Indianapolis Not-So-Bright

Indiana could get $6B piece of the pie

Largest chunks of direct spending would be for Medicaid, education, transportation, general aid.

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Why people hate lawyers, episode mmlxvii

Portsmouth (NH) Herald:

The controversy began on the morning of Nov. 4, when [Eric] Rieseberg was in his yard removing political signs that were planted there without his permission, according to documents filed by Rieseberg’s attorney, Stephen Jeffco.  While Rieseberg pulled the signs, Jeffco reported to the court, [attorney Ryan] Russman walked past with his leashed dog and began yelling, “What are you doing?  You can’t do that.  Who do you think you are?”

Rieseberg responded by asking, “Who the (F-) are you?” according to Jeffco.

At that point, Jeffco wrote, Russman “forced his business card onto” Rieseberg, “who was taken [a]back, believing Russman was attempting to solicit him as a client”.  After reading the card, Rieseberg said, “Ryan Russman, you are a (F-ing expletive),” according to Jeffco.

Police reports indicate Russman immediately phoned police to say he felt threatened.

Wherewith, instead of telling Russman to MYOB, the cops charged Rieseberg with disorderly conduct and “criminal threatening.”

Jules Crittenden:

A lot of us mind other people’s business for a living.  Lawyers, politicians, newspapermen, etc.  In this case, however, the professional busybody appears to have made a legal determination (“You can’t do that”) in advance of amassing all relevant facts (“Who do you think you are?”) when in fact he had no jurisdiction (political signs on someone else’s property).  A key question unanswered here is whether the lawyer had a political motivation … Obamism, Democratic leanings, etc. … which would turn this apparent trespass and invasion of the property owner’s privacy into a hate crime.

Oh Jules, you wag you!

The Herald writer wants to frame the case as hinging on whether “F—” qualifies as protected speech under the 1^st Amendment.  Seems to me the more important question is whether a citizen, if disturbed by some random attorney while engaged in his own business on his own property, retains the right to tell said attorney off.  Using the F-word, or not.

But then, I’m not a lawyer.


Elsewhere:

Via:  Blair

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Cincinnati Animal Rescue Art Project

Via: Wildrun

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Muzakâ„¢ files Chapter 11, press remains stuck in elevator...

...in the 1960s:

We begin with The Consumerist (who I would have expected to know better)^[1]:

Ever acoustically bankrupt, Muzak,the makers of elevator music, have declared themselves financially bankrupt by filing for Chapter 11.  The company’s unique style of precisely limited in tempo and dynamics and unswervingly bland music may not be long for this world.

USA Today headline:

Elevator music maker Muzak files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Here’s The Telegraph (in the doctors’ office):

Waiting in the doctors’ office listening to a pan pipes arrangement of Robbie Williams’ Angels may never be the same again.

A really stupid article by Jonathan Brown in The Independent:

...With its mushy strings and cloying tones, the sounds which once emanated from Muzak’s laboratories of sound at their height in the 1960s colonised almost every public space threatened with the spectre of silence.  From the hotel lobby to the dentist’s waiting room, from the shop to the airport lounge, Muzak was at once a company and a musical form, as well as a byword for corporate blandness in an age of consumer soullessness.
...
It might come as no surprise to those many millions who have grown to hate elevator music and its bastard offspring on-hold messaging, but the origins of Muzak can be traced to [cue scary music Muzakâ„¢ - o.g.] the United States military.

(Given the author’s tone, I just knew he’d find a way to drag in the U.S. military somehow!)

Meanwhile, NPR does (a little) better:

Its business is more focused now on creating playlists for use in retail stores, installing professional sound systems and other services.

Have to leave it to The New Yorker (from three years ago!) to explain how the business has changed.

Elsewhere:

Did you know that André Previn wrote an article (for Punch, unfortunately not online): “In Praise of Muzak”?  Really!

HT to “Hungry Mohican” for the New Yorker story.
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Supporting your local community?

