, Canadian content, and the Equinox, which is considered 66 percent “domestic,” makes a pretty good showing next to, say, Chevy’s Volt, which checks in with 40 percent.

And anyway, Canadian autoworkers these days make more than their US counterparts:

It’s cheaper to build in Mexico, and thanks to 1994′s North American Free Trade Agreement, it comes with little penalty. Labor rates account for less than 10 percent of overall vehicle cost, [Matteo] Fini [of IHS Automotive] says. But within that, the difference is significant. In 2010, Canadian autoworkers averaged $38.77 an hour in U.S. dollars, including benefits. Their U.S. counterparts averaged $33.46. Mexican autoworkers, in contrast, made just $3.75 an hour.

Pejman Yousefzadeh observes:

Of course, it might have been better for all involved if instead of engaging in economic nationalist showboating, the Labor Secretary — and the rest of the Obama Administration, for that matter — used this opportunity to teach people that the world economy is interconnected, that goods and services have a distinctly transnational aspect to them, and that as a consequence, it would be counterproductive (to say the least) to use economic nationalism as an excuse for destructive policies like protectionism, or the imposition of tariffs that lead to a trade war.

But wouldn’t someone have to teach the Administration first?

Another bunch of green jobs turned brown:

Solyndra Inc., a maker of solar modules that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Energy Department, suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy, saying it couldn’t compete with larger rivals.

The closely held company will seek Chapter 11 protection, Fremont, California-based Solyndra said [Wednesday] in a statement. It didn’t say how much it owes to creditors.

Down near the bottom:

Solyndra’s backers include Argonaut Private Equity, GKFF Investment, CMEA Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Rockport Capital Partners LLC, US Venture Partners, Virgin Green Fund, and Artis Capital Management LP, according to the company’s December 2009 IPO filing.

The first two are controlled by George Kaiser. You’d think a Tulsan would know better than to trust something weather-dependent.

(Via Patterico.)

Nancy Friedman, who was kind enough to send a few folks this way for the Soylent Green story, is happy to point out some similarly imaginary-but-actually-real products, including, yes, Stay Puft Marshmallows.

Oh, and be sure to wash ‘em down with Brawndo.

Donna’s looking for instances where a cover version with a woman’s voice is an improvement over the original recording by a man, and cites some reasonable examples thereof, though I think the better comparison with “Different Drum” — Linda and the Stone Poneys still rule — is with Billy Roy Hodstetter’s somewhat-rushed 1966 version. (The first actual recorded version, by the Greenbriar Boys, seems unduly arch to me for some reason.)

I suggest a possibly-obvious choice: Janis Joplin’s update of “Me and Bobby McGee,” which not only surpasses Kris Kristofferson’s own version but totally eclipses Roger Miller’s, the first version to show up on a sales chart.

And this one, perhaps not so obvious, in which the Corrs, with the able assistance of Ron Wood, manage to upstage the ghost of Jimi Hendrix:

Maybe it’s the whistle. (And if you’d like to discount Mr Wood’s presence, here’s the studio version, in which he does not appear.)

Every other day or so I spot someone on a message board wanting to know how to make tons of money off a blog. I probably should start referring them to Robert Stacy McCain:

A Venn diagram showing Set A as “people with lots of money” and Set B as “people who want to buy a blog” would show an extraordinarily tiny overlap in Set AB, none of whom have shown any interest in TheOtherMcCain.com — yet.

I figure, the moment this place ever gets any commercial value, the Feds will figure out some new way to tax it.

With sadness, we note the passing of a role model gone too soon:

Joseph Brendan Cunningham, a veteran New York Post copy editor whose sharp, caustic wit produced some of the paper’s most memorable front-page headlines in recent years, died Thursday of complications following a stroke. He was 43.

He joined the Post in 1997 as a city desk assistant. Before long, he began contributing articles to the paper, then was given a tryout as a copy editor.

