(sigh) And the Transit Bonds ballot measure passes.

Voters Approve Transit Bonds for $2.9 Billion - New York Times

Among other things, it rewards the most inefficient public transportation authority in the nation with at least half of the allocated $2.9 billion, saddling the citizens of the State of New York with a staggering debt burden, and best of all from the point of view of today's MTA honchos and city and state politicians, sticking our children with most of the bill.

Oh, if only my absentee ballot had arrived on time!

Related: "Reforming the MTA" (Straphangers' Campaign Fact Sheet - PDF Format)

Sign me up...

for The Colbert Nation. It's a note-perfect parody of an Internet fan site, just as the Colbert Report is a note-perfect parody of a cable "news-talk" show (positively dripping with gravitas and self-importance.)

I'm starting to think Monsieur Colbert is even funnier than Jon Stewart - or took the best writers with him.

(Hat tip: Metafilter.)

Don't use Express Mail. Ever.

Okay, I should have known better. Dammit, I already knew better.

But I was at the Post Office last Friday, mailing off a number of letters (containing certified copies of my father's death certificate) to everyone Dad ever had any sort of financial relationship with--banks, insurance companies, etc. And I was sending them all Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. (Old habits die hard, and this was the precise Legal Advice I had received about how to send the information.)

And, see, I had this absentee ballot for the November 8th Municipal Election in the City of New York. And it kinda needed to get there by Monday, November 7.

Not that the mayoral race was or is in any doubt, but I damn sure wanted to vote against the bond issue for the MTA.

Hey, I says to myself, you're here already... why not use Express Mail? After all, it's guaranteed next-day arrival, right? And you can track it online, just like FedEx, right?

WRONG.

Here, check it for yourself. I mailed Express Mail envelope EQ 149699767 US to the NYC Board of Elections, 200 Varick St, New York, NY 10014 from Zip Code 27612 in Raleigh, NC on Friday, November 5.

It didn't arrive on Monday, November 7 as "guaranteed."

It wasn't even *processed* out of the Flushing, NY (!) Post Office until sometime today, Tuesday, November 8th.

Think it'll arrive in time for my vote to be counted? (snort)

In case you're wondering, by the way, the USPS does have a formal complaint procedure. But then they also have instructions on their web site about how to address postal letters to Santa Claus or God ("Letters to God can be addressed in the same way replacing "Santa Claus" with "God." That's quite a theological minefield they've stepped into there.)

I think both techniques are likely to achieve the same results.

FedEx, please take me back, baby. I promise to do better this time. I will never entrust *anything* time-critical to the tender mercies of the United States Postal Service's Express Mail ever again.

---

Update, November 9

The overnight Express Mail letter "arrived" early this morning in Manhattan; no word on whether it's actually been delivered to the Board of Elections. The day after the election.

Check their tracking (in reverse chronological order)

• Arrival at Unit, November 09, 2005, 5:21 am, NEW YORK, NY 10014
• Enroute, November 09, 2005, 12:18 am, NEW YORK, NY 10199
• Enroute, November 08, 2005, 6:54 pm, NEW YORK, NY 10199
• Enroute, November 08, 2005, 2:15 pm, FLUSHING, NY 11371
• Acceptance, November 05, 2005, 12:01 pm, RALEIGH, NC 27612

Congratulations, USPS! Your "guaranteed overnight delivery" just took four days to travel from Raleigh to New York City.

Just about like a first-class letter with a 37 cent stamp on it, come to think of it. Only it cost me $13.65.

The end of my fourth decade.

Thirty-nine today. Gah.

Once I hit forty, I'm going to start counting backwards.

My wife, the SCUBA diver

Carrie has posted some (underwater) holiday snaps from a diving trip to St. John over at Pencil Roving.

Sadly, a physical anomaly (poor eustachian tube clearage, even when assiduously performing the Valsalva maneuver) prevents me from diving more than a few meters down--I get immediate, and excruciating, earaches and headaches from pressure changes like that. (I'm also lots of fun on airplanes.)

But I can vicariously enjoy the undersea world through Carrie's photographs... which, believe it or not, were taken with a cheap, disposable-but-waterproof camera; I think they came out brilliantly.

Pencil Roving: Fishblogging

The FBI's Secret Scrutiny (Washington Post)

"National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.

The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond.

The FBI's Secret Scrutiny: In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans (Washington Post)

Bad idea.

David Pogue has an interesting "open letter" to electronics manufacturers in the November 2, 2005 edition of the New York Times: "10 Ways to Please Us, the Customers."

His second "commandment' bugs me a little. See if you can spot why:

II. Thou shalt hire native English speakers to translate thine instruction manual. "When the camera focus is not so possible, hold the shutter button vaguely until the beeping tone is heard." Is that really how your company wants to address customers?

Talk about New Math. You'll spend millions of dollars developing some breakthrough gizmo, but won't spring for somebody to rewrite your manual in proper English? I know some high schoolers who'd do the job for $50 and 10 free ring tones.

Oh, yeah. That's who you want writing your product manuals.

I know that Mr. Pogue had his tongue planted firmly in cheek, but it does cost a *little* more than that to have a competent translator and technical editor rework a user manual for you. God forbid you should use a high-schooler, unless the high school is Stuyvesant or Bronx Science (and then, I hope said high-schooler would be savvy enough to charge you the going rate.)

Still, Pogue's main point stands - the costs of hiring a competent technical writer or editor are a drop in the bucket compared to product development cost, and I would add that a good, readable manual can cut those pesky support costs like nobody's business.

Robert Shapiro, NY1's New Yorker of the Week

I was delighted to learn (from Carrie) that Robert Shapiro, owner and operator of Social Tees (a combined screenprinting business and animal rescue operation) was just named New Yorker of the Week by local cable channel NY1.

Robert plays a central role in Mister Gato's Arrival Story -- he's the Good Samaritan who placed the Irascible One in our home.

Robert Shapiro says he began the animal rescue because he wanted to do more than just his business of selling t-shirts.

"I got this really large space that I never use because my business is mostly wholesale, so I started rescuing animals,” he says. “We started doing exotics, and then every time I came back from the shelter I went past the dog and cat rooms that were on line to be euthanized and I started helping them. And they were very happy to give me animals, because they don't want to have to put them down. There's always a home for them. We keep them until they get adopted."

Robert, you're a mensch. This recognition is well-deserved. Mister Gato and thousands of other lovely animals are alive and well today because of you and the volunteers who work with you.

Rescued, and now running the show.

NY1: New Yorker of the Week, Robert Shapiro

Carnival of the Cats #85

Carnival of the Cats #85 is now up at pages turned

Like Gaul (Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est) this week's Carnival is divided into three parts:

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third

foldedspace.org: Get Rich Slowly!

J.D. at foldedspace has an excellent summary of money-management books for individuals: foldedspace.org: Get Rich Slowly!

These books have embarrassingly bad titles, seemingly designed to appeal to the get-rich-quick crowd: The Richest Man in Babylon, Your Money or Your Life, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Think and Grow Rich, Wealth Without Risk, Creating Wealth, etc.

