A University of Arizona law school student and beauty queen has been indicted on charges that say she and three others held her former boyfriend captive for 10 hours while torturing and robbing him. Kumari Fulbright, a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins, was indicted Dec. 18 on five felony charges – armed robbery, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
UPDATE: Tom Smith isn’t bullish on Hillary: “As much as I am sure I would not like the policies of the Democrats in the White House, mostly I just don’t want the spectacle of Hillary and Bill back in the White House. I’m still not over the Starr Report, which I wish I had never read, like one of those websites you are sorry to have stumbled upon. Call it right wing paranoia, but I thought the Clintons brought to public life a degree of ruthlessness that appalled many of even the hardened souls in DC, and I was in DC for about half of the Bill years. I would much prefer Obama or even Edwards. It would take either of them years to build the private army the Clintons have at their disposal.” This is the Insta-Wife’s take.
PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EMAILING ME for a couple of weeks with claims that Mike Huckabee didn’t lose all the weight he claims by dieting, but by bariatric surgery. I haven’t been persuaded. Now here’s a fairly convincing refutation. Plus, a denial.
MICKEY KAUS: “Press pros on the ground (excitable Joe Klein,, Marc Cooper, the First Read crew) are convinced Huckabee’s press conference today–in which he announced he was pulling a negative campaign spot and then showed it to the press anyway–was so disastrous as to be Dean-screamish. Like Jonathan Martin, I’m not so sure.”
SO I’VE HAD THE GPS for a while, and it’s worked pretty well. Once or twice it got confused about whether a left turn was permitted or something, but overall the mapping is quite impressive, and it’s never really steered me wrong. As for my earlier worries that it would cause me to lose my sense of direction, well, not so much. Keeping it on in “map mode,” in fact, makes me aware of things in a new way. On the other hand, I was visiting somebody’s house the other night in a neighborhood that’s so new it’s not on the maps yet. Ordinarily I would have memorized the route back out, and I didn’t. That may have been GPS-induced laziness, or it may just have been . . . laziness.
Related item here: “That Huckabee still showed the spot to dozens of reporters jammed into a press conference will ensure the most skeptical, bordering on cynical, coverage on every national news broadcast tonight and in all the major national papers tomorrow. After it became clear that he was not going to air the ad on Iowa television, but would still preview it here, the press corps offered a collective laugh in plain recognition of what Huckabee was up to.”
MICKEY KAUS on the Iowa Caucuses: “Letting the presidential nominee be picked by the Iowa caucusers is like letting your antiwar tactics be picked by the last people left at the end of a 4-hour SDS meeting in 1970.”
Playing with toy weapons helps the development of young boys, according to new Government advice to nurseries and playgroups.
Staff have been told they must resist their “natural instinct” to stop boys using pretend weapons such as guns or light sabres in games with other toddlers.
Fantasy play involving weapons and superheroes allows healthy and safe risk-taking and can also make learning more appealing, says the guidance.
It conflicts with years of “political correctness” in nurseries and playgroups which has led to the banning of toy guns, action hero games and children pretending to fire “guns” using their fingers or Lego bricks.
But teachers’ leaders insisted last night that guns “symbolise aggression” and said many nurseries and playgroups would ignore the change.
Don’t they care about the children? Apparently not:
Research by Penny Holland, academic leader for early childhood at London Metropolitan University, has also concluded that boys should be allowed to play gun games.
She found boys became dispirited and withdrawn when they are told such play-fighting is wrong.
Of course, to some educators, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. (Via Dave Hardy).
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: “A multidisciplinary team of UCLA scientists were able to differentiate metastatic cancer cells from normal cells in patient samples using leading-edge nanotechnology that measures the softness of the cells.”
THEY TOLD ME IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, campus student groups would be banned because of their unacceptable views on premarital sex. And they were right!
A NANNY ON HORSEBACK: “Buoyed by the still unsettled field, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run.”