Over the years, many of his suggestions for the “wood” — the paper’s celebrated lead headline — found their way onto Page One.

Among them: “Let’s Mecca Deal,” about financial questions surrounding the Ground Zero mosque; “Freakin” Flyer,” about the JetBlue attendant who went berserk at JFK; and “Screw U.,” about a professor caught pimping out girls on the Web.

Cunningham’s most famous headline, “Axis of Weasel,” appeared two days after this ScrappleFace piece.

I am reasonably certain Dawn Eden isn’t looking to get her old job back.

“Keep your face to the sunshine,” said Helen Keller, “and you cannot see the shadow. It’s what sunflowers do.”

No shadows today at the Sunflower Farmers Market, which opened this past Wednesday in Oklahoma City to what was reported to be just this side of a literal crush of shoppers. Certainly this afternoon they were bunched up tighter than retail asparagus.

It didn’t take too long, however, to see who their regular customers are going to be:

1. People who resist the tyranny of brand names;
2. People who like the idea of health-food stores but who want to pick up some BBQ fixin’s on the way;
3. People who have been waiting all their lives for a Whole Foods and couldn’t wait any longer.

And with an actual Whole Foods opening later this year, it was imperative for Sunflower to strike first. With the local grocery market shifting a bit — Walmart, which has roughly half the volume, is not growing much, while people who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Walmart seem to be on the increase — I’m thinking that Sunflower’s odds are good. To see if their goods are odd, I bought fruit both fresh and dried, an item from the meat department (bone-in ribeye, if you must know), and a no-sugar-added pie from the bakery, on the basis that these might be the items over which the local store would have the most control.

But the most telling story right now is parking. (Store staff are being told to park across 63rd in French Market Mall to preserve customer spaces.) I had unusually good fortune today, in that I had almost no wait time for a space; as I took the first turn, there was a Mini backing up. And I don’t mean one of those pricey BMW-built creatures, either: I’m talking a real live British Morris Mini Minor, presumably not blessed by John Cooper. To the three basic types of Sunflower customers, add “3½. People who were retro long before retro was cool.”

The archetype of the Cute Smart-Alecky Girl played a major role in my early development, or lack thereof, and now that the Women Are Not Funny attitude has been (mostly) buried, we’re seeing more of them, which suits me just fine.

This is Whitney Cummings, twenty-nine this weekend, who is responsible for two television shows coming out this fall: 2 Broke Girls (CBS), which she and Michael Patrick King created, and Whitney (NBC), which she created for herself. In this picture, she’s promoting the latter for a Canadian network:

Oh, and before you ask: She’s fine.

(Photo source.)

Dick Cheney’s book has landed on Bride of Rove’s Kindle, and she is not what you’d call overly impressed:

His is, quite possibly, the least interesting, least engaging writing style I have ever seen in print. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t vote for Bush, I voted for Cheney and Rove. I.am.a.fan. But holy hell he’s boring. I have almost made it through the chapters that serve the sole purpose of proving that he was indeed born here on earth to relatively normal parents and that he lived a fairly normal life, managed to finish college even though he flunked out of Yale — because he wanted to flunk out of Yale and not because Yale was too hard for him (heh) — married the Homecoming Queen, managed to reproduce and stuff and not in any romantic way, mind you even though Lynn is a PhD and a great gal, it’s just that she had babies and in some nebulous, undefined way he was involved somehow.

Things apparently level off after that.

Remind me never to write a memoir. (And if I already have, please accept my apologies.)

There is one distinct disadvantage to crowdsourced opinion:

For some reason, this seems to have taken a long time between visit and post.

(Via FAIL Blog’s WIN!)