Some of the books out there — most of them? — really are as bad as their titles. Others, however, offer outstanding, practical advice. The best books seem to have the same goal in mind: not wealth, not riches, but financial independence. According to Your Money or Your Life, which I consider the very best of the financial books I've read, "financial independence is the experience of having enough — and then some". More practically, financial independence occurs when your investment income meets or exceeds your monthly expenses. Financial independence is linked to psychological freedom.

How is financial independence achieved? Again, the best books all basically agree. (To some of you, this will be common sense, stuff you've known all your life. To others, like me, this kind of thinking is a sort of revelation.)

foldedspace.org: Get Rich Slowly!

This week's batch of RINO Sightings...

...are up over at Tinkerty Tonk. Rachel does a fine job with this week's herd of RINOs, and includes some lovely graphical flourishes in her presentation.

Frappr! map filling out nicely...

Our Frappr map is filling out nicely.

But if you read enrevanche regularly and haven't planted your flag, please do!

Hey, specifically - where my Europeans at?

sisu: "It does not take into account the psychology of people"

Sissy Willis surveys the blogosphere (ranging from Minh-Duc to Excitable Andy Sullivan) on the Paris riots, pulls out some apposite quotations and excerpts, ties it all together with a long snippet from a column by theologian George Weigel and (believe it or not) Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" paintings, and just generally hits it out of the park.

Go read it now. Go on. We'll still be here when you get back.

No more "Compassionate Use"

Friends,

You're receiving this e-mail because at some point in the recent past, you linked to a side blogproject of mine called "Compassionate Use" (about medical marijuana.)

Sadly, with the recent Supreme Court ruling, the MM movement needs to rethink itself significantly, and I have not had the time to update the Compassionate Use blog in quite some time. I deactivated the blog last week, intending to send out notifications when I had time...

...and someone immediately picked up the URL and started using it for a gay erotica site.

Not that there's anything wrong with that (some of my best friends are big old queens, etc. and I've lived in the West Village for so long that I'm just about half a show-tune away from being one myself) but if you're not in the *habit* of linking to explicit gay porn sites, I thought you might wish to be aware of this.


Cheers,

Barry

Exegesis: Visualizing frequently quoted Bible verses

Exegesis is a Java-based Web application that, using data from Google, visually demonstrates which verses of the Bible (King James version) are quoted most often on the Web.

Says the app's author:

Every day the Bible is quoted in a range of contexts. To inspire. To persuade. To threaten. To deepen. To beautify. To make eloquent. Out of 66 books containing 30,652 verses, ministers, politicians, parents, protestors, scientists, scholars, and cynics choose the handful of lines that best make their point.

This selection process provides a guide to the most important or interesting parts of the Bible. With the help of my favorite search engine, I collected rough counts of how often each verse appears on the web. Making these verses bigger and darker helped them stand out.

The interface takes a little getting used to, but once you understand it, it's quite powerful: Click and drag to select the book and chapter that you want to start reading, and it starts slowly scrolling up the left side of the computer's window; frequently quoted verses are rendered in larger, darker type, and examples of sites quoting said verses can be seen as links to the right.

Top ten verses from the Bible on the Web, per Exegesis:

1. Thou shalt not kill.
2. Thou shalt not steal.
3. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying...
4. Give us this day our daily bread.
5. Jesus wept.
6. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God...
7. Pray without ceasing.
8. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
9. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
10. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
    

(Hat tip: Another truly great find from Jason Kottke.)

Well, that didn't take long.

Apple introduced the Video iPod not quite a month ago.

Well, everybody knew what--pardon the expression--was coming.

Vivid Entertainment Group, a major adult video producer that already offers high-resolution still images, video clips and footage from "voyeur cams" through its Web site, now plans to shoot shorter films specifically for the iPod and other portables.

"It could be a huge percentage of our business," says the company's chief executive, Steven Hirsch. "People love watching adult movies and to be able to carry an adult movie in your pocket is a powerful tool."

(snort) The derisive, double-entendre laden comment writes itself. Or already has.

Dirty Downloads Ready to Go on IPods - Washington Post

Lunch at the Char-Grill

CharGrill Order Form
Originally uploaded by enrevanche.

Went to hang out with Mom at the nursing home today (we hope to have her home by Thanksgiving.)

Lunch wasn't much to write home about, and she was picking at her plate pretty sadly. Sometimes the food at the nursing home is downright tasty, but usually it's mediocre and occasionally it's just awful.

This was a bad day.

Happily, I knew how to salvage the situation.

"Mom, I'm going on a Char-Grill run."

Just in case you've ever wondered, it *is* indeed possible for a blind person's eyes to light up.

Char-Grill is a Raleigh original, a holdover from the glory days of drive-ins. Located on a noisy stretch of Hillsborough Street about four blocks from the State Capitol, Char-Grill has Raleigh's finest young men cooking hamburgers behind huge plate glass windows. Drop off your handwritten order in a little slot and wait with the dozen or so hungry people whose ears perk up each time the loudspeakers crackle.

Although it's been ten years since I've lived in Raleigh, I still have the preferred Char-Grill orders for my entire extended family memorized. Mom is a Hamburger Steak Jr., well done with "everything" (and please put some extra raw onions on top.) As noted above, this is "slow" fast food - you fill out your own order slip (click the graphic above right to see mine) and wait for your number to be called.

Back home in New York City, I live virtually next door to the restaurant that is widely considered to serve one of the best burgers in town - the Corner Bistro - and yet, I make a beeline for the Char-Grill every time I visit Raleigh. (Char-Grill and its unrelated brethren in other Sunbelt cities are *exactly* what Danny Meyer has patterned his Shake Shack burger after... the Shake Shack is a hybrid of a Midwestern custard stand and a Southern burger grill.)

How was it, you ask?

A Hamburger Steak Jr.

Do you even have to ask?

Bush Orders Staff to Attend Ethics Briefings (Washington Post)

Reminiscent of the "Boys, this is a football" back-to-fundamentals locker room speeches legendary 'Bama coach Bear Bryant used to give after ignominious defeats, President Bush is requiring White House staff to attend "refresher courses" in ethics.

President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe.

According to a memo sent to aides yesterday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules. As a result, "the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher lectures on general ethics rules, including the rules of governing the protection of classified information," according to the memo, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post by a senior White House aide.

White House Counsel Miers' office will be conducting the ethics briefings, and all staffers must attend (I'm looking at you, Karl Rove.)

No word on whether the "ethics" classes will cover embarrassing topics like the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 21 et seq):

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Bush Orders Staff to Attend Ethics Briefings (Washington Post)

Panexa. Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.

The "Important Safety Information" should be read thoroughly first, though.

PANEXA is a prescription drug that should only be taken by patients experiencing one of the following disorders: metabolism, binocular vision, digestion (solid and liquid), circulation, menstruation, cognition, osculation, extremes of emotion. For patients with coronary heart condition (CHC) or two separate feet (2SF), the dosage of PANEXA should be doubled to ensure that twice the number of pills are being consumed...

