aubreyturner.org

It seems fortuitous that Kim du Toit wrote about his trip to Cabela’s today.  I had mentioned earlier that Cabela’s was planning to build a store near my house.  It now appears to be definite.

The popular outdoor retailer Cabela’s is expected to announce Friday that it will build megastores in Fort Worth and south of Austin, backed by local tax incentives and cash from the state, sources close to the deal said Wednesday.

In addition to the tax incentives that Cabela’s will receive from Fort Worth and is expected to get from the small town of Buda, the company will be awarded $600,000 from the Texas Enterprise Fund, the sources said.

…

Gov. Rick Perry and city and company officials are expected to hold a news conference Friday in Fort Worth to announce the Cabela’s store here. The store is planned for the northeast corner of Texas 170 and Interstate 35W. Hillwood Development Corp., the Perot family’s real estate company, owns the site and would sell it to Cabela’s.

Construction could begin as early as next month on the 200,000-square-foot store, expected to employ about 500 people and generate first-year sales of $67.5 million. It’s not clear how much the company will spend on the land and construction.

Kim mentioned that the store in Mitchell is about half the size of the Bass Pro in Grapevine.  The new Cabela’s will be on-par with Bass Pro, since according to the Tarrant Appraisal District Bass Pro is approximately 213,686 sq. ft.

I thought it had to be a joke when I heard about it on the radio this morning.  However, it would appear that there is indeed a sport called Extreme Ironing.  Their site describes it as

…the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.

Check out the pictures.

When I went into the store last night I couldn’t help but notice their display for the Huggies brand of disposable swimpants.  The reason is that they’re called “Little Swimmers.”  It left me wondering if anyone in the product naming group had ever given any consideration for the other meaning for that term.

Ok.  I admit it—I have an evil mind…

OptIn Real Big has obtained an injunction against IronPort, the company that owns SpamCop.  For those who don’t know, SpamCop is a service that automatically decodes the headers on spam emails and sends notifications to the spammer’s ISP about the spam.  Since sending spam is a violation of the TOS or AUP for most ISPs, this usually gets the spammer kicked off the service.

Scott Richter, the self-professed “Spam King” and president of e-mail marketing company OptIn, sued IronPort and SpamCop on April 29 for allegedly interfering with his business and causing his Internet service providers to block his company’s e-mail. He also charged SpamCop with not disclosing the identity of people who complain about its e-mail, thereby aiding potential violations of the Can-Spam Act, which requires the removal of people from future mailings if they so choose.

“This whole system is done in the dark—we don’t know who’s complaining, what the substance of the complaint is, and there’s no opportunity to correct the complaint” to comply with provisions in the Can-Spam Act that require a company to remove people from a mailing list, said Steven Richter, an attorney for OptIn.

“We’re asking for the right to handle complaints.”

First, there should be enough information in a SpamCop ISP report to identify the offender and the recipient.  In fact, there is more information than that there, because I have one spammer who added my SpamCop address to their “opt-in” list (as I have noted before, I use a unique address for all of my online dealings, one which indicates the company that I’m doing business with, and since I own several domains I know these addresses have not been used before).

Frankly, this points out one of the weaknesses (of which there are many) of the CAN SPAM act.  It requires that the receiver of spam contact the sender to be removed.  Since spammers have proven themselves to be unscrupulous bastards, no one with any sense will contact the spammer to ask to be removed, since this usually just confirms that the address is active and results in more spam. 

I know that in my own dealings with Opt In Real Big that their claims of having obtained permission to send me spam are lies.  They were using an address that I had given to a company that I knew I had told not to send me any promotional emails.  Further, they were advertising things from another company entirely. 

If they think this is going to make life any easier for them, they’re sadly mistaken, though.  If I get any spam from these bastards while the injunction is in progress I’ll just report them to their ISP myself.  I have the knowledge to hunt them down on my own, it’s just that SpamCop provided a handy automated interface to do what would otherwise would take me several steps to do myself.

More discussion of this topic is available on Slashdot.

Just when I think my dog has settled down into a routine she goes and does something exceedingly stupid (and dangerous this time).  On our daily trips to the park I usually roll down the windows to let her stick her head out and get some air.  I’ve never worried about her trying to jump out, since she never tried it when she saw a squirrel or another dog (when she’s out of the truck it’s nearly impossible to restrain her from chasing squirrels).  But today she practically launched herself out of the window just after I’d turned into the park.  Fortunately we were only going about 5 MPH, but the bad thing was that she ran in FRONT of the truck and headed for the grass.  I got out and yelled at her to get back and she rather sheepishly came back and jumped into the back seat.  Needless to say I didn’t take her for a walk after that.  Also, she’ll never get to ride with the windows down again, either. 

Later this evening I realized that somehow during her fifteen seconds of freedom she managed to lose the tag on her collar that has my address and phone number.  I had a sinking feeling when I realized that if she’d gotten away that there would have been no way for anyone to identify her or get in touch with me.  I think it may be time to have her chipped.

I’m about to get out of here for the weekend as I’m heading home to visit my mother. 

You did remember that this is Mother’s Day weekend, right?  If not, you’d better get with it!

