Well, bother: Chris Penn, who played Nice Guy Eddie Cabot in Reservoir Dogs, died yesterday at age 43 40.

Police found his body in an apartment in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was noted, but foul play was not suspected. Mr. Penn was the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, and related by marriage (by way of his musician brother, Michael) to singer-songwriter Aimee Mann.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the European news service, Reuters.

EDIT: Mr. Penn's age was previously reported to be 43. Your correspondent regrets the error, which stemmed from believed-to-be-accurate recounting of IMDB information. The IMDB now reflects an age of 40 for Mr. Penn.

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Here's what happens when you go on a binge of playing NCAA Football on the PlayStation 2: You miss things such as JohnL's tagging of you to participate in a meme. JohnL's the guy who was nice enough to get me aboard at mu.nu, so I more than owe it to him to participate, even if I'm horribly behind schedule. Here goes:

Here's what you do:

1. Go to your Netflix (or Blockbuster online) queue.
2. List ALL of the movies in the queue (at the very least, try to list at least the first ten).
3. Italicize (or bold) the ones you've seen before.
3a. (OPTIONAL) include snarky commentary or thumbnail reviews where desired.
4. Tag 3 people.

Er, wait. I don't have a Blockbuster Online or Netflix queue. I don't rent things anymore; I just buy them.

Well, this pretty much shoots that meme in the head. Now I'm in a pickle because I don't know how to proceed. If you flunk step 1, do you have to go to steps 2-4? Tagging people would be...really hard.

Blast it, Biggs.

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It's getting bandied about that Stephen Harper and his merry band of united rightists in the Conservative Party of Canada may tonight win the right to form a government in Canada, replacing the Liberals after something like twelve years.

This is a good thing from my admittedly American perspective.

I have nothing against Canada. I like certain aspects of its culture (go Nova Scotia!) and I like certain aspects of its transportation network, namely the financial performance of the Canadian National Railway and the efforts of the Canadian Pacific Railway to do something other than merely count beans. The Canadians were even nice enough to let us borrow Mr. David L. Gunn, late of the Amtrak presidency. Heck, I even like the national sport up there, hockey. I just don't get to watch much of it down here.

Thus, you can imagine that I've not been happy at the recent and less recent string of separation between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada. I don't think I care very much for Pierre Trudeau's policies of knee-jerk anti-Americanism ("Ze Americans are for more oxygen and the universal provision of foodstuffs? We are not for zis!") and the like. After all, the world's largest unguarded border ought to mean something, and our nations ought to be right chummy.

I suppose the point is that the Canadian peoples have a chance to improve relations with the United States, something that I think would be a good thing in the near future. Why is that, you ask? Well, because I worry that circumstances in the Middle East (i.e. Iran) may require a well-organized and united front from the premier security alliance on the face of the earth, NATO. I sincerely hope that circumstances don't, but I hear people hoped President Lincoln could resolve the crisis with South Carolina, and that didn't work out too well either.

Back when I was in law school and during the run-up to the operations in Iraq, I had the opportunity to be at one of the weekend social gatherings that invariably involved a lot of alcohol. Yours truly had been engaged in a vicious battle between the unholy alliance of Coca-Cola and Jim Beam. As Emperor Hirohito put it, "the war situation has developed not necessarily to [my] advantage".

Somehow---at on or about 0200 hours, things are fuzzy---we got to the war situation. A very earnest young man angrily declared that the President was not consulting traditional allies and so forth, noting Canada's opposition to the war movement. This went on for a bit before I, rather unwisely, stabbed a finger in the general direction of the voice and bellowed out, "The reason we're ignoring them is because nobody cares what Canada thinks!" A bit of silence descended---Denis Leary's "chill" after knocking Muppets creator Jim Henson---and I pressed on: "Look, when Canada gets mad, what happens? Bad folk songs and whiny articles in the Canadian press? I'm scared. What happens when the United States gets mad? It's 'Codeword: TRINITY, Dayword: JERICHO' time and someone somewhere gets hurt with extreme prejudice. Canada's opinion will matter when they've got a military worthy of the name, and not some rump force supplied with aging helicopters, continual reductions, and succeeding solely on the skill and gallantry of its soldiers."

