Ready or Not, Here I Come

It's time to go to the Mailbag to answer your questions about current events:

Q. Given the supersaturated coverage of all things MJ, how is it possible that the psychic and numerologist perspective has been ignored by the mainstream media?

A. Since you submitted your question, an extremely slow news cycle, coupled with nauseatingly exhaustive coverage of the King of Pop, has caused none other than the mighty CNN to devote valuable electrons to this "story." While I'm sure that the Numbers Lady is the leading expert in her field, I have more confidence that my old school interpretation is more representative of a number five person, whether or not he's on a "six life path." After all, it reflects a grown man who hangs out with kids in a very unnatural way.

Formel Eins

I've been following Formula One for over a dozen years now. There was a time when the series offered some really compelling racing. The wheels started to fall off that chassis, however, in early 2008, when Max Mosley--a Brit and the President of the world motorsports oversight organization, the FIA--involuntarily revealed his secret penchant for a little Bundes love.

JJV would be quick to note that Max Mosley's father, Oswald Mosley, was the founder of the British Union of Fascists. I guess the apple secretly fell very close to the tree. As you would expect, it was difficult to focus on the actual racing while this story was unfolding.

Now, just when you thought it was safe to resume interest in the actual cars and drivers, we see this news from the latest venue. In case this link goes quickly stale, I'll summarize the article as reporting that the five promising young German F1 talents somehow ended up giving a Nazi salute for the assembled media, who were amused at the whimsy of the youngsters.

As you might know, it's actually illegal to display Nazi symbols in Germany. And while Formula One has sadly turned its back on many historic racing venues in recent years, it seems unfortunate for these fellows that the Nurburgring hasn't met that fate, because that's where they happened to be holding the press conference. They may soon regret that they didn't do it three weeks ago in jolly old England as a tribute to jolly old Max Mosley's libido.

Cows On The Loose!!!

Until the cow crushed the dog walker in England, I thought it was only squirrels trying to kill us.

I was mistaken...perhaps the cows are angry about all the drunken cow-tipping incidents.

For some good, Midwestern fun, listen to the 911 call. If you're short on time, just read the transcript. Moo!!!

Blogging, Books and Cocktails

The Other McCain posted pics above of a book party for Richard Brookhiser's new tome "Right Time, Right Place," about his time with William F. Buckley. Brookhiser also wrote a biography of Alexander Hamilton and your humble scribe and Mr.Brookhiser had a conversation on that and Hamilton College as well as the Alexander Hamilton Institute. He signed my book but now I'm not sure where I left it.

I had not met Mr. Stacy McCain before although I know his work. He bounds up to the very buttoned down Stuart Taylor and the undersigned poplar suited JJV and states "I told these kids pyslosybin mushroom tea and cocain highballs don't mix." I responsed, "everybody knows that already."

It helps if you know the folks from Reason were there. Paul Mirengoff of Powerline was there and we mainly discussed law which is how we actually make our living. Mark Krikorian was also very fun as was Quinn Hyler and his wife. It was a lovely night and a good time was had by all.

Richard Brookhiser gave a talk on how bad the 70's were and I could only applaud. Carter Delende est.

Here is R.Stacy McCain's website where he laments he can no longer be called a populist.

http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/

(Self) Welcome Back, and Welcome

I have returned from a whirlwind vacation in Missouri. Hard to believe that 24 hours ago my family and I (along with literally hundreds of others) were stampeding toward the parking lot trams at Silver Dollar City, to make our way from Branson back to a hotel near the Kansas City airport. (The cheerful advice from the cheerful yet temporarily overwhelmed tram attendants: "Y'all don't run over no kids, now.")

My only other observation on Missouri for the moment is that its state motto appears to be a shortening of "Show Me Your Brights at Night No Matter Whether I've Just Passed You or If You're Coming Toward Me." The tradeoff is impossibly straight roads on which you can drive like my version of a maniac. Before the peanut gallery kicks in, allow me to state that I would have left the 62 MPH Bandit in the dust.

More importantly, I would like to extend a laurel wreath and hearty handshake to our new blogger, JWT, who picked an otherwise slow news weekend to officially join the masthead. My repeated invitations to him may have been too clever by half, as I think half of my recent output was based on his forwarded emails.

Quick Update: I forgot to remind JWT that he only needs to post twice more to pass JCF, this blog's equivalent of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, though, to be fair, there have been no confirmed sightings of JCF in Cuba.

Arrivistes

I saw this little blurb on the age of Obama and can truthfully say I am no more conservative than I was before. Also, I congratulate our new addition and member of the anti-squirrel alliance. I have a dog that kills them and so we have not had a big squirrel problem. Instead we have an acorn problem every fall.


GALLUP: Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say their views have grown more conservative. “Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven’t changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.” Hmm. Can this be true?

Posted at 3:34 am by Glenn Reynolds

Public Enemy

I am flattered that Dave S. has invited me to scratch out a few thoughts, when I happen to have them, in his very comfortable blog. You should see the couch he has back here in the sanctum sanctorum.


But enough of the niceties, because I'm really here to share a public service message. You see, gentle reader, I have proof that Satan is roaming the Earth. Lest you think me a kook on the day of our introduction, I present you--for the first time in any medium--an image of the Prince of Darkness in his earthly form:

For a time, I thought I could keep this bushy-tailed devil's dark powers at bay. I frequently put pepper-infused suet in my suet feeder, and I dutifully placed my other feeders at least ten feet from any potential launching platform. There was some considerable risk in this latter move, because it tended to alienate some worthwhile company, particularly:

Yet, despite my best effort, I now find that my suet feeder is regularly cast to the ground, Lucifer having shimmied down a four-foot chain and, if no pepper be found, run off with the suet. It looks like pepper is back on the menu, and I mean full time.

