I told you so

Didn't I?

Is our rednecks lerning?

Periodically, I get catalogs -- constantly, I get catalogs. Oy, do I get catalogs. Among them are a lot of middle-of-the-road material, one or two preferred vendors, and then -- far off the left side of the chart, quality-wise, not politically -- are a couple of outliers. Their target market seems to be the American undomesticated wild ass, the person, probably male, probably single, probably a grade-school drop out, with a small amount of disposable income and no taste for the finer (or even less-awful) things in life.  The guy whose wardrobe consists of wife-beaters and hoodies with silk-screened eagles on 'em.  I enjoy reading those catalogs a great deal, and from time to time, I am compelled to share some of their products with you.  This is one of those times.

As you deconstruct this narrative, note the following: you don't often see "Executive" and "Ridge Runner" together in the same context.  Consider the level of quality this product must exhibit, given its princely MSRP of $17.00.  And finally, wonder at the assertion, "Perfect gift for the boss."

Exhibit two;

First of all, your honor, although the prosecution admits that there were submarines, at least a couple, operable in the Civil War, none of them "ruled the seas."  They were, in fact, barely able to function without sinking and drowning their crews wholesale -- in fact, several of them did just that. Further, of all the "collectible" equipment that sub crews in the 1860's would have used, edged weapons were not really at the top of the must-have list.  "Out cutlasses and board," was not an order frequently heard in that context. And finally let me just say in closing, that while this may be a reproduction of a US Navy cutlass, it is certainly not a replica of a US Navy Civil War Submariner's cutlass. Why? Because the US Navy didn't have any damn submarines in the Civil War.  The Confederates put a few into the water, how many we don't know, and lost a lot of men in the course of finding out just how poor an idea it was, given the technology they had. The US wasn't interested, due to an unusual combination of hidebound conservatism and remarkably astute assessment of the likelihood of success.

Yet Another Social Networking Site

I'm of two minds, give or take a mind, about goodreads.com. It appears to be a kind of facebook for people who can actually remember what a book looks like, or claim to.  Our shamelessly self-aggrandizing acquaintance had it recommended to him by some blog postings as a way of promoting his silly book, and so he's given it a try, kicking and screaming all the way.  If this goes on, can a Facebook presence be far behind?

One or two of you, I believe, are actually on goodreads; what do you think of it?  Mr. McConnell tells us that he's reluctant to spend a lot of time on it, but is willing to if it's not a complete waste.

Quit yer beefin'

Or actually, don't.  At least until you read this article about your brain and meat.

Been telling you so for years.

The energy drink industry ...

Finally getting the attention it deserves.  Especially the Five-hour guy, Manoj Bhargava (who, for some reason, I'd heard was an Ann Arborite.  He's not, he lives in Farmington Hills.)

What everyone seems to ignore about the energy drinks (besides their being a totally unnecessary affectation) is that they're caffeine.  Caffeine plus we're not sure exactly what, but typically sugar, anyway.  And in some cases, phenylalanine, which is extremely bad for you if you have phenylketonuria -- and lots of people do.  While the article is from a somewhat suspect source (Forbes), David Kroll (with no initials, such as "MD", that he bothers to use after his name, BTW), has a nice heads-up piece on the stuff.

Something in the water, I guess

Whatever it is that makes the Michigan 11th district unique in its ability to produce congressional exotica is still operating.  Thad McCotter, the loser who ran briefly for president before cratering like a bluejay hitting a window wall, is being replaced by Kerry Bentivolio, a Republican reindeer rancher from Milford.  I did not make that last phrase up. He's really a reindeer rancher. From Milford.  He's also a teabagger and in general an embarrassment to the state, making him a fitting replacement for McCotter.

Quoted by Mlive blogger Khalil AlHajal, Bentivolio had this to say, apparently alluding to opportunities for improvement in the 11th disctrict's staffing and overall attitude toward the constituency: "Our staff will be well-trained. I'm going to test them ... send somebody posing as a citizen to see how well our staff performs."

Why it would be necessary to "pose as a citizen" in order to do a mystery shopper sting on a congressional office was not explained, but, after all, he is a fully-qualified reindeer rancher.

The Score

Gleaned from this morning's news. Not a bad set of outcomes, all in all. Unfortunate about the Emergency Manager law, but maybe the legislature will pass a new, more idiot-proof version now.

