Added July and August (to date, as far as I can go) of 2010.
I’m making a push to get the SDC logs completely updated before Armadillocon.
Archive for August 17th, 2010
Recent SDC updates.
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010Interesting moral questions from the LAT.
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010Is it okay to tattoo a seven-year old child?
Is it okay to tattoo a seven-year old child if at least one parent gives consent?
Does it make a difference if the seven-year old child allegedly begged and pleaded until the parent gave in? (Note that this fact is disputed; the father claims this, but the child’s mother claimed that he was held down and forcibly tattooed. The child himself testified at the ensuing criminal trial that he didn’t want the tattoo and cried throughout.)
If any of these things do make a difference, what’s an appropriate charge? Aggravated mayhem? Injury to a child? Felony f-ing stupid?
Who bears more of the responsibility here? Certainly, you’d expect the parent to be the bigger party here and say, “I don’t care how much you whine, I’m not letting you get a tattoo.” But we all know there are parents who give in to whatever their kid wants. And it’s easy to imagine a parent who says, “Hey, what’s the big deal with a tattoo?” Does the tattoo artist have a duty to say, “I don’t care what the parents say, I’m not tattooing a freakin’ seven year old”?
Edited to add: Speaking of irresponsible parenting and art, Patrick over at Popehat makes an interesting argument that Rachel Stieringer is a more important artist than Andres Serrano. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ms. Stieringer and her artistic output, I won’t spoil it for you; I’ll just encourage you to click over to Patrick’s blog entry.
TMQ watch: August 17, 2010.
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
That is, the start of football season. (Yes, the loser update will return this year.)
And with the start of football season comes the return of the tastefully named Gregg Easterbrook and his “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column for ESPN.
Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy Easterbrook’s column. I’ve been reading it since he was over at Slate, and find it to be one of the high points of my week during the period it runs. But I’ve been thinking for a while now that someone needs to highlight and respond to various things in TMQ.
Sometimes, Easterbrook does good work; he spent much of last season discussing the NFL’s response to head trauma among pro athletes, and I felt he was right on target. Sometimes, he uses his column to argue for things like increased Federal vehicle mileage requirements, and I think someone needs to respond to those arguments. Sometimes, he uses his column to go off on various SF TV shows for their lack of plausibility. And sometimes, Easterbrook just goes completely off the damn rails.
So I’m introducing the “Tuesday Morning Quarterback Watch”, to highlight when the man’s right, when I think he’s wrong, when I think he’s completely nuts, and some of Easterbrook’s odd obsessions.
In today’s TMQ:
- Easterbrook argues that the outcomes of sporting events should never be reversed, except if an incorrect call occurs on the final play and a correct call would have resulted in a win for the opposing team. I haven’t heard anyone seriously argue a different viewpoint; I highlight this because I’m wondering if it will be one of his obsessions this season.
- Wacky food and/or drink? Check. In this case, the Friendly’s cheeseburger served between two grilled cheese sandwiches. “At this restaurant, a lunch of Loaded Waffle Fries, Buffalo Chicken Supermelt and a milkshake weighs in at 3,670 calories.” I’m pretty dubious than anyone would order all three of those and try to eat them solo (though I will admit, that Buffalo Chicken Supermelt by itself doesn’t look terribly healthy). And do you really expect healthy food at a place with the slogan “Where ice cream makes the meal”?
- “How long until babe spy Anna Chapman signs to play Natasha Fatale in a big-budget remake of “Rocky & Bullwinkle”?” Well, Gregg (can I call you “Gregg”?), given the utter failure of the last big-budget “Rocky and Bullwinkle” remake, I’m going to suggest that you look for this around the same time as David Letterman’s “Cold Day in Hell Special”.
- Easterbrook kicks LeBron James around, but curiously, not ESPN for broadcasting the fiasco.
- Easterbrook spends 699 words out of an 8,748 word column (about 8%) recapping NYT corrections from the NFL off season. Not sports related corrections; just NYT corrections in general. Dear Mr. Easterbrook; have you ever heard of “Regret the Error“? Or “The NYTPicker“?
- Easterbrook finds an excuse to run a swimsuit photo of an attractive woman. No complaints here…
- Easterbrook kicks Robert Byrd around some more.
- Weasel coach bashing? Check.
- Easterbrook kicks Al and Tipper Gore around some more. I would have held off on the “Al listens to rap music” joke, Gregg; the Onion beat you to it, and did it better.
- Obligatory bashing of SF television shows? Check.
- Wacky lawsuits? Check. I’ll give Easterbrook this: he may lean to the left politically, but he isn’t a blind liberal hack.
- Easterbrook keeps threatening to retire the “Christmas Creep” watch, but hasn’t yet.
We’re fairly early into the NFL and TMQ season. So far, I haven’t detected any trends, but we’ll see how things go.
Oh, almost forgot! In addition to the normal TMQ column, we now have…the TMQ Trailer on Monday! How swell is that? For his first outing, Easterbrook uses the failure of JaMarcus Russell (“Ryan Leaf can relax — JaMarcus Russell has replaced him as the worst draft bust.” Can’t argue too much with that, Gregg.) as a jumping off point to “reimagine” the 2007 NFL draft, based on what we know now. I’m not sure what the point of this exercise is, except to highlight another Easterbrook trope (first-round draft choices, especially quarterbacks, are often overrated; most teams would be better served trading down to get second or third round choices) but it is mildly diverting.
The banshee screams for antelope meat.
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010From the police blotter: our local sheriff’s office busted a couple for breaking into a place called “Wild Bubba’s Wild Game Grill” (no, really!) in Del Valle.
Our fun couple, the female half of which goes by the name “Amber”, are accused of prying open the front door and stealing:
- a bottle of Tito’s vodka. Well, I give them some credit for stealing good vodka, but wouldn’t it have been easier to hit a liquor store? There’s no shortage of them out that way.
- a TV and VCR. Shoot, guys, you probably could have picked those up at a garage sale, if not the Goodwill.
- and 25 pounds of beef, buffalo, and antelope meat.
For this, “Amber” and her guy pal are facing felony burglary charges. As Jay G. says, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
More interesting to me, though, is the very existence of Wild Bubba’s, which had previously escaped my notice. I sense a road trip coming on in the next few weeks (as soon as some things get resolved and some scheduled events pass).