Is anyone surprised that Child Protective Services cocked up big time regarding the West Texas polygamist ranch?

From the Dallas Morning News at 5:51CDT:

The Texas Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion that Child Protective Services’ removal of children was “not warranted,” and that the agency had “failed to attempt legal steps, short of taking custody, to protect the children.”

Nice one, guys. I’m sure this can all be remedied by increasing your budget, the continual sucking off taxpayers’ teats.

I guess you can judge a book by its cover:

Our books are so beautiful on the outside that their interior ceases to be important.

You filthy philistines. You make me sick.

Link via Boing Boing.

After 10 months in Laguna Beach as a one-vehicle family, we take possession of a mean little (light blue) scooter this afternoon, the Piaggio MP3 250.

Personal pictures will be forthcoming; in the meantime, a preview:

Fourteen and a half years ago I met my wife (aka The Wife) at the Galaxy Club in Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas.

Eight years ago today we were married at Life Guard Station No. 19 in Hermosa Beach, California.

Thanks, babe. You rule my world.

In the twenty or so years that have passed since I first read Catch-22 I’d forgotten just how absolutely brilliant Heller’s debut was. If the best satire draws blood, Catch-22 is a glorious, genocidal bloodbath:

“In a democracy, the government is the people,” Milo explained. “We’re people, aren’t we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman. Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. If we pay the government everything we owe it, we’ll only be encouraging government control and discouraging other individuals from bombing their own men and planes. We’ll be taking away their incentive.”

Just as the Olypmics shouldn’t have been given to China, the 2010 World Cup (the world’s only meaningful sporting event) shouldn’t have been given to South Africa.

From the BBC (27 January 2007):

A hospital building programme in South Africa has been put back, to help pay for the football World Cup which the country is hosting in 2010.

From the Times (20 May 2008):

But it is the return of “neck-lacing”—when “traitors” had rubber tyres draped over their necks and set on fire—which has most appalled liberal commentators as well as many ordinary citizens and triggered a bout of soul-searching as to why the country has veered so far off course.

From the Globe and Mail (20 May 2008):

The attacks on foreigners have exacerbated concerns that high levels of violent crime coupled with poor infrastructure and a dire electricity crisis could prompt Europeans and other foreigners to watch the World Cup games from home.

Spreading the wealth is the antithesis of competition.

Instead of  asking the question, “Will there be blood?”, we should be asking, “How much blood will be spilled?”

I hope Sepp Blatter brushes up on the principles of triage before 2010.

I’m doing a little time travelling right now, so my posting may slow down over the next few days . . . There just doesn’t seem to be any better way to chase down a story than to follow it like a white rabbit into the past or the future.

“What was this time travelling? A man couldn’t cover himself with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?” — HG Wells, The Time Machine