This AP photo shows the last traditional VW bug to roll off the line in Mexico. It was a great little car and I’ve often thought about getting one as my third car. (Is that bourgeois of me? to want a third car?) I have, also, considered an old monster like a Plymouth Fury or just buying my friend’s old Buick.

I stole this from my new favorite blog. It appears from the video that the man is pointing a gun at the police officers. Turns out it was a cell phone. It breaks my heart that this has to happen at all and it is even worse that it happened in Shreveport.

I received an email from BT on his honeymoon. He sent it to most of the people he knows, but it’s such a great piece that I wanted to post it for posterity.

I’ve got a couple of subcontractors I get quotes from for various functions. There is one whose quotes end up all over compared to the actual costs we incur when we use them. Sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes right on. Then there’s another sub whose quotes are always 10% lower than what we pay them. I prefer the second sub since I can adjust the quotes to what the actual cost is going to be.

The LA Times has a decent opinion column by their resident right-winger on NPR.

I agree much with his sentiments. I, too, can be counted on pretty regularly to cut the check to my local NPR station. I’m not quite so full of venom as Rob Long, though. While in no way would I call ATC or Morning Edition balanced, at least they have open and consistient bias while putting out somewhat deeper reporting and analysis than anywhere else on the radio. And I’ve never really developed a taste for regular FM jocks, or AM talk (with the exception of a certain harmless fuzzball for which I expect to catch crap).

NPR’s like the second contractor I use; consistiently biased, but useful.

A new article at Salon evenly highlights the issues around MDMA and reflects my current feelings on the subject.

I like to refer to the summer of ’94 (or was it ’95?) as the Summer of X. For 12 weeks I spent almost every Friday night scoring X at the local version of an opium den. A dark club packed full of people who were either young enough to be my accidental little brother or sister or old enough to know better, where the line on the street led to a side door near the alley (god forbid you go to a club where people came/went by the front door) and the owner prowled that line genially berating the bored but expectant club kids and techno-trippers — this club was a warm second-home for a young man who was crossing over from the college community into work-a-day adulthood. The first few weeks on X were amazing experiences that I wish everyone could experience. Paraphrasing the pastor who raised me (God rest his sould and forgive mine), “Explaining to someone the feeling of doing X is like describing chocolate pie to someone who’s neither had chocolate nor pie.” However, the last few trips I’ve taken were big let-downs.

If I had known what the cummulative effect of MDMA was, I would have done it much less often — saving up my trips for special occasions. In the aforementioned article Dr Julie Holland is quoted “In essence the government said, since people are sniffing paints, therapists couldn’t use the paint…a huge branch of medicine has been denied a powerful tool.” I would take this one step further and say that because of the government placing MDMA on Schedule 1 many people have taken this drug without knowing the full impact of it’s use. Only a couple more year’s research in the mid-80s and it would not have to be the 21st century before we learn of this impact. Besides, the Libertarian in me sees the banning of MDMA as a puritanical reaction to a citizen having more fun than the politicians. Ultimately, a person should be respnsible for what they do to their body.