On Angus' Pond

My wonderful Aunt Joyce is pre-disbursing her estate and gave us some frogskins this winter. We decided to use them to put a small stream and pond in the back yard.

Here are some wee foties of the semi-finished product (clic the pics for a more glorious image):

Sweet Home Mississippi?

All hail to the State, with Patriotism so great, that less than 20% of its residents even have passports!

I was very proud to see that roughly 1/3 of my fellow Okies have passports.

Represent!!

Hat tip to LeBron, who grew up in New Jersey, that cesspool of disloyalty!

The ambulatory ICU

Fantastic article in the New Yorker about applying crime mapping and policing the "hot spots" to medical care. In a lot of situations, a small fraction of the relevant population is responsible for an outsized fraction of medical costs (this is NOT including catastrophic events like organ transplants). The article outlines some currently small programs where lavishing attention and money on these "hot spots" increases the quality of care and produces better outcomes while actually saving money. It's long, but it's a fascinating article.

Note that Megan McArdle is not a believer.

If I wasn't already married......

This one would be a keeper!

Vegas is fun but I wish I was here last weekend

People! LeBron may have exited the playoffs early, but he pwnd champion Lamar Odom in a dance off at the Palazzo (right across the street from us) last weekend:

Soon after arriving at Lavo, a restaurant and nightclub at the Palazzo, a scene straight out of "West Side Story" breaks out when James and Lamar Odom, seated at a nearby table, engage in an impromptu dance-off to California Swag District's "Teach Me How To Dougie."

Odom, smoking a cigar, can't quite keep up. James celebrates by crossing himself and taking a shot of Patron.

C'mon Lamar, a stogie during a dance off is a rookie mistake. A Kardashian man should know better than that. Bruce Jenner: step up and mentor Lamar why dontcha!

Self-fulfilling prophecies or How to make it in America

"THIBODAUX, La. – A man who told police that God told him to walk the streets naked to save his soul has been arrested. Thibodaux police responded to an obscenity complaint around 2 a.m. Thursday and found Shafiq Mohamed walking nude down the street. When approached, Mohamed reportedly told officers that "America raped him" and added God told him to walk the streets naked to save his soul.

Mohamed was taken into custody and charged with obscenity. He was booked into the Lafourche Parish Detention Center where he awaited bail.

It was not immediately known whether Mohamed has an attorney."

Link is here. I believe I'll just let this one speak for its ownself.

Economies of Scope: a continuing series

The first entry in the series is here.

A Libertarian Protests McCain-Palin, Gets Roughed Up

I can see the point. "Freedom of speech" does NOT mean you get to make an unscheduled presentation at someone else's rally. Video Here. So, holding a sheaf of papers and shrieking "freedom of speech!" doesn't make much sense, when you are on private property reserved and contracted for by someone else.

Still, every time I think of John McCain, I do want to go do something that might get me arrested for saying bad words in public. So I don't blame the "libertarian," either. We don't think much of John McCain.

A Piece of Terrifying History

The venue where I gave my talk today in Wheeling (thanks, Erik R! You are the BEST!) turns out to have been home to an actual famous speech, almost exactly 60 years ago.

The text of the speech, given by Senator "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy, can be found here. In that speech, the Senator claimed to have a list of 57 proven Communists in the US State Department, waving some blank papers as if that were the "list." That was Feb 9, 1950.

I feel...weird. I was there, on that podium. And from the sounds of the heating unit, it is original also.

(UPDATE: In this article from the Wheeling Intelligencer, it seems that the speech was given at the Hotel McLure, down the street, though MacCarthy did work on the speech at the Fort Henry Club. This book says that, too, on p. 182....)

Markets in everything: Lactation edition

People, meet Freda Rosenfeld, the "breast whisperer".

Freda is a "certified lactation consultant" and for $200 she will come to your house and teach you how to nurse your baby.

How is it possible that someone could actually earn a living by consulting on what has been a fairly natural and instinctive act in mammals for millennia?

Because of people like this I guess:

“Once you go home from the hospital, you’re on your own with this little alien creature, and you have to figure out how to keep it alive,” Ms. Brill, 39, recalled of her daughter’s birth 16 months ago. “So you put it on your nipple and wait for it to eat, and hope all is right. But you really have no idea. Are they doing it right? Are they not doing it right? Are they eating enough? Are they starving?"

YIKES!

 

  

Long term musical greatness

I was deep in my music collection last night playing "There's nothing wrong with love" by Built to Spill from 1994 and re-realized that the first four songs on that record are just astonishingly good. Then I realized that BTS is still good as of 2009 and never made a record that sucked. That's pretty rare, so I started trying to think of who else could fit that bill, limiting myself to American groups. Here's what I came up with:

Built to Spill

Luna

Spoon

People, that's it! That's the list!

