Well this is going to be a long post...

The Life

First and foremost, I met an amazing woman and I'm moving to Troy, NY to be with her.





Elia...

• plays the harp, piano and violin,
  
• has a double masters in Linguistics and Physics from Rensselaer (which means I'm positively housed in Scrabble about 93% of the time),
  
• knows how to read her email in pine and
  
• is a vegetarian who owns a shotgun.
  

She's thoughtful, insightful, doesn't confuse an attack on her ideas with an attack on her and so easy with a smile. Absolutely wonderful.

But of course these facts don't even begin to take her measure. By turns of fate I will probably never understand, but appreciate nonetheless, we found and fell in love with each other.

So yes, after four years I'm leaving Rockport and the only real family I've ever known. I'm going to miss them something terrible.

The Rant (#1)

Remember way back in 2007, there was a bomb scare in Boston because a couple of guys planted Lite-Brite-esque cartoon characters all over Boston? The boys in blue went apoplectic and shut down ...well, pretty much the entire city. Some people said it was an overreaction, some said it was due vigilance and those responsible for placing the devices were foolish.

In any case, the pair responsible were arrested, dragged through the public mud and arraigned on charges of seeking "attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location." Eventually the charges were dropped.

Fast forward last week in Texas. Santikos Theater decided to promote The Dark Night by sending a local TV station a chocolate cake with a fake bomb planted inside.

What happens? The cops showed up. The firemen showed up. The bomb squad showed up. Then the theater apologized and, naturally, no charges were filed. Hell, the goddamn police chief went on-camera to vouch for the good intentions of those responsible.



Nevermind that the intent of the theater actually WAS to suggest an actual bomb.

The difference in these two incidents? One was caused by an undoubtedly large tax bill-paying movie chain and the other was two guys in their mid-20's.

It's nice to know people can get the justice they afford.

The Rant (#2)

Maryland State police infiltrated ...an anti-death penalty group? They uncovered no wrongdoing, no laws broken and no plans to engage in violent protest nor was the infiltration instigated by any such plans. They just thought that anti-death penalty groups might have been a good place to look for violent protesters.

Seriously.

State lawmakers are beginning an investigation into the whole mess which is great but this is the line that gets me:

"...state police indicated they believe laws limiting their power are not necessary."

Why the police would object to a law limiting activity that is illegal in the first place?

And if a state police violation of the requirement that a reasonable suspicion is a precursor to investigation isn't cause enough to limit their authority, what is??

Cue Lenny Bruce:



"Since the Constitution says that -- there has to be judicial superintendence -- that no peace officer has any place talking to anyone or making any inquiry whatsoever, a search warrant is prerequisite to the inquiry. Because if he's allowed to make any investigation, for a noise even, then he's allowed to make determinations of who looks suspicious. And the only people who look suspicious to Jews are Irish Drunks. So it's all bullshit conclusions."

The rant (#3)

A few days ago, Andrea Mitchell said something a bit odd on Hardball with Chris Matthews:

"Let me say something about [Obama's] message management. He didn’t have reporters with him. He didn’t have a press pool. He didn’t do a press conference while he was on the ground either on Afghanistan or Iraq. What you’re seeing is not reporters brought in, you’re seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questioned by the military and what some would call fake interviews because they’re not interviews with a journalist so there’s a real press issue here. Politically it’s smart as can be, but we’ve not seen a Presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before."

Andrea has always been a GOP shill, that's not news, but AFAIK she didn't have anything to say about Sen. McCain simply refusing to answer questions from the Wall Street Journal because he wasn't happy with the press they'd been giving him.