Ich Bin Ein Repuh (cough) – oh, hell, I can’t say it.

Dear God, I went and did it. At eight minutes after noon on this, the Wednesday before Super Tuesday (and the presidential primary here in Connecticut), I went to city hall and changed my official voter-registration party affiliation from “independent” to “the one where you can vote for Ron Paul.”

Depending on my schedule, I plan to get derepublicanized either the afternoon after I vote in the primary, or first thing next morning. The important thing is that I switch back to “Independent” before 12:08 p.m. next Wednesday, because it’s been scientifically proven that if a woman spends more than a week as a Republican her bra size decreases by a full cup and that mass re-distributes itself on her Adam’s apple. That’s what happened to Ann Coulter.

(And yes, I know Paul’s not going to win. I’m just adding my weight to the movement in hopes of generating enough momentum to keep it going until the next presidential election cycle. Not that Paul himself will run again, but maybe his ideas will resonate enough for someone else to adopt them. At any rate, I’m willing to risk my whole wardrobe’s worth of clingy sweaters on it.)

On The Radio

My good friend Timothy was kind enough to host the recording of the radio interview I gave a couple of weeks ago concerning an article I wrote about the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.

However, along with the recording Timothy also posted this very important message:

If you're going to listen more than once, please download it rather than play it off of the site, I gots the limited bandwidth.

Damn You, Smartass. . .

. . . why didn't you tell me you were a physics genius? I went through two months of hell trying to get to the bottom of that goddamned 9/11 conspiracy story I wrote. Behold the dangers of Thinking Too Much: at one point, around two in the morning after watching way too many conspiracy videos, I actually thought: "Okay, so if I can just find out how many BTUs of heat it takes to weaken 110 stories' worth of steel, and how many BTUs are produced by an exploding jet plane and . . . holy shit, I'm in moonbat crazyland."

It's not a happy place.

Fun Philosophical Quandaries

Two questions occur to me, after a morning spent in court for a story I'm writing: one, do you think it makes me a bad person if I get a sadistic little thrill at the wide-eyed "Oh, shit, it's her" look certain people get at the sight of little ol' me walking in with notebook in hand and press badge around my neck? And two, does it make me even worse if I compound such feelings by giving these people an enormously friendly wave and flashing a smile even wider than the one Farrah Fawcett made famous in the 70s? (That link leads to a slightly dishonest photo; the smile I surely wore today, but since it's winter in New England I wore a bulky sweater rather than a skimpy bathing suit. And there's no way I'd ever try wearing that shade of orange. Not to mention the appearance of my hair after a huge chunk of half-melted snow fell out of a tree and landed on my head as I walked into court this morning.)

I sincerely hope the answer to both questions is "no," because I'll likely continue such behaviors regardless.

Semi-pointless anecdote: last week I was talking with a guy from another paper, and he said "I went into journalism to tell the truth and to help people." And I said, "Huh. I went into journalism to annoy authority figures who piss me off. And the best way to do that, I've learned, is to tell the truth."

(Actually I went into it because I liked writing snarky stuff anyway, so figured I may as well get paid for it. The downside is, I am also often obligated to find and report actual news.)

Airport Inconsistency

Every so often the government puts out a regulation that kinda-sorta makes a little bit of sense. When I discover the regulation’s sensibility halfway through the research phase of an article that’s supposed to be about how the regulation in question is asinine, it leads to a lot of terrifying “oh hell what do I write now” moments that ultimately culminate in stories like this one.

I swear, they did this just to keep me off guard. Bastards.

Random Radio Rambling

Tomorrow night I’m supposed to be interviewed (over the phone) by a local radio station which (I think) is connected to a local college. Being a member of The Media, I’m supposed to talk about why nobody else in The Media bothered to write a story about a certain House bill I wrote about, as a member of The Media, last week.

Of course I cleared the interview request with my boss before I granted it. Later, I said to him: “You know, given the subject matter there might be a question about how we came to run the story in the first place. If you’d like, I can tell her about the firm and unwavering support I received from you, my boss,” and he laughed and told me to tell the truth instead.

There’s supposed to be live streaming on this website, but I already asked if I could get an MP3 after the interview and was told yes. I’m supposed to be on at 8:40.

Snowstorm Fallout

No matter how unbiased a journalist attempts to be, she can't give both sides of the story if only one side speaks on the record. Refusing to speak to the media makes sense if you're someone like a politician outed for having a Magic 8-ball listed among your salary-collecting staff, but I was writing about a bill that passed in Congress by a ratio of 404 to 6, so it's weird that I found more speakers among the six than the four hundred: One-point-five (a bona-fide Congressman and a Congressional spokesperson) versus zero.

Naturally, a giant snowstorm hit New England the day scheduled for the Congressman's call. So I figured: I made several dozen calls for this article, and for one such call drove over seven hours in a snowstorm. Damn right I'm linking to the result.

So there.