Best line of the day, so far

“Texas quarterback Vince Young has decided to go pro and Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick has decided to go con.”

Jay Leno

Firefighter Takes Test After Giving Birth

A Houston firefighter took a promotion test 12 hours after giving birth because fire officials wouldn’t bend the department’s policy to allow a postponement.

Beda Kent gave birth to a healthy baby daughter at 9 p.m. Tuesday, slept for about 2 1/2 hours and then took the Houston Fire Department captain’s exam at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

“It was uncomfortable,” said Kent, a 12-year veteran of the department. “I had my Motrin — thank God — but that only lasts for so long.”

Civil service regulations mandate that everybody take the test at the same time, District Chief Jack Williams said. A person who is given a temporary reprieve could gain an unfair advantage if they learn about the test from other test-takers, he said.

Yahoo! News

It appears the HFD rule is reasonable, so hurrah for Firefighter Kent for showing such stellar stuff.

The mouse’s 15 minutes of fame continues

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) — Was it really a mouse that burned down Luciano Mares’ house? Or was it just the wind?

Mares’ story of a flaming mouse that scampered from a burning pile of leaves into his rural home Saturday drew international media attention. Then on Monday, the 81-year-old told an Albuquerque television station that strong wind spread burning leaves, leveling his home of more than two decades.

But on Tuesday, Mares and his nephew stood by his original version that a mouse was the culprit.

“That dang mouse crawled in there,” Mares said in a telephone interview from a motel in Fort Sumner, where he is staying with his nephew. “I have an awful hate for those critters.”

CNN.com

Here’s the earlier NewMexiKen entry on the flaming mouse.

Your cell phone records are for sale

Or at least some are. AMERICAblog bought those of Gen. Wesley Clark.

All we needed was General Clark’s cell phone number and our credit card, and 24 hours later we had one hundred calls the general made on his cell phone in November. The calls included a number of calls to Arkansas, to foreign countries, and at least one call to a prominent reporter at the Washington Post.

Best line of the day, so far

“Frankly, it would be more comforting if Judge Alito gave individuals the same benefit of the doubt in his courtroom that he’s asking from this committee on Vanguard, CAP, the unitary executive and women’s privacy.”

Senator Edward Kennedy

Breaking news

Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, reports from Target:

Chocolate. Chip. Cookie. Dough. Pop-Tarts.

Was anyone else aware of this proof of God’s hand on Earth?

If only they came in a deep-fried version….

Slight possibility of showers Sunday

If it should rain or snow Sunday, as is forecast, it would be only the second time in 11 weeks that Albuquerque received precipitation. We had 9/10ths of an inch of snow a month ago. Other than that, there hasn’t been measurable precipitation since before Halloween.

If.

Update: Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

For what it’s worth

… you might want to reconsider any purchase from D-Link that involves a rebate. NewMexiKen purchased a D-Link bluetooth adapter in late September and sent in the required rebate paperwork within a few days. For three months the online status report has said, “A check request for $10.00 is being processed.” So they had what they needed.

Today I finally called the 800 number. After getting my information, some poor, bored, young-sounding woman said, “Seeing as how it has been so long, I can expedite that check for you and you should be getting it in 7-to-10 business days.”

Not that $10 is any big deal, but it is my $10, and I’m thinking I had to ask or it might never have come.

(Don’t mind me. My back hurts and I just want to rant. I’d just as soon be eaten by an eagle today.)

Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s …

The answer to a scientific “who-done-it?” has revealed a chilling fact: We used to be bird food.

Scientists announced on Thursday they had definitive proof that the “Taung child”, a 2-million year old apeman skull famed as one of the most dramatic human evolutionary finds, was killed and eaten by an eagle.

“Birds used to eat us and in doing so they shaped our behaviour,” said Dr Lee Berger, a palaeoanthropologist at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand.

Reuters via Yahoo! News

Best line of the day, so far

“The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer’s day in Death Valley, a winter’s night at the pole (either one) — an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess.”

Richard Cohen, who just takes the Senator apart, including this:

“But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency.”

NewMexiKen mentioned Biden’s longwindedness yesterday.

Best line of the day, so far

“It’s a bummer, dude, when you finally reach you destination, your chops watering, only to glance up and find that Pasta Galore has turned into Noreen’s Nail and Beauty. Or worse, an empty building as dark as the soul of Karl Rove.”

Alan Kleinfeld at New West Network in a review of a restaurant in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Never been cubicled

NewMexiKen recognizes the scenario in today’s Dilbert.

Calvin and Hobbes

Bill Watterson was one sick puppy.

I’m so tired of this game

So, do I understand this correctly? If you have been nominated to an important position of public trust — let’s just say Supreme Court Justice — the idea is to go before a Senate committee and obfuscate your positions and background. The reason you do this I guess, is so that some of the people’s elected representatives won’t have a reason to vote against you.

