Latest Blog Posts
Wazzup!
Robert cracks me up sometimes. Among my favorite of his actions is his “wazzup!” face. He’ll often do it when he hasn’t seen me for a while and I enthusiastically say “Hi Robbie!” He’ll turn his head toward me, open his eyes really wide, stick his tongue waaaay out, and squeal, as if saying “Wazzzzzzup!” OK, that was a really weak description. But it’s cute. Really cute. Trust me. It is absolutely, positively impossible to retain any fragment of a bad mood after he does that.
Six Lanes of Blight-Lined Goodness
All you commuters bummed out by the closure of 48th and O Streets can rejoice: 48th and O is reopening sometime today. That means O Street features six lanes of wide-open goodness from Perkins to East Park. Happy lane changing!
Broadband Speed Test
Using Speedtest.net I achieved an impressive 4,323 kb/sec download speed and awful 124 kb/sec upload speed on Road Runner from home. (I tested with the Chicago server.) Road Runner advertises up to 5 mb/sec download speeds and 384 kb/sec upload speeds in Lincoln. My upload speed seems pretty slow, but the download speed is about as fast as it’s going to get, by the time you take normal internet traffic overhead into account.
What’s your best speed, and with what provider did you achieve it?
Sprayed
The Wilson house was sprayed with pesticide by the city just a few minutes ago. I don’t know whether to be thankful that West Nile-carrying mosquitos aren’t likely to thrive near our house, or annoyed that we’ll be breathing pesticide all night. Oh well, I suppose the Star Tran buses that pass in front of our house probably belch out more toxic gases every day, so in the big scheme of things, a little pesticide won’t make much of a difference.
I don’t think I should think about these things right before bed.
Some Kinds of Attention You’d Rather Avoid
Lincoln made the national news today. I think you’ll agree that an article about local serial criminal Kevin Holder’s 226th arrest isn’t really the kind of national attention we were looking for, though.
Oso Tuesday
By the way, today is Oso Tuesday. I try to hit Oso Burrito every Tuesday at 12:30pm. “So what?”, you ask? Well, until The Missus goes back to work, she brings Robbie Downtown to share in the Oso experience. If you ever want to meet Robbie, stop by Oso any Tuesday at 12:30 through September.
Don’t worry about trying to figure out which of the patrons is Robbie. He’s the cute one.
Are Peepers Packing Pistols Predisposed to Plug Prey?
Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady, still stinging from the City Council’s refusal to ban concealed carry, wants to limit who can possess a weapon in the city. Fair enough. It’s not especially surprising that a police chief doesn’t want citizens—especially citizens with a rap sheet—carrying guns. It makes his officers’ job more difficult.
But why does Casady keep harping on the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of those convicted of crimes like indecent exposure? I’ve asked this before, but the question remains unanswered so I’ll ask again: are those convicted of indecent exposure more likely to commit gun crimes (or any violent crime) than those convicted of other misdemeanors? Because if not, Casady’s proposal amounts to nothing more than feel-good legislation and is therefore a waste of time.
To me, Chief Casady’s “Peter” and “Robert” examples aren’t notable for their combined 18 indecent exposure arrests, but for their 227 collective arrests overall. Why focus on the arrests for behavior that is offensive, but essentially harmless? Surely among those 227 there are some other anti-social behaviors that are much better justifications for Casady’s goal.
Are there any criminal justice pros out there who can shed light on the relative likelihood of a person convicted of indecent exposure later committing a violent crime?
Another First for Robert
Robert had another first yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a first I was looking forward to. Yesterday marked the first time Robert let loose with an all-out, unexplainable, seemingly never-ending wail. The Missus said he had been cranky most of the afternoon, but things escalated through the dinner hour. He has cried with gusto before, of course, but never so loudly for so long. Even Daisy showed concern.
I think The Missus and I handled the experience rather well. In large part I suspect that’s because we knew it was coming. I mean, Robert is almost three months old and we hadn’t had this episode yet. It was inevitable. To be honest, I’m kind of glad we got the first one out of the way.
Still, it’s frustrating that we never really figured out what his problem was. As parents you want to be able to fix everything for your child. An infant rarely, if ever, cries for no reason, so it’s a bit of a game trying to become good at interpreting the meaning of each cry. In this case we weren’t able to win the game.
The good news is Robbie seems to have slept well, and he woke up bright-eyed this morning. When Daisy and I got back from our walk, The Missus and Robbie were sitting in the kitchen having breakfast. When I said good morning he smiled and babbled right back at me. What a welcome smile it was.
Oh What a Beautiful Morning
Wow, what an awesome morning in Lincoln. Clear skies, a beautiful sunrise, temperatures in the low 60’s ... who can ask for anything more? I almost thought it was October when I first stepped out this morning.
So is this Mother Nature’s way of asking for pre-emptive forgiveness for something nasty she plans to do in September? 
Impact Fees’ Far-Reaching Effects
Lincoln’s Ronald M. Case suggests that Lincoln’s impact fees have far greater effects (last letter) than we had anticipated. What do you think?
Bad Idea?
Expending a few hours watching the Vikings’ first pre-season game: New head coach, (sort of a new) starting QB, new uniforms, no Culpepper, no Moss (although he’s on the field as a Raider). I think I’m afraid of change. Maybe I’ll switch over to that Anthony Bourdain show.
