Got a spam just now entitled “Improve Your Credit Rating by Paying off Your Bills.” What, really? Why didn’t someone think of that sooner!
I dreamt that I was walking in some commercial street and an aggressive (and curiously-colored) panther appeared. I drew my snub revolver . . . . Never mind that I neither own nor am ever likely to acquire such a weapon!
Sigh. Some toad is using my return address on spam entitled “Your details”. I’ve had two bounces today, but happily no flames yet.
Rethinking the Articles of Confederation, by Scott Trask
The American confederation was destined to become a free-trade area, even without a consolidated union. Hamilton, in Federalist No. 12, all but admitted, and complained, that such would be the case. He worried that the multiplicity of state jurisdictions would keep tariffs too low and variable for the raising of sufficient revenue or the provision of industrial promotion.
The relative situation of these States; the number of rivers with which they are intersected, and of bays that wash their shores; the facility of communication in every direction; the affinity of language and manners; the familiar habits of intercourse – all these are circumstances that would conspire to render an illicit trade between them a matter of little difficulty and would insure frequent evasions of the commercial regulations of each other. The separate States or confederacies would be necessitated by mutual jealousy to avoid the temptations to that kind of trade by the lowness of their duties.
In the heart of Anytown I happened to see a sign advertising mailboxes for $13/month, so I went in, as my old mailbox on Market Street is less convenient now than in 1997 when I was nearby every day.
“The person who rents out the mailboxes won’t be in until tomorrow. Meanwhile let’s see if I can find you the forms . . . . You’ll need proof of residency in Anytown. Yeah, the Post Office requires it.”
Damn. That’s new. My terrorist cell will be so disappointed.
How do you get mail if you have no fixed address? What if you sleep elsewhere but spend the day in Anytown? What if you’re about to move to Anytown but don’t yet know exactly where you’ll be living?
Cui bono?
I wonder: Minbar, name of a planet in Babylon 5, could be Elvish for ‘first home’.
In Oklahoma, a teenager has been charged with the felony of “planning to cause serious bodily harm or death to another” because he wrote a presumably fictional script for a terrorist strike at a school. He did not show his story to anyone, nor did police searches find any of the weapons &c mentioned.
Updates: The judge dismissed the case on 2003 August 30, holding that no crime exists without evidence of intent to do the violence. Because the dismissal came more than a year after the charge, it could not be expunged; the relevant law has now been changed, effective next week (Nov.1).
Bummer: the archive of Adam Greengard’s defunct cartoon No Outlet has vanished, I guess because its domain registration expired.