MERD | Panexa (Acidachrome Promanganate)

Hat tip: MetaFilter.

Lenovo returning IBM PCs to retail stores...

...and rumor has it that HP is going to start selling $400 laptops at WalMart after Thanksgiving.

Read all about it.

God bless you, Mister Derbyshire

In a post over at The Corner today, John Derbyshire writes:

...[Intelligent Design] is an entirely American phenomenon -- really, an outgrowth of American folk religiosity. You can find a scattered few I.D. followers in other countries, but I.D. is not a public or pedagogic issue anywhere but in the U.S.A. People in other countries are just baffled by it; scientists in other countries just shake their heads sadly. This is not the case with any scientific theory that I am aware of. Real science is international. The presence of a strongly national coloring is, in fact, a pretty good marker of pseudoscience. Compare, for example, the "Soviet science" (Lysenkoism, Marrism, etc.) of Stalin.

There is nothing wrong with folk religiosity, of course. I personally regard it as a strengthening and cohesive force in the national life, and in the conservative movement. I am happy about American folk religiosity, and regard it with cheerful approval. But-- It. Is. Not. Science.

While I, personally, am not as sanguine about all of the effects of American folk religiosity as Mr. Derbyshire is, I think his entire post is well worth reading, as are many of the other things he writes.

Related item: ordained Dominican priest (and dual Ph.D. biologist and theologian) Francisco Ayala has some thoughts on I.D., elucidated in this entry at Mark A.R. Kleiman's blog.

Mo' betta PoMo

You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the
postmodernists, you collect avant-garde
Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal
articles for breakfast. You positively live
for theory. It really doesn't matter what
kind, as long as the words are big and the
paragraph breaks few and far between.

What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

[Hat tip: Larry Bernard at Inside Larry's Head]

Buckley on Plame

enrevanche reader and pal John deVille (when, oh when, will you start blogging again, John?) points us to WFB's latest column, ostensibly about the Scooter Libby affair... but, after all, the core of that whole mess is really "who outed Valerie Plame?", isn't it?

Money grafs:

The great question here is Robert Novak. It was he who published, in his column, that Mrs. Joseph Wilson was a secret agent of the CIA. I am too close a friend to pursue the matter with Novak, and his loyalty is a postulate. What was going on? If there are mysteries in town, that surely is one of them, the role of Novak.

The importance of the law against revealing the true professional identity of an agent is advertised by the draconian punishment, under the federal code, for violating it. In the swirl of the Libby affair, one loses sight of the real offense, and it becomes almost inapprehensible what it is that Cheney/Libby/Rove got themselves into. But the sacredness of the law against betraying a clandestine soldier of the republic cannot be slighted.

"Who Did What? Covert Questions" (William F. Buckley, National Review, Nov. 1, 2005)

Now Carrie is catblogging.

I'm so proud.

The riots in France

You know, I remember when "Paris is Burning" was nothing more than a really good documentary about drag queens.

For the seventh night in a row, the heavily Muslim/North-African banlieues of Paris have been riven by violence and clashes with police.

[Coverage: BBC (includes audio/video links), Associated Press (via ABC News.)]

"Youth" (I prefer French Interior Minister Sarkozy's terms, "thugs" and/or "scum") have burned cars, thrown rocks (and shot at) police, and created general mayhem for a solid week.

Naturally, the leaders of the region are bending over backwards to excuse and explain away their behavior:

The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too.

"They have no work. They have nothing to do. Put yourself in their place," said Abderrahmane Bouhout, president of the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque, where a tear gas grenade exploded Sunday evening. Local youths suspected a police attack, and authorities are investigating.

(source)

The French have been quick to criticize (and lecture) America for our alleged mistreatment of Muslims. With the northern suburbs of their capital city in flames all around them, I for one now await their instructive response to the enemy in their midst.

Chap has a good (brief) post in which he posts an excerpt from (and link to the full text of) a 2002 City Journal article by Theodore Dalrymple that's well worth reading.

Related: "The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris" (Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, Autumn 2002.)

The tough guy thing? It's an act.

Irascible Tomcat Mister Gato may not be quite as irascible as we thought.

Sure, he's got the scary Clint Eastwood eyes, and he's got attitude for miles.

But he's a big old cream puff when he's missing his family - no humans and Chow Chows to keep him company.

Transcript of an IM conversation between my wife and a dear friend who took care of Mister G. while we were both down in North Carolina last week:

(my wife): Just wanted to say thanks again for all your help with Mr. G.
(our catsitter): Ah, no problem!
(our catsitter): He's so funny:
(my wife): ?
(our catsitter): Whenever I've been over there before, he's such the tough guy, showing off how he rules the house.
(my wife): Oh, totally.
(our catsitter): Then, when everyone was away and I came over, he was SUPER affectionate -- clearly very lonely, much as he didn't want to admit it!
(my wife): Awwwwww.
(my wife): The Buddy.
(our catsitter): It was very cute.
(my wife): Yes, he has been amazingly affectionate and demonstrative since I got home.
(my wife): When I walked in on Sunday he basically attached himself to me like a remora.
(our catsitter): Yeah, exactly.
(my wife): I petted him and talked to him for about half an hour, and then I headed out to pick up the chows... the look on his face as I went out the door was so sad.
(my wife): "But you just got here!"
(our catsitter): Clearly the whole badass tough guy thing is just a facade.
(my wife): He's really a remarkably demonstrative cat.
(my wife): Oh, definitely.
(my wife): It's all a front.
(my wife): Discourage any upstarts.
(our catsitter): Exactly.
(my wife): Anyway, your care and feeding of Gato was much appreciated.
(my wife): As I suppose he conveyed himself.
(our catsitter): Glad to be of service.
(our catsitter): And yes, he made the point quite clear himself as well.

Attention, NYC politics junkies: Meet Fred Newman (Pencil Roving)

Carrie, over at Pencil Roving, has a great and timely post introducing the unaware to Fred Newman, the head of the Independence Party in Manhattan.

Nutjob? Kingmaker? Sounds like he's a little of both:

In connection with the upcoming NYC mayoral election, local news channel NY1 is running a series on Fred Newman, political puppetmaster, former ally of Lyndon LaRouche and mentor of perpetual candidate Lenora Fulani (of the Independence Party). Again this year Mayor Michael Bloomberg is listed on the ballot on the Independence Party line as well as on the Republican line; according to NY1, in the last election the Independence Party delivered 59,000 votes for Bloomberg, a number that exceeds his margin of victory...

Post-Halloween Scare: Meet Fred Newman (Pencil Roving)

Cheap DVD players - no extra charge for the totalitarianism

The next time you think about buying a cheap Chinese-made DVD player at WalMart, think about this story:

David Ji used a few good contacts in his homeland to build a billion-dollar business selling cheap DVD players in the U.S. Then he crossed a supplier--and disappeared.

[...]

