1692 Plame as an undercover book agent

This one was dug up from the archives of Beautiful Atrocities.

1691 It's hard for liberals

to say anything nice about big American corporations like Wal-Mart and McDonald's--easily two of the most successful business giants who started from nothing and have been leaders and innovators in many areas of good business practices. JoHo the blog gives McDonald's the nod for serving Newman's fair traded coffee, but jabs them for cutting down trees for packaging. Then over at The Well-dressed Librarian Wal-Mart is slammed for selling too many books, and influencing the NYT best seller list (can't find a way to link to the specifics, but it is Oct. 28). Go figure!

As I told Matthew, who really is a fashion plate and will gladly tell you how beautiful he is, in his comments:

"Wal-Mart provides millions with the opportunities you don't give a second thought to--clothing, household items, books, fabric, crafts, plumbling dohinkies, etc. in [their] price range.

I can go anywhere I want, and afford what I want, but if there is a Wal-Mart near by, they definitely get my business. Mom-Pop stores have been going under since before the 20th century. The business district in my home town was already gone when Sam Walton was still managing a Ben Franklin store. It was good highways and suburban malls that closed the stores in small towns, not the Waltons.

I would also suggest you take a trip to NW Arkansas and then step over the line into Missouri. Wal-Mart has created a booming economy there (in Arkansas) that has had under a 2% unemployment rate for nearly 20 years. And you should see their libraries. To die for."

Tomeboy, another librarian, has looked into some of the do-gooder consumerism. Take a look.

1690 Library blogs

There are a lot of library blogs out there, as you can see from my links. I'm not really one them--I've been retired 5 years as of Oct. 1, but I really enjoy some of the fresh perspectives, even naivete, and of course, all the tech stuff that I regularly read in their blogs. Even if Walt thinks I'm the only "right-winger," I know I'm not. There are a few conservatives on my list, and others who have to hide out or lose their jobs and promotions. Today I found a new one. I always go to the first entry to find out why people blog.

"There are a lot of library blogs out there. I hope mine isn’t like any of them. It isn’t that I don’t value them; I’m grateful they are out there covering library news, all the sexy new technology and next gen, tattooed, gay, belly dancing librarians perspectives. I am enriched by all this information and all these peoples’ points of view. But honestly, the best part of my job is working at the desk, with the public - all that other stuff is just extra to me."

This librarian is a real softy, and some of her stories about her people are really moving. I haven't read them all, but check her out. I particularly enjoyed this one about Alex Haley.

1689 Fiction with an agenda--Boxer's novel

Barbara Boxer is the sort of pol you love to hate. Whenever she's on TV, I just say a prayer for California. She's come out with "her" first novel, "A time to run." All the Republicans are bad, and all the Democrats are good. I think the fiction part was contributed by her co-author, Mary-Rose Hayes, and the agenda part by Boxer. When is a novel, not a novel? When it is a political poster.

Phrases used in the reviews:
"dull plot"
"political twaddle"
"tedious crawl"
"sex scenes--horses with nostrils flaring"
"a cross between a bad romance novel and a soap opera script"
"Ah, to be a liberal Democrat. The world is so simple. One's soul is so caring. One's mind is so enlightened."

So how do two people collaborate on a novel, one a writer and one a politician. Here's what Beautiful Atrocities said in December.

"Barbara Boxer is soon to be a best-selling 'author'. Her 'literary' agent hooked her up with SF novelist Mary Rose Hayes to 'collaborate' on a novel: "Boxer's provided characters, details & descriptions; the novelist has combined those elements into a story." In other words, Babs' contribution is - her name."

1688 Minnesota Gophers and Ohio State Buckeyes

That's the talk around here as the Buckeyes play in Minnesota today. I'm wondering what these guys talk about when they get together? Like Thanksgiving dinner, maybe. The Buckeye Head Coach, Jim Tressel, has his brother, Dick Tressel as the OSU running backs coach, and he in turn is the father of Minnesota's receivers coach, Luke Tressel. Think of the secrets these guys have to keep. Makes Scooter Libby's job look easy, doesn't it.

There are 17 native Ohioans on Minnesota's roster, and 10 are from central Ohio. OSU only has 11 from central Ohio. Sounds like someone is falling down on the recruiting job. These kids probably used to play on the same high school teams. And it's much colder in Minnesota.

1687 Frankie Coleman's DUI

Our Columbus mayor's wife hit a parked truck one night last week in Bexley (suburb) and was apparently too drunk to know she should refuse a BAC, and tested at .271! According to an article I read, that could mean 10-15 drinks. A sloppy drunk might be .16-.19, a .2 BAC can cause blackouts, gagging and choking to death on vomit, and a .25 BAC means all mental, physical and sensory functions are impaired--the function that tells you your lawyer would not want you to take that test.

