The League of David

I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME...

...shreik and run out of my apartment.

House Mice

House mice normally live outdoors in fields, occasionally migrating into structures [high rise apartments]. In houses, they live behind walls and in cabinets and furniture [and reach the top floors of high rise apartments].

They prefer to feed on grains but usually nibble at a wide variety of foods [like the crud that's settled in between the oven and counter]. House mice require only 1/10 ounce of food and 1/20 ounce of water daily, surviving on food alone if it has high moisture. Frequently house mice range 10-30 feet from harborages.

House mice are brown to gray in color with the tail as long as the body. Adults weigh about 1/2 ounce. Their droppings are 1/8 inch long and rod-shaped [I am not going to take out my measuring tape for this]. House mice live about 1 year and reach sexual maturity in 6 weeks [except when they decide to move into my apartment]. They have 5-6 young per litter and up to 8 litters per year [not if I have any say].

The Magic Formula

The genius of the New York Times is its ability to "out" practically anyone with a book review.   This time it's Lincoln.  It's always a book written by someone with an agenda, and since outing someone who can sue you is still somewhat out of the question, they out dead people. 

There's a Magic Formula to outing a dead person that always proves the outers agenda-focused judgement is correct.  The Magic Formula goes something like this:

Subject Dead +  Claims of Ambiguous Language + Close Friends of the Same Sex = They're Gay!

As a humanities major, I was subjected to this conjecture with medieval poets.  Everyone from the Beowulf poet to Chaucer were flaming homos.  Christine de Pisan was a lesbian, of course.  And none of the "evidence" proved anything other than that these men and women hung out with other men and women.  However the "outer" (always someone who called themselves something other than straight) consistently claimed that there was "ambigious language" and close friendships, etc.   

I've never been quite sure what the ambiguous language claim amounts to besides a load of hooey.  Of course there's going to be ambiguity with languages that have been dead for, oh, a thousand years.  However, to paraphrase Freud:  sometimes amicae is just a friend.

In the case of Lincoln one of his friends commented on his thighs, and (I kid you not):

Several of [his letters to a male friend] are signed ''Yours forever.''

Then there's Lincoln's "problematic" female relationships, but if you actually read the evidence put down in the review, all I can see from it is that he dated a couple of women he didn't marry.   Of course, it never has to do with possiblity that Lincoln was just a dork around women.  As a professional librarian I meet dorks of both sexes all the time (hot jocks don't generally haunt library stacks).  They're straight, but they're just hopelessly incapable of dealing with members of the opposite sex.  It's just one of the many, many complexities in the sexual life of a straight man or woman.  To an agenda-driven Philistine (gay or otherwise), however, straights are never afforded the same level of complexity that they give to their own sexual identities. 

This is tedious stuff, folks.  The ultimate question is Who Cares?  If there wasn't an unambiguous stench of histrionics around these sorts of claims I wouldn't even respond to such silly claims.  Applying the kind of skimpy evidence and methodology the author uses to prove his case, however, practically anyone can be  "proven" to be gay or whatever.

Just wait, it'll be your turn soon enough.  You better annotate both your platonic and love letters.
 

Last Word on Target

Okay, this is the last thing I will ever say about Target:

Google & Libraries 101

There is a lot of fuss about this Google/Libraries project announced the other day.  More fuss than there needs to be.  A new generation of the usual suspects are claiming this is the end of libraries.  Been there, done that.  Leadership within the library professions seem to view this project as a threat.  This is luddite and/or Philistine blah blah about exposing the unwashed to too much information, etc,  that I just don't want to get into here.

Quite frankly, I read some articles about this deal and shrugged.  Big deal.  Libraries do these projects all the time.  This is just one of scale.  It reads like a big, well-intentioned project, but the devil is in the details.  Perhaps a few basic facts would do before people start pronouncing (once again) the end of libraries:

Michigan and four more of the world's top libraries -- Harvard, Stanford, New York Public Library and the Bodleian in Oxford -- announced this week a deal with Google to digitise millions of their books and make them freely available online.

