(no subject)

It's going to be a slow news summer. Not that there isn't anything to report, just that there isn't anything new to report. Iraq will be the same story, no major elections this year, oil prices will be fluctuating between super-high and astonishingly-high, the economy will continue to improve at a yawn-inducing rate....and nothing new.

So, the news has to pull a Jaws on us:


Just off the beach in the Florida panhandle. The thing is, you can take the same picture at every beach in Florida (and probably California, and Hawaii...) at any time. They're there, they've always been there, they've always been just off the beach. If you don't hit them with your surfboard or carry smelly fishbait around your belt on the next sandbar out, they'll leave you alone.

The last two years have averaged 20 shark attacks a year in Florida. 35 people a year get hit by lightning in Florida. 2900 people a year die in car accidents in Florida.

Supreme Court followup

Followup here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050629/ap_on_re_us/souter_property

"Am I taking this seriously? But of course," said Charles Meany, Weare's code enforcement officer. "In lieu of the recent Supreme Court decision, I would imagine that some people are pretty much upset. If it is their right to pursue this type of end, then by all means let the process begin."

Still amused.

(no subject)

John Twelve Hawks may or may not exist in real life. He claims that he doesn't exist in the ID-tracking real world at all -- he has no ID, no credit cards, nothing that might be tracked by government or corporation databases or computers. Is he real, or just a publicity stunt? I don't know but he just wrote a novel (or a series of them) about "living off the grid", or basically a bunch of characters who live the same kind of life he does.

Yeah, the guy's probably a crackpot, but I'm intrigued. It's published by the same imprint as Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, so no guarantees for literacy, but I want to read it!

News story here

Book here