The Ministry of Bad Taste

They strike again. First it was the utterly tasteless, casino-like new dollar coins (not to mention the hideous Jefferson on the new nickels). Now you have to be embarrassed while travelling abroad, too.

I'm not opposed to new colors, designs or symbols for currency or for passports. I'm simply opposed to bad taste. Does anyone remember that terrible sitcom Mamma's House? It's the same general category, aesthetically.

Call it the trickle-down effect of six years of incompetence. Why aren't these things allowed to have some dignity? Why are we trying sell the USA with the damn passport? Commerce, to this government, is on the same plane as national institutions, if not vastly superior in both ideas and morals (which is what is so infuriating to liberals like myself...). Are we even a serious country anymore? Is that a silly question at this point?


I did a google search for "passport" and among the first images were these examples of a Yemeni and a Palestinian passport, belonging to Faud al Shobaki. From www.intelligence.org.il:












FAR more dignified. Fuck an eagle.

If you read my last comment in the weather post, I totally called the Severe Storm warning 5 minutes before those suckers at the NWS:

"I...have for the last hour and a half been speculating on the squall line developing to the west (at this point it's running from roughly Hot Springs to Branson, and the strongest cell is around the border between Perry and Yell counties)."

OCD or hobby? Way too close to call, probably.

Would anyone be interested in camping this weekend?

Any questions?

Hope you like weather maps! I sure do! A lot!

The top map is grabbed from NOAA on March 10th of this year. Remember that day? There was no weather then, except maybe in Deaf Smith county or whatever that place is in the Texas panhandle. I think that's the High Wind Advisory color (although sometime's it's used for Freezing Spray Advisory or Severe Weather Statement [not to be confused with a watch or warning!])

This map is from February 23rd. Note the large splotches of eye-pleasing weather events. We have a flood advisory in eastern Arkansas, a red flag advisory (wind) in central and southern Texas and western Florida, a Winter Storm Watch around the Great Lakes but extending to DC, a blizzard warning for the western Great Plains, a Winter Storm Warning for the upper Midwest, and Heavy Snow and Winter Storm warnings for Utah's Wasatch Front. That's in addition to the Tornado Watch (yellow) in a narrow band along western Oklahoma and a High Wind Warning to the west of that. There are a couple of other things going on, but they're boring (the lighter the color, the more boring the advisory, generally).

Now, can anyone tell be how to make a screen shot or save an image from a Java animation? I've come across some super awesome storms whose image I haven't been able to save. For example, remember the tornado that hit Alabama a month or so ago? I was watching that on my computer at work, and thinking about what a beautiful, classic hook-echo that cell had. But there was no way to save the image! I'm sure you can all sympathize.

This is a hook echo:
















The image on the top here is of the tornado that hit OKC on May 3, 1999. Highest wind speed on earth: 318mph. So naturally that's going to have a pretty strong hook-echo pattern. I don't know where the one on the bottom from, but it's an interesting explanation.

Anyway: what you can do at NOAA, though, is zoom-in as close as you want to on an animated image, so that if you are looking at the current Base Reflectivity all you have to do is click on the animation while holding down CTRL. Unfornately, they are not very high-resolution animations.

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Wow, I'm such a great member of this blogging community!

State of the Union text Message

THE pdrt: Thnk u vry much. nd 2nite, i have a hi prvlg nd distinct hnr of my own -- as the 1st prdt 2 bgn the St of the Un mssg w/ these wrds: Mdm Spkr.

N hs day, the lt Cmn Thomas Dalesandro frm Bmore, Maryland, saw pdrt Rvelt nd Truman @ this rstrm. But ntng could cmpare w/ the sight of his only doter, Nancy, prsiding 2nite as Spker/House of Rep. Cngrtltns, Mdm Spkr.

2 mmbrs of the Hse nd Ste r not w/ us t2nite, nd we pray 4 the recovery nd spdy rtn of Sen Tim Johnson nd Cman Charlie Norwood.