ABOUT A GAZILLION READERS have sent me this link to a report of an anti-military lawyer trashing a Marine’s car. All I can say is, it’s gobsmackingly vile, if true.
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK: Tennessean Sid Evans is moving south to take over Garden & Gun magazine. We get that; it’s not bad — somewhere between Town & Country and Sports Afield, with a touch of not-so-politicized Vanity Fair added in. And where else can you find out about Winston Groom’s favorite shotgun? (Via Michael Silence).
JOHN TIERNEY on the proposed Science Debate 2008: “I can’t imagine the candidates’ handlers are happy with this prospect, given how much extra work it would mean for them in bringing the candidates up to speed. Politics attracts lawyers and liberal-arts majors, not science whizzes.”
UPDATE: Peter Robinson likes it: “Thompson has sat himself down, looked into a camera, and spoken for a quarter of an hour, calmly and straightforwardly making his case. I myself find this impressive—in a way, moving. Thompson seems to have stepped out of the eighteenth century. He trusts voters to think. And if the comments on YouTube are at all representative, plenty of people agree.” But enough?
THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “The Iraqi interior ministry lauded its achievements over the past year on Saturday, saying that 75 percent of Al-Qaeda’s networks in the country had been destroyed in 12 months. Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf also outlined sharp falls in the numbers of assassinations, kidnappings and death squad murders.”
WHEN THE CORPSE TWITCHES, the jaws snap: “Record Industry Goes After Personal Use . . . the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.” The brain’s been dead for a while, though.
WHY LAW PROFESSORS ARE HAPPY: “It is striking that job satisfaction among academics is high not only relative to those in private practice, but also relative to graduates employed in ‘public service,’ which is often viewed as a career path chosen in large part to maximize personal happiness rather than income.” Of course, the data involve Yalies, who are presumptively weird, so . . . .
MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO MYSELF: A copy of Propellerhead’s Reason 4 software. I’ve been happily producing podcast music — “stingers” and “bleebles” as they’re known in the trade. It’s very intuitive and easy to use. By the way, you can get a free copy of the software synth I’ve loved for years — the ReBirth RB-338 — here. All you have to do is register on the site.
UPDATE: Reader John Marcoux emails:
From a long ago email to you, I related how, in a conversation with Paul Van Dyk at a club in Chicago, I learned that many of the great European DJs, including Paul, run Reason on Apple notebooks (see pic below).
I fooled around with it but found it harder to master than you apparently have. Maybe it works better on an Apple. For dabblers (at 67, that’s me) this Amazon item is pretty good and only $30. Won’t run on Vista.
Yeah, there’s a lot of good cheap software out there. Meanwhile, I certainly haven’t “mastered” Reason; I’ve just figured out how to get some sounds out of it that I like. That’s step one . . . . I didn’t realize so many DJ’s were using Reason, though — I thought it was more Ableton Live or Final Scratch, but I’ve been out of touch with the DJ scene for a few years. I blame blogging.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader David Preiser emails:
You’re right about Reason. It’s a great studio tool, and a lot of pros on the creative end use it (as opposed to editors and sound guys, and studio mavens, I mean). If you ever do composing or create midi files elsewhere, Reason is great for making them come alive. And it is very intuitive, but only if you’ve ever worked with real equipment, even a little bit, which I know you have. The key feature that got me making noise within minutes was the Tab button. If you’ve already discovered that, you’ll know what I mean when I say that anyone over 25 who has ever handled real equipment will be forever grateful to the folks at Propellerheads for that one.
Yeah. Reason simulates a rack of hardware, and when you hit “Tab” it rotates to let you look at the back. You can see cables connecting the different pieces of virtual equipment, and repatch them by clicking and dragging. (And when the rack flips around, the “cables” jiggle, which is a nice touch that Reason has had since earlier versions.)
FRED THOMPSON corrects the media. “Today I had this story written about me regarding what I said at a Town Hall event in Burlington, Iowa by a reporter who wasn’t even at the event.”
