A proposal to raise Indianapolis cab fares from $2/mile to $3.25/mile.

Like so many items manufactured in China these days, they might be poison–this time for your PC.

H/t Chris.

Also, where are your arms?

You, on the other hand, look cute with your sleek, snappy dress and little apply cheeks, however unkind it may be to remind me how much I miss Veronica Mars in the middle of a strike.

Any chance Robin Wright Penn and Sean Penn are divorcing because she looks at his pal Chavez and sees a thuggish dictator?

There’s such a thing as “Fool me once, shame on you …” Maybe she’s been fooled enough.

Couple, 75, remarries after 20 years of marriage, four children, and 37 years of divorce, during which they were both remarried.

Each was able to put a finger on what had been missed most for all these years.

“His fun-loving way of doing everything and teasing all the time,” Mary said.

Virgil nodded. “And she puts up with it.”

Any bets on how long it is before she remembers how his teasing used to drive her freakin’ nuts?

I’m back from Boston, where my gracious hostess Petitedov and I saw tons of history and several varieties of Mike’s Pastry. A few things that happened while I was gone:

Funkypundit prognosticated incorrectly lied, Phils and Cubs died. Holy cow-hum.

Marion lied, gold medals died. I remember those Olympics. I believed her then. The article blandly says that two out of the other three relay team members have served doping bans since then–doesn’t say it’s for sure they doped at those Olympics. Doesn’t matter. Medals should all go to the second-place team. I used to be naive about this stuff. Now it’s starting to taint the concept of everybody at the top for me.

Latinos lied, DMV spied, Oregonian cried got its panties in a wad over the fact that most of the people taken up for fraudulent documents were Latino. Here’s a conundrum: Oregon law allows illegals to obtain driver’s licenses or state IDs as long as they have authentic documentation, such as a consulate card or a (frequently Mexican) birth certficate. Yet people are still using fraudulent documents, leading me to wonder if people actually want their real names on a license if they’re illegal.

Already, suspects who might otherwise have gone unchecked have been caught: they confess to buying Social Security cards in Montana, Los Angeles and Hillsboro; and they admit traveling from places such as Nevada and California, where illegal immigrants are prohibited from getting state identification.

No word in the article on whether they take their Oregon ID back to Nevada or California and live there awhile with a totally legitimate document supplied to them by the friendly state of Oregon. And the license clerks are the losers here–learn to properly identify a crappy Mexican birth certificate (”But the pink color, chipped ink and misplaced signature of the birth certificate still did not pass the test.”) or report somebody whose documents are actually genuine, even if it means they’re a genuine illegal. Until Oregon law begins to address their illegal status and not just their fraudulent documents, the DMV’s effort is valiant but only a half measure.

Via Ace, via Snapped Shot.

Sigh.

Well, not totally guy-y, as among the “avid readers” in the poll, the women read nine books and the guys topped out at five. But:

Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography. …

“We see it every time in our store,” says Carla Cohen, owner of the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. “Women head straight for the fiction section and men head for nonfiction.”

I don’t remember the last new novel I read other than finishing up the Potter series. I pull out my Jane Austens very regularly, but for new books it’s all history and biography for me these days. Put that in the stereopype and smoke it.

H/t the Headlines of the King of the Betas. Wonder if he heads straight for the Gerald Ford biographies or picks up the Stephen King.

Did you know the ins and outs of how big-firm attorneys charged?

I didn’t either.

[Reform toward flat-fee or contingency representation is] good for the client, certainly: no more $200 phone calls that last only 5 minutes (but which get billed in 15- and 30-minute increments). No more charges for an attorney to attend a firm-wide half-hour meeting wherein numerous cases are discussed in one-sentence summaries, with each of those clients being billed for the attorney’s full half-hour.

It’s good for the legal system, too. Nothing brings on superflous, unnecessary motion practice like a corporate attorney’s representation of a client with deep pockets.

Yowza. I guess I’m fortunate that so far my dealings with attorneys (as opposed to friends who are attorneys) have been limited to two specified services for two flat fees.

Bonus Venom: Heh.

If you were a hairstylist in a SuperCuts-ish type of place, and you regularly cut the hair of locally based, nationally blogging columnist James Lileks, would you go on being just as surly to him as you were the first time you cut his hair?

And if you never knew who he was, might not you have some friends who would point out how you’re regularly being called out as sullen and “a miserable little scowling pill” on the web, so that you could improve your behavior somewhat?

A: Oh, right. You have no kind friends who might warn you of this depressing fact, because you’re surly. Never mind.

Want the new Harry Potter book without standing in line or ordering online?

Just get married the night of the release. Apparently stores are happy to snub the people they worked so hard to bring in several hours before midnight to put you first in line, as long as you’re coming from your wedding reception.

I defended adult readers of Harry Potter (I am one, after all) in Sarah’s list of stuff that annoys her. But this kind of thing is taking the crazy too far. Grow up, people.

Boston Globe article found through Allah’s House of Fish in a Barrel. Yeah: I’m in Indiana and read a web site run by people in New York and D.C. to find a Boston Globe article detailing an event in the town where I actually live.