This is the dark side of doing business in a booming China, where government often is your partner, the lines between state and enterprise are blurry and respect for defendant rights is spotty at best. In the U.S. a spat over bills owed to a supplier can get you sued; in China it can get you jailed for months before any charges are filed. David Ji is one of a dozen or so U.S. businessmen detained without due process in the past decade in China. An implicit racism is evident in these cases: Most of the jailed execs are Asian-Americans, and even U.S. citizens get held.

The Chinese attitude is "Hey, you are, at least ethnically speaking, Chinese. You should know how the system works," says John T. Kamm, founder of Dui Hua, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that helps people wrongfully imprisoned in China. "These cases are many, and the business world should be troubled by them," says Jerome Cohen, a New York University professor who specializes in China's legal system. He has advised Ji's defense. "Many of these cases never get reported," he adds, citing "interference from local police, prosecutors and corrupt judges occasionally cooperating with local powerholders."

A powerful and disturbing article, well worth reading.

Held Hostage In China - Forbes.com

Gartner Analyst: Stop Outsourcing Now

More outsourcing/offshoring backlash. Check out this interview with Linda Cohen, the Gartner Group's chief of research for outsourcing, in Datamation.

Excerpt:

''Today, outsourcing is applied to basically be a remedy for cost problems or assumed cost problems,'' adds Cohen. ''The thought is if they outsource this, it will be cheaper. And that's not usually the case. We've gotten to a state of compulsive outsourcing. It's this need to outsource because everybody else is doing it... It's keeping up with the Joneses. If my competition is doing it, then we better do more of it.

''When your CEO stops asking, 'Should we be outsourcing this?' and starts asking, 'Why aren't we offshoring this?' or even worse, 'What more could we outsource?'... It's gotten to the point that it's almost a compulsive reaction.''

Breathtaking statistic: Gartner estimates that at least 50% of outsourcing engagements will fail to meet expectations. (I've seen private numbers even higher than that.)

Gartner Analyst: Stop Outsourcing Now (Datamation)

Kiva: Microloans to the developing world

Kiva.org is a "charitable loan" organization that allows interested folks in the First World to make a difference by offering microloans (as little as $25 or so) directly to businesses in the developing world:

By choosing a business on our website and then lending money online to that enterprise, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive monthly email updates that let you know about the progress being made by the small business you've sponsored. These updates include reports on loan repayment progress, photos of new capital equipment, narratives on business growth and standard of living improvements, and more. As loans are repaid, you will get your original loan money back.

This is a great take on the old "sponsor a child" idea that charities have been flogging for years, with some substantial differences in terms of transparency and overhead, and the very real likelihood of repayment and eventual self-funding of continuing operations.

Kiva

Related: Center for Economic Self-Reliance at Brigham Young University (good information on microcredit and microloans)

Hat tip: Cory at BoingBoing

I didn't need a test to tell you this, either.

You are a...

Modern, Cool Nerd
86 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 30% Dork

For The Record:

• A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
  
• A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
  
• A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks!)

Congratulations!

The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid.

Hat tip: enrevanche pal moonpath.

Michelin stars: full New York list (Financial Times)

The Michelin Guide to New York City is coming out soon, and foodie types have been breathlessly awaiting news of who will get the coveted Michelin stars.

The Financial Times has the complete scoop.

THREE STARS

Alain Ducasse, Manhattan, Midtown West
Jean-Georges, Manhattan, Upper West Side
Le Bernardin, Manhattan, Midtown West
Per Se, Manhattan, Midtown West

TWO STARS

Bouley, Manhattan, TriBeCa
Daniel, Manhattan, Upper East Side
Danube, Manhattan, TriBeCa
Masa, Manhattan, Midtown West

And thirty-one restaurants get the single star, including West Village neighborhood favorites Annisa, Babbo and Wallse. (Where, oh where, is Blue Hill? An unthinkable omission!)

Related:

• "Michelin Gives New York Four Thumbs Up" (Financial Times)
• "Michelin Rates NY Restaurants" (NY Times)

Small words, simple fonts make you seem smarter

Strunk and White said it, memorably.

George Orwell said it (see, e.g., Politics and the English Language.)

And now there's good scientific evidence: using short words makes the reader perceive you as "smarter."

(In an added twist, now that modern PCs and printers have made every man, woman, child and dog their own typesetters, using simple, classic fonts was shown to be the smart play as well.)

Daniel Oppenheimer at Princeton University conducted five experiments manipulating the complexity of vocabulary or font style. Samples included graduate school applications, sociology dissertation abstracts, and translations of a work by Descartes.

Times New Roman, the default font for Internet text and writing programs like Microsoft Word, was contrasted by the italicized Juice font (the sort of font you might see in a homemade newsletter that's trying to be more than it is).

The simple writing done in the easy-to-read font tended to be rated as coming from a more intelligent author than the more complex drafts.

"Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers' evaluations of the text and its author," Oppenheimer said.

Simple Writing Makes You Look Smart (Yahoo! News)

Hat tip: Arroxane and Ryan on the TECHWR-L mailing list.

It's on!

I can live with the Alito nomination pretty happily. He's eminently qualified, has plenty of intellectual heft, and from what I've been able to learn about him since this morning, seems like he'd make a fine Justice.

I can tell you who's turning backflips right now, though... ecstatically happy beyond their wildest dreams...

The political fundraisers.

On the right and the left. The nomination of "Scalia Lite" is just the kind of polarizing political event that everyone from James Dobson to NARAL dreams about.

They're going to prolong the mudslinging and namecalling just as long as possible, in order to whip their respective constituencies into a frenzy of check-writing indignation.

As a South Park conservative, I was utterly delighted to hear Nina Totenberg observe this morning during NPR's live coverage... "It's on!" (Ms. Totenberg was already handicapping the probability of a Democrat filibuster against the new nominee, with the announcement barely five minutes old.)

Of course, I immediately recalled this classic South Park episode, in which Stan and his wannabee breakdancing friends Get Served by some out-of-town upstarts (emphasis added)

Coach: Oh, it's on!
Randy: Nonono, it's not on.
Coach: Whoo, it's on all right!
Randy: It isn't on. Nothing's on. It's off.
Coach: [insistent] It's on!
Randy: I'm keeping my son home on Saturday. I just came by to let you know so you can... put a stop to all this. Goodbye. [turns around and walks away]
Coach: Hold on a second, clamhead! [catches him and blocks his way] You think you can just roll in here and tell us it's not on when it very clearly is on?! You're just trying to make us not practice, aren't you?! Because you KNOW that your kids are goin' down when my kids give them this! Give me some moves out, Girl T! [the girl turns on the boombox] Check this out! [balances on his left hand and bounces around, then stands up] Yeah! You like that?!
OC Leader: Oooo man! [shakes his head]
OC Member 1: Ohhh Lord! [the coach spins on his back, rises to one hand, flips over, and lands doing the splits, then rises to his feet using an imaginary hook]
OC Leader: Oooo, he is gettin' served! [the girl shakes her head]

Fabulous. I think we should ask Judge Alito to show us some funky breaks to the beat during the confirmation hearings.