Do I have it right?

Do you suppose that is what the Framers intended in Article II of the Constitution when they wrote “and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate”?

It’s enough to drive you to tears.

It’s the birthday

… of two fat loudmouths. Kirstie Alley and Rush Limbaugh both turn 55 today.

… of a skinny loudmouth. Howard Stern is 52 today.

… of a billionaire. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, is 42.

… of three classic singers of their genre: Ray Price is 80, Ruth Brown is 78 and Glenn Yarborough is 76.

When Ray Noble Price was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, many noted that the honor was long overdue. Such feelings weren’t based so much on the longevity of his career or on the number of major hits he has recorded, for in those regards Price was no different from many other deserving artists awaiting induction. More importantly, Price has been one of country’s great innovators. He changed the sound of country music from the late 1950s forward by developing a rhythmic brand of honky-tonk that has been hugely influential ever since. As steel guitarist Don Helms, a veteran of Hank Williams’s Drifting Cowboys once put it, “Ray Price created an era.” (Country Music Hall of Fame)

In the Fifties, Ruth Brown was known as “Miss Rhythm,” a testament to her stature as a female rhythm & blues singer whose only serious competition was Dinah Washington. Signed to Atlantic Records in 1948 by label founders Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson, Brown gave the fledgling company its second-ever hit with “So Long,” a simple, bluesy showcase for her torchy, church- and jazz-schooled voice. Her second single, “Teardrops in My Eyes,” brought out her more swaggering, aggressive side, and she was rewarded with her first Number One R&B hit. For the duration of the Fifties, Brown dominated the R&B charts and even crossed over into rock and roll with some success with “Lucky Lips” (written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) and “This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin’” (written for Brown by Bobby Darin). But her best work was to be found on such red-hot mid-Fifties R&B sides as “5-10-15 Hours” and “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean.” No less a rock and roll pioneer than Little Richard has credited Brown with influencing his vocal style. Brown’s two dozen hit records helped Atlantic secure its footing in the record industry, a track record for which the young label was referred to as “the House That Ruth Built.” (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

From his days as the singing mainstay of “The Limeliters” through a long solo career that’s seen its share of hits, Glenn Yarbrough has been a respected interpreter of folk and popular music. He’s had a top hit in “Baby, The Rain Must Fall” and his interpretation of “Seven Daffodils” is the benchmark against which love songs are measured. From his days in a boys choir through today, Glenn’s powerful voice has rung with lusty conviction about all that he cares about. Listen to Glenn Yarbrough. He’s what singing should be. (All Music Guide)

Tuning in

NewMexiKen hasn’t installed the latest version of iTunes yet, though it’s available.

The reason I’ll wait is that this new version, 6.0.2, comes with what some are calling spyware and adware. Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing has more:

Apple’s latest iTunes update, which, by default, switches on the “MiniStore,” an advertising/recommendation section that uses your current song-selection to recommend other songs that you can buy from Apple. In order to accomplish this, it must transmit your listening habits to Apple.

The problem is that Apple doesn’t inform you when you update your iTunes that you’re also turning on a system that transmits your private information to Apple and third-party partners. There’s no indication (apart from the recommendations) that this is going on, nor is there any information about what Apple will do with that information.

Apple has posted an article on How to show or hide the MiniStore in iTunes:

You can show or hide the MiniStore by choosing Show MiniStore or Hide MiniStore in the Edit menu or by clicking the “Show or Hide the MiniStore” button …

iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.

Still, Apple should have been more up front about this and made the option a choice to be made on installation. NewMexiKen isn’t paranoid on this privacy stuff. You can’t surf the web all day in fear. What I don’t like is Apple acting like Microsoft. One hopes that if enough of us wait to install the mini-store Apple will get the message.

By the way, in case you’ve wondered, you don’t need an iPod to use iTunes on your Mac or PC.

The other cartel

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner brings us up to date on Those Poor Realtors:

If I were a Realtor, I might feel right about now that the entire free world has turned against me, having decided I’m a sharp-elbowed, greed-driven hustler trying to preserve an advantage that I don’t deserve. And I’d probably be right. In today’s New York Times is yet another chronicle of how the National Association of Realtors has used its muscle to keep all kinds of competitors, including banks, from taking a dip in its 6% commission pool. The U.S. Justice Dept. has already sued the N.A.R.; now comes word that the Consumer Federation of America is coming after the N.A.R. Here’s the money quote, from the C.F.A.’s executive director, Stephen Brobeck: “Because the industry functions as a cartel, it is able to overcharge consumers tens of billions of dollars a year. Consumers are increasingly wondering why they are often charged more to sell a home than to purchase a new car.”

When NewMexiKen had an agent out, she suggested the commission might be 7%. Probably to pay for more of those obscene signs and business cards realty people have with the glossy glamour shots. They ought to be investigated and sued for those, too.