The rest of the evening consisted of me shambling away to fight against the surviving remnants of the mixing table, and I don't know where the discussion went from there. However, I've thought about that from time to time and realized In Beamo, veritas.

It has been pointed out by other writers that the Dominion once had the fourth-largest/capable military in the world at the end of World War II. Inasmuch as the others were (in some order) the United States, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United Kingdom, that's pretty good. Heck, Canada had fixed-deck naval aviation until the 1960s or so, and that's respectable. Mr. Harper has campaigned on improving Canada's armed forces, and I like that.

A strong(er) military will mean that Canada gets a better seat at the table when talking to people abroad. That is a good thing for them, and it might put some teeth in that "moral superpower" business. I for one wouldn't mind seeing an aggressive humanitarian intervention against some of these African stooges whose last election campaign ended when Gracie Slick was belting out "Somebody to Love" for the first time.

Good luck and bonne chance, Canada. I hope you choose Mr. Harper to bring your nation to a renewed position of vigor.

NOTE: Due to national laws prohibiting the release of election-related news on Election Day until the polls close, I obviously can't comment up or down until some time after ten o'clock P.M. here in the East. I'll probably be tuned to Canada 360, XM 244. Maybe they'll be able to skirt this rule somehow and give me some scoop. Sorry that I haven't any better information than this.

NOTE THE SECOND: This didn't post when I meant for it to, which as at 1800 hours---user error to be sure---but it's still offered if only for faint historical value.

UPDATE: Per the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Mr. Harper and the Conservatives have won a minority government. The Conservatives have 125 seats in Parliament, which is more than anyone else but not an outright majority, thus the term "minority government". (Technically, perhaps this should be plurality, but I'm not well versed in such things.)

Coming in next are the Liberals with 102, the Bloc Quebecois with 29, and the New Democratic Party with 25. Hooray!

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"God's in His heaven; all's right with the world!"

Theo Epstein returns to Fenway Park

This is news from the earlier part of the day, but I just now got the time to post it. Perhaps there shall be revenge upon the other Sox, and perhaps another thrilling victory over the hated Yankees. Hooray! Hooray!

Rah rah rass, kick Steinbrenner's [expletive deleted]!

OK, back to cleaning out stuff.

EDIT: In my (probably premature) elation, I forgot to mention this: Enthusiastic tip of the battered Red Sox hat to The Soxaholix.

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Well, the Vick entry was scrubbed because I simply no longer care. Good riddance, hasta la vista, et cetera, et cetera. I'll laugh when some small-market team gets him.

Allow me to sing praise to the XM radio system, for the following reason:

Channel 27 played selections from the Don Davis/Juno Reactor scores for the Matrix trilogy.

While I'm not a die-hard Matrix type, I did enjoy the soundtrack scores produced for the pictures. One, maybe two, major papers were written to the eerie industrial beats and dissonance from these, and darned if they didn't both come out with solid grades.

Anyways. I'm driving back from an outing, and I'm fiddling with my XM radio. I'm paging through the channels as usual, hunting for an artist or two to secure in the notification system, when I pass Cinemagic. This channel has already scored with me for playing John Williams' work on Star Wars and subsequent productions, but tonight provided a perfect fusion of music, road, and opportunity.

Your correspondent is like most men in that he likes fast cars, especially those of the NASCAR, Formula 1 and NHRA sort. Therefore he cannot turn down an opportunity to run a deserted and winding back country road at night, especially when the XM station's playing something out of the collective of Don Davis and Juno Reactor.

Yeah, I turned up the volume on the radio to deafening levels and took off on the road. I've been driving it for years, but I'd never tried it with "Navras" before.

As John Travolta's character in Broken Arrow says, "What a rush!"

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The Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University college football program has released starting quarterback Marcus Vick after his actions during the Gator Bowl. Vick, a redshirt junior from Newport News, stomped on a prone Louisville DE, Elvis Dumervil during the Gator Bowl's second quarter.

It's about bloody time someone put their foot down (no pun intended) on the misdeeds of Vick the Younger. Marcus Vick has been a blot on the team's reputation since his first days in Blacksburg. A press conference by school officials has been called for this coming Saturday. I will, sooner or later, provide commentary.

