Quick Roundup 319

Maps and Maps

So many neat maps, and so little time!

En route to other things this weekend, I ran across a web site that hosts an atlas of presidential election results, which allows you to view the results of any presidential election in the history of the United States simply by selecting it from a drop-down menu.

In the meantime, Myrhaf comments on a tasteless, pandering, map-themed vodka ad in Mexico that I noticed over at The Drudge Report on Friday, but didn't have the time or inclination to discuss.

All I will say about that is that in an "Absolut World", that company's sales would be nowhere near what they are today since the American Southwest would have turned out much poorer under Mexican rule than it did.

And then Amit Ghate posts an interesting map of religious denominations by county for the United States. You will notice that all but two counties in Mississippi are Baptist. Until around the time I was in high school, their influence over state politics was strong enough that it was illegal to advertise alcohol (except, possibly, beer) on television, and we had some pretty ridiculous blue laws.

And yes, when I have more time, there are more maps where that came from!

Good Line for Pundits

I have quite a backlog of interesting reading in the hopper. Among the books is Always in Pursuit, by Stanley Crouch. In a random moment this weekend, I picked it up and looked inside. I enjoyed the opening two sentences from "King of Narcissism", a chapter about Michael Jackson:

It used to be that if one didn't hurry up and say something about an event, the op-ed scow was gone, leaving the slowpoke commentator at the dock. But now, with the oceanic marketing campaigns calculated to continually flop up sales, one can put two cents in and be right on time for months.

If you want to be a good writer, it pays to read good writers. Mr. Crouch just moved up in the queue.

But yeah. That's my two pennies you hear being rubbed together as I wait.

Range-of-the-Moment Social Metaphysics

I am probably being redundant on some level....

The hallmark of the criminal mind is a second-handedness so severe as to blind the criminal to other aspects of the world around him, sometimes to an astounding degree. (Instead of "second-handedness", was about to say, "the premise that one can act as a predator in human society", but even that borders on ascribing too much intelligence and power to the criminal.)

A criminal is a parasite. He refuses to trade with others and instead opts for a position of weakness. He needs to take from other people to meet the material requirements for his continued existence -- while he must escape their attention in order to avoid rightful retaliation.

But he also needs to prop himself up in the spiritual realm by extorting pseudo-respect from others at the same time, which can contradict his need to escape detection.

A killer who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison in a trash can was captured in California after boasting of an appearance on Fox's America's Most Wanted, state police said Sunday.

Malcolm Kysor, 54, was arrested Saturday in a Bakersfield, Calif., park after someone notified police about the claim, police said.

"Basically, it's a citizen's tip. He was in a park and he started bragging," Trooper Donald Claypoole of the Girard barracks said.

Kysor had been serving a life sentence since 1988 for an early 1980s slaying in Erie County. [bold added]

He knows he's a stupid chump, so he has to convince himself otherwise by eliciting awe from other people. So he tells the world what a genius at getting out of jail he is. Nice.

Kysor's all-out war against reality will continue soon in a prison near you.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: (1) Minor edits. (2) Corrected number of non-Baptist counties in MS.