... to use the bathroom. Yep, that's an Auburn Tiger taking a tinkle on the sideline at the Georgia game. Who wants to take bets on whether it's that GA's job to clean out the portable Tiger tank? Read all about it here!

Last year, I wrote about the war against marijuana and a "no-knock" search and seizure gone wrong. Cops busted into Cory Maye's apartment without identifying themselves. Maye, thinking he was under attack by an unknown intruder, responded with deadly fire. He was tried and convicted of capital murder, but eventually avoided execution and now serves life without parole in a Mississippi prison.

The court has now found reason to grant Maye a new trial, though it's more about procedure than any kind of miscarriage of justice. You can read more about it here.

As if right on cue, The Wall Street Journal today took on the government's "phantom jobs." Emphasis below is mine.

At least funny bones are being stimulated by the Obama Administration's $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

To wit, how many Americans does it take to make nine pairs of work boots? According to the White House's recovery.gov site, an $890 shoe order for the Army Corps of Engineers, courtesy of the stimulus package, created nine new jobs at Moore's Shoes & Services in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

The job-for-a-boot plan may not be American productivity at its best. But such stories go a ways toward explaining how the Administration has come up with 640,329 jobs "created/saved" by the American Recovery Act as of October 30.

Jonathan Karl of ABC News deserves credit among Beltway reporters for committing journalism and actually fact-checking White House claims. Head Start in Augusta, Georgia claimed 317 jobs were created by a $790,000 grant. In reality, as Mr. Karl reported this week, the money went toward a one-off pay hike for 317 employees.

Other media outlets and government watchdog groups have also found numerous errors in the stimulus filings. Jobs have been overstated or counted multiple times. One Alabama housing authority claimed that a $540,071 grant would create 7,280 jobs. The Birmingham News reports that only 14 were created. In some cases, Recovery Act funds went to nonexistent Congressional districts, such as the 26th in Louisiana or the 12th in Virginia. Up to $6.4 billion went to imaginary places in America, according to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Asked by the New Orleans Times-Picayune why so many recipients would misstate their districts, Ed Pound, the director of communications for the Obama Administration's recovery.gov, said, "Who knows, man, who really knows."

The nonexistence of the jobs and places allegedly stimulated by the Recovery Act doesn't necessarily mean the money was misspent or stolen. But it does indicate that the claims made on its behalf are a political illusion. The true jobs measure of an economic recovery is the unemployment rate, which rose to 10.2% last month. No matter how hard or imaginatively the Administration spins, the reality is that the stimulus has been the economic bust that critics predicted it would be.

This was just too good not to post.

Part of the stimulus package passed in February included a massive purchase of fleet vehicles for use by the Federal government.

Well, it turns out that General Motors fudged the numbers significantly when it reported on the impact of that purchase:

In its report, GM initially said the $88 million it had received to date for 5,279 vehicles shipped was responsible for creating or retaining more than 105 jobs.

But the company told the Free Press last week that, as was the case with the other automakers, employment actually “remained static” and the order was incorporated into regular production.

“The government asked us to attach a number of employees to fulfill the order,” said GM spokesman Greg Martin.

Translation: No jobs created.

Which is just a drop in the "phantom jobs" bucket. It's funny how the Obama administration says the federal stimulus bill has created or saved 640,329 jobs so far, yet unemployment continues to rise (10.2% reported in October). Read more about phantom jobs here if you like.

Edit: Hey, look! Phantom jobs in Alabama, too!

Attempted robbery victim: UT players should stay on team

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- One of the men police said was a victim of an attempted armed robbery by three UT football players told 6 News Thursday he thinks they should stay on the team.

Corey B. Zickefoose, 20, said he was sitting in the driver's seat of a 1998 Hyundai Elantra on Cumberland Ave. when one of the players pulled a gun and demanded money.

But that's not enough to prevent the players from being kicked off the team, he told 6 News.

