Lincolnite: Lincoln's Online Community

Cough! Hack! Wheeze!

March 29, 2005 at 9:17pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

That pretty much describes life in Downtown Lincoln following the smoking ban. All I wanted to do was walk over to Oso, grab a burrito, and walk back. In the process I was assaulted by literally dozens of smokers forced to line the sidewalk in a sort of carcinogenic gauntlet. Who is the supposed winner here? The business owners lose money while their customers are stuck outside; the smokers still face the same health risks as before; litter along Downtown’s streets has increased substantially; and now more people—specifically, more unwilling people—are exposed to second-hand smoke than prior to the ban.

Today I inhaled about five minutes’ worth of second-hand smoke as a direct result of the smoking ban. Without the ban, I would have run into about a minute’s worth (mostly directly outside the building I work in).

How, exactly, does the ban help me and other non-smokers like me?

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Oops! Guess We Shouldn’t Have Killed You!

March 29, 2005 at 7:41pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Is it just me, or is the announcement that Michael Schiavo will permit an autopsy on Terri a little weird? It’s great that he is willing to prove to the world that he is correct. I admire his openness. He doesn’t have to allow an autopsy before she is cremated. But an autopsy—by definition performed after Terri is dead—seems like an awfully lame way to prove that Terri is truly a vegetable. Michael Schiavo has refused to authorize a number of tests that could be done on Terri while she is alive to determine the level of her brain activity. What is he going to say if she is proven to have been semi-conscious this whole time? “Oops?!”

If he really wanted to prove to the world—and, more importantly, to Terri’s family—that she has virtually zero brain activity, wouldn’t a full list of brain scans, oh, 8 years ago have been a great idea?

[Update]I just discovered that Terri did, in fact, have a full MRI back in 1990.

“7/24/1990—MRI Report Dr. Pinkston. profound atrophy w/ very atrophic appearing cortex. Mild white matter disease, anoxic/hypoxic injury.”

I had been led to believe that, although a few basic brain scans were performed,  MRIs and advanced tests were not performed. I seem to have been misinformed about the full extent of the tests completed to date. In that light, an autopsy isn’t nearly as ironic, and the point of my original post is pretty much deflated.[/update]

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BK Imitates Hardee’s

March 28, 2005 at 4:16pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Looks like Burger King is hopping on the gigantic sandwich bandwagon, following Hardee’s lead. BK’s Enormous Omelet Sandwich doesn’t sound all that exciting to me. Their Croissanwiches are plenty tasty and reasonably sized. But I don’t doubt that a larger offering will be popular, especially for young men whose metabolisms are still chugging away.

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Dan Marvin spams?

March 28, 2005 at 5:53am By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

I received spam from Dan Marvin today. I replied, asking for him (or his campaign) to explain where he found my e-mail address. I have a feeling I know where he got it—from a particular e-mail list I happen to be on. If true, I’m going to be uber pissed. It would be a gross violation of the list’s privacy policies to have given out my e-mail address.

I will be interested to see if Mr. Marvin replies and, if he does, what he has to say. He may very well have collected my e-mail address “legitimately.” If so, fine. I’ll just tell him to take me off his list. But if he got it where I think he got it…

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Congress: The New Appellate Court

March 25, 2005 at 5:10pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Jacob Sullum has a quick and dirty analysis of the dangerous precedent Congress set in the Terri Schiavo case.

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Breaking News…

March 23, 2005 at 10:14pm By: Mr. T Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Well it looks like those fools over at lincolnite.com are posting more garbage as usual. WHOOPS! Sorry, I meant to post that on my new blog I just created, which focuses on international law and policy. Mr. Wilson wants me to tell him the URL of this new blog, but if I tell him, a moment later I know it will be flooded with “cowboys rule!” and “uR teh SuxX0R” comments on it. In fact, he just got so worked up about it, that he physically attacked me moments ago!

In the many years I have spent living in this fine city, I have met and known many people who I am sure have wanted to assault me. Mr. Wilson actually did assault me. Way to go Mr. Lincoln Guy. Represent.

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Twister in San Fran

March 21, 2005 at 4:48pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

I suppose I shouldn’t poke fun at others’ inexperience, but this article about a San Francisco tornado struck me as funny. It’s probably as funny to us as an article about a violent 4.2 earthquake would be to Californians.