Mdm Spkr, VP Cheney, mmbrs /Congress, dtngstd guests, nd fellow citizns:

The rite of custm brings us tgetr at a defining hour -- whn decisns r hrd nd courage is needd. We ntr the yr 2007 w/ lg ndvrs underway, nd others that r ours 2 begin. N all of this, much is askd of us. We must hv the will 2 face dfft chllngs nd dtrmnd nmies -- nd the wisdom 2 face them 2gether.

Some n ths chmbr r new 2 the Hse nd the Snt -- nd i congrtlt the Dmcrt maj. Cngrss has chngd, but not r rspnsblts. Each of us is guided by r own cnvctns -- nd 2 these we must stay fthfl. Yet we r all held 2 the same stndrds, nd called 2 serve the same gd prpss: 2 xtnd this nations prsprty; 2 spend the ppls $ wisely; 2 slv prblms, not leave them 2 ftr gentns; 2 guard Amca agnst all evil; nd 2 keep faith w/ those we have sent 4th 2 dfnd us.

We r not the 1st 2 come here w/ a gvt divided nd uncertainty n the air. Lk many be4 us, we can wrk thru our dfferncs, nd achieve big things 4 the Amn ppl. R citizens dnt much care whch side of the aisl we sit on -- as long as we r wilng 2 cross that aisl when there is work 2 be done. R job is 2 make life betr 4 r fellow Amns, nd 2 help them 2 build a future of hope nd opprtity -- nd this is the bnss be4 us 2nite.

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It's pretty imperfect, but translation is hard sometimes.

Benji

The Turk.

''"Joe the Turk" is a legend from The Salvation Army's colorful past. He was an Armenian..."

Huh.

(From www.salvationarmysouth.org/turk . I would encourage a visit to that site.)

This one's for you, Alex.

Remember how we were talking about Turkey yesterday, and I asserted that its rigid secularism might not be a good long-term strategy? Well, I might have been wrong.

What a terrible theme for a party.

(I know, it's annoying to type things mainly just to provide links to other websites.)

I bet that both Gary Kasparov and Diego Maradona will be dead within two years. Kasparov will die because he fucked with Putin, and Maradona will died because he's a stupid fat fuck. Or rather, a stupid, fat, self-righteous, alcoholic fuck.

Why am I just now finding out the Jörg Haider is gay?

"Father of the Greenback"

I decided to find out more about this horrible new dollar coin I so bemoaned in the last post, so I went to the Department of the Treasury's website. It's really telling, I think, that they would be so tacky as to call themselves "MoneyFactory.gov." Okay, well, that's actually just for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but still... Apparently they really did used to print $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 notes, some of which looked pretty neat. In case you're wondering, that really is Salmon P. Chase on the front of the $10k.

WELL. Salmon Portland Chase was a pretty fascinating character, as it turns out. He's the name behind Chase Manhattan Bank, even though he had no connection with it whatsoever. More importantly, he is responsible for how the dollar looks. He was an abolitionist, a leader of the Free Soil movement, a prominent Whig, a leader in the Liberty party, and then a prominent Republican (he ran against Lincoln in the 1860 primary). He ran for Senate that year and won, but only served one day before he resigned to take the post of Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held until 1864, when Lincoln finally allowed him to resign. He was the guy who created the federal currency:

The first U.S. federal currency was printed in 1862, during
Chase's tenure as Secretary of the Treasury. Thus, it was his
responsibility to design the notes. In an effort to further his
political career, his own face appeared on a variety of U.S. paper currency.¹

So the design of the dollar is attributable to this guy. After he designed the currency, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court until he died in 1873.



Back to the coin thing: I finally used a few of them. I had come up with all sorts of scenarios in which I would be yelled at for trying to pass fake currency, or they would simply be rejected, and I was fully prepared to summon my reserves of righteous indignation, but the cashier at Community Bakery reacted with little or no surprise when presented with them. I mentioned that I didn't like them, and she countered that she thought that they were really cool, and I felt like I had to add that I did like the Sacajawea dollar just fine, because I didn't want to seem unreasonable or anything.

But aren't they ugly? Surely it's not just me. They're going to make four a year, with all presidents, in chronological order. They have a good supply of dead presidents until 2016, but if Jimmy Carter still hasn't died by then, they will either have to put him on a coin anyway or skip him and go to Reagan. I think they're assuming he'll probably kick by then.