"I think they should still be able to play football, regardless," he said. "Tennessee is my place. It's my football team."

"Even after they put a gun in your face, you say let them play football?" 6 News asked.

"Yeah, it's Tennessee. That's the way it is sometimes," Zickefoose said.

The three freshmen football players, defensive back Janzen Jackson, 19, wide receiver Nu'Keese Richardson, 19, and defensive back Michael Edwards, 18, were arrested early Thursday on three charges of attempted armed robbery.

Marie Montmarquet, 21, was also charged with attempted armed robbery, as well as some drug-related offenses.

Police say the players attempted to rob at gunpoint Zickefoose and two friends, Benjamin J. Everett, 20, and Corey M. Smith, 18, of Maryville. The three victims are not UT students.

There are even tastier quotes in the story from GoVolsXtra:

"I could just tell he wasn't going to shoot me. He didn't have too much authority," Zickefoose said.

"We ain't got nothing but a cheeseburger," Smith added, "but they didn't take that."

I mentioned a while back that rain destroyed my G1. I'm happy to say I've been the proud owner of a Motorola Cliq for almost three weeks now. A detailed review is on my list of things to do.

I haven't been making out the schedules for a few reasons. Firstly, because no one seems to care. :) But also because originally I was in San Diego and it was going to be a pain to do it from the hotel. More recently, I've had the plague flu, which knocked me out for almost two weeks, during which time I didn't give a rat's ass about making the schedule. Maybe I'll do it again, and maybe I won't.

Speaking of trips, I leave this Sunday for Santa Fe Springs, CA (in between Los Angeles and Anaheim) for training. I'm not exactly sure how my transportation will work out once I'm there, so I don't know if I'll be able to explore much. Besides which, this is training and not a conference, so I will have to pay more attention.

I almost got to see Tim Reynolds in concert last Wednesday, but there were some work related issues, plus my flu bug decided to rear its ugly head again, so I ended up just going home. That makes me a sad panda.

But Bama made me a happy panda with heart attack inducing wins against Tennessee and LSU, putting us in the SEC Championship game for the second year in a row. All that's left now is not to stumble against Mississippi St., UT-Chattahoochiegoochie, and Awbarn. This weekend's festivities include Crimson Tide watching at the Tilted Kilt in Birmingham with janglin_ivory, lior, vmdesign, coop666chic, uapyro, punk_rock_clmbr, and the gang.

And finally, I want to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall came down. There is, of course, the famous Reagan speech: "Tear down this wall!" But I also want to link to a column by an Indian named Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar. He ends it thusly:

Communists and socialists everywhere, including in India, were dismayed [at the fall of the Soviet Union]. They could not understand why East Germans blessed with income equality, free social welfare and full employment should flee to the highly unequal West, which bristled with unemployment and social perils. An answer came in a letter to a newspaper editor.

"My daughter's hamster (a pet white mouse) has food, water, shelter and even medical care, and a cage full of fun curly tubes. The hamster responds by constantly trying to chew his way to freedom. I think we all understand what freedom is, and it is not a gilded cage."

God bless, and Roll Tide. :)

Larry King: "Concerning health care, Mr. [Michael] Moore believes that universal health care is everyone's right... What's your stand on this, Congressman?"

Ron Paul: "It's a fallacy to say that people have a right to somebody else's services. You have a right to your life, and a right to your liberty, and a right to earn a living, you ought to have a right to keep it, and you have a responsibility to take care of yourself.

"But you don't have a right to get some thing from government because government has nothing so government has to take it from somebody and give it to you."

I emphasized that one part because he's talking about the principle of self-ownership, which is explained in the "Philosophy of Liberty," which I covered here.

Larry and Dr. Paul cover a variety of other issues, including how to combat the current health care system, of which Moore and Paul both disapprove, and the Afghan war. It's surprising how much Michael Moore and Ron Paul have in common. But they disagree vehemently on who is to blame and how to go about fixing it, probably because Michael Moore is a complete dope. It's an excellent 10 minute interview.

