Scattershooting

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Drungo Hazewood:

A fascinating note in Jay Nordlinger's always-informative Impromptus:

[In Salzburg] I met a man whose store was established in 1656 — exactly 100 years before Mozart (whose home is just a few steps away from the shop). Would you like to know what the shop’s original phone number was? 9. That’s right: one digit: 9. (The shop, incidentally, is R. F. Azwanger, where you can pick up booze and meats.)

I have known people who once had six-digit phone numbers, and heard tales of five-digit numbers, but one digit? Now there are people who have ten phone numbers of their own. I'm not so sure that's progress, and indeed there are now services which will forward all of your phone numbers to a single phone so I must not be the only one.

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I'm still stunned that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stuck with their idiotic decision not to publish photos of two men whom the FBI had requested help in identifying after they were repeatedly seen "exhibit[ing] unusual behavior" on Washington State Ferries (the Seattle Times also refused to run them the first day before common sense set in). It's hard to imagine their thought process in obstructing law enforcement in investigating a potentially deadly threat to some of their readers for no reason other than mindless political correctness.

It's not like the FBI would take such an unusual action lightly after missteps in the past (Richard Jewell, anybody?). If the men are innocent it would be to their benefit to clear themselves, and the public at large would benefit no matter the outcome by either having two terrorists taken off the streets or by finding out that the ferries are safe after all. It boggles the mind that an entity purportedly devoted to serving the public interest could behave so irresponsibly.

Managing editor David McCumber's comment is telling: "I understand that people have a hard time with the concept that we get to decide what is news and what isn't [...]." McCumber is outraged that readers would ask the paper, even for a minute, to set aside the promotion of its political agenda to act in the public interest. Just incredible, and yet another example of the decline and fall of the American newspaper.

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Move over Shawn Kemp, there's a new sheriff in town. Broncos RB Travis Henry has fathered nine children by nine different women in (at least) four states! And it turns out that Henry "isn't the most thrifty guy" either, which comes as a shock given that he's so responsible in other areas of his life.

I still wish I had gotten him in my fantasy draft...

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For all of human history various the poor have struggled to get enough food to make it to the next day. Now, obesity is epidemic among the American poor. That one of the greatest dangers facing our poor is that they eat too much speaks volumes about this country.

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I find it truly bizarre that an NFL assistant coach, in this case East Texas State's own Wade Wilson, was suspended five games and fined $100 grand for steroids. I can understand (even if I disagree with) the rationale for not wanting players to do PED's, but what possible harm to the game could come from coaches doing them? An epidemic of deafness as they blow their whistles too loud?

All I know is if you plan on attending an NFL game this year I'd stop cycling right now, they seem to be testing everybody.