Donald Douglas looks at an easily-avoidable tragedy:

A tooth extraction is not an expensive dental procedure. Indeed, as the ABC News report indicates, “a routine tooth extraction” costs about $80.00. And while it’s a horribly needless waste of life, it’s no one’s fault but the man’s himself, 24-year-old Kyle Willis, the father of a young girl. Willis decided to ride out the pain. When he was overcome by swelling he checked into the emergency room and the doctors gave him prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medication. Willis, apparently because he was “uninsured,” bought the pain killers and blew off the antibiotics. Big mistake. Rudimentary health knowledge says buy the antibiotics and take some (cheap) generic ibuprofen for the pain and inflammation.

Having had “a routine tooth extraction” earlier this year, after which I was prescribed fourteen amoxicillin (about $6) and twenty Lortab (about $6), I’m inclined to think that the motivation here might have had less to do with saving precious coin of the realm than with obtaining an actual opioid without having to go through, um, nonstandard channels. But then I’m cynical about such things.

And besides, “rudimentary health knowledge,” as imparted by too many schools, consists entirely of “Wear a condom,” which would not have helped poor Mr Willis with this particular plight.

Big 12? Big deal:

[M]y truck is older than the Big 12. There is no storied legacy. There are no traditions steeped in years of repetition, no bridges between the eras built when children of the digital age reignite flames first lit by children of the Great War, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Summer of Love, the Disco Era, or even MTV. The lifetime of every single student on a Big 12 campus — barring the odd 6th-grade super-genius or two, and they’re probably at MIT — encompasses the entire history of the Big 12, whether you date from the 1996 start of competition or the official formation announcement in 1994.

Of course, the real issue here is something else entirely:

Meanwhile, at the various dogs all these tails are wagging, tuition rises faster than inflation, classes the size of some small towns are taught by adjuncts for whom English may be a third language or by some bored prof committing death by PowerPoint on a battlefield scale, young adults learn that they can act like animals as long as they commit no sins against diversity, graduates hock diploma frames to pay back student loans and seniors learn that employers don’t much care about uncovering the patriarchy-silenced voices of 13th century Lithuanian quilt makers, because your résumé lists your “previous experence.”

Which, if nothing else, suggests a replacement for one of the defectors: Rice University. The Krispies aren’t exactly a football power, but they are in Division I, and the scholastic average for the league, about which the NCAA claims to care once in a while, would lurch upward overnight.

Several possible lessons can perhaps be derived from this single incident:

As the opening lot of the Deutscher and Hackett auction, a single wad of $20,000 cash — an artwork called Currency — was sold for $17,500. When the 22 per cent buyer’s premium is added, the total cost comes to $21,350.

The artwork? Two stacks of 100 $100 Australian banknotes. The auctioneers had projected a sale price between $15,000 and $25,000.

Artist Denis Beaubois said he had had no idea what to expect from the auction:

“I thought there was a strong chance it would go for below [$20,000] because there’s a lot of suspicion with the work, but it’s also interesting it went for above the financial worth.”

From the purely-mercenary standpoint, the maximum bid would have been $16,393, which would have left the high bidder, after compensating the auctioneers, with a 54-cent profit.

Viewed strictly as an objet d’art, a stack of banknotes is not exactly unique, since it’s essentially indistinguishable from any other stack of banknotes: you could use notes of lower value, thereby making a taller stack, but any other difference, I suspect, is trivial, though Beaubois said that all the serial numbers are recorded to insure authenticity.

What matters most here, though, is this:

The work … [was] brought to life with a $20,000 grant from the Australia Council.

After all, it’s always better to spend Other People’s Money.

(Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.)

Jill Filipovic at Feministe, on what seems to be a popular, um, misconception these days:

It turns out that whitening your teeth, dying your hair and using really good anti-wrinkle cream will not in fact extend your fertility. I KNOW. My biology class taught me that if you’re pretty you can have babies forever, so this really blew my mind. Super glad the Times regularly covers the “you think you’re young, ambitious, happy and responsible because you’re waiting until you’re ready to have kids, but you actually have the ovaries of a shriveled old hag so better get to procreating yesterday” beat. Without it, women who are under the impression that they can get pregnant at 86 as long as they look like they might still menstruate would probably never have the chance to be quoted in a reputable news publication.