It's been distressing to hear her misfortune bandied around the news, especially on the Glenn Beck national show. (He and Mayor Coleman have a "thing.") Beck is a recovering alcoholic and should have a bit more compassion. Mayor Coleman has announced his candidacy for governor. If Mrs. Coleman was even able to walk out of the bar and get behind the wheel with that much alcohol in her system she has built up a resistence over a period of time. Her alcoholism was no secret to people who knew her. What a shame her family and friends haven't had an intervention. Being embarrassed in the press is not nearly as serious as wiping out a carload of people or killing herself, as she could have done. She was way past due for someone to step in and save her. Three days in jail and a week-end in rehab, which is the sentence if she's found guilty, will not be enough to turn this around, but it could be a start to saving her life and the lives of others who share the road with her.

1686 Do you like quilts?

Woof Nanny has posted some photos of the quilt show she attended in September at the San Diego Convention Center. Really spectacular. Interesting architecture too to reflect the city's history near the water.

1685 Last night we discussed the possibility

over dinner that Harriet was a decoy. That Dubya really wanted someone else. I see I wasn’t the only one thinking this way. I thought maybe I was just perverse. I missed this when it was posted on October 3.

“My own prediction: She may not make it to the Supreme Court. Bush may not even intend for her to get there. She may be, rather than the “misdirection,” many expected, an out-and-out decoy, floated to allow both the liberals and the conservatives to blast her out of the water so that Bush can then put up another candidate that both left and right - after having behaved very badly over Miers - will not dare to behave badly over, again.” The Anchoress

Now I certainly can’t claim I knew he’d select her (which Anchoress said), because I’d never heard of her before the nomination, but I know Bush loves to outsmart both his enemies and his friends.

1684 Why you just may need a librarian to help you with that search

Spelling. Yup. Even researchers and doctors can't agree on how to spell the little buggers. I used to be a whiz at bovine viral diarrhea virus because I knew all the British and American spelling and name variations. I've forgotten all that now since I retired 5 years ago, but I know it could make a difference of finding 75 articles or 175. So pay attention.

"Historic change in the spelling of these names is the primary reason they are published and cited in PubMed with different spellings. However, even disregarding historic taxonomic variants, ≈14.8% of Tropheryma whipplei, 14.3% of Acinetobacter baumannii, 12.3% of Coxiella burnetii, and 1.9% of Coccidioides citations are spelled incorrectly in PubMed. These relatively large percentages may mean that relevant literature is overlooked in searches."
Spelling of emerging pathogens, Emerging infectious diseases, Volume 11, Number 11—November 2005. This is the journal (free, on-line) to check about avian flu, if you are so inclined to need new things to worry about in the middle of the night.

1683 The Blizzard of O5

This one is going around the internet. I first saw it in Gekko's comments on Doyle's site, but it is also on a lot of blogs, and I believe refers to the early blizzard they had in the plains in October:

"Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 60 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorist in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
no one howled for the government...
no one even uttered an expletive on TV...
nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
no one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
no news anchors moved in.

We just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps and put on an extra layer of clothes. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

Gravity Always Wins!"
RunRyder, Bismarck, ND

1682 Naked Republican Lawyer

Although I was pretty sure I'd written about this when it happened, I can't find it in my blog search. Anyway, Stephen P. Linnen is trying to save his private law practice from the shambles he created when he was sent to prison for 18 months for jumping out from behind buildings and bushes and photographing his surprised victims' stunned expression. He did this naked. He has served some time in the Franklin County Jail, and will do the rest at home. He says, although he may have pinched a few, he didn't assault anyone. The judge didn't want him labeled a sex offender, but I sure don't want him in my neighborhood, Republican or not.

He says it was an addiction--he did it for the jolt. Next time, fella, just go to Starbucks.

November 2003 story

1681 All Hallows' Eve

November 1 is All Saints' Day on the Christian calendar, and the day before is All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween. However, it didn't start out as a Christian holy day. The early Christian missionaries who spread through Europe didn't try to eradicate the local religions, but rather just folded them into their own. All major Christian holidays have pagan roots, or Christianized roots, if you prefer. Christmas and Easter with all the strange symbols like trees, yule logs, bunnies and colored eggs are pagan in their symbols, but not in the current meaning. So when Christians complain about consumerism and the "real meaning" they should understand that way, way back, it was about worshiping something other than the one, true God. When secularists try to take a Christmas tree out of the public square, I wonder if they have any concept that they are kicking out their own!