(Update: Politechnical is hosting the RINO Watering Hole on the Alito nomination.)

I'm very, very disappointed in you

Okay. Several hundred of you visit enrevanche every day, but so far... so far... only six of you have taken the time to plant your flag in the Frappr map of enrevanche readers.

Look. I'm not asking you to take the time to register if you're just some random Spanish-speaking person coming in from an Argentina-based search engine looking for cat pictures (um, Usted no tiene que colocarse si usted es el visitar de Google Argentina y buscar cuadros del gato...)

Sitemapper map of enrevanche visitors, Saturday, 29 October


Frappr map of enrevanche visitors, Saturday, 29 October

But if you read the site regularly?

Ach. We make such an effort for you, and you never write, you never call.

Fine. We'll just sit here in the dark. All alone. No, no. We'll be fine. Don't worry about us.

North Carolina buys more jobs with handouts to Chinese

North Carolina has agreed to pay Chinese computer maker Lenovo millions of dollars to build a new research and development center in the state. This handout goes to a company which is largely owned by [companies controlled by the Communist Government of the People's Republic of China] and builds on a growing tradition in North Carolina to woo businesses with massive amounts of cash.

[...]

“Lenovo exemplifies the type of company we want in North Carolina by providing sustainable, top-quality jobs for hard-working North Carolina families,” [North Carolina Governor Mike] Easley said. “As a leading global information technology company, Lenovo will enhance our existing information technology industry in the Triangle.”

Chinese holding company Legend claims a 41 per cent stake in Lenovo, and the biggest shareholder in Legend - the Chinese Academy of Sciences - enjoys 65 per cent ownership of Legend, making Lenovo quite the PRC firm. As you know, China can really use our financial support these days. It needs money to build out software sweatshops, call centers and Wal-Mart product houses. It's great to see North Carolina lend a helping hand.

North Carolina buys more jobs with handouts to Chinese | Channel Register

A sleepy vigil

While Carrie and I are down in North Carolina with my family, a cat-loving friend is taking good care of Mister Gato. (We don't mind boarding the Chows when we go away, since they *love* the "sleep-away camp" that we send them to; as a shelter animal, however, Mister G is much more comfortable in His Apartment than even the nicest cattery that NYC has to offer.)

Sooner or later, they're going to show up to check their e-mail.

As shown above, Mister Gato tends to keep a drowsy vigil in front of our computer when we're away. We have carefully hidden our credit card numbers, and he doesn't know our passwords; otherwise, we might come home to find UPS delivering a 500-pound order of smoked salmon.

Be sure to check out the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more bloggers' pets from around the world, and don't miss the Carnival of the Cats this Sunday at the excellent blog Watermark.

(And if you're a catblogger yourself, don't pass up the chance to join Ferdinand T. Cat's "Cat Lovers Community.")

Buh-bye, now.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

Bush's Embattled Nominee to Supreme Court Withdraws

If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History

If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History

Samurai restaurant critic

Frank Bruni just had dinner at the new TriBeCa restaurant Ninja New York.

He, um, didn't like it very much.

Confusing the point of a restaurant with the mission of a "Saturday Night Live" skit, Ninja New York deposits you in a kooky, dreary subterranean labyrinth that seems better suited to coal mining than to supping...

...Ninja intends to evoke a Japanese mountain village inhabited by ninjas, a special breed of stealthy warriors. In this case they come armed not only with swords and sorcery but also with recipes, which may be their most dangerous weapons of all...

...In the name of "new style sushi" Ninja employs rice cakes as beds - or sometimes graves - for a rectangle of truffle-flecked omelet (it tasted like soggy French toast)...

...For a toddler with a trust fund and a yen for udon and maki, Ninja might be a valid alternative to the Jekyll and Hyde restaurant...

Yelping Warriors, and Rocks in the Broth - New York Times

Indian Techie Flamewar

An hilarious and overwrought e-mail exchange between two very, very upset men on the subcontinent.

First, yes I have written mail to Managing Director. Because you are a cheap person. You are such a basted, you don't know, how do talk to any person. You are mental sick. Yes my English is weak, that’s why I worked in sentient under cheap person like you. But write now I have learned English especially for writing this mail.

Hat tip: Numair Faraz

BecomeRepublican.com

Kiss your conscience goodbye and switch to the winner: http://www.becomerepublican.com.

NPR : Thomas P.M. Barnett's 'Blueprint for Action'

Being a non-car-owning Manhattanite, one of the things I don't do much any more is listen to drive-time radio.

Since I'm in Raleigh at the moment, driving a rental car around, I was checking out NPR's "Morning Edition" today and heard an interview with Thomas P.M. Barnett, who has a new book ("Blueprint for Action") out.

The interview is available at the NPR site in RealAudio and Windows Media format, and it's short and well worth a listen. Barnett is his usual provocative, rhetorical-bomb-throwing self. A sample, and I'm paraphrasing, not quoting: Barnett observes that America's most successful nation-building experience of all time has arguably been the Kurdish autonomous zone of northern Iraq. We gave them air cover for 15 years, didn't ask anything specific of them, and they've created a functioning state.

Check the interview out.

(And having enjoyed The Pentagon's New Map and learned a lot from it, I've ordered Blueprint For Action as well.)

You bastard (bacterium), you killed my father!

A great essay in today's New York Times. Instead of being afraid of the avian flu (which, to be fair, could in fact turn out to be a Really Big Deal), what about the immediate and real dangers that most of us are in denial about? To quote the good doctor who wrote the op-ed, here's what she'd like to say to her bird-flu obsessing patients:

If you want to be scared, then how about that drug habit of yours you think I don't know about? How about the fact that you are 100 pounds overweight and eat nothing but junk? How about the fact that in a few short months Medicaid is going to stop paying for your very expensive medications and no one knows how just high that Medicare Part D deductible and co-payment are going to be?

Preach. But here's the part that really made me sit up and take notice: antibiotic-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae gets a prominent shout-out.

If you want something to be scared of, how about the drug-resistant Klebsiella that is all over this very hospital, an ordinary run-of-the-mill bacterial strain that has become so resistant to so many antibiotics that we've had to resurrect a few we stopped using 30 years ago because they were so toxic.

That Klebsiella is one scary germ. It's in hospitals all over the country, and by now it's probably killed a thousandfold more people than the avian flu.

But you don't hear much about our Klebsiella. Like our bad habits and our dismally insoluble health insurance tangles, our antibiotic-resistant bacteria are with us, right here, right now. Apparently they all lack the drama, the suspense, the titillating worst-case situations that energize our politicians and turn into a really newsworthy health care scare.

I noticed this, I guess, primarily because drug-resistant Klebsiella (contracted in a hospital) is ultimately what killed my father.

Scare Yourself Silly, but the Real Terrors Are at Your Feet - New York Times

Everyday low prices from everyday lowdown employers

An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.