There is a slightly darker matter unfolding in my yard, as well, as I've recently found two half birds in my yard, decapitated and clearly designed to scare my kids. Perhaps this is not the direct work of Satan, but I'm sure it's the work of his minions:

Spooky.

Happy Fourth of July

Better late than never...I just walked back from the Mall. A beautiful night for the fireworks!!!

Outside, You Can See the Difference. Inside, You Can Feel the Difference. Or Maybe Not.

I'll be away from the blog for a few days while we visit kin in Missouri. The trip includes a quick jaunt to Branson, where we have not been in 15 years and which I highly recommend to country music aficionados, '70s variety show aficionados, and cultural anthropologists. It's really a physical incarnation of this. Did I mention there are bumper boats too?

Upon my return I hope to have a blog-related announcement to make, though with any luck it will be ex post facto.

Science!

Science is cool even when you run 10,000 volts through something.

H/t Bad Astronomy

Apropos of Nothing

So be it! (Embedding prevented by buzzkills, sorry.)

Department of Improbable Scenarios Case File #42

JWT has alerted me to this account of a dogwalker trampled by cows in England, and sees this as another mark in favor of owning cats. He's got a point in that no cow would ever make it through those little door flaps.

From the Story Highlights: "Experts say it's very unusual for people to be killed by cows." Can't argue with that. There's also helpful advice about what to do if you're walking a dog and feel threatened by cows. I guess my advice would be "stay the hell away from cows" but perhaps the North of England is not sufficiently expansive.

Euphemism Watch

As a relatively frequent Metro passenger I was horrified by the deadliest crash in Metro history that took place today. Laura actually told me about it from Miami, where it was all over the airport news monitors; I had actually just gotten off a different train on a different line at the time of the crash en route to picking up the kids from daycare and day camp.

Some time ago I signed up for the "e-alert" service from Metro, which more or less informs recipients of delays etc. Just now I checked my email and saw a stream of messages related to the crash. Perhaps not surprisingly but still weirdly, the terms used were "a train experiencing mechanical difficulties" updated to "police activity" at the nearest station to the accident.

I can understand the motivation behind the language but it is a jarring disconnect between these terse, anonymous, sanitized messages and the reality on the ground.

A Moment of Tingly, Relaxing Silence

... for the inventor of Magic Fingers. What do you mean, you're out of quarters?!

Father's Day Around The World...

Germany offers a combination of hiking and drinking (no mention of David Hasselhoff's music being played) to celebrate Dad, Mannertag!

From Wikipedia: "It is tradition to do a males-only hiking tour with one or more smaller wagons, Bollerwagen, pulled by manpower. In the wagons are wine or beer (according to region) and traditional regional food...Many men will use this holiday to get very drunk, to the point of having gangs of drunk people roaming the streets, causing much embarrassment to more conservative German people who don't participate..."

At P4500 we embrace different cultures! I hope the dads reading this post get to celebrate as they see fit.

Happy Father's Day!

Day of the Dad

Please remember your father/dad/pop or appropriate Father Figure today, by whatever means you see fit. Thank you.

Live Long and... Hey!

For those of you who missed it, here's Conan O'Brien's recent interview with William Shatner in which they exchange familiar, if differently intended, hand gestures:

Iran So Far Away

There has been a lot of hand-wringing and whatnot about the official US reaction to the continuing post-election protests in Iran. I have some thoughts on this and I'm glad you asked, by the way.

1. There seems to be an assumption by some that the US government should directly channel the emotional state of its citizens, i.e., if we are upset about something and favor a certain outcome, the government should be identically upset and favor the same outcome. When it comes to political theory and views of what government should do and how it should do it, this is about as unsophisticated as it gets. This is not to say that government must always be neutral in its approach to other governments, but there are better and worse times for that type of approach.

2. It should be clear that any kind of direct support we express for the protesters/opposition will be used as a sharpened shovel by the Iranian government. To respond to the argument that the Iranian government is already making claims of US support, that does not mean that we have to validate their false claims.

3. Cynically speaking, no matter what the Obama Administration does in response to the situation, the usual suspects will portray it as the actions of a hopelessly naive and inexperienced chief executive out of his depth. I guarantee you that if Obama had come out with a forceful statement explicitly supporting Mousavi, these very same people clamoring for that very same thing would be condemning the administration right now for putting the Iranian opposition in mortal peril by such a foolhardy, clumsy giveaway to the Revolutionary Guard.

4. From what I can tell - and I do not hesitate to proclaim my near-perfect ignorance of Iranian politics - this is not a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy; this is a struggle between the authoritarians in power and some other authoritarians who would like to take power, albeit legally.

5. As human beings, we can hope for a peaceful end to the protests and the proper expression of the Iranian people's will as reflected by the ballot box (although frankly, good luck with both of those). As a country, our proper course of action is to stay out of it.

Come and get me in the comments.

Update 6/19: J's comment gets a field promotion:

A cloud appears above your post;
A beam of light comes shining down on you,
Shining down on you.
The cloud is moving nearer still.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes in view;
Ahmadinejad comes in view.

And Iran, Iran so far away.
It's Iran, Iran all night and day.
Can't get away.

(I do have to point out, though, that J neglected to cite the band responsible. It is, of course, A Flock of Shias.)

My County, Now in Rap Form

For that part of Arlington served by the Orange Line, this is spot on, although I have no idea about the brown flipflops: