September 2005 Archives

I was reading this article which talked about various states re-examining of how slavery was taught about in public schools.

As I read the article which talked about Cesar Chavez day, and various other curriculum-additions that activists have made in different states' education plans, I realized something, two things actually:

• Most of the things you, the rest of the world, find important to teach your kids, I could give a rats ass if my kids knew about. In fact, half the things you want to teach them are flat-out wrong (see there "Intelligent Design")
• Most of the things I would want my kids to know -- things like personal responsibility... that standing up for yourself against "the system" is not wrong, but something to be admired ... that the entire Bill of Rights is applicable to citizens, and not "every amendment except the Second" ... that forcing someone to swear an oath of allegiance before a non-existent deity to a piece of cloth is absolutely the most stupid thing ever ... are all things you absolutely want to shield your kids from.

The reality is that people simply can't agree on what to teach kids with public funds. It's as clear as can possibly be to anyone who is willing to open their eyes and see it.

So why do we continue to have public schools?

Remove the taxation, and let parents teach kids themselves. Or let them group together and pay someone to teach their kids what they want them to learn. Why don't we just get the government out of this equation entirely? We can't agree on what the public funds should be used to teach, so why not just stop using public funds entirely? You pay to teach your kids what you want them to learn. I'll pay to teach my kids what I want them to learn.

(As I almost forget to swing by Dunkin' Donuts before heading over to continue the emptying-of-the-apartment, so we can get D some much needed caffeine)

D: I need an infusion of "pep" ...
Me: uh-huh
D: Or you're going to get an infusion of "bitch".

(title shamelessly stolen from an IM conversation with Tera)

So tonight we introduced the cats to each other. Here's the players:

• Tallulah - D's papillon dog, friendly to everyone and everything she thinks could be a possible playmate.
• Clementine - D's "subservient" cat, the totally passive, skittish cat who runs away from everyone and everything.
• Gracie - D's "alpha" cat, she pushes both Tallulah and Clementine around making them get off the bed or couch if she wants to sit there, etc., etc.
• Bill - my "subservient" cat, he pretty much let's everyone push him around. He used to be really skittish around people, but has gotten a lot better.
• G'Kar - My "alpha"... has been known to stalk Bill and then pounce on him, just for fun. A bully of sorts.

So, as you read those descriptions, you'd probably make the predictions that D and I made,,... which is that Tallulah is going to get along with everyone (she's already met Bill and G'Kar by coming over to the apartment). Gracie and G'Kar would squabble for top-cat position, and Bill and Clementine would then fall into line behind whomever was now "running the show".

Sound right?

Completely not how it's playing out.

G'Kar and Bill are cowering in fear in the kitchen, where Clementine is defending the house. Gracie hasn't been seen in an hour, she's off hiding somewhere trying to pretend that my two cats haven't arrived.

And of course I'm torn between "getting in the middle to prevent them from hurting each other", and "let them squabble it, there's gonna be some scratching, there's gonna be some blood, but in the end they'll all suss out their new roles in the world order, and it'll all be good afterwards".

I think it's a lot like being a parent, where you have to step back and say "none of them have the ability to kill each other, so just let it go, because if you interfere it just will prolong it."

Sigh.

I'm now probably about 80-85% moved into D's house. There's about 5-10% that needs to be carted down to the dumpsters, and about 5-10% more that needs to be packed up and brought over. We made some on-the-fly decisions yesterday of "stuff we're not going to worry about moving today and will come back to deal with tomorrow or later in the week", since we had established a really nice loading-the-truck rhythm and didn't want to break that to have people start packing.

John, Damion, my parents, D's brother, D, and myself all spent a good four hours loading, driving, and unloading my apartment into D's house. A million mad thanks to everyone who showed up. (Including people who offered their help at other times... Pete came over Friday night when i indicated I might start loading the truck up the night before to get a head-start on it, and Dave offered to come over and help me pack).

Since last night was supposed to be my night to DM @ Geek Night, and we all knew that wasn't going to happen, John liked my idea of making it into a poker-night, instead, since it was much lower maintenance to do that. I brought D's brother over with me. He did great for his first night with a table of strangers he'd never tried to get a read on before. Damion came along as well, and likewise did really well. In fact, both of them clearly had their head in the game more than I did, and I bowed out early. I figured, if I can recognize that I'm not on my game, there's no point in throwing money into rebuys, even if they are the "friendly home game small-stakes" rebuys.

