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More than half a million in LA protested anti-immigrant legislation on Saturday.

Trains on El Toro will have to jump the gap!

(as in, rulez; not as in "a prescribed guide for conduct or action")

So, there are these services that let you get informaiton about people, if for any reason you want to, say, know someone's age, height, criminal history, etc. You pay them a small amount (I think some of them you pay by search, or others you can do a monthly fee) and then they give you info based on publicly-available records that the companies acquire and then archive -- like voting registrations, drivers licenses, etc, I think.

Anyhow, while I'm not in favor of stalking activities that invovle actually spending money, I learned that on USSearch, you can get as far as finding someone's age for free!

Sometimes it takes a few minutes to get the person you're looking for -- especially if they have a common name, or you don't know in what cities they've recently lived. But generally you can find people. Did you know that Doug Bennet is 67?

"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."
(Charles Krauthammer, 4/19/03)

This gem and others like it can be found in FAIR's compilation of quotes on the Iraq war from pundits back in 2003.

First in an occasional series

Six Flags Great Adventure -- that bastion of everything that is trouble and chaos, yet sometimes happens to have quite good rollercoasters -- is currently buildings its final biggie. Ok, not really final, but this is probably going to be it for a few years. No more getting a major every other year, half of which are great (Medusa, Nitro), half of which have potential greatness but don't work (Batman and Robyn: the Chiller, Kingda Ka), and half of which we knew from the beginning would dissapoint (Superman: Ultimate Flight).

Let's talk wooden coasters. Rolling Thunder is charming, and all that, but it runs awfully. The park could put some serious work into it and make good things happen, but they haven't. So the park has needed a good woodie (oh, get over it. that's what people call wooden coasters. it's not going to change). And that's what they're getting.

Enter El Toro. What GA was always missing. It starts as a classic out-and-back -- straightforward hills -- only really, really big. But then in the second half it turns into somehting of a twister. It will be the third-tallest wooden coaster in the world.

Construction has been going throughout the off-season. Right now the lift hill is built, but the first drop isn't. Here's the scene:



El Toro is on the right. It may be small compared to Kingda Ka, but it towers over Rolling Thunder. Sweet.

Trader Joe's is opening in Union Square on March 17th.

The NYT gives TJ's the front of the food section on Wednesday, with exclusive reporting from inside their food-tasting facility, and generous quotes from the public, such as: "This sounds crazy, but you feel like the company likes food even more than they like the money."

You can't pay for advertising quite as good as this stuff.

The best quote comes in the sidebar, though, which dares to bring in some criticism. After noting that the store certainly doesn't carry everything, or carry it consistently, we get this gem:

"I can't shop at a place if I don't know whether they'll have lamb chops that day," said Mark Allio, a Web designer. "Who in New York has that kind of time?"

(Who does?)

As some of you know, I have this weird thing where when I'm eating, I often find the shape of Israel in my food. Oh how strange. Usually it includes the West Bank and Gaza, too. Oy vey.

The latest episode was a couple weekends ago -- lox, on a bagel, at Grandma's.

Here are the current bets on tradesports.com for the Oscars. (I guess the way the betting system updates itself these things don't add up exactly to 100%)

Best Picture:
Brokeback - 79.0%
Munich - .9%
Goodnight - .7%
Crash - 21.0%
Capote - 2.4%

Best Actress:
Witherspoon - 80.0%
Huffman - 19.9%
Theron - 1.6%
Dench - 1.4%
Knightley - 1.8%

Best Actor:
Hoffman - 83.9%
Ledger - 8.7%
Phoenix - 6.8%
Strathairn - .9%
Howard - 1.7%

Oooh, looks like those 'Amnesty International' people are at it again, what with their latest report covered on Morning Edition yesterday and in today's Times (in some editions, on the front page).

Yikes:Jan Eliasson, the president of the UN.