Category: default || By jt3y

Things I found on the Internet while I was looking for other things:

Wilson Baum Agency, based in Our Fair City, has a nifty Web page that gives summarized demographic and economic information for most Mon-Yough area communities. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the data, but it seems plausible enough. (This isn't an endorsement of Wilson Baum, by the way. I've never had any contact with them.)

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The Grauniad sent a 17-year-old in the UK to several concerts by aging rock stars (Paul McCartney, The Who, Brian Wilson) to get his impressions of them. He was non-plussed:

(My) world view hasn't really changed. I still think that music from the '60s and '70s sounds like a less evolved, rather slapdash version of the music made today, like the first draught of an essay done at three in the morning.

Sixties and seventies music is "slapdash"? So the classic Motown sound of the Funk Brothers Motown sound is a clumsy, backyard jam session compared to the smooth, lush harmonies of produced by, say, Limp Bizkit.

Well, to each his own, I suppose, but don't let Phil Spector catch this kid while he's armed.

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The latest casualty of the Bush Administration war on terror? Model rockets, according to Wired:

Rocketeers up and down the skill-level range are feeling the pinch of post-9/11 regulations promulgated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Today, thousands of people fly model rockets that range in size from about 12 inches to more than 30 feet tall. But since the ATF imposed new rules, some hobbyists have abandoned their pastime, and the next generation of engineers and scientists, some fear, is being driven away.

"If we're in an environment where the government says you've got to get fingerprinted and background checked, and spend three to four months to do it, (adults are) not going to participate in my hobby," said Mark Bundick, president of the National Association of Rocketry. "We need more kids. It helps them learn technology. It's the technological base here in the country that we need to protect, and this hobby is a good introduction for kids that are interested in technology. If I lose those adults, then I will not be able to train those kids."

First they came for the model rocket builders, but I wasn't a model rocket builder, so I didn't care ...

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Ah, but then they came for the railroad buffs. From Time, via the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Web site:

Urban train buffs report being surrounded by police cars and customs agents. A Haverford College student of South Asian descent was detained last year by SEPTA police after he photographed a station --- homework for an urban-history class, as it turned out.

Now, this is simply brilliant police work.

Have you ever seen a railroad buff? Without being too stereotypical, your average "railfan" is a middle-aged guy with about 14 cameras (film, digital and video), two radio scanners on his belt, a baseball cap decorated with railroad pins, a copy of Trains or Railfan tucked into his back pocket, and a picnic cooler. He's about inconspicuous as a fart in church.

Believe me, I know. Although I usually only have one radio scanner with me.

Does the Department of Homeland Security really think terrorists are going to cart all of that equipment around with them? Wouldn't they be a little bit more subtle?

To paraphrase a quote: Paranoia in the pursuit of security is no virtue.

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Besides, the DHS has more important things to do, like making plans to postopone the presidential elections. Even Wesley Pruden, editor-in-chief of the Washington Times, thinks that's a nutty idea (and he works for the Moonies, so he knows nutty ideas):

Abraham Lincoln, whose name is often invoked hereabouts, declined to call off the presidential election of 1864, or even tinker with the date, in the midst of civil war when the threat of disruption was real and when his re-election prospects were in considerable doubt. We expect the people of Iraq, backed by none of the democratic traditions that undergird our own government, to conduct their elections under the threat of terrorism. Why shouldn't we?

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I poked fun recently at Mallard Fillmore, a decidedly unfunny self-avowed conservative comic strip. (It's not funny because it's dull and preachy, not because it's conservative.)
Along comes a new self-described "conservative" comic strip called Prickly City that shows promise. It hasn't made me laugh out loud yet like Get Fuzzy does, but it's definitely cute and has made me smile so far. (None of the local papers have picked it up yet, so far as I know, but you can read it online.)

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A man in Fiji is being taught to act human after being raised as a chicken.

Raising your child as a chicken is sort of a textbook example of child abuse, isn't it? And it turns out, reporters asked the neighbors why they didn't report this to the police.

The neighbors replied, "We would have, but we needed the eggs." (Rimshot.)

Thank you, I'll be here all week.

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Finally, for all of our Hungarian readers, here's information about The Simpsons in Hungarian.
With that, it's viszontlátásra until Péntek.

(Correction at 1:40 p.m.: It's viszontlátásra until Csütörtök. I thought today was Csütörtök and tomorrow was Péntek. Jaj Istenem!)