Jacob Grier

My colleague Nicole Kurakowa reports on how Congress is stepping up to address the important issues of the day:

By a vote of 302-96 last week, the House of Representatives passed the Captive Primate Safety Act, a bold step on the road to outlawing pet monkeys. The House bill boasts 26 co-sponsors, including three from Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk and Democrats Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez. The Senate is expected to take up the companion bill in the next few weeks….

Did Congress step in because of an absence of pre-existing monkey regulations? No. The monkey industry does not operate in a vacuum; states have various restrictions on primate ownership, varying from licensing to breeding restrictions to total bans. If monkey-owning is your hot-button issue, as opposed to, say, taxes or abortion, you are free to move to a more monkey-permissive, or anti-monkey, state.

Read the whole thing here.

An amusing story from the Chicago Tribune:

Few names are more associated with the University of Chicago than Milton Friedman’s.

But that’s exactly the problem, say some faculty who want to put the brakes on a plan to name a new research center after the Nobel Prize-winning economist.

In a letter to U. of C. President Robert Zimmer, 101 professors—about 8 percent of the university’s full-time faculty—said they feared that having a center named after the conservative, free-market economist could “reinforce among the public a perception that the university’s faculty lacks intellectual and ideological diversity.”

Aside from his achievements as an advocate for free markets and individual liberty, Friedman was an unquestionably brilliant economist with contributions to the field that were not limited to any particular political views. There are far worse names to have associated with one’s university.

[Hat tip: Newmark’s Door.]

Jason Talley uncovers disturbing evidence that the Invasion has infiltrated the very highest levels of American government. Jim Inhofe, we need you!

Jared Allen played defensive end for the Kansas City Chiefs. While in KC, he opened Jared Allen’s Sports Arena and Grill. A few weeks ago he was traded to the Minnesota Vikings, leaving KC with draft picks and Allen’s restaurant. I’m pretty sure Minnesota got the better deal.

Previously: Eli Manning: Leet skillz

With Lindland’s new light-weight nano-waling, you can wear your ‘roys all year long. Want!

Previously: Great fabric, great beer

Newsarama reports that Rob Liefeld is launching a new series of graphic novels illustrating biblical prophecies. He describes the books as “Dan Brown in tone.” To his credit the apparent protagonist is wearing only six visible pouches, so there’s hope that these books aren’t actually the first sign of the apocalypse.

For more on Liefeld, check out Progressive Boink’s rundown of the 40 worst Rob Liefeld drawings.

For just $1,651 this site will sell me a kit to convert the doors on my Pontiac Aztek into Lamborghini-style wing doors. Yay or nay?

Believe it or not, at least one person has attempted this.

Update: This, coincidentally, is the site’s 1,000th post. If I’d noticed the milestone I might have aimed a little higher today.

Though I might live there in the not too distant future, I still find this amusing. Seattle has spent millions of dollars on high-tech public toilets, only to see them shunned even by the homeless:

The naysayers may have been right: Seattle’s multimillion-dollar, high-tech public toilet program looks like a washout.

Some city officials, including the city’s wastewater utility director, want to remove the five automated, expensive and controversial toilets next year.

The large, self-cleaning lavatories went into service in 2004 — three years after the City Council used a rare show of force to authorize the program as an alternative to less attractive portable toilets.

Since then, the five stalls have cost taxpayers about $4.3 million. The money came from a tax on wastewater rates that cost the average single family household about $2.59 per year on an annual sewer bill of $465.

A recently completed report found the unattended toilets have been well used — both as they were intended, and as a refuge for drug use and dealing, booze drinking and prostitution. Some homeless people now avoid the toilets because of the social problems they attract, the report found. Meanwhile, there’s been a steady increase in how much human waste crews clean each day in downtown alleys and walkways.

The toilets will likely soon be gone. The tax increase that funded them, however, will stay in place.