Next time you're stocking up on cheap T-shirts manufactured by Chinese prison labor, say hi to the presumably healthy 19 year-old part-timer manning the cash register.

And, hello, they're surprised that a seven-year veteran of Wal-Mart is no more productive than an employee with one year's tenure? Just exactly what mindbendingly difficult skills are they supposed to be mastering in the intervening six years?

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs - New York Times

(See also: Actual internal memo - PDF format)

Where in the world are you?

Gina, over at Lifehacker.com, tipped us to the existence of Frappr Maps - a Google Map hack that allows members of online communities to register their names (or handles) and locations, and point out where they're participating from.

I use Sitemapper's "World Map" feature all the time, and I know that we've got readers from all over the place. But in most cases I don't know much more about them.

Do me a favor? When you have a second, register yourselves at enrevanche's Frappr page, and add a photo or image (nothing grossly pornographic... I'm looking at you, Bill in Exile) and a shout-out.

It's time to play the music... it's time to light the lights...

The Muppet Show was a staple of my childhood, a child- and adult-friendly variety show featuring the lovable Henson puppets we had all become familiar with on Sesame Street.

Disney recently bought out the Jim Henson empire, and it looks like they're getting ready to revive the TV franchise. Brace yourselves and get ready to meet America's Next Muppet:

The Muppets could come back to primetime television with their own reality show. ABC has ordered a script and five episode outlines for "America's Next Muppet," in which viewers may join in choosing the newest member of the puppet family that includes Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, a network spokeswoman said Tuesday.

If this is done correctly, with the same sly, subversive sensibility that the Henson stable used to apply to their parodies, it might be really good.

'Muppets' May Return to Primetime TV - AP, via Yahoo! News

Twenty-five years of service

rolex
Originally uploaded by enrevanche.

On your twenty-fifth anniversary of employment with IBM, you get (or at least you used to) your choice of gifts from the company; my Dad, and most of his buddies, opted for the Rolex watch.

Dad got his Rolex in 1983, and though he had previously been an enthusiastic Seiko partisan, he wore that Rolex for the next 22 years.

I have worn reasonably nice watches before. My wife and my in-laws are responsible for the two watches I alternate wearing from day-to-day, actually; my wife bought me a beautiful pilot's chronograph not long after we met, and it has considerable sentimental value to me. (Funnily enough, she now sometimes wears the "railroad watch" that I was wearing when I moved to New York!)

And my father-in-law, who is a *serious* eBay maven, found a great price on a set of deeply geekly "Eco-Drive" Citizen watches that recharge automatically on exposure to sunlight, and bought enough for all the males in the extended family; mine showed up one day in the mail unannounced, and I've enjoyed wearing it ever since.

But today--after the quick and professional attention of a helpful Raleigh jeweler, who incredibly enough had some spare links for a vintage Rolex wristband in his parts drawer--I'm wearing Dad's Rolex on my wrist.

And this is just a whole 'nother thing. Set aside the fact that it's like an exquisite little moving sculpture. My old man wore this watch for a little more than two decades, and I think I'm really going to enjoy looking down to check the time and thinking about Bob every time I do it.

And the Carnival of the RINOs...

...is up over at Louisiana Libertarian.

Life goes on

So does catblogging. Carnival of the Cats #83 is up over at Mind of Mog.

Back down in Raleigh

Hey, y'all. Back down in Raleigh with the family; thanks to everyone for their kind expressions of condolences and sympathy.

Dad died very peacefully in his sleep yesterday morning.

I'm still rummaging through the family photographs, but as I drink my coffee this morning and get ready to meet the tide of incoming relatives, this is the one that's really making me smile.

Dad could fix *anything.* In this picture, circa 1973, the engineer on the left is giving the young man on the right a fundamental lesson in aeronautics.

(We're flying a kite off the deck of a beach house at Holden Beach, North Carolina.)

Robert Eugene Campbell (1936-2005)

RALEIGH, NC -- Robert Eugene (Bob) Campbell, 69, died October 22, 2005 at his Raleigh home after a long illness.

Born June 27, 1936 in Enochville, NC to the late Floyd William and Estelle London Campbell, Bob Campbell attended and graduated from the Rowan County public schools. He married Betty Sue Hodges in 1955.

A 1958 graduate of Indiana Technical College (now the Indiana Institute of Technology), Bob worked as an engineer with the International Business Machines corporation for his entire career, finally retiring in 1992 after 34 years. Bob and Betty lived and worked in Atlanta, GA and Poughkeepsie, NY, before moving to Raleigh with IBM in 1965, where they made their permanent home.

Following a motorcycle accident in November 1967, Bob was paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. After a prolonged and difficult period of recuperation, he returned to work and continued for the rest of his life to provide for his family and to maintain what were for him the most important roles in life, that of a good husband and good father.

Although he had experienced declining health in recent years, Bob is still widely remembered in the Oak Park neighborhood of Raleigh as a friendly, gregarious presence, and, in his retirement, as the designated "Mr. Fix-It" for anyone who ever had a problem with a lawnmower or small engine. He delighted in using his engineering and analysis skills to diagnose and fix problems with just about anything, and dispensed advice freely.

Despite his ongoing struggles with health problems related to his paralysis, he maintained a positive attitude, due in large part to a mischievous sense of humor that none who knew him well will soon forget. His courage and determination to persevere in the face of incredibly difficult physical and psychological challenges were, and remain, an inspiration to everyone he met. The support provided for him by his wife, Betty, until very recently his sole caregiver following his paralysis, was a testament to the power and force of love and devotion.

Bob Campbell was a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Cary Lodge No. 198 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, the Wake County Shrine Club, and the IBM Quarter Century Club.

He is survived by his wife Betty, his son Barry and daughter-in-law Carrie, brothers Roy and Marvin, and sister Juanita Smith, as well as an extended family and a wide network of friends and professional colleagues who join his immediate family in mourning his passing.

In accordance with Bob's expressed wishes, there will be no funeral service, viewing, or visitation. A memorial service, to be conducted at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Raleigh, will be scheduled and announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to Hospice of Wake County or to the charity of one's choice.

Robert E. Campbell
1936-2005

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets...

An update to an earlier post...

Of *course* there are places on the Internets where you can make a modest (or large) wager on the Miers nomination; for unaccountable reasons, my Google-fu temporarily failed me.

Alert enrevanche reader and pal Laurie points me to Irish "futures market" (read: "casino") Intrade.com, where one can easily see the current line on Miers.

Round and round she goes.
Where she stops, nobody knows.

(They're also offering proposition bets... excuse me, "futures contracts"... on Karl Rove/Scooter Libby indictments, the putative date of Osama Bin Laden's capture, and the identity of the next Federal Reserve chairman, among other things.)

Oh yeah, y'all; I've opened an account. But since Intrade is based in Ireland, and US banks are chary of allowing you to fund offshore gambling, I'm going to have to place my opening deposit with a banker's check (!)