FROM: uanews [uanews@ADVANCE.UA.EDU]
TO: UA - The University of Alabama Faculty/Staff List [UA@bama.ua.edu]

Five Blackhawk helicopters are scheduled to land on the recreation fields behind the UA Recreation Center Friday, Oct. 30, at 8 a.m. and again at 11 a.m. to transport 100 UA Army ROTC cadets to a training exercise at Camp McClellan (formerly Fort McClellan) near Anniston. Three helicopters will also be on the recreation fields today from 3-5 p.m. to allow the student cadets to practice safety and loading procedures before Friday’s flight. The northern section of the recreation fields will be off limits to unauthorized personnel during the periods when the helicopters are landing and taking off and any other periods identified by military or police personnel. The UA Police Department and Tuscaloosa Fire Department will be present. Only authorized military and/or emergency personnel working the event will be allowed to cross the safety barrier.

There's a self storage place in South Carolina where aspiring bands have come to practice for years, including "back in the day" band Hootie & the Blowfish. Now one old codger managed to shut it all down because he's tired of hearing all that ruckus... even though nobody else has complained. Seriously, not one other person. My favorite part is how he is somehow offended (sitting in his home, no less!) by their tattoos.

Some choice quotes:

The conflict between the music and Mr. Judy started in January 2008, when the white-haired 70-year-old filed his first round of noise complaints with the city. At first, his concerns fell on deaf ears. Local police and elected officials said no one had ever been bothered in the past. So why now? The storage units sit far from residences, on an industrial strip bordered by two sets of railroad tracks and near fields used by the USC's athletic teams.

...

Mr. Judy's campaign has been mostly solitary. He tried to rally his neighborhood to join the cause, but only one neighbor said she was really bothered. She retreated when Mr. Judy asked her to help contribute to lawyer's fees. Others said all they heard most nights were the crickets. "I tell him I hear [the bands], but I can't say I really do," says one neighbor, who asked not to be identified for fear of antagonizing Mr. Judy.

...

Mr. Judy, who says his tastes tend toward Bach and Christmas carols, made it his mission to shut down the Sheds. "I don't like Hootie & the Blowfish," he says. "When they play, it sounds like they broke something."

...

Mr. Judy says he can live with being the heavy. "It's an issue of an old fella getting tired of listening to them, with their tattoos, down there having a good time," he said.

There's one article comment from a reader that rings sadly true:

America has evolved a culture of complaint and compensation.

Our courts, our "local officials", our legislators, our bureaucrats are all just waiting for a "complaint" so that they may perform their "function".

And thus, America slowly kills off what was its culture.

Maybe Americans should wake up and rein in their bloated state and local governments. Could save much needed money these days -- and save that culture which used to flow from this country, and is now flowing away from this country.

I find this whole fight between Obama's White House and Fox News more and more amusing by the day, mostly because I gave up TV news years ago. To Fox News, I say, "Give it a rest and stop feeding the FUD." To the White House, I say, "Don't feed the trolls." Don't make us send you both to bed without dinner.

WSJ.com opinion piece here - if you care - surprisingly titled "Obama Is Right About Fox News" and truthfully subtitled "But the criticism was clumsy."

Edit: "Surprisingly titled" because of the source.

Today I went to El Rincon on The Strip for lunch. I sat down and ordered a #6, which is my semi-usual entrée consisting of chicken strips and queso. It comes with a choice of rice or beans, so I said, "#6 with beans."

Dude confirms that I said beans, then a few minutes later brings out something with lots of lettuce, tomatoes, and guacamole piled on top. I look at it sort of incredulously and ask him what it is. He answered, "burrito supreme." Turns out chicken strips with queso is #5.

So I'm like, "Oh, ok... Well, I'll eat it anyway." So I start to dive in and realize the burrito is filled only and entirely with beans. Because I ordered #6 with beans. I had a refried bean burrito.