The whirling cloud — which meteorologists from the National Weather Service believe was a tornado…

Uhh, you think?

The article includes some brilliant factual reporting:

Tornado winds can reach 100 mph.

Somebody should have told that to this storm.

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8th Grade Journalism

March 17, 2005 at 11:56pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Today’s Lincoln Journal Star is a classic example of biased media reporting. An article (not available online) on the front page is titled: “Oil vs. the outdoors: So far, oil is winning.” Hmm, I guess we know where the LJS stands on the ANWR issue.

The implicit bias in that sort of headline is bad enough. But not only is it biased, it’s wrong. The ANWR issue isn’t “oil vs. the outdoors.” The LJS, like many anti-drilling types, is presenting a false dichotomy. The LJS wants you to think “Oh no! Big Oil and all of his friends are going to destroy our precious natural areas!” Which is, of course, false. The faster Big Oil screws up nature, the faster the public will get ticked off and eschew oil (and oil-based products) in favor of products that don’t harm the environment as badly. It isn’t in Big Oil’s interest to coat Alaska in black goo.

The ANWR matter is no more complicated than “drilling for new domestic sources of oil vs. not drilling for new domestic sources of oil.” But then, phrasing it that way doesn’t have the nice visceral effect on readers that the LJS’s preferred wording has.

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Holy Shit

March 12, 2005 at 8:36pm By: Mr. T Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

The Memphis - Louisville game rocked. But because I am Mysterio (ie a dubious bastard), I am not telling what happened.

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I’d Rather Not

March 4, 2005 at 2:00am By: Mr. T Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

In an attempt to “go down in history,” this week CBS evening news - or rather - Dan Rather - is featuring a “Reporter’s Notebook” marking the end of his stint as CBS evening news anchor. Tonight, to further all the self-tooting, he slipped in the fact that he will also be appearing on David Letterman tonight. If “The Osborne’s” proved anything, its that no matter how much air time you get, more doesn’t always equal good.

I’m definitely not a member of the right wing the-media-is-controlled-by-liberals crowd, but its clear that he goofed up with the memo gate incident big time. He’ll never go down in history as another Walter Cronkite figure. But the blame doesn’t stay with him. Rather, O’Reilly - the whole lot of them - have all sort of lost the plot in the quest for ratings. 

Don’t get me wrong. There are many many journalists out there who deserve the utmost in respect for what they do, and at times, some of them lose their lives reporting the news.

Its just the egomanical folks at the top who kind of, well, drive me nuts sometimes.

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Still Kickin’

March 3, 2005 at 4:54pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Vatican: Pope Progressively Improving

Is it just me, or is it hillarious to see anything about the Pope described as “progressive?”

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Amazing Bill in the Unicameral

March 3, 2005 at 4:40pm By: Mr. Wilson Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

Freshman Sen. Gwen Howard has proposed an incredible new law. In her words:

“The bill would prevent kids from ever being a part of the child-welfare system,” said Howard, who was a state social worker for 35 years.

Well holy cow, how can anybody not support this bill? It’s a veritable cure-all!

I expect Ms. Howard will soon be proposing laws to:

• Cure cancer
• Halt global warming
• Provide a surplus of nutritious, tasty food for every Nebraska citizen
• End spam, spyware, malware, and popups

This woman is obviously incredible. How come she isn’t governor?

Obligatory anti-term limits note: This is the kind of irresponsible hyperbole you get from freshman senators. Once term limits are imposed, roughly 1/3 of our senators will be freshmen or sophomores in any given year. Fantastic.

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College Student: Deuel has “OBLIGATION to lose weight”

March 2, 2005 at 4:41am By: Mr. T Posted in The Lincolnite Blog

In a blunt, no mercy, editorial from a South Dakotan, SDSU student columnist Roxy Hammond minces no words with Pat:

.....

Going home and slacking off is just plain insulting to the staff of McKennan, the people who spent the time reading his newspaper articles, and the people who funded his well-being.

Responsibility, it’s the name of the game- and it looks like Patrick Deuel has fouled out.

Our research staff will follow this breaking story and bring you the latest updates…

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