Modest Mouse now officially sucks. 

The National has been good for a while and never made a record that sucks, but haven't done it long enough to qualify yet (they have a new album coming out soon!!), 

Neil Young was good for a long time but has gone on too long (not heeding his own advice), he's the musical equivalent of Willem de Kooning, only his family isn't destroying his late works. 

I love Guided by Voices, but I have to admit that a lot of what they did sucked. They are the musical equivalent of Picasso; lot's of very high highs but also lots of nasty lows. 

Nirvana didn't last long enough.

Who am I missing?

Dinosaurs walk the earth!

While everyone has seemingly gone miniature and digital, there are still a lot of folks out there keepin' it real. Here, courtesy of the WSJ is one of them:

The article in the journal is unintentionally funny as it sets up a weird dichotomy between "$1 songs and $100 players" and "$20 CDs and $1,000 stereo systems".

People, if you are planning to spend $1000 on your home stereo, I'd suggest sticking to your iPod. Even going the used route, that is just not going to cut it. I built most of my stereo myself and even that won't get you there for $1000.

The article also implies that mp3 is the state of the art for portable digital recording which is far from the truth.

Markets in everything: Weight-loss cutlery edition

What if your fork was a dumbbell? What if your knife was too? How cool would that be? I guess just about this cool:

They weight 1.5 lbs each and are real enough to have the LA Times write about them.

Hot Grandma N.E. Prostitute

Wow. The cops messed up.

Perhaps the cops should have to stay after school, and write 1,000 times: "Woman in tight clothing walking down street does NOT EQUAL prostitute."

(Nod to Anonyman, would never had to pay for it)

Vic Chesnutt, R. I. P.

American poet/songwriter Vic Chesnutt is dead. 

Wow, this is very bad news. I was very late in arriving at an appreciation of Vic. It didn't happen until Mrs. Angus and I saw him play live in a bizzaro "super-group" called "The Undertow Orchestra" which was him, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), Will Johnson (Centro-matic), and Mark Eitzel (American Music Club). 

We went because of Bazan and Johnson, but Vic stole the show.

Check out his music if you haven't had a chance, starting perhaps with "West of Rome" or "Silver Lake". 

Merry Christmas! Ho-Ho-Ho!

A boy and his flagpole

So, a kid actually did it. He put his tongue on a cold flagpole.

And it (his tongue) froze there. And the kid is dancing around, tongue-tied to the flagpole, yelling "Geh ah hung ah uf hag hole! OWWW!"

And so they called the fire department!

Because the firemen, understanding fire and its uses, would know to use WARM water. (It helps to be trained....)

Apparently, the kid was "triple dog dared" to do the tonguey thing. (For the REAL "Tonguey thing," you will need to rent "Kung Pow! Enter the Fist!")

(If you simply must see "Toungey," then it is in this trailer, the sign of being the "Chosen One"...)

And your final score is Angels 55 - AGW 36

Here is the full scoreboard from Foreign Policy:

Percentage of Americans who believe in angels: 55

Percentage of Americans who believe in evolution: 39

Percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic global warming: 36

Percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts: 34

Percentage of Americans who believe in UFOs: 34

Go to the link for sources. We are a wild and wacky bunch, aren't we?

Hat tip to Gabriel M.

New Spoon!

As KPC readers know, I am in the tank for Spoon. They have a new album coming out and you can hear a song from it called "written in reverse" below, though you have to put up with a little bit of NPR BS to get to the song. Enjoy!

Helpful advice from your friends at KPC

(1) Guys, when you leave your young son in your truck to go drinking at a strip club, it's not a good idea to forget where you parked when you leave the club at 1:00 in the morning! And if you do, calling the cops to report it stolen is not the recommended move.

At least if you are in Indianapolis:

INDIANAPOLIS – A man was arrested after police said he left his 5-year-old son in a tractor-trailer while he ducked into an Indianapolis strip club to drink. The 39-year-old was arrested at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday on child neglect and public intoxication charges after calling police to report his truck stolen and his child missing. Police said the man was too drunk to remember where he had parked.

They found the boy inside watching cartoons on a television inside the cab. The keys were in the ignition, and the doors were unlocked.

Police said the suspect put his son in jeopardy by leaving him exposed in a high crime area.

The man was taken to the Marion County jail, where his wife picked up him and the child.

Oh, that reminds me:

(2) Ladies, when your husband leaves your kid stashed in his truck while he hits the strip club and then calls you in the middle of the night to come get them at the police station, it is A-OK to only pick up the kid and leave the husband in the hoosegow!