WE HAD FUN HANGING OUT WITH GUN-BLOGGERS LAST NIGHT: Helen posts a report. Just don’t tell the folks at WATE-TV about the picture! It shows her shooting one of those dangerous full-capacity firearms. . . .
Meanwhile Mickey Kaus notes some Learjet liberalism: “It looks like that pro-Edwards ’527′ group defended by Paul Krugman as a ‘labor 527′ and a ’527 run by labor unions’ actually got about a third of its money ‘in a single check from an entity linked to Rachel Mellon, the widow of Paul Mellon, who inherited his share of the great American fortunes.’”
CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER: Signs of moderation at the Modern Language Association? Well, by MLA standards, anyway. Best line: “‘I support speaking truth to power,’ said Rzepka, but that requires truth, he added.”
SAY UNCLE CORRECTS WATE-TV on assault weapons hysteria. Somebody needs to have a talk with Knoxville’s police chief Sterling Owen, too. Lots of law-abiding citizens — and voters — own highfull-capacity weapons. And given the miserable record of my local government lately in handling credit cards, legal obligations of openness, etc., they should show a bit more respect for law-abiding citizens. . . .
UPDATE: Reader John Steakley emails with a correction: “They aren’t ‘high’ capacity. They are ‘full’ capacity.” Excellent point. Correction made.
MICHAEL YON: “Unfortunately my concerns for Afghanistan are proving well-placed. Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked. Together they might be called ‘Troublestan.’”
BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I ROCK AND ROLLED: I don’t listen to much rock anymore; as James Lileks said a while back, “Techno does for me now what rock used to. Why, I couldn’t care less.” But I had to drive across town and popped in a Heart album and it was quite good. Crazy on You is without a doubt the best Cold War-inspired song about oral sex ever. Other tunes held up well, too.
LOOKING BACK at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, and what promises came true, and didn’t. My reporting from last year’s CES is here. And here’s that 108″ Sharp flat-screen TV they’re talking about.
ADVICE: “Barack — may I call you Barack? — this is not going to help. Apart from the absurdity of claiming that the housing conditions of one’s grandmother amount to foreign policy experience, no Iowan who has been as successful as Barack Obama would let his grandmother live in a ‘tiny hut.’ Somebody ought to take up a collection for the poor woman.”
DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: I linked this review of Jonah Goldberg’s book last night, and a reader pointed out that the text reference to Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration contained a hyperlink to articles about the National Rifle Association. The error is still there this afternoon. Despite having the same initials, those are not the same . . . .
I’m sure that mistake is not the fault of David Oshinsky, the reviewer, but rather of some undereducated staffer at the Times, but it serves to illustrate the need for the kind of history lesson Goldberg offers, as well as a point made by many, that the NYT doesn’t take its hyperlinks very seriously.
UPDATE: Ouch: “The NYT should be making a conspicuous show of its professionalism and superior resources on the web, but instead it is making mistakes that would mortify me — in my little one-person operation.”
The former North Carolina senator labeled “ridiculous” comments made by the Obama campaign that seemed to link former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq, embraced Sen. Barack Obama’s politics over Clinton’s, and said an anti-Obama flier from a pro-Clinton union was “misleading” and “deceptive.”
MICHAEL YOUNG LOOKS FOR NEOCONS IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION and can’t seem to find any: “So maybe it’s time to stop referring to the neocon policies of the Bush administration. The neocons are gone, many for so long that no one seems to remember their leaving. What we now have in Washington is a mishmash of old political realism and improvisation, topped with increasingly empty oratory on freedom and democracy. That should please quite a few of Bush’s domestic critics. He’s returned to the futile routine in the Middle East that they always urged him to.”
In other words, the bureaucracy won, with predictable results.
BENAZIR BHUTTO MAY BE DEAD, but she’s got a book coming out entitled Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. Interestingly, the Insta-Wife used to babysit for Bhutto’s agent, Andrew Wylie. Well, it’s interesting to me, anyway.
