My Quiet Life

S-townMike has a cool post on the history of a building in north Nashville he's been tracking down:

I had a very vivid and long dream last night about auditioning for and getting the job of bass player for Immaculate Machine. They actually don't have a bass player at all, because Kathryn plays left-hand bass on her keyboard, which is pretty hardcore and awesome. They don't really need a bass player.

I meant to rag on this post by Cathy Young at Reason a while ago, but I forgot. There's mostly just one small part that bugged me:

The right, meanwhile, tends to blame bloated welfare programs for keeping the poor trapped in their condition, as well as the ''culture of poverty" with its deeply entrenched social problems—which, all too often, translates into blaming the poor themselves. After the catastrophe in New Orleans, several conservative websites ran an article by Ayn Rand follower Robert Tracinski, who not only decried the effects of the welfare state but also referred to New Orleans's poor as ''sheep" and ''parasites."

This is a nice pattern in writing I am learning to recognize and instantly, to use Cathy's phrase, "recoil from". It involves a categorical dismissal of a ridiculous idea for posterity's sake -- followed by a big fat giant "but" that completely invalidates the previous dismissal. For example, this thread on NiT where I encountered the sentence "No one deserves to be raped. But ..." and knew it was okay for me to stop reading.

So, too, here we have someone doing the same thing. Cathy continues:

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The US military has released its figures on the number of civilian casualties in Iraq at the hands of insurgents:

WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has estimated that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents since January 2004, with the daily number increasing fairly steadily.

A Pentagon report to Congress said casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces rose from about 26 a day between Jan. 1 and March 31, 2004, to about 64 a day between Aug. 29 and Sept. 16, 2005, just before the referendum on the Iraqi constitution.

No word on the number of US-inflicted casualties.

Why do people still bother fisking Leon Kass? That's like fisking Ann Coulter. You're just not supposed to do that. You're supposed to laugh and move on. Dude is crazy.

UPDATE: The Rev answers:

I think there is real value in having a high-IQ knuckle-dragging troglodyte like Kass stand up like the ghost of Christmas Past and set out the case for the Old Ways as compellingly as possible, precisely so we can crush it to the pile of shit it is, and in the process clarify what we stand for.

Fair enough!

Wow, Chrysler is recalling 100,000 1995 Jeep Cherokees due to a problem that occurs due to a rather impressive array of problems:

The domino effect on this one is lengthy, but basically condensed water from the air conditioner could drip down into the case that holds the transmission fluid. If the transmission fluid becomes contaminated it could lead to shaking in the transmission. If not corrected, the transmission will begin running at hotter temperatures and possibly boil the water in the transmission fluid, thus ejecting some of the fluid. If that fluid hit a hot part of the exhaust system it could ignite a fire.

The engineer responsible for the problem, Rube Goldberg, III claimed full responsibility for the problem which "wasn't supposed to happen this way -- the ejected transmission fluid was supposed to hit a mouse trap, which would flip over, launching a little toy soldier into a tin cup, the weight of which would depress a lever, releasing a small aluminum ball into the basket target, which would shift gears."

The NYT has an interesting article about Chavez's recent economic reforms. He calls it 'Socialism of the new century', but it strikes me more like socialist freestylin'. There's no plan -- just a dash of corporate nationalization here, local communes there, aww yeah-- BREAK IT DOWN NOW.

Some of the ideas (in theory) sound, dare I say it, kinda cool:

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You say "is it possible to correct someone on the sushi == raw fish misconception without sounding like a total pretentious jackass"
Ahkond says "Depends on what part of the country you're in"
Ahkond says "here, yes"
Chris might say 'there's other forms of sushi besides raw fish' and leave it at that.
Ahkond says "because pretentious jackassery is a relative concept and the standards are pretty high here in Cambridge"
You say "i see it a lot and I always think that they might want to know what defines sushi but i always imagine the comic book guy's voice echoing what I say"
Rock Evan says "WORST SUSHI EVER"
Ahkond says "there is no emoticon to describe what I'm feeling about your ignorance of Japanese cuisine"

Which country has the highest incarceration rate in the world? Any guesses? The answer might surprise you. Or maybe not.

Nick Mamatas has an interview with Nick Hess in the Village Voice about the Mad Housers.