Nevertheless, there is a lovely tale about Halloween and its beginnings among the Celts who used to be all over Europe at this well written site by Jack Santino.

"Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle."

1680 Bill Gates advice

I think I had a pop-up today that told me it is Bill Gates' 50th birthday. Then at Bonita's site I saw his 2004 address at a high school commencement, where he makes mincemeat of some of the things kids learn in school. It can be found on a holistic site, or at Bonita's.

Here's a few of my favorites.

Rule 7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

1679 This is not the way to honor Rosa Parks

A Californian complains about 100,000 stalled and stuck motorists who were forced to pay tribute to Rosa Parks on Tuesday:

". . .the westbound Santa Monica Freeway (a.k.a. Interstate 10), was partially closed for roughly 20 minutes in the middle of rush hour so that a memorial service could be held to honor Rosa Parks. KFI news announcer Terri-Rae Elmer and traffic reporter Mike Nolan indicated that the two right-most lanes of the freeway were closed for about a mile, along with several on-ramps. This small portion of the freeway is named for the recently deceased Rosa Parks."

When visiting my husband's family, I've always thought LA area traffic was horrendous--I'm not sure I could tell their snarls from their crawls.

1678 Blogger has good advice on page design

The host of my blog, blogger.com, which is owned by Google, has a good advice page on Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes. I thought #9 was particularly important, and I always pass this along to anyone I help who is setting up a blog. I also frequently remind the younger folks at LISNews that they need to be very careful about what they say about their co-workers and boss. Afterall, information is the librarian's business, and they are expert snoops and have long memories.

"9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Whenever you post anything to the Internet -- whether on a weblog, in a discussion group, or even in an email -- think about how it will look to a hiring manager in ten years. Once stuff's out, it's archived, cached, and indexed in many services that you might never be aware of.

Years from now, someone might consider hiring you for a plum job and take the precaution of 'nooping you first. (Just taking a stab at what's next after Google. Rest assured: there will be some super-snooper service that'll dredge up anything about you that's ever been bitified.) What will they find in terms of naïvely puerile "analysis" or offendingly nasty flames published under your name?

Think twice before posting. If you don't want your future boss to read it, don't post."

I regularly violate #8 which reminds bloggers to have a focus in order to develop regular readers. When it comes to information, I'm an omnivore, which is why I've split off to specialty blogs for some topics, but this one goes from personal to politics to pets to page design.

1677 Mississippi will come back

My son-in-law will be sent to Florida by his insurance company. Like many of the other people who go into devastated areas, insurance adjusters provide an important service in times of need--and have a unique viewpoint. Angle of Repose, an insurance adjuster from California, stopped by and left a comment on my previous post, so I took a look and found this message of hope and many photos that are worth a thousand posts:

"If this deputy represents the citizens of the devastated Mississippi Gulf Coast, I predict that southern Mississippi will emerge from this disaster stronger than ever. This man was polite, generous, happy, confident -- not a bit of whining or complaining about him. He didn't know if he was going to rebuild his house or sell his property. He mentioned that big money developers are moving in. I posted earlier on how this could change the area, not necessarily for the better. But whether homes or large hotel/casinos are built in this area, Mississippi will come back strong."

Unfortunately, things don't look as good for Louisiana where he says there is much griping and moaning.

1676 Architects join forces to sketch a new Mississippi

Miami-based architect Andres Duany says Mississippi had been destroyed by urban sprawl long before Katrina, and now he has a vision to rebuild it without strip malls, office parks, and housing subdivisions. So he's gathered some of like mind and they're dreaming: Chicago Trib story reprinted in Archi-Tect.

"For Biloxi, the designers advocated tearing down an elevated highway and replacing it with a ground-level boulevard that would feed traffic into the depressed downtown business district, instead of bypassing it. They also would return two-way traffic to the downtown's forlorn pedestrian mall and encourage casinos, the engine of the city's economy, to have shops that faced outward toward the street rather than turning inward, as suburban malls do."

No one really expects Mississippi will be rebuilt on the dreams of outsiders, but some fresh ideas couldn't hurt. Afterall, who but architects have designed the mess we have now inside and outside our cities?

1675 Norma’s short list for Supreme Court

Thanks to WaPo for the bios. So if you detect some affirmative action on my list, blame it on my Democrat years.

—PRISCILLA OWEN, 50: Owen was confirmed in May for a seat on the 5th Circuit after a drawn-out Senate battle. Democrats argued that Owen let her political beliefs to color her rulings. They were particularly critical of her decisions in abortion cases involving teenagers.

—EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, 57: On the 5th Circuit since 2001, Clement is known as a no-nonsense judge with a reputation for being tough on crime and meting out stiff sentences. Her 99-0 Senate confirmation vote to the circuit court in November 2001 suggests she has broad appeal. She was touted as a top possibility for the vacancy to which Roberts was nominated.

—JANICE ROGERS BROWN, 56: Newly confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after a bitter Senate battle and filibuster, Brown is an outspoken black Christian conservative who supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability.

—ALICE BATCHELDER, 61: A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Batchelder has been a reliable conservative vote on abortion, affirmative action and gun control. Bush’s father appointed the former high school English teacher to the court with jurisdiction over Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

—KAREN WILLIAMS, 54: A former trial lawyer, Williams is known as one of the most conservative judges on the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, the Richmond-based 4th Circuit. In 1999, Williams wrote the 4th Circuit opinion that would have paved the way for overturning the landmark 1966 decision in Miranda that outlines the rights read to criminal suspects. The Supreme Court voted 7-2 to let it stand.

—MAURA CORRIGAN, 57: The Michigan Supreme Court justice is a walking billboard for the conservative mantra of judicial restraint — the notion that judges should stick to interpreting the law and not making it. Her resume includes a number of firsts, among them: first woman to serve as chief assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit, first woman to serve as chief judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals.

—MAUREEN MAHONEY, 50: Often described as the female version of Chief Justice John Roberts, Mahoney, a lawyer in private practice, clerked for the late Justice William Rehnquist, served as deputy solicitor general under Kenneth Starr and has argued cases before the Supreme Court. Mahoney might upset conservatives with one of her major court wins, the landmark University of Michigan Law School case defending affirmative action.

1674 Democrats demand a moderate

Now that Hurricane Harriet has passed out to sea, Democrats are regrouping and saying they hope Bush selects a moderate. Like Ruth Bader Ginsberg perhaps? Did they demand that Clinton nominate a moderate? George Bush really isn't much of a conservative except on abortion, and if he thinks he can save a few babies in the next 30 years by successfully nominating a pro-life judge, I say, it's worth a try. I doubt that the laws will ever be turned back, but some of those babies just might grow up to be president some day, or help pay your Medicare bill and Social Security.

Update: Now about all that caving in to the extreme right wing: Jeff Goldstein writes--"Question: how many “bases” does the President have, exactly? I mean, for years we’ve been hearing from Democrats and the legacy media how James Dobson, Hugh Hewitt, the evangelicals, et al, are Bush’s “right wing” conservative base—but these are the very people who, in addition to GOP party pragmatists, by and large were most supportive of the Miers nomination.

And yet today, all I’m hearing is that Bush caved to his “extremist” “right wing base.” "
HT Sister Told Jah

I wondered about that, too. So are there right-wing-secularist like Ann Coulter and George Will who were having hissy fits about Harriet, and right-wing-religious like Dobson and Hewitt? Or are the Democrats just mad because now they'll have to have a real debate about issues involving the court.

1673 How many ways can you say, Be Prepared?

Can you believe those Florida whiners? Or the American tourists in Cancun who think the U.S. military or FEMA should rescue them from shelters? Hello! How many days warning did you folks get? Six or seven? Some complainers are out-of-state. I know a very bright, well-educated, professional Columbus woman stuck in Florida, who just assumed she’d hop on a flight right after the hurricane. I guess she thought they’d leave all those jets just sitting on the run way waiting for her. She had plenty of time to get out before Wilma--in fact, had to change her ticket to stay.

And the media is playing right into it. Last night ABC Evening News was tsk-tsking because 72 hours after hurricane Wilma passed through there were long lines of people waiting for food and water and ice. I rarely ever buy food in quantity, but even at our house with what I have on hand from week to week, we could eat nicely for three days. I’d rather go without ice than stand in line for 7 hours in hopes of getting some. Where are their brains?

If I knew a hurricane was coming to my neighborhood, I would leave. However, since they sometimes don’t go where expected, I’d have my charcoal grill ready, my bathtub filled with water (actually, I don't have one, but most people do) and several filled ice chests in reserve. I’d have flashlights and candles, a lot of cash on hand, and a gasoline powered chain saw. I’d have sandwiches made up ahead of time, and if I had a lot of food in the freezer, I’d use it up or cook it the week before the hurricane hit land.

Responsibility. Common sense. Ingenuity. Planning. Foresight. Backbone. These are what are in short supply in some people’s homes--first, second and third responders have none to give away.

Doyle is a Floridian and she thinks the same and so does Florida Cracker.