Smug Kitty

Smug Kitty
Originally uploaded by enrevanche.

Friend Scott, former NYC neighbor and now Seattle resident and proprietor of the entertainingly filthy and incredibly not-safe-for-work blog Bill In Exile, writes us to ask:

Is there a reason that Mr. Gato always seems so self-satisfied when you photograph him? He's positively the G.W. Bush of smug facial expressions of the feline world.

Scott, thanks for writing in.

You're quite right, Mister G. does have a certain ineffable smugness about him.

(That's *all* that he has in common with Dubya, though... as nice a man as our veterinarian is, Mister Gato would never, say, nominate him to the Supreme Court on the basis of proximity and friendship. I'm betting Gato would look for a strict constructionist, or possibly a Law and Economics guy like Posner.)

I have thought long and hard about why this is... my cat's smugness, I mean, and not his preference for libertarian-conservative intellectual judges.

I think I know.

Like many NYC media figures, Mister Gato came up on the mean streets of the City... when the animal rescue folks finally managed to snare him, he had been living on the street in Brooklyn for his entire life.

He was pure sinew and scar tissue when we got him, and over the last year and a half has morphed into a fat, sleek, purring engine of absolute contentment. He knows that he has only to twitch a whisker, and we will rush to fill his dish with fishy nuggets, or pet him or scratch him or play with him or whatever the hell else he might want. The Chows are completely subservient to him as well.

So that look on his face? It's the same one Mike Tyson wore for a while.

He's looking out at the world and thinking, "You're all my bitches. Heh."

All best,

Barry

Thrillist fires a blank

The ordinarily perspicacious Thrillist.com misses badly today by recommending the Circle Line's "Bear Mountain Oktoberfest" cruise.

It sounds perfectly grand. You take a boat from a midtown Hudson River pier, ride up the river a few hours to Bear Mountain State Park, walk around, admire the changing leaves, go drink some beer and eat some food and dance to some oompah music, and then ride the boat home.

DON'T DO IT. Danger, Will Robinson.

Carrie and I got suckered into this deal last year. Autumn leaves! Beer! Outdoor dining! Three of our most favorite things ever.

We signed up and paid the high ticket prices happily, bucolic visions of dunkelsbier and fall colors dancing in our heads.

OK, there's a few things wrong with this rosy picture. Ready?

First, everybody and his brother and his brother's dog thought this was a good idea. The boat is small, ridiculously overcrowded, slow, and stinky.

Got it?

Second, once you actually *get* to Bear Mountain, which is lovely at other times of year, you'll find that "Oktoberfest" involves long lines for mediocre food and worse beer, with incredibly craptastic "music" playing in the background. Which you have to climb a steep incline and take a long walk to get to. (Some of the more geriatric folks in our party looked as if they might be in imminent danger of a coronary, and I must admit that I was breathing pretty hard myself.)

Thankfully, Carrie and I had packed a small picnic lunch as a backup (Faicco's cold cuts, fresh fruit and cheese) which took the curse off of the poor offerings at the "festival." But as soon as we were off that damned boat, did some deep-breathing exercises to calm down and got to a place where we could raise a faint cell-phone signal, we found out where the nearest Metro North station was, arranged emergency taxi evacuation from the Bear Mountain Lodge to said railroad stop, and drank several stiff ones in the tavern by the station as we waited for the train that would carry us home to Manhattan.

On the way back down to our own little Island of Misfit Toys (the tracks run parallel to the river) we passed Old Stinkpot, the Circle Line boat, on its way home.

Rapidly.

You've been warned.

4,000 year old lo mein

Archeologists have discovered the remains of the oldest noodles known to mankind. They were made with millet, not wheat, and they're at least four thousand years old. This may settle once and for all the question, "who invented pasta?"

Read on: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Oldest noodles unearthed in China

This still leaves a very important question unanswered, however.

According to the Jewish calendar, this is the year 5766. According to the way that the Chinese count time, it is the 22nd year in the 78th 60-year cycle, or the year 4693.

So, for 1073 years... what did all of those Jews do without Chinese food?

No wonder they were wandering in the desert. They were looking for takeout!

(We wish all of our Jewish friends and neighbors a serene and peaceful fast and a blessed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, today.)

A lovely lede

Ledes like this are one of the biggest reasons I enjoy The Economist every single week:

Half of all Americans either don't know or don't believe that living creatures evolved. And now a Pennsylvania school board is trying to keep its pupils ignorant. It is the kind of story about America that makes secular Europeans chortle smugly before turning to the horoscope page...

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

Right after that off-handed pimp-slap, the Economist's American correspondent goes on to deliver a well-reasoned, thorough analysis of the Intelligent Design movement and the implications of the Pennsylvania trial, dubbed "Scopes 2005" by some.

Evolution and intelligent design | Life is a cup of tea | Economist.com

Look who's blogging now

My lovely and talented wife, over at the brand-new blog Pencil Roving.

Carrie is a much better writer than I am, and I've been after her to do this, like, forever now. (What's that blog name all about? She explains.)

Her blog promises to be eclectic and fun, particularly if you're into travel, pop culture, or knitting. And we'll be dividing up the catblogging duties, so, Mister Gato fans, you're going to have a new destination to check out occasionally...

Indian outsourcing profits soar

BANGALORE, India, Oct. 11 - India's two largest outsourcing companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies, announced healthy growth in quarterly profits on Tuesday, indicating that Western corporations continued to vigorously outsource technology and back office operations.

India's $17.2 billion outsourcing industry is flourishing as companies hire skilled yet inexpensive English-speaking programmers and call center workers to carry out technology projects and provide customer support for their American and European clients.

Western Outsourcing Lifts Profits at Two Indian Companies - New York Times

All hail King Mike!

JERILDERIE, Australia (AFP) - If Australian forklift operator Mike Hastings is, as genealogists contend, the rightful heir to the British throne, then he really needs to brush up on his tea-making skills.

[...]

"I reckon I might send Lizzie (Queen Elizabeth II) a bill for back rent, the old girl's family have been living in my bloody castle for the last 500 years" [Hastings said.]

The documentary's historian Michael Jones found documents in Rouen Cathedral he believes show that Edward IV, who ruled from 1461 to 1483, was illegitimate because when he was conceived his parents were 200 kilometres (124 miles) apart.

Edward's "father" Richard of York was fighting the French at Pontoise, while his mother Cecily was five days' march away at Rouen, allegedly enjoying the attentions of an archer, according to Jones' research.

If true, the claim means the crown should have passed on to Richard's second son George, Hastings' direct ancestor.

That's a beautiful response. I love Australians. Just heed my advice, and don't ever try to outdrink one... I wound up with a tattoo that way (long story.)

(Incidentally, Hastings is originally from England, and in fact is the 14th Earl of Loudoun; he emigrated to Australia in 1960, and clearly he has taken to the place.)

HRH Mike, the man who should be king, prefers Aussie bush to Buck Palace (Agence France Press via Yahoo! News)

The Daily WTF

This is great stuff, in a deeply geeky sort of way: new enrevanche reader John V. points us to The Daily WTF, a site that highlights truly heinous code examples, interface excrescences, and other techno-embarrassments that are guaranteed to produce a WTF? reaction in those of us with experience toiling in the IT vineyards.

Most of the posts involve actual code examples, and may be hard to follow if you've never done any programming; some of them, however, will generate a WTF? reaction in just about anyone.

See, e.g.:

BRUSSELS - The Dexia Bank ATM machines are experiencing a curious problem. The machines stop functioning when someone enters the number 7, making it impossible for people with a 7 in their pin (personal identification number) code to perform a cash withdrawal.

Oops.

The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

G.O.P. Aides Add Voices to Resistance Over Nominee - New York Times

If this report is accurate, the Miers nomination is in even bigger trouble than I thought:

As the White House seeks to rally senators behind the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers, lawyers for the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee are expressing dissatisfaction with the choice and pushing back against her, aides to 6 of the 10 Republican committee members said yesterday.

"Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact," a lawyer to a Republican committee member said.

That dignity thing? Too late already, probably.

G.O.P. Aides Add Voices to Resistance Over Nominee - New York Times

Oh my God! You killed Sully! (You bastards!)

Looks like Andrew Sullivan's blog is temporarily off-line (as of 7 AM EDT this morning):

You killed Sully! You bastards!

Sadly, the Geocities-hosted image in the middle isn't displaying.

Oh, Andy. You're pwned!

Any bets on what the ASFAS level will be later today?

Happy 60th Birthday, IBM Research!

You brought us everything from DRAM to the relational database, and some cool stuff like fractals besides.

And now, hey, you get the senior citizen discount on coffee at Dunkin' Donuts! (The AARP invite is in the mail.)

Originally housed in a renovated fraternity house at Columbia University, the then-named Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory has become one of the pre-eminent technological research centers in the world--and it has given IBM an edge over competitors in many fields.

Five IBM employees have won Nobel Prizes for, among other achievements, the discovery of electron tunneling and the invention of a microscope that captures images of individual atoms. Add to that seven National Medals of Technology, five National Medals of Science and four A.M. Turing Awards.

IBM Research turns 60 (TechRepublic/CNET News)

Karl Rove's Ringside Boasts

In which Turd Blossom/Boy Genius channels for The Greatest Of All Time:

I done wrassled with an atheist, I done tussled with McCain, handcuffed abortion, sabotaged your campaign. Only last week I murdered the environment, injured the U.N., hospitalized the liberal machine—I’m so low I make Nixon look clean.

Yankee Pot Roast: Karl Rove's Ringside Boasts (Michael Rottman, October 10, 2005)

Who is JT LeRoy? (New York magazine, Oct 17 2005)

Editor Ian Philips of Suspect Thoughts Press says, “Every time I’m alone with another San Francisco publisher, editor, author, reviewer, bookseller, I get asked one of three questions: Who does your distribution? What do you think of Dave Eggers? And who writes as JT LeRoy really? And no matter which question we start with, we always end up on the third—and the conspiracy theories fly.”

Who is JT LeRoy? The True Identity of a Great Literary Hustler - New York magazine, October 17, 2005

RINOs at a Carnival

The Carnival of the RINOs is up over at Environmental Republican.

Google Reader

Google Reader is the new RSS reader from Google.

Obviously.

And may I just say, it is plenty spiffy. Those guys do "web interface" better than anybody. Simple, clean, and fast.

Famous in France

The Knowledge Worker Free/Open-Source Toolbox is starting to get noticed.

Here, a kindred spirit in France notes the availability of the resource for her readers:

Barry Campbell nous propose une liste régulièrement actualisée des logiciels Open Source qui sont particulièrement utiles aux « knowledge worker » -travailleur de la connaissance -

Despite my snazzy blog-name, I only speak survival-level, heavily accented "menu French," but I am reasonably certain that Sylvie's post means something close to:

"Barry Campbell offers us a regularly updated list of Open Source software that is particularly useful for a 'knowledge worker' - a person who works with knowledge."

Sylvie, I'm glad that you found it useful!

Um... "Je suis heureux vous l'ai trouvé utile." Or something close to that.

The French Terror Alert System

Color-coding the French response to terror.

(From ¡No Pasarán!)

Hat tip: Chap.

A street named "Ed"

I'm getting ready to fly back to New York City tomorrow morning, having spent the week working from Raleigh and hovering anxiously over my parents.

Mom, bunking temporarily at a Skilled Care Facility (nursing home), is doing well with physical therapy, and may be back home as early as next month; Dad, under Hospice care at home, is resting comfortably for the most part.

As I pack my bags, I thought that I would list, in no particular order, a few things I particularly enjoy about Raleigh, North Carolina:

• Barbecue. There is just an embarrassment of riches here in Piedmont North Carolina in terms of places to get great pork barbecue. If there's no time to drive to Chapel Hill for Allen and Son's pig, which gets my vote for "best barbecue on the planet," we usually go to Don Murray's or to Clyde Cooper's in Raleigh. On this trip an old friend convinced me to drive all the way to the tiny town of Creedmoor, North Carolina to try a place called Bob's. (The satellite view appears to include a big cloud of hickory smoke.)
  
  And it was mighty fine.
  
  
• Bumper stickers. In my NYC neighborhood, the bumper stickers have a certain earnest, humorless sameness about them; they say things like "Hate is not a family value," or "Visualize world peace," or "Don't blame me, I voted for [name of most recent Democratic loser]" -- the poor folks in this last group have to change their sticker every four years, I guess.
  