It was a very unsatisfying lunch. So tonight I made myself some Old El Paso burritos, and they were full of win.

Missed last week's schedule since I was in San Diego. But now we're cookin'!

Sports Saturday - 17 Oct 09

Time (Central)	Matchup	TV Station
11:00am	Georgia @ Vanderbilt	SEC Network
	#20 Oklahoma @ #3 Texas (Arlington, TX)	ABC
	#11 Iowa @ Wisconsin	ESPN
	Northwestern @ Michigan St.	ESPN2
	#7 Ohio St. @ Purdue	Big 10 Network
	Richmond (Spiders!) @ Maine	CSS
11:30am	Mississippi St. @ Middle Tennessee St.	ESPNU
	Princeton @ Brown	VS
2:30pm	Minnesota @ #14 Penn St.	ABC
	Arkansas @ #1 Florida	CBS
	#6 USC @ #25 Notre Dame	NBC
	Texas Tech @ #15 Nebraska	ESPN
	Rice @ Eastern Carolina	CSS
3:00pm	Virginia @ Maryland	ESPNU
	Colorado St. @ #12 TCU	VS
5:00pm	#4 Virginia Tech @ #19 Georgia Tech	ESPN2
6:00pm	UAB @ Ole Miss	FOX Sports South
	#17 Kansas @ Colorado	SportSouth
	Illinois @ Indiana	Big Ten Network
6:30pm	Kentucky @ Auburn	ESPNU
	Stanford @ Arizona	VS
	Angels @ Yankees (Game 2)	FOX
6:45pm	#22 South Carolina @ #2 Alabama	ESPN
8:15pm	Missouri @ #16 Oklahoma St.	ESPN2
9:15pm	Washington @ Arizona St.	FOX Sports South

Some talk about taxing coke: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113634715.

Surprisingly, I'm actually ok with this. As much as I love my coke, I know it's bad for me. And if I had to pay out the rear end for it (like smokers do with cigarettes), I would probably have to cut back, at least. I'm also pretty anti-tax for everything, but I can think of worse ideas than this. Curb a particularly unhealthy behavior and it could save millions of dollars in health care costs in the future.

---------------------

Some talk about Felony Franks: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125538779820481255.html.

James Andrews (not the famous surgeon in Birmingham) opened a hot dog stand in Chicago and hires only ex-felons in an effort to help rehabilitate them into society. He plays up the "felony" bit as part of his shtick. "Near the entrance hangs a mock list of Miranda rights: 'You have the right to remain hungry. Anything you order can and will be used to feed you here at Felony Franks.'" And so on.

Of course, there have been a lot of complaints, most prominently from a city alderman who seems to be engaged in a pissing match with Andrews over a proposed new sign that juts out into the road. A local pastor accuses Andrews of "pimping out" the community.

My take: While the name and marketing may be in extremely bad taste, Felony Franks does exactly what the pastor should be doing: helping to reintegrate ex-convicts into society in a lawful way. Andrews offers jobs, training, and stability to a class of citizens (felons are still citizens) who obviously have a difficult time finding these things after being released from prison.

---------------------

Some talk about Hispanic farmers and how they've been discriminated against by the Dept. of Agriculture (USDA): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113730694.

This is a very well researched and thought out story from NPR about a lawsuit Hispanic farmers brought against the federal government for discriminatory lending practices. "The government settled a similar complaint brought by African-American farmers for $1 billion. And while the claims of discrimination and other factors are almost identical, the Hispanic farmers have gotten nothing."

During the 1970s, '80s and '90s, white farmers would apply for a loan and be approved quickly. Hispanic farmers either wouldn't be approved at all, or they would be approved too late in the growing season. Since they had to use that money to survive the winter, that meant the debt grew and grew. Farms were foreclosed upon.

