I am 36 years old now

I don't feel any different, though.

I say 30

50 mph sought for coil haulers

Look, the speed limit downtown is already 60. Ten miles per hour isn't going to make a lot of difference, especially since they routinely violate it. Typically, the jerk at the truckers association wants everybody to have to slow down, plus trucks should have their own lane, because truckers are special, holy beings and we should all follow in their wake.

I like this idea

Ezra Klein: Educational Incentives (Don't Go To Law School!)

Simple solution -- have the monthly student loan payment capped at a fixed fraction of your monthly gross income, and adjust the term of the loan accordingly.

They actually do this somewhat, but to a limited extent. They allow you to pay off at a lower rate fixed to your income, but only for a period of time; they expect that at some point you will make real money. Doesn't always work like that.

Live. Televised. Practice.

Bama s A-Day game to be televised by CSS | TideSports.com

Feel the excitement.

This is looking ever shadier

Developer's Tuskegee deal failed

So apparently this "consultant", Carol Hatcher, was going to build a hotel in Tuskegee but the city withdrew from the project because her secret financiers couldn't be verified.

A Birmingham city councilman says that he is backing Hatcher until someone can prove she's not legitimate. I think he might want to be a little more careful. This whole thing is getting disturbing.

Not a Federal case

Worley faces campaign charge

If the US Government were going after a former Democratic elected official right now, I'd be a little worried. Instead, it's good old bipartisan "Troy King" who got five felony and five misdemeanor charges against the (obviously crooked) Nancy Worley. Apparently, she was pressuring her subordinates to contribute to her failed re-election campaign, which is a big no-no.

So it's Troy King versus Nancy Worley. I hope they both lose.

Ketchup?

Whaling: A Japanese Obsession With American Roots - New York Times

Apparently, Japanese schools are now serving delicious whale meat stewed in... ketchup.

Anyway, as I've noted in the past, the Japanese are positively obsessed with whale meat. Not quite so much as they are with, say, giant robots, but obsessed. This article has the goods on why. Since this is the Times, of course it's all our fault.

National. Televised. Bingo.

Variety.com - ABC hastens call on 'Bingo Night'

America, I was able to handle "The Bachelor". And "Joe Millionaire". And "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader." (Answer: evidently not.) But if you take this show to your bosom, we are through.

This should be good

Consultant offers to fund dome

Okay, there's this "consultant" who says that she has commitments of $1.5 billion from unnamed private donors to build a full-scale dome in Birmingham. She won't say who the investors are because it's a secret, I guess. I think it's probably elves.

Abnormally dry

Alabama needs rain

Down 9.4 inches from normal since November. The last four months have all been below average and March is if anything even worse. If there were such a thing as global warming we'd really be in trouble.

It's great

A break in business

I love living in a college town on spring break. You can go anywhere, anytime, and there's never a line, there's no traffic, and frankly there's less of a boozy haze than normal but that may just be my perception.

$50,000

Variety.com - ESPN to play rock, paper, scissors

That's what the winner -- no, we are all losers here, the first-place loser -- will get for this tournament. $50,000. Meanwhile, ESPN sinks even lower. Next year, tiddlywinks.

Food fight!

Lunchrooms get high marks

So, the food may suck, but the public school lunchrooms are clean. At least until the staff gets fired and they spit in the beefaroni on their way out.

We just have too many teachers

State urges cutting 400 jobs, 5 schools

I mean, what are we supposed to do? Some of these classrooms are getting dangerously undercrowded. In some schools, students don't even have to share their desks.

Oops

al.com - Everything Alabama

I guess this is what Advance Media does when they don't have actual stories:

Good one, Microsoft

So, with the new Daylight Savings Time rules, I was wondering if my computer would set the time forward. Did it?! It actually set the time forward two hours, instead of just one.

Obviously, a dome is the answer

Reports from The Birmingham News: WHICH WAY FORWARD?

The fourteen fastest-shrinking cities in the country are all in the Rust Belt (if you count St. Louis as in the Rust Belt, which seems a bit of a stretch). 15th is Birmingham. How long before it becomes the Hoover-Birmingham Metropolitan Area?

I was going to write about that

The Washington Monthly: JUST RIGHT

Seriously, I was thinking a couple of weeks ago that maybe what was needed was to reduce the size of high schools from the vast collectives to more, smaller schools. And that the problem might be that if the schools are too small that they can't offer the range of electives and activities of a large school. There should be ways around the latter; the use of subgroups seems wise, though I was thinking about moving specialty teachers around.

They are obviously after me

More pictures:




So, why are the Alabama Marine Police parked outside my apartment? The only logical supposition that they're spying on the state's preeminent fish blogger. I didn't know that there were Alabama Marine Police until today.