Northbound

So here I am, humble researcher that I am (sometimes), hard at work, doing data entry on a survey project. Since I’m an idiot, I didn’t ask the people filling out the survey to put the county that they work in. It’s a field I’m collecting, though, so I have to figure out what county the respondents are in somehow. I know what city they’re in, but not the county, and I don’t know New Jersey well enough to automatically associate cities with counties. (I mean, I know Trenton is in Mercer County, but you know.)

So I go to Wikipedia. Just about every city in New Jersey has a Wikipedia reference, and just about all those references (I mean, I haven’t looked at all of them) say what county the city is in. I get the information I need, then I go back to the page to close it, and I see that the city is a Walsh Act city.

Well, what does that mean?

So I check it out. And it turns out that there really is a method behind the madness of New Jersey city designations — it’s in the upper right corner if you click on the link. Some places are boroughs, some places are townships — there’s a Raritan Borough and a Raritan Township on US 202, one in Somerset County and one in Hunterdon County. It’s a weird system, but Wikipedia makes sense of it (sorta) and I spent awhile reading up on it, and then found out where I live is a township, and that there’s a city with a similar name in England, and… well, you get the idea.

It is deeply impressive that Wikipedia has that information, deeply disturbing that it might not be quite right, and deeply maddening that it’s there, keeping me from, um, well, data entry. I love Wikipedia because it has lots of good information (at least where it’s reliable), but I hate it because it’s such a timesuck.

I agree with Wretchard on lots of stuff, but, well, not this time. He’s talking about putting terrorists in stress positions:

How about the twenty inches in width, isn’t that inhumanly narrow? I thought so too, until I looked at airline seats. The standard economy airline seat is 17.8″ wide. Business class seats approach 20″ and more. My own swivel chair is 18″ wide. I measured it. Take out a ruler and measure your own chair if you are as incredulous as I was. For further comparison, consider the proposed A380 Airbus Standing Seat, in which short-distance passengers would travel literally lashed upright to their chairs.

[T]he airline seats shown above, comparable or smaller to the ones which held al-Qaeda suspects convey fat, elderly, pregnant and sometimes sick people and charge them hundreds of dollars for it. And while Formica’s 48 hours is longer than the 18.5 hours which constitute the longest flights in the world, we are told the detainees could take latrine breaks and baths. It’s uncomfortable; it’s coercive; but is it torture?

Yes. Yes, it is. And if there were some way that the Geneva Convention could go after the airlines for their horrid and unprincipled decision to cram as many people in their flying aluminum tubes, I’d be all for that.

No, it isn’t, not at all, and it’s quite wrong for there to be any unseemly gloating at the death of terror master Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

Ding Dong!
The Witch is dead!
Which old Witch?
The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong!
The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead.
She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below.
Yo-ho!
Let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong!
The merry-oh
Sing it high
Sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

I mean, someone has died, along with whatever collateral damage was caused. And of course, it’s not as though we’ve ended the war at one stroke, or found a cache of WMDs, or done anything, really, to move the war effort forward beyond the death of one terror leader — who we’ve made into a martyr, you might note.

I’m walking on sunshine (whoa oh)
I’m walking on sunshine (whoa oh)
I’m walking on sunshine (whoa oh)
And don’t it feel good
And don’t it feel good

And of course it would be completely inappropriate to bash the Democrats about this, to even point out that if Kerry had been elected in 2004 we already would have cut and run, leaving Zarqawi in full control of Iraq, emboldened to carry out new terror attacks. It’s not a very nice thing to do to exploit the death of one measly terrorist for political ends.

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Zip-A-Dee-A My oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Zip-A-Dee-A
Mister bluebird on my shoulder
It’s the truth
It’s actual
Everything is satisfactualZip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Zip-A-Dee-A
Wonderful feeling
Wonderful day!

I mean, it’s so unseemly to do the moral equivalent of a sack dance when there’s still so much violence and bloodshed going on in Iraq every day.

And it’s a great day to be alive
I know the sun’s still shinin when I close my eyes
There’s some hard times in the neigborhood
But why can’t every day be just this good?

And of course, it would be completely inappropriate to give thanks to a Higher Power that anyone, even a terrorist, has died:

All thy works with joy surround thee,
Earth and heaven reflect thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain,
Call us to rejoice in thee.

But who am I kidding, anyway?

Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage:
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage.
An’ you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A.
‘Cos we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way.
Hey, Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly and it’s gonna be hell,
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell.
And it’ll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you.
Ah, brought to you, courtesy of the red, white and blue.