Dorianne Gray, line two, please.

The only thing I’d criticize here is the characterization of the Times as a “reputable news publication,” though the piece linked therein does contain trace amounts of Actual Reality™, which I attribute to its being placed in Section E, a safe distance from either the front or the editorial page.

This feature, which collects the daffiest items from the site’s search logs, is scheduled for Monday mornings at a time when there’s nothing worth watching on television — which means, ultimately, that I can put these up any time I want to.

brian wilson hearing mono:  Yes, the Beach Boys’ leader’s hearing shut down many years ago, which was not fun, fun, fun for anyone, and God only knows how things might have turned out if it hadn’t — but wouldn’t it be nice to imagine?

bryn mawr college secret:  No guys. Simple as that.

american spammers that are women:  No girls. Simple as that.

ideas to redo converted garage tongue and groove vaulted ceiling previously painted white:  These days, utility is all the rage. Recall the room’s original function by spritzing the entire ceiling with truck-bed liner.

I have thought about approaching a sexy librarian:  Be careful. Not only is she probably brighter than you, she knows where to find out about the insane things you did after your last breakup.

ugly people unfair:  Actually, “non-fair” is closer to the mark, as yon fair maid at the Reference Desk will point out.

THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD RUN EVERYTHING:  Um, no, it shouldn’t, since it doesn’t have Constitutional authority, and anyway you don’t have to yell, Senator.

will renault return to the us:  Only if they do something absurd like buy Saab.

what will fix my tribute hard shifting?  Write a very large check to the transmission shop. Or try to find a nice new Renault.

Jill Biden nude stiletto heels:  I hate to disappoint you, but it’s the shoes that are considered nude, not Mrs Biden.

when are shorts out of season:  Far as I’m concerned, Jill Biden can wear ‘em any time she wants.

dustbury we got your earworm:  Yeah, right. Like another one won’t come along before the day is over.

Hey, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?

Here’s the pitch:

This is a new type of product from Adafruit, creating wearable electronics that are subtle, fun to wear and look classy.

The necklace pendant is CNC machined from the finest 6 series aluminum for durability and beauty. The iNecklace is a remarkable accessory. Machined with a “screw in backing” that allows easy access to the battery using a coin. Each iNecklace pendant contains a circuit board with pulsating LED and battery. The pendant comes strung on a 18″ long sterling silver 1.6mm diamond-cut curb chain that has been treated to inhibit tarnishing. The necklace is placed in a black velveteen box, ready to given as a gift!

And the glow isn’t a fixed quantity, either:

The “pulsing” is similar to the “breathing” LED pattern on many laptop and computer systems. The default pattern is reverse engineered from the Apple “breathing” LED on Macs, MacBooks, iMacs, etc.

Seventy-five bucks for the geek girl you adore. (You do adore a geek girl, don’t you?)

(Swiped from The Mary Sue.)

Charles Pergiel goes to the auto-parts store:

I pick up a Fram filter because it’s easy, they have one of those little electronic selection jobbies. They have some other brands, but nothing that looks like the discount generic, so the $4 Fram filter is fine.

I get to the checkout counter and guy tells me I can save $4 (FOUR DOLLARS!) by getting the Castrol oil instead of O’Reilly’s house brand. The Castrol five quart jug is normally $24, so they are knocking off $8. Castrol must really want to sell some oil.

Yesterday I drove by one of those quickie oil change places and they were advertising oil changes for $18. Times must be tough. They must be counting on selling you some windshield wipers.

My last oil change, incidentally, was $41.95, which included five quarts of Mobil Clean 5000, Nissan’s OEM oil filter, and a wash/vacuum job. The oil, presumably from a bulk source, was listed at $2.40 a quart and rounded up to the nearest quart, since actual capacity is four liters (4.23 qt). A set of wiper blades would have run the tab up to $80ish. Then again, I didn’t do any of the actual work.