  Here in Raleigh, I saw several bumper stickers that I wanted to buy immediately, even though I don't own a car. One, a neat riff on the "it's not worth robbing me" genre of signs affixed to pizza delivery vehicles, read: "Warning: Driver carries only $20.00 worth of ammunition." Yet another: "PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals."
  
  But probably my favorite of the bunch: "Stop repeat offenders: don't re-elect them."
  
  
• Street names. They run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime.
  
  In one of the more pretentious new subdivisions, I actually spotted a street that was not a street, a drive, a circle, or a road... it was, brace yourself, a "Wynd." I shit you not. And it wasn't the only "Wynd" in the vicinity, either. (In case you're wondering, and I had to look it up, a "wynd" is a Scots word for a narrow lane connecting two main roads. Any Scotsman faced with a "Wynd" in a Raleigh McMansion subdivision would undoubtedly piss himself laughing, however.)
  
  Contrast this with the homely and comfortably named street that I drove past on my way to visit Mom in the nursing home. As I cruised down Blue Ridge Road, I saw the sign, right there...Ed Drive.
  
  The beauty part is that "Ed Drive" is only a stone's throw from that ridiculous tangle of Wynds.

Diabetes Mine - a blog about diabetes

Special note to my blood-glucose-measuring, A1c-obsessing, pill-popping, insulin-shooting, carb-counting, dieting-and-exercising, hoping-to-stave-off-dialysis-as-long-as-possible fellow diabetics:

Amy Tenderich's "Diabetes Mine" blog is a must-read.

A recent post about the "nation of Diabetica" will give you a feel for Amy's style:

Last night my husband said: "There are more diabetics in this country than there are people in The Netherlands." Now this may not mean that much to you, but we lived in that country for nearly three years. My second child was born there. And I'm picturing all of the 16.5 million bike-riding, cheese-eating masses pressing buttons on their insulin pumps and priming their pen needles, toting monitors and counting carbs.

No, really. Imagine, an ENTIRE COUNTRY of us. Mind-blowing.

Even more mind-blowing is the Economic Force this represents. If roughly equivalent to The Netherlands, "Diabetica" would be:

- the 61st most populous country in the world
- with a labor force of 7.53 Million
- and GDP of $482 Billion
- with nearly 2 Million people over the age of 65
- nearly 9 Million Internet users
- reading over 300 newspapers
-- AND: the 20th most affluent country in the world, with a per capita income of $29,500

I've added it to the blogroll, and if you're at all interested in the topic, you'll enjoy reading it regularly, as I do.

Diabetes Mine - a blog about diabetes

Chapomatic: Prine vs. Yon

Some interesting MSM v. Blogs kerfuffle over at Chapomatic, in the text and comments of these two posts:

• Michael Yon and Carl Prine (10/6/2005)
  

In which Chap takes journalist Carl Prine to task for slagging blogger Michael Yon in a public forum. Chap cc's both Prine and Yon on the article, and Prine (among others, myself included) responds in the comments.


• Welcome to the Back End of the Blogosphere (10/7/2005)
  

In which Chap responds to Carl Prine's lengthy response to the comments in the first post.

My take on the situation is more or less as follows:

Prine is a fine journalist, and writes good stuff that (a) I'd be proud to write and (b) enjoy reading, now that it has been called to my attention.

Yon is an excellent blogger who is offering a valuable perspective from Iraq that no one else, MSM or otherwise, is currently offering, and I not only look forward to each dispatch, I have supported him financially in the past and intend to do so in the future.

Despite Prine's skills and journalistic "credibility," he does not get what Yon is trying to do over there, and his criticisms betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what weblogging is and how it works. Prine seems to be arguing that there is one absolute standard for what good writing and reporting should look like, and that's nonsense.

I give Prine points for both grace and courage, however. Courage, in that he has answered a call from the Pennsylvania National Guard and is headed for Iraq himself in the coming months; grace, in that he came immediately to eloquently defend himself in the comments over at Chap's blog.

I *really* look forward to seeing Yon's response, if such is forthcoming.