LILEKS visits Restoration Hardware. The link isn't such a big deal, I just liked the following anecdote:

I love to catch errors in the stories. Once they had a line of cocktail goods. They’re always pushing cocktail culture on people, be it 30s style martini shakers, tiki culture, bachelor-pad barware. The Golden Age of Alcoholism. There was a zinc item whose streamlined shape was reminiscent of “the nadir of the Roaring 20s.” I heard Wallace Shawn in Princess Bride: Inconceivable! The author had confused nadir with zenith. I pointed this out to a clerk, who said, grimly: good. I love to know they’re wrong.

(For Julia, who likes this sort of story.)

A WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE about the Obey Giant guy.

ANOTHER INGENIOUS SECURITY MEASURE:

Yesterday, message boards went up on 17th Street announcing the truck restrictions, law enforcement officials said. Trucks and all parking will be barred between E Street and Pennsylvania Avenue near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where parking is now limited to government use. Trucks will be barred from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. between Constitution Avenue and E Street and between H Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, a congressional official said.

Under the plan, only trucks making deliveries to businesses along the affected portion of 17th Street will be allowed passage, according to a District official. Law enforcement officers will monitor truck traffic to ensure compliance.

This plan will surely work because, after all, a truck bomb would never be placed in a truck making a delivery.

WHILE YOU WEREN'T LOOKING, the prime example throughout the 1980's and 1990's of a "small market" that can't hope to compete in Major League Baseball, Seattle, has become a "big market", according to a Washington Post kiss-up to Bud Selig. Still, the Mariners, say the Washington Post, can't hope to compete with the "Big Six":

The Mariners and Twins aren't members of baseball's exclusive club of rich teams, the so-called "Big Six:" the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox. These teams enjoy inherent advantages over the other 24 in market size, revenues and ties with media groups. AOL Time Warner owns the Braves, Tribune Company the Cubs and News Corp. the Dodgers. Sheer market size and corporate connections give the Big Six more resources – and fans.

Let's see, the Mets are mediocre, the Cubs are worse than mediocre, the Red Sox are in contention but are better known for not having won a World Series in over 80 years. The Yankees and Braves have had regular success. The Dodgers haven't, though they're marginally in contention this year.

Of course, the "Big Six" leaves out the Anaheim Angels, who are owned by Disney and are in the same size market as the Dodgers, but have never made a World Series (though they're in contention this year for the first time in years). Why not a "Big Seven"? What about the government-subsidized Texas Rangers, who have the highest paid player in baseball, and are regular participants in the free agent market? Why not a "Big Eight"? Just a few years ago, the Orioles were counted in that category of big-spending teams with a new ballpark who other teams couldn't hope to compete with; so were the Indians. Once those two teams stopped winning, the media stopped referring to them as big market teams.

POWER'S FIFTH LAW: No matter how obvious something is satirical, there will be somebody sufficiently humor-impaired to not get the joke.

ISLAM: a religion of peace. (via Lileks)

TWO SEPARATE READERS e-mailed me about these fascinating unintended consequences of Google highlighting (also here) providing new meaning to ASCII art, which I guess is the critical mass at which point I drop the summary judgment brief to post.

IF THIS WERE A TABLOID, I'd have a headline like "Chick Hearn's Tragic Last Days" or something like that. (Also: AP report.) I lived several years in Chicago during their championship run, and don't remember a single Bulls announcer, but Hearn was something else during my time in LA.