Nothing, of course, will withstand everything. This we stipulate from the very beginning. That said:

Texas Armoring Corporation (TAC) is the leading worldwide manufacturer and supplier of lightweight armored cars and custom bulletproof vehicles. With roots dating back to the 1970s, TAC founders and key management personnel have nearly 200 years of combined armoring experience. Through focusing on engineering, innovation, protection, lightweight armor applications, and premium finishing, TAC engineers have literally produced and shipped thousands of armored cars & bulletproof vehicles for distinguished individuals throughout the world.

With that in mind, here come three rounds:

Don’t even think about trying this at home.

(Via Autoblog.)

Suppose — just suppose — that the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile USA doesn’t happen. It’s no particular secret that Deutsche Telekom has been anxious to get its American stepchild off its hands and its books, but if AT&T can’t take it, who will? Sascha Segan of PCMag.com has some ideas on the subject, and I’m thinking the one I’d like the best is this:

Why should the New York Times be the only American icon rescued by Carlos Slim? Owned by the richest man in the world, América Móvil is the world’s fourth-largest mobile operator and already has a foothold in the U.S. through its ownership of Tracfone/Net10/Straight Talk. If T-Mobile is indeed America’s value player, it could have some synergies with América Móvil’s existing offerings. Also, Slim loves telecom.

And he’s already got 15 million Stateside customers: add Tmo’s 30 million, and they won’t quite catch up to Sprint for third place, but they’d be a much-stronger fourth. Besides, if anyone is capable of staring down the Death Star, it’s got to be Carlos Slim.

France establishes a performance standard for marital sex, kinda sorta:

A Frenchman has been ordered to pay his ex-wife £8,500 in damages for failing to have enough sex with her during their marriage.

The 51-year-old man was fined under article 215 of France’s civil code, which states married couples must agree to a “shared communal life”.

The ex, 47, after filing for divorce, filed a second claim, complaining of “lack of sex over 21 years of marriage,” and asked €10,000 in damages. A judge in Aix-en-Provence ruled in her favor:

“A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent. By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other.”

Unanswered in this article is the question of how much sex they had before they got married.

(Via The PJ Tatler.)

I am reasonably certain that this is not an actual Texas law-enforcement examination:

A young Texan grew up wanting to be a lawman. He grew up big, 6’2″, strong as a longhorn, and fast as a mustang. He could shoot a bottle cap tossed in the air at 40 paces.

When he finally came of age, he applied to where he had only dreamed of working: the West Texas Sheriff’s Department. After a series of tests and interviews, the Chief Deputy finally called him into his office for the young man’s last interview.

The Chief Deputy said, “You’re a big strong kid and you can really shoot. So far your qualifications all look good, but we have what you might call an ‘attitude suitability test’ that you must take before you can be accepted. We don’t just let anyone carry our badge, son.”

Then, sliding a service pistol and a box of ammo across the desk, the Chief said, “Take this pistol and shoot everything on this list”:

• six illegal aliens,
• six lawyers,
• six meth dealers,
• six Muslim extremists,
• six Democrats,
• and a rabbit.

“Why the rabbit?” queried the applicant.

“Great attitude. You pass.” said the Chief Deputy. “When can you start?”

I’m guessing this particular rabbit might have been on the endangered-species list.

This is a crossover:

The owner of this Jaguar XK150 wanted to haul more than just ass; he had a couple of Labradors to schlep around. So he replaced the Jag’s curvy but small rear with the back end of a Morris Minor Traveler, and declared the resulting, um, hybrid to be the “Foxbat,” a wicked-fast shooting brake long before Audi or Mercedes or Cadillac picked up on the idea.

The Foxbat, powered by Jaguar’s 3.4-litre twincam six, will be auctioned off at Goodwood later this month by Bonhams, where it’s expected to bring somewhere over £30,000.

