AUSTIN IS CRACKING DOWN on illegal use of streetpoles for putting up signs (or, as this site puts it, "street spam"). (via metafilter)

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS for September 7, 2002.

I lost my lucky ball & chain
Now she's four years gone
Just five feet tall and sick of me
And all my rattling on

She walked away from a happy man
I thought I was so cool
I just stood there whistling
"There goes the bride" as she walked out the door

MADISON SLADE is not only blonde and charming, but she also dislikes Ann Coulter. Plus she's anti-fraternity! Good on her.

USA TODAY HAS HAD a phenomenal series of stories this week about the WTC: people who jumped, the 78th floor elevator lobby where the second plane struck the South Tower, people trapped in elevators, and people who survived the collapse.

Uppity-Negro.com complains that a June post of mine about the Central Park jogger case didn't anticipate the recent DNA test revelations.

To summarize: a charming rapist/murderer by the name of Matias Reyes has confessed to taking part in the rape and beating of the jogger, and DNA tests confirm that he was involved. Now, five of the wilding teenagers who were convicted thirteen years ago (and who have been out of prison for years) are petitioning to have their convictions overturned.

The story, as the lawyers put it, is disturbing: black teenagers were railroaded by the press. It's "Bonfire of the Vanities" in reverse, it's the Scottsboro Boys all over again, and Al Sharpton was right all along.

The reality is different.

1.It's a long way from "Reyes got away with rape" to "five accused gang rapists were innocent." There was more than just Reyes's semen at the scene. The convicted rapists confessed. And this isn't an "NYPD Blue"-Dennis-Franz-smacking-around-an-accused-perp-confession, either. The confessions took place on videotape, with the parents present, with the rapists being repeatedly read their rights, and refusing, a lawyer.

2. Even if we assume the worst and five sets of detailed confessions were somehow coerced, this is not a great miscarriage of justice. The convicted rapists were not innocent bystanders; they were part of a gang of youths engaged in a crime spree that attacked nine other people. Five years in prison would have been appropriate for that alone. There are times when it seems wildly unfair that someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone whose best argument is that it was a coincidence that they were mugging someone else feet away from where someone was raped and permanently brain-damaged.

For crying out loud, one of the rapists was arrested carrying a twelve-inch pipe. The real outrage is that if the jogger hadn't gotten so much publicity, none of these criminals would've served much, if any, time.

3. Al Sharpton still behaved execrably: how in hell do you accuse the rape victim, who had no memory of the attack, for being racist?

These reasons explain much why there's still more outrage over the Tawana Brawley case than that of the Central Park jogger. And, one more critical reason: the person who tried to ruin Steven Pagones' life with false accusations and then spent years trying to dodge a libel judgment against him is running for president. So his race-baiting past (and present) remains of relevance.

(U-N also complains about the use of the term "black paper" in the June post. Aside from the fact that it was a direct quote from someone else, rather than my language, the Amsterdam News calls itself a black paper. If you don't like that characterization, complain to them.)

SPEAKING OF EXPLODING PUPPIES, a fascinating difference between England and the U.S. is demonstrated by this Guardian opinion piece attacking religion. It's hard to imagine anyone being willing to print that here, even it were expressed more, um, restrainedly.

DOES THE WORLD REALLY need another Flash exploding puppy web site?

KIBO POINTS TO this amateurish website offering money-saving tips for Halloween costumes.

SKATER

This is easy, but you have to own or be able to borrow a skating outfit. It looks better than any store bought costume too. Put on the skateing outfit as you would usually do. Do not wear shates if you are going out trick-or-treating.

Kibo comments:

What I like about this misspelled-yet-pointless writeup is that you can also follow the instructions in the first two lines to make a Darth Vader costume, if you change "skating" to "Darth Vader".

It goes on from there, and is worth it.

I WAS SURPRISED WHEN I saw Howard Bashman's report that Zacarias Moussaoui's entertaining ramblings would henceforth be kept under seal, but the judge's order is not quite that ridiculous. Moussaoui had been writing two-page after two-page diatribe that had nothing to do with seeking legal relief and everything to do with circumventing the regulations prohibiting him from contacting the outside world. The judge's order reflects that, and notes that legitimate requests for judicial relief will be unsealed.

A MARVELOUS PIECE summarizing DVD commentary tracks for movies you'd never want to rent.

MARK IT: First appearance of a "blog" in Doonesbury on September 5, 2002.

IN CASE YOU WERE worried that "Jesus appearing on a tortilla" is unique to Western Christian societies, Ananova is reporting that Pilgrims are flocking to a "divine potato" shaped like the Hindu Lord Ganesha, who you might remember from the Simpsons episode.

A FRIEND MAILED ME a link to this AP article about a Temple linguist defending the use of "like" in conversational English. (E.g., "He has, like, six sisters.'') I was a little skeptical of the story when I saw that the linguist's name is Muffy Siegel, but if it's a joke, it's one that extends to the Temple web site.

I WAITED TEN MINUTES for service at a Wendy's the other day. I settled for getting my money back and going home and cooking, but apparently I should have waited another five minutes and sued for discrimination. (via Overlawyered)

(If I had $1,000 every time I got bad service at a Taco Bell...)

HEIMATSCHUTZ UPDATE. (via Kaus)

ASIAN MARKET WITH funny name.

SPELLING BEE FAMILY.

THE PEOPLE WHO SHOP at Fresh Fields in DC (like the people who used to shop at Mrs. Gooch's in LA) are either yuppies like me who admire the cheese and deli-case selection or Ralph Nader types who are willing to pay a higher price for the privilege of feeding their mistaken beliefs that (1) the naturally-occurring pesticides in the strains of plants grown for commercial organic food farming are safer than the smaller amounts of man-made pesticides used for non-"organic" food and (2) they're sticking it to The Man by avoiding the Corporate Grocery Store. So it's mysterious to me why Whole Foods Market, the national chain without a national advertising campaign, seeks to repeat its mistake in Los Angeles, and rename the Fresh Fields stores it has owned here for seven years, and remind its customers that it is a national chain.

On the other hand, I remember when Starbuck's was considered underground and trendy by the left, right about when they opened their first stores on the East Coast. This was before it joined the McDonald's/Gap/Nike Axis Of Globalization. Starbuck's doesn't seem to have suffered from the shift in perception, so I imagine Whole Foods will rebound also.