Today we have to go over and get the cats, and bring them over. This should be the most interesting part of this whole equation -- seeing how D's two-cats-and-a-dog react to the house being invaded by another two-cats. More importantly, seeing which of the alphas - my G'Kar or her Gracie - come out on top in the pecking order.

I'll tell you this, though, with four cats in the house, I almost guarantee you there won't be any sort of mouse problem. *grin*

Well, that's an ominous sounding headline, but I couldn't think of one better.

It's 2 a.m. ... I'm pretty much exhausted. I spent the better part of the evening packing the last of my stuff into boxes. And by "last" I mean "not really the last"... there's still a lot of "little shit" around that I have to deal with... the small pile here, the small pile there, all of which will end up in a box marked "Misc. Shit" or something. Oh yeah, and the kitchen? Completely not even touched yet. Luckily, Mom said she was coming over early, and would start working on that.

Only tonight, really, have I really ever questioned my sanity for not simply hiring a moving company to do it all. I think this move was my proof, though, to myself... the proof that paying pros to pack and move you is so, so worth every penny.

But, I've also taken this opportunity to pitch a lot of crap. And by "pitch" here I mean at the moment "add to a growing pile of boxes and garbage bags that will be among the things the moving posse is asked to deal with tomorrow, hauling them downstairs and into the dumpster instead of the truck."

The cats got their shots today, and (finally, I'd only been talking about it for five years) got microchipped in case they ever get out. (D's cats are outdoor cats, so there's at least a possibility that they'll see the other cats heading in and out the door and get ideas of their own).

Oh yeah, and another reason for hiring movers: I absolutely hate driving the moving truck. I could never really own a Hummer, much as I might joke about it, because I really hate driving huge vehicles.

As D and I have said a bajillion times, though, during this move... the process of moving in together sucks ass. The result of moving in together, though, is well worth it.

OK, it's time for bed, my last night in the apartment. Tomorrow is going to be a long, long day...

OK, yes, I procrastinated, but not that bad.

Dateline: Tuesday Afternoon

On Tuesday afternoon I go to U-Haul's web site, and reserve myself a 17' truck for my upcoming move. I put in on the form that I will pick it up on Friday, 9/23, and will reserve it for 24 hours. I get a note back a short time later saying basically "reservations are not confirmations, you should hear back from us within 24 hours to confirm. If you don't hear from us, call our regional office and we'll sort it out."

Dateline: Wednesday Afternoon

I still haven't heard from U-Haul, so I call the regional office. They're closed. They open at 7. I'll call them tomorrow.

Dateline: Thursday 9:00 a.m.

I call the 800 # to the regional office. Give them my confirmation number. They pull up my reservation. Yup, there it is, pick up on Friday, for 24 hours. All I have to do is call the local pickup site to arrange what time.

Dateline: Thursday 10:00 a.m.

Call the local office. They can't find my reservation. He's having some computer problems. "Let me find the reservation and call you right back."

2:30 p.m.

Still no word from the U-Haul site, so I call them back.

Me: You were going to call me back about my truck reservation. How late can I come by to pick up the truck tomorrow night?
U-Haul Dweeb: Well, you have the truck reserved for tomorrow morning, you can pick it up at 7:30 in the morning, and bring it back in the afternoon.
Me: Ummmm, no. I reserved it for 24 hours, with the intent of picking it up tomorrow night, starting the loading process, and then having a group of people help with more stuff on Saturday, and bring it back to you when I'm done.
U-Haul Dweeb: We don't rent in-town trucks for 24 hours on weekends, we only have them for six hour time slots.
Me: Well, that's not what I reserved, I reserved 24.
U-Haul Dweeb: Who did you talk to?
Me: I didn't talk to anyone. I went to "uhaul-dot-com" and made a reservation there.
U-Haul Dweeb: Well, you have the truck from 7:30 tomorrow morning until tomorrow afternoon.
Me: Except, of course, that that time frame is completely useless to me, and not at all what I asked for or needed. Meanwhile, with roughly twenty-four hours to go, you've completely screwed me by leaving me in the lurch now with no truck when I actually do need it.
U-Haul Dweeb: On-line reservations aren't confirmations. Nothing was guaranteed.
Me: Did you call me within 24 hours like you were supposed to?
U-Haul Dweeb: Excuse me?
Me: The reservation. It said you, the local site, were going to call me within 24 hours to confirm. Did you call me at all yesterday, to perhaps tell me that you couldn't provide what I reserved?
U-Haul Dweeb: Sir, reservations aren't confirmations.
Me: Right, but if you had called me yesterday then I could have told you that what you had was completely useless to me, and I'd have had an entire extra day to line up a replacement truck. Instead, you're screwing me over in the eleventh hour.
U-Haul Dweeb: If you want to look at it like that, sir.
Me: How else could I look at it? Should I take it as a personal favor that you happen to have a truck at a time that's completely un-useful to me?
U-Haul Dweeb: If that's how you want to see it.
Me: What would you suggest that I do? I asked for something from you guys, nobody called me to tell me there was a problem, and I only find out about it because I'm literally chasing you down to get the info. I have people coming over Saturday to help me move, and I need a 17' truck. Exactly what should I do at this stage of the game? What is U-Haul going to do for their customer?
U-Haul Dweeb: There's nothing I can do for you, sir, other than give you the truck tomorrow morning. The only other possibility is to contact the Regional Traffic Office, they're the ones who put trucks where they're needed, perhaps they could do something.
Me: What's their number?
U-Haul Dweeb: ####
Me: *scribble scribble* Thanks.

*dial dial dial*
Regional Dude: U-Haul Regional Traffic.
Me: Yeah, I need to sort out what's going on with my reservation? (insert info here)
RD: OK, yeah, I see that you're scheduled for tomorrow pickup for 24 hours.
Me: Right, except that the truck that the local site is willing to give me is only available tomorrow morning for 6, not tomorrow evening for 24 like I asked for. It's pretty much useless.
RD: Yeah, I see that.
Me: So what am I supposed to do?
RD: Well, reservations aren't confirmations.
Me: Right, but here's the deal. I made this reservation on Tuesday... the site was supposed to contact me before the end of Wednesday, but never did. I called somewhere - I think this office - this morning just like I was supposed to, which told me to call the local site. I did that. They said they'd call me back. They didn't. I called them back a couple hours later at which point they completely blew me off. I think I've pretty much done everything a customer can be expected to do except jump backflips. Near as I can tell, the uhaul-dot-com web site dropped the ball by letting me reserve - and achieve a modicum of expectation for - a 24 hour period. The local site dropped the ball by not calling to confirm anything with me -- heck they didn't even SEE my reservation this morning.
RD: Well, you could try speaking to the site manager.
Me: I did. The guy I spoke to was the manager and he was completely non-sympathetic. In fact, almost a complete dick. Who does he report to?
RD: He reports to $NAME and $PHONE.
Me: Sweet. Thank you.
RD: There is one possibility. Maybe there's a chance that there would be some one-way equipment we could redirect into the right place. Can I put you on hold?
Me: Absolutely.
Hold... Hold... Hold... Hold... Five Minutes .. Hold .. Hold. ... Disconnect.

Me: dammit.

(As I'm doing this next call, I'm already instant-messaging D who is looking for local "guys with trucks" companies in the Woodstock Times, as well as surfing through Budget's web site and making a new reservation with them. They can apparently supply one for me. D has also located a "guy with truck" who is our fallback option. D has also floated the idea of "going renegade" ... just rent the truck tomorrow morning, return it hella late, and deal with the penalties).

*dial dial dial*
*hold*
Me: Yeah, so I was on-hold with someone who was trying to find a one-way truck to use to fill my 24-hour reservation request?
U-Haul Chick: One sec.
*hold*
U-Haul Chick: I can get you a truck, you'd have to pick it up in Poughkeepsie instead of Kingston, though.
Me: Would there be any free miles included with that rental?
U-Haul Chick: Free miles?
Me: You know, to account for the fact that you charge $1.39 a mile and that's about 40 additional miles round-trip?
U-Haul Chick: No, sir, you would be responsible for all miles.
Me: I couldn't just get you to relocate it to the Kingston location on your own dime and then I'd be responsible for everything just like I expected?
U-Haul Chick: No.
*click "Submit" on the Budget rent-a-truck rental reservation
Me: Let me call you right back?
U-Haul Chick: OK.

*dial dial dial*
BudgetGuy: Budget Truck Rental.
Me: I just made an online reservation and I wanted to confirm it?
BudgetGuy: I won't see that for an hour in my system here. What'd you ask for?
Me: 16' truck, pick up tomorrow night, keep it til Saturday night.
BudgetGuy: Yeah, I can do that. It might be tight if someone returns late, but I could just upgrade you to a bigger truck at the same charge, if that happened.
Me: Sweet. Thanks!!
BudgetGuy: No problem. See you tomorrow.

*Ring*
Me: This is Derek
CSR: Hi, this is Bubbles [or some other meaningless name] from U-Haul, calling you to confirm your reservation
Me: Are you fucking kidding me?
CSR: Sir?
Me: The only reason you're calling me to confirm is because I've been rocking the boat and that's finally kicked loose whatever hole my reservation fell into.
CSR: Ah, I see. Well, I have you down for 7:30 tomorrow morning until mid-afternoon.
Me: (deciding to have some fun) What if I return it late?
CSR: You can't return it late, it's going back out tomorrow night on a one-way to New Jersey.
Me: But, you know, speculate, if I was to come back late, what are the penalties?
CSR: You can't come back late. The truck is going elsewhere.
Me: If say I was to have a heart attack and didn't bring the truck back on time or something, what would the penalty be?
CSR: You have to bring the truck back on time.
Me: Right. You can go ahead and just cancel the entire reservation, because frankly you guys are pretty much useless.
CSR: Are you sure, sir?
Me: Yep. I've already reserved a new truck with a better company.
CSR: All set, sir. Have a great day.
Me: Blah.
*click*

So the lessons we learned:

• U-Haul Sucks Ass, and I don't think I'll ever be giving them any of my business again.
• Near as I can tell, Budget Trucks rule.

This was a refreshing addition to my world this evening. Here's a recipe for personal happiness in at least some small measure.

• Attend a concert in June that kicks ass
• Buy the DVD of that concert, Anthrax: Alive 2 The DVD.
• Start to watch the DVD
• Before the intro to the first song is over, have already had the camera show you staring straight into it from a distance of maybe two feet with the "screaming metal face", and realize you're now an (albeit minor) part of the disc.

Sweet.

UPDATE: For those who care. There's a really crappy pan at 00:00:41, but at 00:00:50 is the "metal shot".

This past weekend, D and I took a weekend trip up into the Adirondacks. She had bought me, as a birthday gift, a weekend getaway at Timberlock, an all-inclusive "camp" located on Indian Lake way up in the middle of nowhere in the Adirondacks.

To put it in perspective, there was no electricity... no phone ... no cell phone coverage ... no TV ... couldn't pick up a radio station at all on the Land Rover's radio... it really was "the middle of fucking nowhere."

And it was great. We had a cabin right on the lake, we spent more time simply relaxing -- reading, sleeping, eating, lounging -- in three days than I had in the past three months. We met people there for whom, like us, it was their first time there. We also met people who'd been coming there annually for the past sixty-seven years.

The camp has a long history, often passed down from one generation to the next, going back to the 1800s. There's staffers who've worked there for years, it's just one big huge happy family.

And the best part is, for a couple days, a week, whatever, you get to be part of that family. Hanging out by the fire in the evening, bullshitting about whatever comes up.

We're looking forward to planning a trip back up there next year. Maybe even convince a couple friends to come up with us or something when we do. It's a great place to relax, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

OK, here's a note out there to blog authors in general, but especially to one particular blog author who shall remain nameless.

If you allow comments, it is not so you can have a nice echo chamber where only people who are willing to "toe the party line" tell you how smart you are. It's for reasoned discussion about the topic of the post. That means that occasionally people are going to agree with you, occasionally they're going to disagree with you. The real test of one's beliefs and convictions is not how many other people think they're good, but can they stand up to critical debate. In other words, if you tell me that "such and such is so," be prepared to back it up when someone says "no, I don't think so and here's why."

Especially if it's not even that they're saying "your conclusions are wrong" but are actually calling attention to your factual inaccuracies.

Silently dropping those blog-comments onto the floor isn't the answer. Although it may seem like the easy solution, all it really proves, to anyone else, is that your position can't be defended. Deleting the comments which point out your errors doesn't make you look smarter, it makes it clear that you're an idiot.

You'll notice that the only time I've ever "censored" blog comments is when they're spam, not when they disagree with me. People disagree with me all the time, I've got no problem with people disagreeing with me. The only times I delete posts are when it's spam, and when it's something like "You're a dick. Fuck you," or other similar drivel. Post an actual argument, even a poor one, and I let it through. Debate promotes a better understanding of the truth. Neither side of an argument is ever 100% right or 100% wrong. The middle ground is where the truth lies and only by listening to both sides can you get to that middle ground.

And I guess I just feel sorta sad that there's morons out there who don't get that.

Season 4 of Red Vs. Blue is well under way, complete with its usual great quotes:

(on the hasty retreat they made in the last episode)
Tex: "This is a long range weapon. I need distance to use it effectively."
Tucker: "Where were you plan on shooting him from? The fucking moon? If you'd have backed up any further you'd have had to mail him the bullets."

Jeff's entry reminded me that today was 9/11, as he talked about how his morning went, four years ago... I posted this to his comments, but figure it should be here as well...

I remember that I had woken up and turned on what used to be the local NBC affiliate on TV, right around 5:45, like I normally would, and was confused that -- instead of seeing the local "early morning show", I was seeing the "Today Show" set. They had cut to the East Coast feed of "Today" when a plane had "accidentally crashed into 1 WTC". I sat down on the couch for a while, and watched with the sort of idle curiousity that one gawks at a roadside accident with... the "Man that sucks, but you still can't turn away" type of thing. I remember going back into the bedroom and telling my then-wife, "A plane crashed into the WTC," and her rolling back over to go to sleep. It was interesting, it was news, but it wasn't jump-out-of-bed-worthy.

A little while later, though, when I told her about 2 WTC, it all became clear. And we spent the entire day sitting on our couch staring at the TV set, not knowing what the next hours would bring. Was it over? Was there more? Was there something new and deadlier planned for 9/12?

I remember that I had felt sorta like I had been personally stabbed. I didn't have any ambition to get up and go to work the next day, either, so I just worked from home. I don't think I ended up actually driving into the office until the 13th or 14th, and then I still felt sorta like a zombie in the whole process. And again, I can't quite define "why". I was lucky in that while I'm a New Yorker, I actually didn't know anyone (at the time anyway) who was missing or dead. There had been a brief panic of "contact your cousin, who works in Manhattan and make sure she got home to Brooklyn during the mass exodus" (she did), but otherwise, I was -- in reality -- completely unaffected by it, which makes it hard to understand, to this day, why I felt so sapped of energy and will by the whole affair.

Of course, D and I were watching the Blue Man Group DVD last night, which features their song, "Exhibit 13", which is just an instrumental over images of various papers that blew into Carroll Gardens on 9/11, and D told me, "That was my neighborhood on 9/11, I lived in Carroll Gardens," and it sort of all brought it home and made it more real to me than it had been in the entire previous four years. This was debris that had landed in Brooklyn, where my girlfriend was living at the time. To a certain extent, it closed the loop for me, from then to now.

So I received an e-mail earlier this morning, telling me I hadn't made any payment on my postseason tickets for any (potential! potential! mustn't anger the Baseball Gods) postseason play. But then they followed that message with another, explaining that it was sent in error:

Please disregard the following email. According to our records your 2005 Postseason Account is paid in full. Sorry for the incontinence.

Incontinence? I didn't realize they'd sent me anything like that via e-mail.

Dave bought me a copy of a book the other day, called Me v. Everybody: Absurd Contracts for an Absurd World. This is seriously some of the funniest shit I have read in ages. Some examples of the contracts in this thing:

• Contract for Entry Into a Long-Term Relationship
• Contract for a Blind Date
• Agreement for Peaceful Sharing of Single Bathroom Among Multiple Users
• Contract for the Immediate "Relocation" of your Boss

Seriously good stuff. Highly recommended.

Me: Read my blog.
D: That's funny.
Me: Do you like the new layout by the way?
D: I can't talk right now. You reminded me.
Me: Reminded you?
D: Gotta go get some comfortable clothes.
Me: *Laugh*
D: This would make a good blog-quote too I suspect.

D: I need to put some more comfortable clothes on.
Me: Oh?
D: I had to get dressed up to go to work today at the edit.
Me: Isn't your editor's edit-shop in like his attic?
D: Yeah, but I had to get dressed up. I had to put on a bra... and underwear.
Me: *laughing hysterically* I miss working from home.

I'll admit it, I've been watching Rock Star:INXS. It's like "American Idol For Grown-Ups", for those who haven't been watching it, where the winner gets to be the new frontman (or woman) for INXS as they replace their dead lead singer.

Each week, on the elimination night, they have someone who is picked to perform an encore of the previous night's performance, and then they later isolate the "bottom three vote-getters". Normally the encore is picked by INXS, and the bottom-three is based on phone-in votes, etc. This week, both were determined by "the masses".

Paradoxically, the guy who got the encore this week (e.g., the majority of the people out there said "his performance was the best and we want to hear it again") was also a member of the bottom three vote getters (e.g., "These are the three people who we think had the worst performances.")

That makes no sense whatsoever. Seriously. That's a brain-dead system.

Admittedly, the "masses" actually get no say in who leaves the show. (INXS decides from among the bottom three who they want to send home, so if they like someone, no matter how much the world hates them, they don't go home). But still,.... for the person to get voted as both "the best performance" and "one of the worst performances" simply makes no sense.

So over a thousand firefighters answered the call from FEMA to come help out in the wake of the New Orleans disaster.

And by "help", I mean be public relations flunkies for FEMA's braindead response.

Some of them, perhaps, didn't read the fine print. The call for people did after all say it was going to be for public relations.

Some of them might be excused since they were told to prepare for austere conditions, and to bring with them military-style MRE (Meals Ready-to-Eat) rations. So you would excuse them for thinking "hmm, I'm going to be in the field eating out of a plastic bag," and not "I'm going to be living in a shelter with access to the same food and facilities as the refugees have."

Some of them hoped beyond hope that FEMA would see the error of their ways. After all, when 1000+ HazMat, Search-and-Rescue, etc., etc., trained personnel showed up, FEMA would have to realize that the best use of this resource was to put them in the field saving fucking lives and not to (and I'm not making this up, it's in the article) have them spend an entire day in sexual harassment training.

But, regardless of how much blame you can point at the firefighters who misunderstood the call for help, you can point a thousand-fold more blame at FEMA who -- despite hearing the calls of help from the dying people -- chose to squander a precious resource... yet again.

Bob Denver goes to that deserted island in the sky.

Truer words were never spoken..

I apparently first encountered this concept, amusingly enough, in an episode of Red Dwarf:

Rimmer: They say that every society is only three meals away from revolution. Deprive a culture of food for three meals, and you'll have an anarchy.

I spent this morning trying to find the "real" source for that, but can't. It appears that it may have actually been a made-up quote. Regardless of it's pedigree, though, it has certainly proven to be true, given the events in New Orleans.

In the first 24 hours -- the first three meals -- society hadn't really "broken down" yet... people were waiting to be rescued, holing up wherever they were, dealing with crappy conditions and accepting them as temporary (or at least, anyway, that's the way it seemed here watching it all on TV).

After 24 hours, though -- when you'd gone past the third missed meal -- all hell seems to have truly broken loose. Rape and murder inside the alleged safe-haven Superdome, police themselves became looters (I saw a nice AP photo of this, with a cop walking out of a wal-mart his hands full of DVDs and it looked like stemware, but I can't find the picture now), you name it, it happened.

In fact, to anyone who's read Stephen King's "The Stand", this seemed like you were watching a real live televised interpretation of the first third of the book. If you were a Christian person, living in NOLA, you might seriously wonder if you were witnessing the "end times".

D and I were discussing last night, "What's going to happen to all these people who shot other people who were trying to come after their food, etc.?"

Louisiana state statute RS 14:20 says:

§20. Justifiable homicide

A homicide is justifiable:

(1) When committed in self-defense by one who reasonably believes that he is in imminent danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm and that the killing is necessary to save himself from that danger.

(2) When committed for the purpose of preventing a violent or forcible felony involving danger to life or of great bodily harm by one who reasonably believes that such an offense is about to be committed and that such action is necessary for its prevention. The circumstances must be sufficient to excite the fear of a reasonable person that there would be serious danger to his own life or person if he attempted to prevent the felony without the killing.

(3) When committed against a person whom one reasonably believes to be likely to use any unlawful force against a person present in a dwelling or a place of business, or when committed against a person whom one reasonably believes is attempting to use any unlawful force against a person present in a motor vehicle as defined in R.S. 32:1(40), while committing or attempting to commit a burglary or robbery of such dwelling, business, or motor vehicle. The homicide shall be justifiable even though the person does not retreat from the encounter.

