Month: August 2008

Los Angeles taco trucks can stay put again. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Wednesday overturned a controversial ordinance passed in April by county supervisors that made it a misdemeanor in unincorporated parts of the county to park a taco truck in one spot for more than an hour.

The language of the ordinance, Judge Dennis A. Aichroth said, was “vague” and therefore “unconstitutional” in its description of how quickly a vendor could return to an area where the truck was previously parked. Aichroth said it also violated the vehicle code because county supervisors had not properly established that it was written in the interest of public safety. [Los Angeles Times]

That’s an unusual piece of good news. The passage of that law was blatantly corrupt and shameless even by the sleazy standards of government.

Vladimir Putin accuses Bush of provoking Georgia conflict to help John McCain. “It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act. The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army,” Mr Putin said.

“Why spend years holding difficult negotiations and looking for complicated compromises in ethnic conflicts? It’s easier to arm one of the parties and push it to kill the other party, and the job is done.

“The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US President.” [Times Online]

I might buy that if Clinton was still President, but really, what in the past eight years suggests that the Bush Administration is even capable of that sort of advanced planning? The very idea is absurd.

Russia recognises Georgian rebels. The Kremlin formally recognises the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. [BBC News]

I’m sure there are a lot of very happy people in South Ossetia and Abkhazia today. The BBC article also contains something which is actually quite important, although it’s only mentioned briefly and then ignored:

[President Dmitry Medvedev] said Moscow now felt obliged to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as other countries had done with Kosovo.

The Russians have been saying all along that they consider the fate of Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia to be linked. The Evil Empire recognized Kosovo as an “independent” nation in February over Russian objections, so it was inevitable that Russia would do the same for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Georgian invasion at most sped things up a little. I do find it interesting, though, that the mainstream media (and for that matter, many bloggers) have been doing their very best to ignore Kosovo while covering the war.

Press 1 for English, Press 0 and Holler “Operator” for a Human.

Wondering how to get an actual human being without fighting your way down each branch of a phone tree? Check out Dial-A-Human, which lays out the proper sequence of buttons to push to get a human being as quickly as possible.

The most interesting, and often the most complex sequences: Government offices. My favorites include Department of Homeland Security/INS "Select language. Press 2 6 2 4. Press 0 at each prompt," the U.S. Postal Service " Press 5 4 2 2 at each prompt," and perhaps best of all, the IRS "Don’t press or say anything."

Via the indispensable Lifehacker blog.

[Hit and Run]

This is a very useful site! Some companies that I’ve needed to call are in this list, so it will no doubt save me considerable trouble in the future.