Simon Bleecker (that’s his mother’s maiden name) concocts an online dating profile:

My hateful patriarchal name, which I have totally repudiated, is Urquhart. I’m in the process of legally changing my name to Unkwaayumet-Nenachuk, a double-barrelled Nez Perce and Tibetan name meaning (roughly, since English is such a non-spiritual language) “Rainbow Wisdom Person”. The Nez Perce part is to atone for the fact that there were probably some people in the past named Urquhart who might have oppressed the Nez Perce. It seems like the sort of thing evil white people named Urquhart would do, which is one reason why I now reject the name. Anyway, I’m not like that at all. Nor, despite my hateful male genitalia, do I harbor any disrespect or insensitivity to womyn, who are all equally beautiful Earth Goddesses in my eyes. If only men would realize just how much innate wisdom each womyn possesses and if only men would heed that womynly wisdom, then the world would finally be at peace. I promise I will heed your wisdom without question. I also wish to apologize in advance for any sexual longing I might experience when I finally get to meet you. Rest assured that it is only the Universal Goddesshead in you that I am appreciating and I will be sure to get advance permission for each step of the lovemaking process, if that’s all right with you. Is it all right with you? Again, I don’t want to impose, so I will wait for you to initiate every move. Just tell me what you want me to do. Thank you again.

The underlying principle here, I suspect, is “Hippie chicks are easy.” If you borrow this template, you can expect to find out otherwise.

Is it time for Dust Bowl 2: Electric Boogaloo? Go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief.

Jessica Simpson is, perhaps unexpectedly, contemplating plastic surgery:

The singer-and-actress — who is engaged to former NFL player Eric Johnson — is reportedly unhappy with her large boobs and believes downsizing her assets before tying the knot will help her to look better in her wedding dress.

A source told In Touch Weekly magazine: “She thinks if she downsizes her breasts, she will look smaller. She’s never loved having a huge chest.”

Traditional fashion advice calls for a bit of misdirection: draw the eye to some place other than the perceived figure flaw.

Hmmm. Doesn’t seem to work so well. And that will almost certainly not pass for a wedding dress.

Eric Fanner, writing in the International Herald Tribune, notes that some people would like you to use your real name on the Internet, if you please:

Online anonymity is essential for political dissidents, whose role has been highlighted in the uprisings in the Arab world, and for corporate whistle-blowers. In the United States, the Supreme Court has found a constitutional basis for protecting anonymity.

Why, then, are the calls for restrictions on Internet anonymity growing?

Last month, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich of Germany said bloggers should disclose their true identities, citing the case of the Norwegian terrorist suspect Anders Behring Breivik, who had blogged under the pseudonym “Fjordman.”

Um, no. Breivik actually blogged under the name “Andrew Berwick.” He did, however, make numerous references to the work of Fjordman, whose name is Peder Jensen. (I’m not revealing any secrets here: Jensen outed himself last month.) Friedrich did not confuse Breivik and Fjordman, so this error is clearly Fanner’s.

Still, if anything, the error reinforces Fanner’s point: if the media can screw up your identity, it’s probably just as well that they don’t know you.

My German is just this side of nonexistent, so while you get the original link, the blockquote comes from a translation posted at Gates of Vienna:

At the instigation of a mentally unbalanced bee-keeper, the similarly unbalanced European Court (EuGH), the highest court in the EUSSR, is considering whether honeybees are allowed to approach genetically modified plants and take their pollen. If they are not, then, first, the resultant honey must be removed from supermarket shelves and burned in a carbon-neutral fashion. Second, bees will be forbidden to approach inappropriate blossoms.

Meanwhile in Sacramento, an Assembly member is asking herself: “Why didn’t we think of that?”