(4)(a) When committed by a person lawfully inside a dwelling, a place of business, or a motor vehicle as defined in R.S. 32:1(40), against a person who is attempting to make an unlawful entry into the dwelling, place of business, or motor vehicle, or who has made an unlawful entry into the dwelling, place of business, or motor vehicle, and the person committing the homicide reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the entry or to compel the intruder to leave the premises or motor vehicle. The homicide shall be justifiable even though the person committing the homicide does not retreat from the encounter.

(there's a 4b, but it says basically "unless the person committing homicide is a drug-dealer").

So it would seem clear that if a person is in their own residence, business, or is, simply "there lawfully", that they could easily shoot-to-kill anyone who attempted to break in, without having to attempt retreat. So those people are protected.

More interesting, though, are the reports of people (including police officers and National Guard troops), who were simply telling people "If you come any closer, I will shoot and kill you." The fear of bodily injury was so great that even trained soldiers were ensuring that they kept the upper hand by making sure they didn't get into hand-to-hand range. So, given the circumstances, a reasonable person might be able to make the case that "that person I don't know simply coming near me is an imminent threat, especially if trained professionals also felt exactly the same way." That would give him a sub-paragraph (1) defense for the homicide.

Now, and here's the interesting part -- with a complete absence of evidence, how do you differentiate someone who shot a man because he was positively fearful of what would happen if the man kept coming closer, and someone who shot a man because he had some food that the killer wanted? Answer: You really can't.

And when you can't differentiate between "lawful homicide" and "unlawful homicide", that's pretty much when society ceases to exist. And the revolution has begun.

Once upon a time, I was impressed with myself, because I had built what was, until then, the largest ever Lego product, #10030, the Imperial Star Destroyer.

Now, apparently, that has been superceded. According to the latest mail-order catalog I got, #10143, Death Star Mk.II is the new leader on that front.

They say it's bigger than the ISD model, but the dimensions don't seem to bear that out. Maybe it's just in terms of "raw volume" though, since the spherical Death Star, Mk. II would obviously use a bunch more pieces.

Any way you look at it, it's scary-ass in its size. I'm glad I'd have nowhere to put it in D's house, or I might be tempted. Heck, I'm already trying to figure out where I'm going to put the ISD when I move in.

So Rehnquist is dead.

Just what Bush needs. Something political that he can use as a distraction from his administration's incompetence in the south.

I call for a sixty day moratorium on even talking about the concept of thinking about who might be capable of being nominated to fill that seat. Let's get through the important crisis before we distract ourselves with political chest-thumping.

Here's what will happen, though, it'll be delayed -- but only until the "immediate" issues of NOLA are dealt with and people start poking into the various points of blame for the situation (some of which is Bush and his administration, some of which is NOLA's own fault). But as soon as that news starts to turn its eye towards DC for finger-pointing, then "Filling Rehnquist's seat" will take center-stage, drowning out the NOLA issues, and anyone who tries to talk about NOLA first will be accused of "getting caught up in the past, we need to move on, etc., etc."

Bets? Any takers? <injoke>Come on, D, I know you've got five bucks. :-)</injoke>

So now that New Orleans is underwater, and the devastation of property is huge, various charities have started beating the drums about raising money to "rebuild New Orleans".

I'm forced to ask myself one simple question: "Why?"

New Orleans sits below sea level, and is only able to sustain itself as "dry" artificially via the use of pumping equipment that runs 24x7, as well as huge levees to keep the water out (the levees breaking are what caused most of New Orleans' problems).

Scientists have been predicting for years that New Orleans was going to vanish eventually. The disintegration of the Mississippi River delta, the fact that it was below sea level, all these things made it clear to scientists that New Orleans' days were numbered. While it was a convenient place to build a city a couple hundred years ago, when the delta was still above sea level, in today's reality, it'd simply be stupid to build there.

But now, New Orleans is gone. It's essentially been wiped off the face of the earth, Old Testament-style. If we know (as we do) that the delta is going to continue to disintegrate and New Orleans' problems are only going to continue, why do we rebuild there?

Isn't it the much smarter investment to say -- if we're going to spend money at all -- we're eminent-domain'ing your property, putting it under-water as part of the delta, preserving it as a public wetland and/or historic property, now go buy yourself a new house/whatever somewhere else that isn't going to sink into the sea like Atlantis.

I understand New Orleans has lots of history, but the time to face the cold hard reality of the situation is when you're looking at billions upon billions of dollars in rebuilding costs. Isn't now an excellent opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and -- if you're going to spend those billions anyway -- spend them on things which aren't going to be wiped out again some time soon?