I’ve been tagged. I thought it was hard enough to come up with five things, let alone eight more. The rules:

The rules are simple…Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) Habit: I read while I eat. This is a terrific habit for Mom’s Nights Out, meaning I can thoroughly enjoy a nice dinner in a restaurant without the hassle of finding some non-busy person to go out with me. It’s not so great for family life. I’m eyeing my son as he sits at his little table, eating with a Highlights magazine in front of him, and wondering if I can break this habit in time to give him the traditional Meals All Together ‘Round the Table. It’s doubtful. If I gave it up, I’d have to find some other time in my day to read books instead of the internet. Which leads to

2) Fact: I am a net addict. (So are you. Close this browser and walk away. Can’t do it, can you?) It started in college. It’s awful. Self-discipline? What’s that? Someday I’ll break free.

3) Fact: I am simply not a pet person. I wish I were; I do look at dogs and crow, “Oh, you’re a good dog,” but I’m obsessive about having clean hands, and petting animals on a regular basis doesn’t fit with that. And my house is dirty enough without dog or cat hair all over it, thanks. Other than hygiene, I do have a pretty good excuse:

4) Fact: I am deathly allergic to cats. With some breeds of cat, after an hour in the house with them I start to wheeze as though my lungs are filling up. Not. Nice. I am slightly allergic to dogs, but compared to the cat allergy, not so’s you notice.

5) Fact: James Taylor picked me out of a gaggle of embarrassingly behaved women to shake hands with at the end of a concert in Chicago. You know those stories about women throwing their underwear at performers? I used to think they were largely exaggerated, but now I’m sure some morons do that. No panties were flaunted at this event, but women were leaning onto the stage as far as they could, yelling stuff like, “Come home with me, James!!” I stood in the front row horribly embarrassed for the rest of my sex, clapping and cheering and trying to ignore them. He finished singing “Sweet Baby James,” took his bow, then scanned the row of frenzied women and apparently decided I was harmless. Thank you, James, for your talent (and taste!).

6) On the subject of celebrity encounters, fact: One of my ex-boyfriends worked for a TV station that had its own in-house afternoon kids’ show, starring one of my BF’s buddies as a clown. They brought in lots of minor-to-moderate celebrities for this show, with the result that BF once spent the day escorting John de Lancie, of Q fame. Yes, all right, that’s a fact about somebody else, really. I can’t help it, I like celebrity encounters–

7) I do my best to gin up a cool exterior to hide the fact that inside I’m a giggly, melty fangirl. Sometimes I succeed.

8) I got my first passport today. No plans to travel outside the country yet, but I’m excited nevertheless.

Righto, eight facts for your edification and amusement. Now the eight tags: Sarah, Petitedov, Mad William Flint, nk, Xrlq, Slublog, Chris, Allen.

These are fun enough, except the facts about me are boring enough. I’ve got an idea or two for a meme of my own to spread in future.

Tonight I listened to my sister describe how the baby daughter of a friend of hers died after a prolonged illness, many hospital stays, and several surgeries. For the funeral, the parents requested, in lieu of flowers, donations to offset their medical expenses.

I agree with those who think that the combination of medical fees and medical insurance has gone off the rails in this country, but state control is not the way to fix it. Instead, why not make medical insurance a whole hell of a lot more like car insurance? First, divorce health insurance forever from employment. We don’t get car insurance as an employment benefit. It’s compelled by the state, but we still pay for out ourselves. Why should medical coverage be so wedded to employment status? Something like the current health savings accounts could be used to put money away to continue paying for coverage in case of reduced income or loss of job.

We also don’t use auto insurance to get our oil changed, our cars washed, or our tires rotated. We likewise shouldn’t use health insurance for routine doctor visits like checkups or to see about a winter illness that drags on too long. Think $100 is too much for an office visit? Try seeing how much those routine visits would drop in price if people quit coming in so much because those visits were no longer covered. Then insurance, now on a supply-and-demand system that lowered premiums for high deductibles, etc., like auto insurance pricing, could be used to pay for catastrophic, unforeseen “car crashes”–real ones, causing serious injury, or debilitating diseases that require much treatment and hospitalization. Planning to have a child whose routine visits will run every three months or so? Beef up your coverage beforehand if you don’t want to pay for those routine visits at the time they occur.

The added flexibility and cost savings could then be used in possible scenarios for state subsidies of the poor and unemployed. Keep the flexibility of the market. Socialized medicine will be the death knell, figuratively and literally, for a major part of our way of life in the U.S.

Especially if you’re the U.S. Air Force.

The result, Moseley said, is people being assigned to jobs they weren’t trained for. He cited Air Force airmen being used to guard prisoners and serve as drivers and cited one instance in which a female Air Force surgeon was assigned typing chores.

“We got her back,” Moseley said at a breakfast with a group of reporters.

Flying’s a double-edged sword. If they don’t need fliers and those who support fliers, what do you do? Whatever you can, apparently. On the other hand, if they do need fliers, it’s not exactly like they can pluck up an infantry grunt and chuck him into the left seat. Job security?

So much for Gulf War circa 1991.