Good riddance.

For further information, see:
CNN/SI
The Richmond Times-Dispatch
Hokiesports.com

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Although your correspondent cares mostly about rail transportation, rails can't bridge the Atlantic, and so there are things that float to be interested in. Generally, they're painted haze gray, but I digress.

Today's "Oh, that's interesting" Wikipedia article is Panamax. No, that's not the less-successful recording format defeated by Betamax, but rather refers to the maximum allowable dimensions of a vessel if it is to clear the Panama Canal. This limit is not an absolute ceiling; the US Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are not capable of passing through the Panama Canal. Furthermore, large commercial vessels (supertankers and the like, I suppose) are being built that exceed the Canal's dimensions, and thus have to round Cape Horn with our carriers.

This is an example of engineering decisions made a century or more ago imposing limits on modern day commerce, which I always find interesting. This happens in railroading as well; just ask Amtrak about its attempts to improve schedules north of New York City. Decisions made during the assembly of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad system---in the late 1800s and early 1900s---are reportedly one of the major constraints for improvements.¹

Other "max" classification areas include the Suez Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

I found this whilst looking up the ownership of SS United States, the now-defunct United States Lines.

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¹ One unattributable story that I've read suggests that the New Haven management intended to realign some of the worst sections after World War II. The company was acquiring its new right-of-way when Patrick B. McGinnis took over management from Frederick C. DuMaine, Jr. in a 1954 proxy fight. Mr. McGinnis promptly sold all the acquired land to the State of Connecticut or other agencies, permanently dooming the idea.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Stolen shamelessly from The Llama Butchers.

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1. Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys? I suppose the Beach Boys, because they've more or less hung it up, unlike Jagger and the surviving Beatles. I don't like any of these people.

2. Kant, Hegel, Marx? I'll take Hegel, 'cause I used to cheat my way through college bull sessions using his synthesis as a sledgehammer. Only in the academy could claiming purity of principle due to one's position as the thesis-maker (and subsquent noble granting of the occasional antithesis) get you anywhere. Steve was right: Kant is annoying. I hate idiot philosophers who think that the entire human experience fits neatly into a little treatise.

3. Cluedo, Monopoly, Scrabble? I'll take Monopoly, because where else can I buy the whole Pennsylvania Railroad? That is, if you land there before I do, I will stab you.

4. Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford? Toss-up between Newman and Redford. The latter made movies that I really enjoyed---The Natural and Sneakers, but I can't actually speak words condemning Paul Newman.

5. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart? As Ace Rothstein used to say, "I have no opinion on that."

6. Australia, Canada, New Zealand? Australia, with all thy faults! Thou hast given me Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman, with Naomi Watts on the side. How could there be any other answer?

7. Groucho, Chico, Harpo? Eh, er...I claim youth and inexperience.

8. Morning, afternoon, evening? Evening. I hate mornings.

9. Bridge, Canasta, Poker? None of the above!

10. Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? I've got to go with O Brother, Where Art Thou?, easily. Now is you, or is you not, my constituents?

11. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau? Hobbes, of course. There were points in college philosophy classes for those who took up his banner and defended it against the smug Randroids or the naive devotees of other philosophers. Yeah, I was real fun in college.

12. Cricket, football (soccer), rugby?. Why, football of course. D.C. United for life.

13. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte? Er, I was busy examining my eyelids for structural cracks that day in AP English.

14. Parker, Gillespie, Monk? None; I've got better things to do with my musical tastes.

15. Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham? D.C. United, thank you.

16. Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld? I'll have to go with the Boston-centric sitcom, since that's the only one I really saw.

17. Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart? Sheila O'Malley will have my hide for this, but it's not Cary Grant. Although I liked Henry Fonda in Fail-Safe, I have to go with the man who was pilot-qualified in the Convair B-36 Peacemaker and the Boeing B-47 Stratojet: Jimmy Stewart.