Big deal.  A good research library like the graduate library at University of Maryland contains at least 5 million volumes, usually the number is near 10 million.  If you take the entire University of Maryland system it has to be near 30 million.  A project that scans millions of books from a large research collection may only be scanning 20 or 30 percent.   If it's not the best part of the collection, it's worthless.

This just changes the landscape so completely,"  [John Wilkin, associate librarian at Michigan University] said.

"The research library, which was not very accessible before, will be available to everybody. The focus will start to shift to electronic space for all of our scholarly communications," he said.

This is bullshit.  Scholarly research is by nature an exclusive exercise.   The extensive studies of tree worms in Borneo, or, whatever, is always going to be the work of a few, brave souls. 

The project says it is going to make old and rare books available by digitizing them.  I have no problems with this, but I was once trained in paleography and analytical bibliography.  The study of old books is by its nature the study of physical objects.   When you study a specific book or manuscript you pick it up (usually while wearing gloves), you turn its pages, and you may even shine a special light through it if you're studying a palimpsets.  Someone on the internet will get to look at pretty pictures of an old book.  This is fine, but if you're really studying the book, you will have to go to the book.

Michigan and Stanford are planning to digitise their entire library collections -- totalling some 15 million books -- while the Bodleian is offering around one million books published before 1900.

Nothing in this article says that Michigan and Stanford are making the full-text of their libraries available for free on the internet.  And it clearly says that the Bodleian is only offering books published before 1900, and thus choosing books safely within stringent international guidelines that define public domain.

The Harvard and New York Public Library contributions are smaller, but the entire project is still expected to take up to 10 years, with cost estimates ranging from 150 million to 200 million dollars.

Ten years?  Not likely.  It'll be longer.  The libraries still have to get permission from publishers, and then they have to coordinate collection access in order to avoid leaving large chunks of subject areas out of use for their patrons.  Quite frankly, a library isn't going to close access to large parts of their collection because the books are being scanned.   Instead, they're going to be scanning books people aren't using, ie. the dust collectors and crap of the collection. 

"This is a great leap forward," said Michael Keller, librarian at Stanford University which has been digitising texts on a far smaller scale for several years.

"This new arrangement catapults our effective digital output from the boutique scale to the truly industrial," Keller said.

I wonder who's paying for it?  Google?  If so, then the libraries made out.  Digitization projects are long, slow, labor intensive and very expensive endeavors.  All the technological advances of the last decade have not made the implementation of these projects any easier.  They're worthy, but very difficult endeavors.

The project will grant global access to landmark publications and other rare out-of-print titles that previously were only available to specialised researchers on an appointment-only basis.

Read here: access to manuscripts and old, out of date books.

The access issue is as much about scope as price, and the Google project may ruffle some feathers in countries like China which still have lengthy lists of banned books.

Fuck China.

"Once you have the research library available to anyone with an internet connection, it's going to be very hard to influence what people can see and what they can't see," said Michigan's Wilkin.

Books which have passed out of copyright and into the public domain will be available in their entirety, while the reproduction of newer titles will require the publishers' permission.

Wow.  So those 1930s essays speculating on the life-span of Martians may be available full-text!  Or, wait, are they saying they're going to make 20s-era medical studies available?  I'm going to swoon.

For Google, the move allows the company to get a jump on its competitors in what can only be an expanding field, and observers say the company will boost advertising revenue through increased user volume.

The only thing this project is doing is adding structured information to Google's capabilities.  It's a good business move, but this is not enough to inspire the purchase of Google stock.    The full-text of Kansas Territory corn crop records are not going to add much value to Google, folks.  Calm down.

Publishers should also benefit, as excerpts of books still under copyright will be accompanied by purchase links.

A  ha!  Here's the heart of it.  The best parts of research libraries are their comprehensive collections of current, contemporary thought on a broad spectrum of issues.  ALL of this information is copyrighted, and unless publishers decide they don't need to make money off of  book sales, none of this information is going to make it full-text into this project.  There's too much at stake for the publishers. 