And over at the Politburo Diktat, the Commissar points us to the trading volume chart at Tradesports (who, incestuously enough, owns and operates InTrade), where we can see high volume, and low odds of success for the Miers nomination:

Not looking good for the home team.

Looks like the "markets" have already sussed out the situation.

Random thought

I cannot freaking believe that I left Sarah Silverman off my list of "celebrity crushes."

That's a fine-looking magazine right there.

Related:

• Current cover story of Heeb Magazine
• New Yorker profile: Sarah Silverman

'I Will Eat Your Dollars'

Fascinating article in the LA Times, via Yahoo News, about Nigerian e-mail scam artists (known as "419 scammers" after the anti-fraud section in Nigeria's penal code.)

Excerpt:

Their anthem, 'I Go Chop Your Dollars,' hugely popular in Lagos, hit the airwaves a few months ago as a CD penned by an artist called Osofia:

419 is just a game, you are the losers, we are the winners.
White people are greedy, I can say they are greedy
White men, I will eat your dollars, will take your money and disappear.
419 is just a game, we are the masters, you are the losers.

'I Will Eat Your Dollars' - Yahoo! News

LA face with the Oakland booty

Hip-hop music has been, and continues to be, a pervasive influence on American culture.

Recently, there have been some truly stunning genre-busting cover versions of classic hip-hop and rap songs. The gold standard, for me, is set by Nina Gordon's acoustic-folk cover of NWA's Straight Outta Compton (MP3 link, 2.1 MB.)

But I've just heard one that will give Nina a run for her money. Jonathan Coulton has turned out a remarkable alt.country version of Sir Mix-A-Lot's ode to steatopygia, "Baby Got Back."

• Jonathan Coulton's site
• MP3 of Mr. Coulton's version of Baby Got Back (6.5 MB)
  

(humming) LA face with the Oakland booty...

Flocking Brilliant!

Flock is a new Mozilla Firefox-based browser that is optimized for the package of technologies that is becoming known as "Web 2.0." A very early developer release has just been made available for downloading at the Flock developer site.

Get the Flock outta here.

So what makes Flock different, and special?

• It has excellent RSS integration, making it possible to quickly see when your favorite blogs and sites have been updated. If you create a collection of site feeds (e.g., a collection of news sites) it aggregates them on the fly--in other words, it groups them together for viewing automatically.
  
  
• Instead of bookmarks stored on your own machine, Flock uses del.icio.us, a "social bookmarking" service, making it easier for you to share your bookmarks with others (if you choose.) It's a snap to add tags to your favorites/bookmarks, too.
  
  
• If you're a blogger, you can use tools built into Flock to compose blog entries on the fly. Flock includes a blog editor that works with WordPress, Movable Type, Typepad (and shortly also Live Journal) and Blogger.
  
  
  
  Blogging about Flock, in Flock
  
  
• If you've got a Flickr account, you can share photos automagically within Flock. Just drag your pictures to the "topbar" in Flock.
  
  
• Flock indexes the pages you visit and has a built-in search history, thus taking a big step towards solving the problem of "I saw this on the Web a couple days ago... dammit, where was it?"
  

Fair warning: this is a very early "developer release," and it's probably not stable enough for everyday use. However, it is a *very* promising and interesting look at where web browsers may be going. Flock is available now for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

Box, fixed

We solved the collapsing box problem. A bunch of stuff went into storage or got thrown away, we rearranged things a bit, and now Mister Gato's favorite box sits atop a very sturdy metal filing cabinet. With the addition of a cheap fleece baby blanket ($1 at WalMart, fetched during a recent trip to North Carolina) it is now the best seat in the house.

Lord of most of what he surveys.

Be sure to check the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more bloggers' pets from around the world, and don't miss this weekend's edition of the Carnival of the Cats, hosted at Mind of Mog.

Go, Biscuits!

Hey, that was quick! Bis-quick, in fact.

My Montgomery Biscuits paraphernalia arrived today.

Go, Biscuits!

Since I posted on Saturday, I've received a few requests for the recipe for God's Own Buttermilk Biscuits. I posted it in the comments, but people aren't finding it there and I've mailed out several copies...

So, what the heck. We've had everything else at enrevanche, why not recipes?

When I baked these for her recently, my own sainted mother pronounced these as "the best biscuits she ever ate," and she is no slouch in the kitchen herself, to put it mildly. The recipe is based on the "basic rolled biscuits" recipe from the first edition of Joy of Cooking (Rombauer) with a few minor tweaks.

With no further ado...

GOD'S OWN ROLLED BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Yield: two dozen small (tea-sized) or one dozen large (breakfast-sized) biscuits.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In large bowl, mix:

2 cups all-purpose flour (extra points for using a Southern biscuit flour like Martha White or White Lily, if you can get it - if you get self-rising, obviously, omit the baking powder.)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 (0.5) teaspoon baking soda

1/2 (0.5) teaspoon salt

Cut six tablespoons (three-quarters of a standard stick) of *cold*, good-quality butter into small pieces; drop butter pieces into dry mixture and "cut in" with two butter knives clutched in fist like Wolverine's talons (if you are a kitchen gadget fetishist, you may use a pastry blender) until the flour mixture has the consistency of coarse breadcrumbs.

(Cold butter is specified because you don't want the butter to start melting until the biscuits go into the oven. This will create little air pockets in the biscuits and contribute to the overall delightfully fluffy effect you are trying to achieve. Do not substitute margarine or shortening. Won't work.)

Add 3/4 (0.75) cup of fresh buttermilk, and mix until ingredients are just combined (don't beat it; this is more of a toss/mix thing!)

Transfer dough to a lightly floured board and roll out to approximately 1/2 (0.5) inch thickness. For the authentic experience, cut your biscuits out with a small drinking glass, applying a slight twisting motion as you cut to seal the edges.

Place biscuits, well-spaced, on an ungreased, cheap (not double-layer or insulated--you want the bottoms to brown until they are almost but not quite crunchy) baking sheet and bake at 450 until nicely browned, about 10 minutes.

Serve hot with any of the following:

- Strawberry, peach, or apple preserves
- Fried or grilled sausage patties
- Country ham and redeye gravy

etc.

If you're feeding more than three or four hungry people, you're gonna want to double this recipe (at least.)

Leftover biscuits (ha! - but it does occasionally happen) are delightful the next day split, smeared with a little butter and toasted.

Pencil Roving: More on the Great (Strunk and) White Way

Oh. my. Guh.

Last night was the premiere of an operetta based on Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style.

And Carrie and I, grammar geeks to the core, missed it!

Oh, the humanity!

Eater: Inside Chowhound's Cult of Mina

Are you hip to the Chowhound crowd's devotion to a woman called Mina? She's the Thomas Keller of Queens. And she's opening a new restaurant this week.

Jim Leff stumbled across her in Jackson Heights a few years ago in this little dive in Queens and created a cult around her...

Eater: Inside Chowhound's Cult of Mina

Tempted by blogs, spam becomes 'splog'

[Google's] Blogger blog-creation tool and BlogSpot hosting service, together the most popular free blogging service on the Web, fell victim this past weekend to the biggest splog attack yet--an assault that led to clogged RSS readers and overflowing in-boxes, and that may have manipulated search engine rankings.