There will be a Nixon coin, of course. This would be an interesting project, if they weren't so relentlessly tawdry looking. Besides, they just need to kill the dollar bill if they want anyone to use the coin. I'd be behind that.

hey guys, remember to NOT click on the Hindi character, it makes for a frustrating typing experience

... as all of your words will be instantly changed into Hindi script: सई?



I saw two- not one, but two- mythical creatures today.

I went to the Post Office today to buy stamps. Why, I wonder, does the Little Rock post office miss out on all the wonderful advances in letter-sending technology that the last 30 years have brought? Like machines that sell individual stamps, places to weight and send a letter by yourself, places to purchase stamps with a credit or debit card? Places that have been standard in post offices in other places since I was a child? I have 12 faux-gold dollar coins now as a result of buying a book of stamps. These are the most godawful looking coins I've ever seen. There have to be casino tokens that are more dignified looking. Yep, trickle-down effects of 6 years of shitty government. AND they are doing away with stamp vending machines by 2009. I read it in the NYTimes, but there was also a small article in the Dem-Gaz. How perfectly awful these people are.

Anyway, I was the only person in the lobby (it was after five) and was approved by a well-dressed woman who asked me if the post office would just deliver her piece of mail, which happened to be something to do with unemployment benefits (and had obviously been sent to her) if she just dropped it in the box. I tried to tactfully describe the concept of mail. As I was leaving, I saw her get into...a Cadillac. Yes! I have seen it! The mythical Reagan welfare queen! Although really it was a woman who couldn't find a job for a little while, I imagine. And was unfamiliar with "mail."

The second mythical creature I saw was Ginger Beebe. It's the second time that I've seen the Guv talking with kids by the fence at the governor's mansion, but this time he brought his wife. Yeah, fuck Huckabee.

What's really obvious here is that I couldn't debate my way out of a paper bag

Dear Diary,

Has anyone noticed the precipitous decline in the quality of onions lately? The Kroger displays, even at the fancy one, feature nothing but squishy, half-rotten examples. And it's not just the red onions. I'd expect this shit from Harvest foods- I mean, they can't even be bothered to label their milk correctly- but not from my solid rock of bourgeois groceridom.

On a probably unrelated note*, I'm back to having dreams in which people tend to die in my presence, because of things I do. This morning I ended up having to hide my car in an abandoned barn somewhere in Northeast Arkansas and striking off on foot so they wouldn't catch me. I woke up too soon to see if that was a winning strategy, though.

In case you forgot, Gwen Ifill is awesome. Apparently she's not a cleaning lady, though.

Also: I had my throat jumped down last night because asserted- just as I had in a recent conversation- that WWI was the ''hipster war" (the disagreeing party stated that the Spanish Civil War was the real hipster war. Now, this would be absolutely correct, if we're viewing it through the lens of its contemporary image and impact. BUT, the point was about WWII and its place in American mythology. Whereas that war, which occupies an ever-larger [it seems to me, anyway (a movement from direct experience to the experience of an idea of that conflict allows framing of that conflict in more mythological terms-does that make sense? Or is it just terribly obvious? Yeah, it's kind of obvious, isn't it..) ] place in the American self-image, is firmly implanted into popular culture, WWI has virtually no part. So, viewed through that lens, WWI becomes the "hip" war-the one that ended it all, the one that started it all, the one that [as the truly enlightened know] was the real deal.

So am I arguing that WWII is tainted because it's been so firmly embraced in the popular mind? Maybe to those who enjoy being somehow above pop culture; then wouldn't it become more stylish to argue that the real source of the 20th century was Mr. Princip, and not Mr. Hitler?

For further discussions, see: Treaty of Sèvres vs. Bretton Woods, impact [TBA])

Disclaimer: this post was not meant to impugne anybody, really, and is so poorly organized and argued that it would be difficult, I think, to find offense. And I don't hate America.

*Lack of onions=homicidal dreams?

1. Friend tried to pilot one of those large jets that can carry the space shuttle on its back. He crashed it while showing off. Died, of course.

2. AT&T suck.