In general, libraries don't own the content of the books on their shelves.  They simply provide access to the information.  And so the only guaranteed content for this project are books that are clearly in the public domain, much of which is not younger than 75 years old.  Google will have full-text of books no one wants to read, and will allow you to purchase recent and current books like...amazon.com.

Where's the innovation in this?

This project is a boondoggle for Google.  Five years from now, the project will either be rolling along nicely, or it will be a disaster.

DC Metro: Spawn of Evil

I haven't decided when Metro became the spawn of evil. 

Perhaps it was the late work night when the passengers (including me) alighted the train platform and headed to the escalators to down and out of the station.   One problem:  there were no down escalators.  The hundred or so people were left staring down an up escalator at three station employees mulling around avoiding and/or ignoring our requests to adjust the escalators.

Perhaps it's the four car trains during rush hour.

Perhaps it's the annual amnesia about the white stuff that falls from the sky when it gets really cold outside.

Perhaps it's the extended rush hour, in order to squeeze out a few more dollars.

Perhaps its the endless fair hikes and perpetually broken escalators.

Perhaps it's the filthy train cars, and buses that won't stop for you.

Then there's this from today's Philistine, er, Washington Post:

Metro will also undergo a review of its operations by managers from other transit systems as well as an outside evaluation of rail and bus reliability, White said. A fourth review, by a law enforcement think tank, will examine the Transit Police and the way the force interacts with the public.

The outside scrutiny of the police department follows a year in which it drew national attention after an officer arrested a government scientist for chewing a candy bar as she entered the Metro Center Station and another officer arrested a pregnant woman for talking too loudly into her cell phone outside the Wheaton Station.

In the same year, a station manager was accused of threatening a pregnant woman and her husband with a broom after they inquired about a broken escalator; a rail operator abandoned her crowded train during rush hour because her shift was over; and rail supervisors decided to run only one train an hour after a Redskins night game.

Incompetence taken to the upteenth level is eeeevil.  Just plain eevil.

Context?

Members of the editorial board  (Philistines) at the Dallas Morning News are upset at one of their own.   Rod Dreher recently commented on a Muslim love-fest for Ayatollah Khomeini held somewhere near Dallas.  Members of his editorial team admonished him, suggesting that his coverage needed more context. You know, about how peaceful and loving Muslims are, etc, ad nauseum.

They need context?  Well, I've decided to provide them with a little more context about the raging, turbaned psycho.  There's plenty to go around.

Here's some context

More

And some more

Oh, and here

And yet even more context.

Need more?

Here's other context

And more.

Perhaps what the Dallas Morning News editorial board has enough context, and what they really need is a lobotomy.

Spare Me

Rolling Stone magazine just published one of those lists of the greatest, most stupendous pop culture pablum eva. 

Immediately I knew it was a load crap.  They have one Depeche Mode song and two Cure songs on the list.  Two?  The Cure sucks.  The only reason why they have Pictures of You on the list is because it was featured in a recent TV commercial.

Spare me.

I don't think so, fellas.

You know the economy is good when...

I read this brief entry at Instapundit related to the L'affair Target, and it got me thinking about all the little signs and signals that tell you the country is no longer in a recession:

RETAIL SUPPORT BRIGADE SITREP:  Went to the mall today.  It seemed quite crowded, quite early, for this stage of the shopping season, and judging by the packages and the lines people were buying things.  I don't think we're headed for a recession.

I have an even better sign that the economy is doing well:  customer service sux.   Some people particularly the young among my three readers may not understand this, but once you've lived through a recession or two (and you will) you pick up on certain clues that tell you things just aren't going well. 

One of them is customer service.  When faced with fiscal troubles companies, unlike government, throw off their dead weight first.  These are the folks that are one of the following 1) hated 2) lazy 3) disruptive 4) all of the above.  Once they're gone, companies start laying off their good staff.  They hate doing this, but do it they must, and the most productive members of society start looking for ANYTHING to do for income.  They take jobs in retail. 

