Some commentary on serial killers from Joel Achenbach includes this: “There’s a tendency to imagine these killers as being rather smarter and more gothic, shall we say, than they really are. A lot of this is media-driven, a Hollywood fantasy.”
Who would have guessed?
Apple has announced plans to open a new retail store at the ABQ Uptown mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 10:00 AM. The store will be Apple’s first in New Mexico.
— Macworld
Absolutely true. In a dream, President Bush told me I was doing a great job.
… of Pat Conroy. The author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini is 61 today.
… of Pat Sajak. His wheel has spun for 60 years today.
… of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Senator Clinton is 59 today.
And it’s the birthday of Mahalia Jackson, born on this date in 1911 (she died in 1972). As The New York Times noted in Ms. Jackson’s obituary:
“I been ‘buked and I been scorned/ I’m gonna tell my Lord/ When I get home/ Just how long you’ve been treating me wrong,” she sang in a full, rich contralto to the throng of 200,000 people as a preface to Dr. King’s “I’ve got a dream” speech.
The song, which Dr. King had requested, came as much from Miss Jackson’s heart as from her vocal cords. The granddaughter of a slave, she had struggled for years for fulfillment and for unprejudiced recognition of her talent.
Indeed, when she sang, Mahalia Jackson had the whole world in her hands.
Frighten the be-jebbers out of the little ones daring to come to your door next Tuesday.
From iTunes, 29 Scary Scores.
But we have some nice sunsets.
Taken this evening in front of Casa NewMexiKen (hence the power lines, which, alas, run between my neighborhood and the next).
Drinking caffeinated coffee was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 60% in a newly published study that included people at high risk for the disease.
Even those who used to drink coffee but quit were less likely to develop diabetes than those who never drank it.
An aside. Ever wonder about the distinctions between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes? I have.
Type 1, “formerly called juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is usually first diagnosed in children, teenagers, or young adults.” The pancreas stops making insulin.
Type 2, “formerly called adult-onset diabetes or noninsulin-dependent diabetes, is the most common form of diabetes. People can develop type 2 diabetes at any age—even during childhood.” The organs don’t use insulin properly.
A third type, gestational diabetes, is usually a temporary condition in the late stages of pregnancy.
Information and quotations from National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse.
This ad for Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill with Michael J. Fox has caused an outpouring of disgusting drivel from medical experts such as Rush Limbaugh:
“He is exaggerating the effects of the disease,” Limbaugh told listeners. “He’s moving all around and shaking and it’s purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn’t take his medication or he’s acting.”
You decide whether Fox is sincere.
The New Jersey Supreme Court today:
We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.
In other words, civil union rather than marriage is OK as long as the rights and benefits are equal (but you cannot deny the equal rights).
Someone agrees; can you guess who said this (in 2004)?
And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman. Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others.
George W. Bush said that. It will be interesting to see the political fallout from the New Jersey decision.
The book (see below) is very good and, indeed, very readable. I just came up to make sure the world hadn’t ended while I was reading.
So here’s two political ads. Which do you like better?
… of basketball coach Bobby Knight. He’s 66.
… of singer Helen Reddy. “I am woman, hear me roar” is a roaring 65.
… of author Anne Tyler (not to be confused with Ann Taylor). The Pulitzer winner (for Breathing Lessons) is 65.
… of basketball hall-of-famer Dave Cowens. The tenacious Celtic is 58.
… of Nancy Cartwright. The voice of Bart Simpson is 49.
It’s a cool, almost dreary day here by the Sandia Mountains; a good day to curl up with a book. And so I shall, with Hampton Sides’s Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
Reviews for Blood and Thunder have been positive, most finding the storytelling compelling. In the Times, William Grimes wrote it’s a “rousing, full-throated rendition of an old story, the making of the American West.”
I’ll let you know. [See here.]
At Whiskey Bar, Billmon begins a discussion of legal antics possible after the voting with this:
When it comes to elections in this country, we definitely have an ample selection of paranoia levels to choose from, starting with: “Isn’t it funny how so many computer glitches seem to favor the party in power?” and ending, or at least I hope, with: “Mr. Diebold’s fleet of black helicopters is going to elect Elvis the king of the universe!”
I tend towards the mild, not the habanero, variety myself — I’m always suspicious about hanky panky, particularly at the county and city level, and definitely worried about the accuracy and reliability of paperless black boxes, but I’m very skeptical of massive, national conspiracies designed to keep Karl Rove in power until doomsday. (Although if he stays in power much longer, doomsday may not be far away.)
He continues with a long, intriguing scenario.
If you’re running Windows you need spyware protection. “Windows Defender is a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software.”
NewMexiKen has had good success with Defender (and its beta predecessor Windows AntiSpyware).
A fascinating, remarkable personal story from Scott Adams creator of Dilbert.
Seriously, go read it.
So, is this cartoon about Halloween or the election?
“I was prepared for things to get ugly. Stupid caught me by surprise.”
— Charles P. Pierce on the election season, in particular the response to Michael J. Fox’s ad for Missouri Democratic senate hopeful Claire McCaskill.
Stupid never takes NewMexiKen by surprise. It’s the norm in all enterprises.
“A friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a body.”
— From the sidebar at all this is that, which also has a cool ad for Democrats.
According to David Pogue at The New York Times some company did a survey of 20,000 help calls it received, pro-rated for percentage of units in the market, and scored the companies (higher is better):
Lenovo/IBM: 243
Apple: 201
HP/Compaq: 12
Dell: 4
Gateway: 12
Not sure what these scores mean, if anything, but I won’t be buying a Dell anytime soon.
Visit uggabugga and try out a sample electronic voting ballot from Diebold.
Move your cursor as if to choose a candidate.
Reposted from 2004.
Many frantic Republican lawmakers are also running against themselves, either reneging on their support for the war they started, or railing against Washington, the town they absolutely control, claiming that the capital has forgotten their values, or making ads denouncing the Democrats’ “homosexual agenda,” even though Republicans are now the party of gay scandal.
It’s a hilarious spectacle of a whole party re-enacting the classic scene in Mel Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles,” in which the sheriff holds the gun to his own head to take himself hostage.
Why is it that Fox could have cheap, sophomoric jokes about sexual organs on any of its comedies, run Viagra and Cialis commercials 24 by 7, and still can’t discuss it openly when the catcher takes a foul ball in the nuts?
Ivan Rodriguez is rolled up in the fetal position, writhing in pain on the ground and Tim McCarver says it looks like it hit him in the thigh. In fairness McCarver did mention the “cup” twice, but even “groin” didn’t venture into the description.
Testicles — they’re called testicles.
(Which would be about the only word found in the dictionary that Joe Buck didn’t use several thousand times each during the nine innings.)
NewMexiKen saw an item in today’s newspaper stressing again the value of having a listing “ICE” in your cell phone address book.
ICE = In Case of Emergency
Hospital and other emergency workers will check a cell phone’s directory for ICE — if it’s there, they know whom to call.
Do it today!
Firefox 2.0 leap frogs Internet Explorer 7.
