Bacon Meteor

Thomas Disch apparently died a suicide on the 4th.

He was a fine writer and a fascinating man. It was a privilege to talk with him on Livejournal after years of reading him, back to my childhood.

He'd been through a lot in his last years and was often a terribly bitter and angry man. It's not surprising that he left this way, just very sad.

This morning I had a dream about a snack called sulaki-mulaki. It consisted of crunchy black pieces, with texture a bit like charcoal left over after a fire. I had eaten a couple of pieces when I discovered the nature of this food: it was the bodies of dried birds, and they crunched because of bird bones and also twigs. In most cases the pieces were just shapeless lumps of crunchy black material, but in a few a bird tail or a bird paw were visible.

On the other hand, last night, I had a daydream-turned-dream about Fionn making friends with a french mole who lived under a vast green field. The mole wore a beret, and had a secret screening room underneath the field. The mole and Fionn watched Brothers Lumiere films together there.

THE SENATOR THEN DIED

As fengi says, this is one of the least reassuring things you will ever see. And yes, it is for real the assistant Treasury Secretary.



Yesterday's report that 62,000 jobs were lost brought the total for the first half of the year to 438,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management reported that its measure of the service sector had declined in June. Stock markets, flirting with a bear market, finished another losing week. Oil pushed to a record high. Inflation and foreclosures are up, consumer confidence is down, and administration forecasts for a "strong pace of growth" in the second half of 2008 are look increasingly absurd.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/who-wants-to-be.html

Lamperd Less Lethal's T3 features an electric vehicle equipped with a pneumatic weapon that can be used for crowd control, reports the Sarnia Observer.

WHRRRRR WHRRRR

As mendel pointed out, running behind the scooter seems an effective enough defense, and provides comedy gold as a bonus.

Via this news article. Thanks, foo2rama!

If you've protected your friend's rapist son while you're sheriff, given out guns to all your buddies, and got yourself indicted for corruption charges involving the same rapist's dad, there's nothing like a new tape showing you n-wording. Because that's what we want in a Sheriff:

The tapes, between Carona and former political confidante Donald Haidl, reveal Carona casually using the n-word, dropping several f-bombs, talking about his sexual conquests and making sexual remarks about other women.

I mean, we're bigots here, but you aren't supposed to SAY IT LIKE THAT.

"You're right, I've had a life that's been absolutely blessed," he tells Haidl. "I've met millionaires, billionaires, I've traveled on personal airplanes, and I never shook anybody down for any s***, so. … Not that I haven't, you know, drank some great wine, and had great booze and ... got some, you know, phenomenal (sex) along the way…"

insomnia is the mother of, uh, dicking around with lj talk posting.

I am 30 today. I have lived in five (soon to be six) countries on three continents, and traveled through fifteen more. Along the way I have accrued friends and family, like a global network of fireflies.

"That's all I've wanted— to walk in such a place with you, with friends, on earth without maps."

Distressed properties are a huge part of the real estate game. As a percent of all listed homes for sale, distressed properties were 40.1% of the market last week vs. 39.6% two weeks earlier.

Note the scary number in that table for the < $500K houses.

1. While I was riding the T the other day, a little girl--four, maybe, or five, looked up at me and said "do you know a crow?" "A crow?" I asked. "A crow, a bird," she said. "No," I told her. "The crow told me to tell you something" she continued. But she wouldn't say what.

2. While taking Fionn for a walk in Davis Square the other night we met an old guy who had built a radio-controlled toy helicopter, and affixed a little digital camera to it. He took aerial photos of is.

3. rezendi told me that they built some sort of subterranean telescope built in a Victorian tunnel under the ocean between london and new york so that people can wave at their counterparts across Atlantic when they walk by. At first I got super-excited to see it, then I started thinking that cameras had to be involved, and I assume my steampunk imagining of it is way cooler than the real thing...still, I am curious--has anyone seen this contraption? Is it really a cool telescope or is it like those cameras they had in Times Square some years back? If I manage to get to NYC the next weekend, SHOULD I GO SEE THE STEAMPUNK TELESCOPE? Where is it, anyway? I refuse to google it in case it ruins my fantasy of it. So don't tell me anything that might ruin my fantasy of it, but definitely tell me if it is as awesome as it sounds.

4. mashuta and her Young Man stopped by today, and Fionn has demonstrated that he has become a fully Marxist baby, as he spent their entire visit engaged in redistribution of property amongst the four of us. I guess being born on Lenin's birthday confers certain proclivities and predispositions.

and just a few shots from walking around some rust belty-ish parts of Boston the other day

Justice Antonin Scalia: Al Gore to blame for 2000 US election mess

The 2000 presidential election debacle was the fault of Al Gore, who should have followed Richard Nixon's 1960 example and conceded without legal action, according to the Supreme Court's leading conservative judge.

"Richard Nixon, when he lost to Kennedy thought that the election had been stolen in Chicago, which was very likely true with the system at the time," Justice Antonin Scalia told The Telegraph.

"But he did not even think about bringing a court challenge. That was his prerogative. So you know if you don't like it, don't blame it on me.

"I didn't bring it into the courts. Mr Gore brought it into the courts.

"So if you don't like the courts getting involved talk to Mr Gore."

Justice Scalia insisted that his controversial decision, along with four other justices, to stop votes being recounted in Florida because the method was unconstitutional and it was too late to consider other options was "absolutely right".

I don't get it--are SCOTUS cases not named in Plaintiff vs. Defendant format? Or is Scalia just in the throes of Orwellian lying? I know that Gore filed a petition for county recounts, as per Florida law, but that it was Bush (and his brother and the secretary of state) that pressured him into a state-wide recount, and BUSH not Gore was the one who took it to the federal courts?

Also in 1960 the Republicans totally challenged results in 11 states, with court cases that dragged on into the following year.

I just want to understand exactly how Scalia is lying and abusing history here. Why can't he get impeached, again? Why can't ANYONE in this fucking corrupt, murderous, illegal clusterfuck get impeached? My head is gonna 'splode.

Via Panasonicyouth:

Federal Court Jury Summons

I hope I don't get on a jury. Some of those federal ones go forever, especially financial crimes. But I have actually no possible excuse; I'm their ideal juror.

At least it's a call-in thing. Unless I get called I won't have to spend too much time in the airless Santa Ana Federal District Court Building.

Waaah! I don't want to join this Justice League!