The USDA has even admitted to all of this. But the result has been disappointing. The main problem is the judge in their case refused to grant the Hispanic farmers the right to sue as a class, as the black farmers did. That means each Hispanic farmer has to sue on their own, and the USDA deals with them on a case by case basis.

This response — that it's not the principle of the thing but the legal ruling that matters most — outrages the Hispanic farmers. What's made them even more furious is that within months after taking office, President Obama decided that the $1 billion the government has already given to the black farmers is insufficient, and he's requesting an additional $1.25 billion for them.

It's been a bitter disappointment to the Hispanic farmers who fought the Bush Justice Department for eight years. They thought it was going be different after Obama was elected.

Sad on many levels, but just further proves that you should trust and depend on the government for nothing.

Or... my trip to San Diego.

Work sent me to a conference here for a few days, and I got as much else done as I could. That included venturing around the bay where my hotel was located to Luigi's at the Beach, which is an amazingly awesome pizza (pepperoni pesto) /seafood (lobster ravioli) / beer (lots of local SD brews) place with umpteen high def tv screens. I mean really, it's amazing how many tv's they fit into that small place.

Also checked out Belmont Park, which has a pretty decent wooden roller coaster called The Giant Dipper. There's also a nice boardwalk that runs up and down the long beach. I saw a nice (tiny) three bed / two bath beach side condo for sale - only $860,000. Anyone wanna go halvsies?

My first "big adventure," though, was my trip to Target. Long story short, I needed pants. Like, nice pants. Hotel front desk said Target, so off I went. I was going to take the bus - it was only 2 miles away. But I got impatient and just started walking. And then I kept on walking. Then I saw that the Mission Bay Dr. bridge wasn't pedestrian friendly, so I took an alternate route. Through the homeless folks, the park, the dog park, and lots of busy roads.

An hour and a half later... I finally made it. It was a long, stupid walk, and it ended up being 3.7 miles. I illustrate below (click for larger image):



The coolest thing about the trip, though, was how I got back to the hotel. I'd been Tweeting (here) about my walk the entire time, and my friend Lawrence Eng, being from San Diego, took notice. You probably don't remember, but Lawrence was the person most responsible (with Espen a close second!) for my trip to San Francisco a couple of years ago (here).

And being a kind hearted individual, Lawrence called and offered to pick me up and take me to lunch (here and here)! \o/ (Don't worry, Opera employees... We talked shop!)

Then the conference happened. Yada yada yada.

Got done early Friday, so my coworker and I decided to hit up Sea World. It's definitely nice to walk around a park like that at this time of year when there aren't many people. Oh, and by the way... they serve beer there.

And now I present to you the picture album from the trip. I worked (semi)hard on the captions. Enjoy.

ROGULSKI:Why are you here ?

Woman: To get some money

ROGULSKI: What kind of Money ?

Woman: Obama money

ROGULSKI: Where’s it comin; from ?

Woman: Obama

ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it from ?

WOMAN: I don’t know, his stash. I don’t know. I don’t know where he got it from, but he’s givin’ it to us. And we love him. That’s why we voted for him. O-ba-ma. O-ba-ma.

(…)

ROGULSKI: Did you get an application to fill out yet?

WOMAN: I sure did. And I filled it out, and I am waiting to see what the results are going to be.

ROGULSKI: Will you know today how much money you’re getting?

WOMAN: No, I won’t, but I’m waiting for a phone call.

ROGULSKI: Where’s the money coming from?

WOMAN: I believe it’s coming from the City of Detroit or the state.

ROGULSKI: Where did they get it from?

WOMAN: Some funds that was forgiven (sic) by Obama.

ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get the funds?

WOMAN: Obama getting the funds from… Ummm, I have no idea, to tell you the truth. He’s the president.

Video and audio here: http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/thousands-mob-downtown-detroit-for-free-government-money

Shortening URLs is a popular thing these days, especially for use in Tweeting. You've only got 140 characters to work with, so you can't be linking URLs that use up all your space. Some Twitter clients will shorten URLs for you, but sometimes the client won't do it if your tweet is already over the maximum 140 characters, which is pretty dumb.