18. France, Germany, Italy? I expected better from the Butchers, but I'll take France. Why? Well, the TGV Paris Sud-Est, Atlantique, and Reseau, their hand in the Concorde, Catherine Deneuve, Laetitia Casta and Melissa Theuriau, Joan of Arc, the Richeliu-class battleships, and several good-looking jet fighters. Plus, Paris.

19. Apple, orange, banana? Orange, please.

20. Statham, Tyson, Trueman? These appear to be cricket players, but I haven't the foggiest.

21. Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo? Never saw 'em.

22. Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Ingrid Bergman? Er, scores of Internet tests say 'Katharine Hepburn'. Enh, I suppose so, once I punctured both my eardrums so as not to hear that nails-on-a-chalkboard accent of hers.

23. Chinese, Indian, Thai? They all look like toxic waste to me. Curry powder ought to be considered something of a chemical weapon in and of itself.

24. Handel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi? Handel, without question. His Messiah is one of my favorite classical works.

25. Oasis, Radiohead, Blur? Blur, if only for the song used in trailers for Verhoeven's Starship Troopers and for the reason that Damon Albarn used to be linked to Elastica's Justine Frischmann. I've got no bloody use for the Gallagher brothers, and Radiohead can go soak its head.

26. Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Yes Minister? Never saw 'em. PBS wasn't a staple of my earlier years.

27. Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw? "I never forget a face, Mister....Chekhov." Well, that's not the Chekhov they're talking about, but one does what one can.

28. American football, baseball, basketball? What, is this some sort of test to be administered to the German infiltrator in Stalag Luft 17? The answer is baseball, without question. Followed eventually by college football. The NFL and the NBA may pleasantly rot, although I hope the Pats bring it home again.

29. FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton? Although I grind my teeth saying it, the "other" Roosevelt. He at least liked railroads, from what I understand.

30. Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky? Trotsky, without a doubt. Why? Because I was once told in college that Trotsky was the one who should have succeeded V.I. Lenin. This was not said because the speaker was pro-Communist; rather, it was said from a very Western position of interest. The man's angle was that Trotsky would have gotten to the helm of the USSR and promptly demanded worldwide revolution, acting towards it as best the Comintern could. Such actions would perhaps have gotten the attention of a lot of Western European governments (and perhaps ours as well) and thus warranted a decisive military response in the later 1920s.

Strangling Communism in its cradle circa 1927 or so, with Stalin exiled to Siberia beforehand, could only have been good for the world.

31. Paris, Rome, New York? Having been to all three, I'll go with Rome. St. Peter's is really hard to beat. Pick New York? I'd just as soon kiss a Wookiee.

32. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck? Fitzgerald. Although I've only read The Great Gatsby, that was good enough. Uncle Ernie suffers from his lifestyle, thanks to accounts from Andy Rooney.

33. Blue, green, red? Yes, please. Pevler blue, dark green locomotive enamel, and Tuscan red. All look mighty fine on the flanks of diesel-electric or pure electric locomotives.

34. Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story? I'll go with My Fair Lady, mostly because of Julie Andrews. If not that, then Guys and Dolls. West Side Story probably was a harbinger of the flood of cultural rot and decay in the coming decade. Plus, it's annoying.

35. J.S. Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick? Punt. I don't know anything about the latter two, and I usually wanted to strangle Mill's corpse in college.

36. Armstrong, Ellington, Goodman? Er, Benny Goodman. But that's a stretch.

37. Ireland, Scotland, Wales (at rugby)? Since I don't know my ancestry, Erin go bragh.

38. The Sopranos, 24, Six Feet Under? Pass. Never actually watched any of 'em.

39. Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Saturday. College football, don't you know.

40. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear? Macbeth, 'cause it's creepy.

41. Fried, boiled, scrambled (eggs)? Scrambled, boy.

42. Paths of Glory, Cross of Iron, Saving Private Ryan? I've only seen the last one in that string, so I'll punt.

43. England, Australia, West Indies (at cricket)? England.

44. Chabrol, Godard, Truffaut? Huh?

45. Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks? None of the above; I don't like Bob Dylan.

46. Trains, planes, automobiles? Trains. Did you have to ask? Be it the Broadway Limited or the Powhatan Arrow, I can't imagine a better way to travel than by rail. Unless of course it's by a vessel of the White Star or Cunard lines, but that's a different issue.