As if what he suffered wasn’t bad enough, some asshole vandalized the gravesite of James Byrd Jr.

The gravesite of a black man who was dragged to death in 1998 by three white men was found desecrated Thursday, police said.

An obscenity and racial epithet were carved into a small metal plate on the bottom of the broken tombstone of James Byrd Jr.  Byrd’s name and birthdate were engraved on the plate.

I guess for some people there really is nothing left that commands respect.  Why is it so hard to just let the poor man rest in peace?

Can someone please explain to me the massively overhyped popularity of the Olsen Twins?  I honestly don’t get it.

I was reminded of all this when I saw WFAA’s film critic, Gary Cogill, review their new movie this morning.  Of course, it seems as if movie critics exist to pan movies, but I’ve agreed with his assessment more often than not.  Here’s what he had to say about New York Minute.

New York Minute marks the feature film debut of the popular Olsen twins. It’s also a dreadful, irresponsible mess of a movie that sends all the wrong signals.

And that’s just the opening of the review.  I especially liked the sledgehammer bit, which is later on in the review.

I hate to say it, but I think Charles has gone over the edge concerning the mistreatment of the Iraqi prisoners.  Yesterday he linked a parody piece that made fun of the situation.  Today he says it isn’t torture, although it may be a war crime.  I’m not willing to make these kinds of distinctions, nor is it something to be taken lightly.  I can almost understand how it would be easy to not understand the seriousness of the allegations, though.  So many groups have been accusing the US of torture, murder, etc at every step of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns that like the boy who cried wolf no one will take him seriously when the problem turns out to be real.

But when you get right down to it, any mistreatement is unacceptable.  Dammit!  We’re Americans, we’re supposed to be better than that!  Or at least we strive to be.  At least we’re starting to get this mess into the open so that the guilty can be punished.  In that respect we have an opportunity to show the Iraqi people how this is supposed to be done.

However, there are several things I’ve heard that simply leave me scratching my head.  The first is that somehow the guards didn’t have sufficient training.  There’s a simple, concise response to this: Bullshit!  It doesn’t take a directive from a general to let you know that it’s wrong to strip prisoners and take degrading pictures or wire their genitals.  I would have thought that general rules of civility (which should have been hammered into their heads as pre-schoolers) would have been sufficient.  I also heard somewhere that they were understaffed.  This dog won’t hunt, either.  If they were so understaffed, how did they have the time for this nonsense?

But responsibility starts at the top.  I find it interesting that the commander just didn’t understand her role in all of this.

During the course of this investigation I conducted a lengthy interview with BG Karpinski that lasted over four hours, and is included verbatim in the investigation Annexes.  BG Karpinski was extremely emotional during much of her testimony.  What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.

This is particularly damning given all the carping in the world media that had gone on by this time about Guantanamo.  She had to have known that the political aspects of the situation demanded accountability with regards to the treatment of the prisoners.  Because regardless of whether any actual abuse occurred, there would be groups screaming loudly to the world press that it had.  Someone at the level of Brigadier General should have understood this and issued orders that anticipated such scrutiny.  That she’s now trying to squirm out of responsibility for actions that occurred under her command would seem to show that she was not fit for that command.

Update:  Upon reading the U.S. Army report on Iraqi prisoner abuse I changed the link above (with the quote concerning Karpinski) from The Command Post to the actual report. 

For those who say what happened was not torture, I would think that these incidents (taken directly from the report) would tend to argue against their position.

6.  (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

a.  (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;

b.  (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;

c.  (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

d.  (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

e.  (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;

f.  (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

g.  (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;

h.  (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;

i.  (S) Writing “I am a Rapest”  (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;

j.  (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;

k.  (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;

l.  (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;

m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

…

8.  (U) In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):

a.  (U) Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;

b.  (U) Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;

c.  (U) Pouring cold water on naked detainees;

d.  (U) Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;

e.  (U) Threatening male detainees with rape;

f.  (U) Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;

g.  (U) Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

h.  (U) Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

The federal government is at it again (obnoxious registration required for that link).

A nationwide mandate to make street signs larger for the aging U.S. population will mean thousands of new signs in North Texas cities and more than $1 million in costs for Fort Worth.

Tens of thousands of street signs—from 1st Avenue to Zwolle Street—will be replaced in coming years with signs that bear 6-inch letters to comply with new rules from the Federal Highway Administration.

Most North Texas cities will make the changes as they routinely replace aging street signs. But in Fort Worth, officials are being forced to revive a routine replacement program that had been scrapped to save money.

Over the next eight years, Fort Worth will spend $1.2 million to replace 15,000 street signs that have 4-inch letters, officials said.

I don’t doubt that replacing the signs is a good idea (even I have trouble with some of the tiny street signs around here).  However, I do question how this is any business of the federal government.  While the article isn’t completely clear on this point, it would appear that this was done through federal rule-making, rather than via any action by Congress.  It would seem to me that any action by the federal government that results in any kind of cost should have to go through a vote in Congress, rather than simply being introduced by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats.  This, of course, ignores the question of just which part of the constitution gives the federal government jurisdiction over street signs in the first place.