The route for a lot of people is to manually visit a URL shortening web site like tinyurl.com or bit.ly, paste the address, then get the shortened URL. But there's a much easier way. Do it directly from the address bar in Opera.

One of the most underrated features of Opera is the ability to create custom searches. In this case, we want to create a custom search that doesn't search at all. First, go to Tools --> Preferences and click on the Search tab. Here you can see some of my custom searches. For example, by typing gi alabama in the Opera address bar and hitting enter, I can do a Google Image search for "alabama."



Click Add to begin adding our new custom search. You can name it anything you want. Here we'll use is.gd URL Shortener. I decided to use the letter u (for URL) for my keyboard shortcut. You'll want to use http://is.gd/create.php for the address, and URL=%s for the query string.

If you're wondering how I came up with that, I simply reverse engineered an already shortened URL from the resulting URL. Or maybe I did a right-click Create Search from the entry field on the is.gd web site... I don't remember anymore!

Anyway, this is what you end up with:



Click OK and that's it! From now on, shorten any URL by pasting u (URL) into the Opera address bar and hitting enter.

For example, I want to shorten a Jason Whitlock column located here: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/10084588/NFL-Truths:-McKelvin-deserves-Bills-fans'-boos.

So all I have to do is put this in the address bar: u http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/10084588/NFL-Truths:-McKelvin-deserves-Bills-fans'-boos and hit enter.

The result: http://is.gd/3o8MG



Don't have Opera? Download it for free here: http://my.opera.com/community/opera/get/.

Holy crapola, it's October. That means the Braves season is over. Can't figure out why in the world they'd be the FOX Saturday afternoon game. Especially against the Nats, ew.

Sports Saturday - 3 Oct 09

Time (Central)	Matchup	TV Station
11:00am	#3 Alabama @ Kentucky	SEC Network
	Wisconsin @ Minnesota	ESPN
	Arkansas St. @ #13 Iowa	ESPN2
	Clemson @ Maryland	ESPNU
	#22 Michigan @ Michigan St.	Big 10 Network
	Pennsylvania @ Dartmouth	VS
12:00pm	Elon @ Furman	SportSouth
	Diamondbacks @ Cubs	WGN
2:30pm	Florida St. @ Boston College	ABC
	#4 LSU @ #18 Georgia	CBS
	Washington @ Notre Dame	NBC
	#15 Penn St. @ Illinois	ESPN
	North Carolina St. @ Wake Forest	ESPNU
	New Mexico @ Texas Tech	FOX Sports South
	Florida International @ Louisiana-Monroe	CSS
	William & Mary @ Villanova	VS
3:00pm	Nationals @ Braves	FOX
6:00pm	#21 Ole Miss @ Vanderbilt	ESPNU
	#9 Ohio St. @ Indiana	Big Ten Network
	Oregon St. @ Arizona St.	VS
6:30pm	Arkansas @ Texas A&M	ESPN2
	#25 Georgia Tech @ Mississippi St.	CSS
6:45pm	Auburn @ Tennessee	ESPN
7:00pm	#8 Oklahoma @ #17 Miami	ABC

It took me six years to finally watch Big Fish, which I think is a bit crazy. But it's done now. I admit it started off pretty dang slow on account of all the disjointed, far-fetched, and seemingly unrelated tales, but I was pleased to see them all come together in the end.

Through all that, though, my absolute favorite part was at the 2:04:30 mark (end of credits):

Special Thanks to

ALABAMA FILM OFFICE
THE CITY OF MONTGOMERY
THE PEOPLE OF CLOVERDALE
HUNTINGDON COLLEGE

My home state. My hometown. My neighborhood. My old neighbor, where I attended many a long summer soccer camp (and my sister's alma mater / employer). Bravo!