Kim Reynolds drove a Chevrolet Volt from Detroit to Los Angeles for the October issue of Motor Trend, and the general dearth of charging stations along the way prompted this tongue-in-cheek observation:

Nissan Leaf drivers attempting to cross the country might be the solution to our nation’s dwindling rural population. Eventually, they’ll become stranded far from the coast’s handy plugs, and be forced to find an apartment and a job.

At least, I think it was tongue-in-cheek.

In its (so far) two days of operation, Tavi Gevinson’s Rookie, an online magazine for teenage girls actually operated and overseen by a teenage girl, has produced all manner of quotable stuff, though this item, by Tavi herself, is the one that I decided to toss into the stew here. The subject is Getting Over Girl Hate, and here’s the reason why you should:

I want everyone to be confident and like themselves! Sincerely. People not liking themselves seems to be where their hating other people begins, and that’s when you get a world full of hatred and spite and darkness, and that is why we have to sing awful songs in music class about loving children and trees and shit. These songs must be stopped.

Anything that curbs “Kumbaya” is fine with me.

Europe, according to this Reuters report, is a hotbed of mental illness:

Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden — measured in the hundreds of billions of euros — as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.

Whatever can they mean, listing insomnia and dementia right next to each other? Are they somehow comparable? Or do they need insomnia to pad the numbers?

And no, I’m not mocking insomnia. I’ve had it, and had it bad. I’ve also spent days on suicide watch. Trust me, insomnia is trivial by comparison.

Peter, more cynical than I, detects the hand of the Almighty State:

With almost four out of every ten Europeans ‘suffering’ from what the survey defines as a ‘mental illness’ (many of which I would dispute are mental illnesses at all), European psychologists and their allies can now argue for massive increases in their State funding.

That phrase “social burden” gives it away, doesn’t it?

(The preceding has been brought to you by the Ministry of Love.)

Inevitably, we must bow to the wisdom of Douglas Adams:

A towel … is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

In fact, the towel will serve some of us well in seemingly-mundane places like San Francisco:

The legislation will address two issues. First, it will require people who are nude in public to place an item — for example, a towel — underneath them when they sit down. This will avoid situations, as currently occurs, where nudists sit down on public seating without placing anything between their body and the seat. Second, the legislation will require nudists to don clothing before they enter a restaurant.

“San Francisco is a liberal and tolerant city, and we pride ourselves on that fact. Yet, while we have a variety of views about public nudity, we can all agree that when you sit down naked, you should cover the seat, and that you should cover up when you go into a food establishment.”

The quote comes from the man who proposed the measure, Supervisor Scott Wiener.

(Scraped from Lisa Paul’s Facebook wall.)

During my days in New England, I discovered something called Filene’s Basement, oddly enough underneath a Filene’s store. Items relegated to the Basement were marked down some startling amount, and further markdowns were taken if they survived ten, then twenty, days. After 30 days, anything left was donated to charity. I learned to keep well back as shoppers fought each other for items on Day 29.

Then again, I’m a guy. I don’t have the killer shopping gene. I’d never survive this sort of thing:

Got a Lord&Taylor end-of-season coupon in the mail (something useful in USPS pulp download, for a change) and went to get my “20% of our sale items” bargain. Naturally, same idea occurred to other 759 women, all wandering in pandem0nium around same 4 1/2 stands with all left-shoe sale merchandise and then shuffling among settees with boxes and single shoes strewn all over them in insane hope to find something wearable AND moderately priced — unlike a pair of some-designer-I-never-heard-of podium-rough creation which was generously discounted from “suggested” $1,400 to mere $850. And who, incidentally, are those crazies who’d suggest such a thing? I want to look into their shameless eyes.

She did, however, score:

Marked down from $69 to $55 at Zappos, our heroine snagged a pair of these for a mere $30 (marked down from $125 because it’s Lord & Taylor fercrissake). For absolutely no reason I can see, Franco Sarto calls this shoe “Quilt.” I definitely like the look of it: it seems more insubstantial than it really is, though it’s hardly gossamer.