Wet and Wild
I spent most of my weekend up in Fremont reffing soccer. I started with three games yesterday, and I made it through four games today. Today’s games were mighty interesting, considering they were mostly played in the rain and mud. When the day began I didn’t think there was any way we were going to make it through the slate of games. The rain was one thing, but the periodic lightning is what really kept us from going. But the lightning stopped around noon, and we managed to get in every single game. The quality of play wasn’t anything too spectacular, generally speaking, though I did center a very competitive U-19 girls match that ended 1-0, and I was AR1 on an exciting U-18 boys match that the underdog won 3-2 by coming from behind in the second half.
Speaking of reffing, I have received my first six assignments for the college soccer season. No centers yet, but I’m crossing my fingers. The current assignments only go through Labor Day, so there are still lots and lots of opportunities for me to get some centers this season.
The Spider’s Web
I made good progress on another ECHR related project this weekend on the topic of extraordinary rendition, which I briefly commented on last year. For the 2-3 other Lincolnites who have also been following this news story, you know that the big story broke in the Washington Post by journo Dana Priest way back in November of 2005 (for which she won a Pulitzer for). Since then, the Council of Europe has issued a comprehensive report based on witness testimony, information collected from Council member-states, air traffic records, and satellite imagery, concluding that the CIA operated a detention and transit system akin to a global “spider’s web” (depicted above) in likely violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ECHR’s Chahal and Soering cases will probably serve as authoritative precedent for any potential legal rulings that come out of this.
One of the poor bastards who got caught up in an example of “erroneous rendition” (wapo password required) was Khaled Masri – a German national who was vacationing in Macedonia, was arrested, and sent to Afghanistan where he was interrogated and allegedly tortured by CIA operatives for 5 months before being flown back to Europe and dumped on a hillside in Albania without explanation. His crime: Happening to share the name of a wanted 9/11 terror suspect. Oops.
In the wake of recent headlines regarding the plot to detonate explosives on board flights destined for the US, the allegations regarding the “spider’s web” will likely become more important. My advice to the CIA is that they learn to cooperate with European police and intelligence agencies to apprehended suspected terrorists – who have decades of experience in monitoring and capturing terrorists - rather than try and subvert European authorities on their own soil in contravention of international treaties. The former will get you a lot more progress than the latter.
Plump and Juicy Breasts
People, if you like chicken breast fingers, brave the traffic mess and head over to the Raising Cane’s on 48th across from Best Buy. I left a brief note about this over at Swoof’s blog earlier today after rushing in for a take out order, but I just can’t get that experience out my mind.
OK I realize that deep fried chicken fingers aren’t exactly a gourmet dish, and are in the minds of many people yet another staple “fast-foodish” type of entree you will find in most casual restaurants (many people I am sure associate them with the ubiquitous bags of frozen fried chicken breast tenders you can find in any store). To make a winning fried chicken finger that sticks out amidst all that is already available, you really have to knock it out of the park. In my opinion, eating the Cane’s breast fingers was the gastronomical equivalent of listening to Miles Davis’ “Ascent” (In A Silent Way, 1969) for the first time. The Raising Cane’s chicken breast fingers were definitely juicy (not dry like so many others offered in restaurants), with a fresh-taste unrivaled by the other fast food chains, and a relatively minimalist batter that let the chicken meat do most of the talking. In other words: tasty pieces of heaven in my mouth.
Pete and Ben Debate
I listened to the NET Radio broadcast of the Ben Nelson and Pete Ricketts debate today. I don’t think either man came out a winner. Here are some of my reactions:
- Pete sounds like John Kerry on speed. Like Kerry, he is artificial, he is over-rehearsed, and he has a hard time sticking to the topic at hand because he keeps trying to recite the lines from the flash cards he practiced with. The only difference between Pete and John Kerry is that Pete talks much faster.
- Pete likes cheesy personal anecdotes. “Y’know, I was talking to a woman in Kimball, Nebraska...”
- Both of them talked too much, attempting to bury their answers beneath a bunch of rhetoric.
- Ben got sloppy with his language a few times. His stem cell answer was a disaster because he kept appearing to change his mind, but what he was really doing was using the same language to refer to two different concepts. That could come back to bite him.
- Ben managed to point out that, like Pete, he is filthy rich, and he sounded just as condescending toward us “normal” people. That was a similarity his campaign didn’t want to point out.
- Pete went off on a bizarre rant about No Child Left Behind in the middle of a question about college expenses. That was bad enough, but then he came back to it on the rebuttal, making the gaffe even worse.
- Did anybody catch that Noble (?) Valley, Wyoming reference Ben tried to throw in Pete’s face? What was that all about? It was something about drilling for oil in Wyoming rather than Alaska. Pete followed with something along the lines of “I don’t think I’m familiar with that,” to which Ben replied, “I think you do...” Then the moderator cut them off.
- Ben got in at least a half dozen really solid zings at Pete’s expense. Pete didn’t really get any in. He was too uptight to be that spontaneous.
Mr. T also caught the debate. Here are some of his reactions:
- Both Ben’s experience and Petey’s inexperience showed, although this is not too surprising.
- A little surprised that Petey’s stance seems to be actually left of Ben’s on immigration.
- Noteworthy that Ben named the Chuckster in response to the Iraq question. Obviously trying to garner favor among the Bush Republicans.
- Surprised that Petey didnt seem to mention “Nebraska values” once.
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