47. North By Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo? Not a Hitch fan; don't know.

48. Third, Fourth, Fifth (Beethoven Piano Concerto)? Cultural ingrate here; don't know.

49. Coffee, tea, chocolate? Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Alternatively, tea, sweet.

50. Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin? Er, I don't know. All three?

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Which OS are You?

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Tip of the Wisconsin hat to TexasBestGrok.

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It appears that the University of Southern California has lost the national championship of college football to the University of Texas. I note without sorrow the defeat of the USC Trojans.

I would of course have preferred that a team from the ACC or the SEC be the national champion, but that will come perhaps next year. (Y'hear me, Spurrier? The future is now, as they say on Imus in the Morning, with original credit to Washington Redskins coach George F. Allen, Senior.)

Congratulations to the Longhorns, and take that, Matt Leinart & Reggie Bush. TexasBestGrok is my choice for associated coverage.

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-Johnny Damon, you are dead to me. If you were on fire in the street in front of me, I would not put you out. In fact, I'd probably be the reason you were on fire in the street to begin with.

That being said, the loss of Johnny Damon to the Yankees is not the end of the world. He's not Ted Williams, after all. Even EA Sports' MVP 2005 says the man has a candy arm. I distinctly remember something on the order of, "They like hitting to center field, 'cause they know it's not coming back at them..."

Commenters on a pair of threads at Soxaholix noted that Damon wanted too much money for what he was worth to the team. The front office either got caught by surprised, or agreed with the analysis of the commenters. We shall see how Mr. Damon does in the City of New York.

-The prospect of getting Miguel Tejada is not unwelcome. A long-time Orioles fan that I know would probably swallow his tongue if Boston picked him up, so it might be worth pursuing on that basis alone. It would be fun calling him up and laughing every time Tejada contributes to a Boston win, especially over Baltimore.

-I am eagerly looking forward to following as many games as possible on my new XM radio. That "FEBRUARY 16, 2006" notation on the lower info line mocks me too much! Of course, I'll have to buy a home kit for the thing so that I can lay out in the back yard looking at the stars or something.

-I need a new Red Sox hat. Mine now is faded as if it were an old Conrail unit that last saw the paint shop prior to the introduction of the "CONRAIL QUALITY" scheme. This has been confirmed by comparison of pictures taken December 2004 and visual inspection as of December 2005.

UPDATE: What was I thinking, mentioning Conrail where the Norfolk and Western Railway would do? May the shade of Racehorse Smith forgive me! My Red Sox hat is faded like an N&W unit painted in Pevler Blue. Ahem.

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At this point in time, it is necessary to compartmentalize the events in Upshur County, West Virginia. Twelve men are dead, and nothing can be done to bring them back. It is likely that these men were of the Christian faith, and as such, stand an excellent chance of being reunited with their families in the indeterminate future.

I am grateful for the careers and lives of these men, because it is entirely possible that coal dug by them went to power plants which keep my lights on. This is somewhat simplistic, but I do believe that it's important to note. Like others have said, the coal miner is a forgotten man in the complex culture & economy that we have in 2006.

I await with interest the reports of the relevant Federal and State agencies.

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I'm not entirely returned from Christmas hiatus, but I do want to offer public thanks to the Almighty for the preservation of the lives of 12 coal miners in West Virginia. Neither I nor anyone in my family have been employed by a coal company, but I know a fair amount of coal men and of course know a tad about it due to my interest in railroad transportation.

Any man willing to go into the bowels of the earth in search of black diamonds gets my hat tipped to him. Prayers have been answered, and thanks will be offered. I hope that the family of the deceased supervisor will be able to pull through this obviously very difficult time.

UPDATE/EDIT, 1353: It is of course known by now that initial reports of twelve survivors were wrenchingly inaccurate. Well, that's that. The families of the lost men will be in the evening prayer. I am yet grateful that one man has managed to survive.

OTHER ADDITIONAL DATA: Although it has no bearing on the current situation, it appears that the mine in question is served by CSX Transportation. I suspect, without any basis, that it is former Chesapeake & Ohio Railway trackage.

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