'Uh, ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere, I think we have an emergency on our hands,' Tim Bray, Web technologies director at Sun Microsystems, wrote in his blog in response to what he called the 'splogsplosion.'

"Splog": Portmanteau word, combining "spam" and "blog"; a "splog" is a blog that creates solely to point to a commercial website, thus driving traffic and driving up search engine rankings.

Tempted by blogs, spam becomes 'splog' (CNET News via TechRepublic)

Inadequate, insufficient and insulting

The Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers suffered another setback on Wednesday when the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her to resubmit parts of her judicial questionnaire, saying various members had found her responses "inadequate," "insufficient" and "insulting."

Miers Is Asked To Redo Replies to Questions (New York Times, October 20, 2005)

You know, this is quite remarkable. The Miers nomination has managed to piss off social/religious conservatives, intellectual/ideological conservatives, most Democrats, and the pro-choice activists, all at the same time. Truly a remarkable achievement in American politics. Is there anyone other than Dubya and Hugh Hewitt still supporting her?

I have searched in vain for an online casino accepting proposition bets on whether Miers will withdraw her nomination, and when.

Right about now, I'd like to put $100 on Aunt Harriet pulling out before the start of the confirmation hearings on Monday, 7 November. (Ladbroke's would take a bet like this in a hot second, but, sadly, they don't open accounts for Americans over the Web. Must remember to pop into the betting shop and set one up next time I'm in London.)

Reasons I love Metafilter...

There's a lot of noise on Metafilter, but there are real gems in the rough.

Like this answer in an Ask Metafilter thread, in which MeFi's resident board-certified neurologist explains just what's happening when the hero in an action movie "takes out" a bad guy with a blow to the back of the head:

It works!

The thing that is happening is cerebral concussion. The sharp blow causes the skull to move rather quickly: the neck anteroflexing and anteriorly-subluxing somewhat for a total overall forward motion. The brain, being a squishy jello brain tightly fit inside a rigid bony jello mold, lags behind owing to inertia. In lagging, it gets squashed, first against the occiput; rebounds and begins to travel forward; and, then, when the skull decelerates at the end of its travel, it gets squashed against the frontal bone...

I love this stuff. Excellent example of medical writing for a general audience, by the way.

Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems - The Register

Encouraging signs from the Wikipedia project, where co-founder and überpedian Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online work.

Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its content by befriending, and not alienating, established sources of expertise. (i.e., people who know what they're talking about.)

Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that's almost unprecedented in our experience: if you thought Apple, Amiga, Mozilla or OS/2 fans were er, ... passionate, you haven't met a wiki-fiddler. For them, it's a religious crusade.

A cautionary note that bears repeating - Wikipedia is fine as a starting point for investigating a topic that's new to you, but never ever rely on it as a sole (or even primary) source of information. This article contains a lot of needless snark (pointing out that the articles on "Ayn Rand" and "the Klingon language" are excellent, as if there isn't excellent coverage of non-geekly topics in Wikipedia as well) but it makes some very valid points.

Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems - The Register

Top 20 Search Engine Helpers - Lifehacker

Lifehacker brings us a very useful article called "Top 20 Search Engine Helpers." Unlike many of these sorts of things, it isn't specific to one search engine (Google), but covers the all of the Big Four: Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, and MSN Search.

I knew most of this stuff already; my Google-fu is strong. But here's a nifty trick I wasn't aware of, and I bet you might not know either - searching by date range:

12. Search within a specific date range: You can narrow you search to only a very specific window of time, i.e., you’re looking for Macromedia Dreamweaver information only between August and October 2005.

AskJeeves: macromedia dreamweaver betweendate:200508,200510

MSN: somewhat confusing to do; MSN has provided a Search Builder pull-down below the main search query box that allows you to stack your results from “updated very recently” to “static” (page hasn’t been updated in a while).

Yahoo: on the Yahoo Advanced page there is a drop-down menu titled “Updated.” You have four choices: search for content “anytime”, “within the past three months”, “within the past six months”, “within a year.”

Google: macromedia dreamweaver daterange:200508-200510

Bonus: There's a downloadable PDF Cheat Sheet containing all the tips.

Seek and Ye Shall Find: Top 20 Search Engine Helpers - Lifehacker

WWJD (What Would Jakob Do?)

Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen weighs in on the Top 10 Weblog Design Mistakes.

Aside from the fact that my articles are way too long and the subject matter is all over the place, I think enrevanche comes out okay by these heuristics.

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

CommonCensus

The CommonCensus Map Project is redrawing the map of the United States based on Internet users' voting, to show how the country is organized culturally, as opposed to traditional political boundaries. It shows how the country is divided into 'spheres of influence' between different cities at the national, regional, and local levels.

This information will finally settle the question over where disputed cultural boundaries lie (like between New York City and Upstate New York), contribute to the national debate over Congressional redistricting, and educate people everywhere as to the true layout of the American people that they've never seen on any map before.

Participation takes just 12 clicks. Take a look and participate at: http://www.commoncensus.org

Initial CommonCensus Map effort (after 8000 votes)

I wonder if the CommonCensus people would be open to the idea of sharing their code.

I would *love* to create a "barbecue spheres of influence" demographic and psychographic map of the lower 48, or perhaps a very detailed map of the Southeastern United States. (See post below.) This would finally settle the question over where disputed gastronomic and cultural boundaries lie (like between Western, Lexington, and Eastern-style Carolina barbecue, not to mention the South Carolina abomination with the mustard-based sauce)

Take a ride down the barbecue highway

The (Raleigh, NC) News and Observer ran a wonderful article over the weekend: "Barbecue highway," by Fred Thompson, takes us from Western North Carolina to Eastern, and samples a baker's dozen of the best barbecue joints in the state (which means, the best in the world.)

I've eaten at about half of these places over the years, and Mr. Thompson's taste is impeccable. Here's his entry for the transcendent Allen and Son on Highway 86 just outside Chapel Hill:

Allen and Son, Orange County

Turning west along I-40, approaching that invisible line somewhere between Burlington and Greensboro and separates Eastern from Lexington-style, we find Allen and Son on N.C. 86 between Chapel Hill and Hillsborough.

Allen and Son seems lost in time. Here, an artisanal approach to barbecue takes place. The hickory wood is split with ax and maul, the charcoal made from those logs added at the perfect time. The barbecue is hand- chopped with its dark, deep golden brown outside meat mixed in to perfect proportions. Keith Allen likes it this way. Pure, simple. Even after exposure in Bon Appetit Magazine, little has changed, and the barbecue is first-rate. While his sauce is more Eastern style, his methods have a Piedmont take. With Lexington- style red slaw his 'cue could be perfect.

Barbecue highway (News and Observer, Oct. 16, 2005)

Oh, snap!

From this week's New Yorker, here's the Contributors Page cartoon:

Any caption of mine would be superfluous.