Been there, done that.  Those who can, and lose their jobs, turn to retail.  People will do what they need to put food on the table and pay the mortgage.  They will also be productive and engaged in what they are doing.  Hence, better customer service.  Once the economy gets better, these fine folks get rehired or find better employment elsewhere leaving the dregs of society (those who are not rehired) to fill in the void at the customer service desk. 

I've been 0-5 since the beginning of November.   Everything from the wacked-out freekazoid foreginers working at the Silver Spring coffee shop, Mayorga, to the angry (and bleeding!) check-out girl at the City Place Marshall's, I've had nothing but really awful service at almost every store I've been to in the DC area.

So, cheer up!  Things are looking good.

"We Are Not Post-Moderns"

No Left Turns has a post-mortem of eight important factors that sum up much of the Philistines' problems here in the United States. I particularly like this reason:

6 - Kerry and the Demos (that is the post 1960’s Demos) don’t understand that Americans still think in moral terms, in terms of right and wrong. We are not post-moderns. Hence they don’t understand our religious sensibilities, and even have contempt for them (and us). We think that marriage should be marriage, and allowing life to be born into this breathing world is better than stopping it. Life is good and self-government is good and the principle that brings them forth is fine and noble and something to be appreciated and loved.

It's fitting that the year that sees the demise of the Jacques Derrida, the father of post-modernism, and the coming demise of a major beneficiary of post-modernism, Yasser Arafat, would also see the demise of the contemporary Democratic party, a political party that has embraced ideological fruits of post-modernism such as political correctness and moral relativism.

9-11 was like an earthquake under the sea, creating a tsunami that wipes out everything on land.

Philistines in Frederick, MD

The League's brother send this e-mail to me a while back. Bro. lives in Frederick, MD, an exurbia pulled right out of a David Brooks article. There's lots of new development, lots of new and enormous strip malls, and every national chain restaurant with ten miles -- as the SUV drives (including a Golden Corral and Cracker Barrel side-by-side!). Frederick is also the home of Ft. Detrick, the home of America's anthrax supply and the source of a whole lot of looniness.

Before all these knuckledragging suburbanites moved out to Frederick (inclduing bro. & family), the area was populated with rednecks and...Philistines. Including the Peace Resource Center,

We are so "progressive" here in Frederick county, we just gave the "undocumented" aka illegals an "identification card" which was promoted as a way to open bank accounts and apply for housing benefits, as long as they stay in their neighborhoods.

The elites want those people to feel at ease when they cut their grass and clean their homes but we don't want them to move into our areas because they'll ruin the property values.

In downtown Frederick we have the Frederick "Peace Resource Center for Free Speech".They added the Free Speech part last year because they feel that Ashcroft is taking away their rights via the Patriot Act. I e-mailed them to find out exactly which rights they lost and they replied, "FREE SPEECH".When I asked how, I never received an answer.

In addition to making us aware that the capitalist system is oppressing the masses, they are the region's strongest advocates of the use of hemp products and have "teach-ins" every weekend at the local library to indoctrinate kids on the evils of driving SUVs, eating meat, wearing leather and voting for candidates that want to take away your rights to use medicinal marijuana and destroy the environment.

They protest outside Ft Detrick every week, even though most of Frederick works there and there hasn't been chemical or biological weapons programs there since the 70s. Detrick is home to the Signal Corp group that keeps the White House in touch with the Kremlin and a few operational units of the medical reserves and an MP company. Mostly they house medical logistics/procurement for all three services and an expanding NIH cancer research facility, but you wouldn't know it by the way these 50 and 60 year old hippies and college drop-outs hang out and scream,"1-2-3-4, don't send our children off to war"..

Pathetic.

Amen, brother.

UPDATE: Taking a closer look at the website, I notice that the Center supports Mumia Abu Jamal, the vile killer of police officer Daniel Faulkner . Would it be too much for a "peace" center to support the peace makers rather than the murderers of the innocent? Disgusting, filthy people.