Foreign policy can be expensive, especially for a city government. Berkeley’s learning this the hard way:

Berkeley is finding that having its own foreign policy isn’t cheap. The city’s recent dustup with the U.S. Marine Corps has so far cost the city more than $200,000, while businesses say they’ve been slammed by related protests.

And that’s on top of the $1 million the city spends annually on domestic and foreign policy matters hatched by its 45 citizen commissions, which outnumber those in virtually every other city in America and debate everything from regime change in Iran to the plight of nonneutered dogs…

Some of Berkeley’s commissions provide critical city functions, such as the zoning board and Planning Commission, while about half are devoted mostly to policy. There are commissions on the status of women, animal welfare, aging, disability rights, labor and early-childhood education. Three commissions deal with the environment. Four pertain to health.

Each commission has nine members, each of whom is appointed by a council member, and meets monthly. Many have subcommittees, such as the Peace and Justice Commission’s subcommittee on U.N. treaties. And every commission has a city staff member assigned to compile agendas, minutes and reports, and ensure that the board complies with the state’s open meetings law and Robert’s Rules of Order.

Manuel Hector spent 10 years as secretary to the Peace and Justice Commission. His regular job was working on employee safety and special events permits for the city’s Health and Human Services department, but as much as 25 percent of his work time was spent researching oppression in Burma or labor conditions in Liberia for the commission.

I’ve often thought that, given my natural contrarianism, a move to the West Coast would do me good. Being surrounded by hard-working policy wonks and journalists in DC just makes me want to craft espresso drinks. Being in Berkeley, I might actually be motivated to put on a tie and get fired up about combating idiocy.

Sitting at Murky Coffee. The music is momentarily off and everyone is quietly working on laptops or reading books. The silence is finally broken by a ringing cell phone, buried deep in a woman’s purse. She struggles to silence it as everyone in the room smirks awkwardly to each other as the ring tone chirps out “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid.

The barista just put on some old Belle and Sebastian, restoring the cafe’s indie cred.

My friend Mike notes that Dr Pepper will offer a free soda to every person in America this year — but only if Guns n Roses releases their fifteen-year-old, $13 million boondoggle album Chinese Democracy. I couldn’t care less about the album, but free Dr Pepper is good, especially if it’s from Dublin.

Oddly enough, the idea of enticing Axl Rose with Dr Pepper was sort of floated on this blog way back in 2003. If you weren’t reading the blog back then, the entry won’t make any sense. Actually, it won’t make any sense even if you were reading. This site had strange beginnings.

A letter writer in South Carolina uses my experience in the AP story about secular sabbaths to make a case for religion and for blue laws forcing businesses to close on Sundays. That’s not what I had in mind!

It’s a good thing this product wasn’t available for Mitt Romney. Poor Seamus would have had an even more terrifying road trip.

Previously:
Seamus, that’s the dog, was outside

For great moments in legislating, skip ahead to about the 5:30 mark.

This is my favorite Blaine parody yet. I like Criss more after this, and the Johnny Thompson cameo is fun too.

I think this cure would leave me unfit to consume anything, not just alcohol, but it’s worth a shot if you’re desperate:

c. 1500 According to J.D. Rolleston, a British medical historian, a medieval Russian cure for drunkenness consisted in “taking a piece of pork, putting it secretly in a Jew’s bed for nine days, and then giving it to the drunkard in a pulverized form, who will turn away from drinking as a Jew would from pork.” [Quoted in Roueche, op. cit. p. 144]

The rest of the drug timeline is here.

The Aztek has been out of production for two years, but it’s still tearing up the sales charts. 25 cars sold in 2007! That probably ties it with back issue sales of the equally strange-looking Aztek: The Ultimate Man comic. Clearly, Aztek is a name with branding issues.

I’m a proud member of the group AutoBlog describes as those “who appreciate the practical design of the Aztek’s interior layout, smooth ride and the world’s best built anti-theft device (i.e. its looks).” Its humor value is also a big bonus.

Hat tip: Courtney, closet Aztek lover.

Previously:
The Aztek that should have been
A car that makes children cry