Topic	Outcome	Pos/Neg
National Elections
Presidential Election	Democrat: Obama	Positive
15th Congressional District	Democrat: Dingell	Positive
US Senator	Democrat; Stabenow	Positive
State and Local Elections
53rd District MI	Democrat: Driskell	Positive
52nd District MI	Democrat: Irwin	Positive
Ann Arbor Mayor	Democrat: Hieftje	Positive
State Supreme Court Justices	Bridget McCormack Stephen Markman Brian Zahra	Positive Negative Negative
State and Local Proposals
Prop 1: Emergency Manager Law	Failed	Negative
Prop 2: Prevent Anti-Union Legislation	Failed	Negative
Prop 3: Renewable Energy Standard	Failed	Positive
Prop 4: Home Health Care Union	Failed	Positive
Prop 5: Tax Increase Supermajority	Failed	Positive
Prop 6: Bridge and Tunnel Measure	Failed	Positive
Prop: C Ann Arbor Library Reconstruction	Failed	Positive
Prop: B Ann Arbor Public Art Funding	Failed	Negative
Prop: A Ann Arbor Parks Millage	Passed	Positive

Note that the Mayor staved off a challenge from an independent candidate, Albert Howard, narrowly defeating him by a margin of only 30,000 or so votes.

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Update: 2012 11 07: Romney can at least claim that he swept the looney vote. Donald Trump, Ted Nugent, and the guy they just arrested for apparently being the I-96 Freeway Shooter were all big fans of the Mittster, and they all exhibited psychopathia twitteralus.  Congratulations to the GOP for having so accurately targeted its core supporters.

Our gallant allies

The British. Read, if you can stand it, about a life peer of the realm, "a former fishmonger," (it says) who appears to have been trying to explain away the shooting of Malala Yousafzai. His thesis, at the time, seems to have been that the Taliban didn't do it. Here's just a sample of Lord Ahmed's comments:

"Criminal activity can even take place inside the BBC and crimes have been committed by people smoking cigars, which the police are now investigating."

I have no more idea what he was talking about than he did. The whole article is full of similar but much more vicious nonsense.

While Rome burns ...

As election fever (a little known variant of Dengue, also referred to as Gingrich's Syndrome or Trumps) sweeps the nation, attention has drifted away from the trial of Kwame Kilpatrick, ex-Mayor of Detroit. Yesterday, his long-time water and sewage czar associate, Victor Mercado, copped a plea and admitted that he'd helped Kilpatrick violate the Hobbs Act. Read: commit extortion. Mercado, whose name means "Market" in Spanish (not kidding -- look it up) was in charge of water and sewage during Kilpatrick's administration (much of the alleged corruption was about sludge, in case you'd forgotten. Classy.)

While some might see this as a setback for Kilpatrick's "I didn't do nothin'!" defense, at least the attorneys for his other old pal, Bobby Ferguson, say not so. In a strange echo of Newt's reaction when his campaign dropped a stitch and failed to get on the Virginia primary, they say it "doesn't affect anything." Newt, as you'll recall, called the Virginia thing his Pearl Harbor, but claimed he could recover.

The prosecutor, explaining why they agreed to a plea deal for Mr. Mercado, said that he didn't make any money out of the whole thing, but that he did "compromise himself." At press time, there were rumors that the Guinness Book of World Records was seeking to verify this claim, since it would put Mercado in the running for the title of only person in the entire Kilpatrick regime who didn't get paid off.

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Update: Noting that he's in the market for a new job, the Michigan Republican Party is reported to be heavily recruiting Russian ex-Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. "He'd fit right in," said a party member who spoke on condition of anonymity.

McLuggage Wins in Landslide

In an independent poll conducted by the Wood-Charles News Service, Wood-Charles Founder, financial genius, political expert, and Certified Scrum Master J. Francis McLuggage is likely to win tomorrow's election by a margin of 70+ percentage points. Both the Romney and Obama campaigns conceded defeat, and Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann were arrested outside a Reno, Nevada saloon, duking it out over who would have McLuggage's baby.

At a mass rally, McLuggage told an audience of over 32 million screaming, heavily armed supporters that the announcement was "totally accurate, to the extent that polls are capable of being totally accurate," and fiercely denied that it was just a ploy to see how many page views his blog would generate by carefully tagging this message with election-related keywords.