Frank James grumbles about absentees:

When I was young when a new industry moved into the area, everyone involved with it; workers, sales staff and white collar management; moved into the community with it.  They assumed positions of responsibility both within their industry and company as well as within the community. You could find these people on church boards, school boards and involved with summer activities that benefited a whole range of people.  That is no longer true.

Now, if a new business moves into a rural community, ...the educated staff or those with sought after skills only come into the local community during working hours.  And by that I mean the scientists operating any research lab, the white collar management personnel and/or the people who actually own the business.  When working hours are over, they escape to the larger communities some distance away simply because our small local communities are not good enough for their wives.
...
...Many within our community bust their butts to get new employment into the community and when they succeed our schools deteriorate because the overall student initiative plunges, instead of improves.  We don’t get the kids from the more educated families, instead we get the “transits,”...members of families that move from place to place following whatever low wage work they can find...

Be careful what you wish for.  Times have changed, but the people have changed, too.  Nowadays it’s likely that an incoming company’s “educated staff” and “white collar management personnel” will be Yumpies, bringing along all the social burdens that Yumpies create.  

They won’t be found on the church board, because most don’t attend church; their Sunday mornings are reserved for reading the New York Times at the nearest Starbucks.  Their interest in the local schools is to agitate for “environmental studies” courses (because farmers don’t know anything about the environment!) or perhaps to abolish the Boy Scouts (for being “discriminatory”) or R.O.T.C. (for â€œteaching children to kill people”).  Summer activities?  They’ll be backpacking in Europe, thanks.  And prepare for draconian zoning and land-use regulations (heaven help you if you want to raise hogs or chickens), mandatory recycling programs, and higher taxes.

Ask the native Coloradans, or long-time residents of Texas’s Travis County, what it’s like to have their local culture turned upside down by a bunch of incoming arrogant know-it-alls.

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Weasel acquires a retro-phone

It’s made of Bakelite, it weighs fifty pounds, and that thing at the bottom is a brass handle.  Presumably so I can do preacher curls and build my biceps while I chat with my girlfriends.  As if.

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Wells Fargo Phishery?

Ace:

Since I’m traveling, I wanted to call my bank and let them know I’d be out of the country so that my card would be allowed to work.

I searched on google for the bank, Wells Fargo.  The top result claimed this was Wells Fargo’s official site:

"http://wellsfargo.p.delivery.net/m/p/wls/jmp/jump.asp?page=multiproduct_checking.htm"

After talking to the woman -- and getting a very bad vibe about the questions she was asking -- I decided I might have just gotten phished.
...
I called Wells Fargo. They told me they did not recognize the number I’d called as one of their numbers. And the change I asked to be put through had not been put through.
...
Watch out. Don’t be an idiot like me.

Don’t trust Google’s sponsored links to find phone numbers like this.

Excerpts from the comments, below the break.
more...

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Sam’s story

Herald Sun:

SAM the world’s most famous koala came face to face with her saviour in gold yesterday, Country Fire Authority volunteer David Tree.

Mr Tree was close to tears when he was reunited with his new furry friend at the Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter in Rawson, where Sam is recovering from third degree burns to her paws.

The pair became accidental faces of the devastating bushfires when Mr Tree gave an exhausted Sam a drink from his water bottle in the middle of burnt-out bush in Mirboo North.

Pictures at both links.

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“Idiots Out Wandering Around”?

Des Moines Register:

The Des Moines police bomb squad determined Sunday that an object that looked like a bomb outside the Iowa Judicial Building was in fact a sump or toilet tank float ball.

The bomb squad was called out shortly before 4 a.m., on Sunday to have a look at the round, black object that was discovered by an Iowa State Patrol trooper.

“They called us and rightly so,” said Police Sgt. Russell Schafnitz.  “I wasn't out there but I understand it had a sinister look about it.  A ball-shaped thing with something sticking out of it.”

Did it have “Acme” written on it, too?

HT:  Tam; post title courtesy of “Anonymous” in the comments.

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Difficult to decide

Charles Johnson:

I’m not sure which is more disgusting — this antisemitic rant by a British diplomat, or the fact that in Britain you can be imprisoned for seven years because you said some words.

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