There's a scene in this movie in which Matt Damon is dancing with a deaf girl. The music stops and a band leader declares that Britain and France have just gone to war with Germany. Which is exactly what happened to Dr. No and me. Except we were in a Corpus Christi bar. And the event was Lady Di's death. And the band leader was the lead singer for a group called Retarted Elf. And he said "She was a classy lady!" And then they played a bit of thrash called "South Side." Other than that, it was exactly the same.

The moment the movie ended, I got a BlackBerry bomb from the friendly folks at the Washington Post, who wished to inform me that Saddam Hussein had just been hanged. So when someone asks me where I was when I heard the Butcher of Baghdad got the noose, I'll tell them I was watching Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon get totally miscast.

Close readers of Norlos are gettin' their deja vu on right about now.

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From the working guy. Gonna be a sloooooow five hours.

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First there was the lowly squid. Then comes the giant squid. But then comes the colossal squid (scroll to bottom)! What's next, the ultimate behemoth squid?

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1,847 miles into our unintended Christmas road trip, Slug and I pulled into my parent's house in the south suburbs of Denver this evening. I must have been away for too long, 'cause I never think of myself as impressed by snow reports, but looking around now I'm stunned at home much snow 2 feet really is. 26 inches is a lot of snow.

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Hellx was quite taken by the inflatable Christmas decorations -- known as "airblowns" -- in the front yard of his former neighbor. He may be in the minority:

Whatever else Christmas in America means — the birth of Jesus, holly wreaths, the Chipmunks, cultural tension — it now also includes these gargantuan, inflatable outdoor decorations, called “Airblowns” by their chief manufacturer.

They have been around for a while, but mark 2006 as the year these decorations became a full-blown fixture in the pantheon of holiday traditions — and, as is the holiday tradition, the subject of a rift.

Not quite a culture war. Call it an intramural disagreement among the Christmas crazed.

“Appalling,” Catherine Bruckner, a traditionalist who decorates only in holly and evergreen, sneered as she stopped her car in front of an inflated Santa playing poker with two shrewd-eyed reindeer in a menagerie totaling two dozen figures. “It’s bad enough to see those things on Halloween. At Christmas, they rise to a level of tackiness that is horrible.”

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So says the NY Times:

For decades and decades, the busiest day of the year in the nation's maternity wards fell sometime in mid-September. Americans evidently do a lot of baby-making during the cold, dark days of December, and once a baby has been made, the die for its birth date has largely been cast.

Or at least that's the way it used to be. In the last 15 years, there has been a huge increase in the number of births that are induced with drugs or come by Caesarean section. In either case, parents or doctors can often schedule a baby's arrival on a day of their choosing.

Not surprisingly, they tend to avoid weekends and holidays, when doctors have other plans, hospitals are short of staff and the possibility of an unfortunate birthday -- Christmas Day, anyone? -- looms. During holiday weeks, births have become increasingly crowded into the weekdays surrounding the holiday.

Over this same period -- since the early 1990s -- the federal government has been steadily increasing the tax breaks for having a child. For parents to claim the full amount of any of these breaks in a given year, a child must simply be born by 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31. If the baby arrives a few minutes later, the parents are often more than a thousand dollars poorer.

Unless you're a cynic, or an economist, I realize you might have trouble believing that the intricacies of the nation's tax code would impinge on something as sacred as the birth of a child. But it appears that you would be wrong.
In the last decade, September has lost its unchallenged status as the time for what we will call National Birth Day, the day with more births than any other. Instead, the big day fell between Christmas and New Year's Day in four of the last seven years -- 1997 through 2003 -- for which the government has released birth statistics. (The day was in September during the other years; conception still matters.) Based on this year's calendar, there is a good chance that National Birth Day will take place a week from tomorrow, on Thursday, Dec. 28.

"It's phenomenal what's happening in late December," said Amitabh Chandra, a Harvard economist who provided many of the numbers here. "December is not really a particularly busy time for babies to be born. So to see a spike that's equal to September is astounding."

Obviously, there are reasons beside taxes that someone might prefer having a baby in late December rather than early January. Many people will be on vacation next week, with extended family in town to see a new baby and help around the house. The stress of having relatives visit may also be enough to send some expectant mothers into labor.

So to see if taxes were truly the culprit, Mr. Chandra and another economist, Stacy Dickert-Conlin of Michigan State, devised some clever tests. They found that people who stood to gain the most from the tax breaks were also the ones who gave birth in late December most frequently. When the gains were similar, high-income parents -- who, presumably, are more likely to be paying for tax advice -- produced more December babies than other parents.

It's also telling that the year's final week was not the first part of the calendar to replace September. For a few years in the mid-1990s, a day on either side of the long July 4 weekend was National Birth Day.

But July lost the honor as the tax code became ever kinder to families with children. The child tax credit, now worth $500, made its debut in 1998, and the earned-income tax credit, an anti-poverty policy that's more generous to large families than small ones, became much larger in the 90s. The personal exemption, for its part, has risen along with inflation, reaching $3,300 this year.

By my calculations, about 5,000 babies, of the 70,000 or so who would otherwise be born during the first week in January, may have their arrival dates accelerated partly for tax reasons. When Mr. Chandra interviewed one mother in central Kentucky, she told him her doctor encouraged her to schedule a late-December birth well in advance, to be sure she got a delivery room. Anecdotes aside, Mr. Chandra thinks my estimate of 5,000 is conservative, based on his own more sophisticated statistical analysis.

In addition to being an entertaining bit of trivia, the end-of-the-year baby boom also raises a legitimate policy question: just because we have the medical ability to do something, does that necessarily mean it's such a good idea?

Induced births and Caesarean sections are considerably more expensive than natural births on average. There are clearly cases when labor needs to be induced for a baby's health or the mother's. It's much less clear, however, that the health care system should be subsidizing parents' desire for a smaller tax bill.

The health effects of scheduled births are also murky. A big study led by a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that voluntary Caesareans increase the risk of infant mortality. Another study found that weekday births are slightly more risky than weekend ones, all else equal, suggesting that a drug-induced birth can also cause health problems. The differences are small, but the stakes are big enough to take any change seriously.

"When you induce labor, you compress this long process into a few hours," said Dr. Emmet Hirsch, the director for obstetrics at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare near Chicago. "When you do that, you can run into all sorts of problems."

To minimize those problems, the largest medical provider in Utah, Intermountain Healthcare, now discourages women from electively inducing labor before their 39th week of pregnancy. "This is what's best for moms and babies," said Janie Wilson, a nurse who helps run the newborn program at Intermountain. "It just seems like a no-brainer."

Before the policy went into effect in 2001, Intermountain, based in Salt Lake City, had more December births than January births. It doesn't anymore.

The solution to this situation seems simple enough to me, and it comes back to the tax code. If Congress changed the all-or-nothing aspect of the child tax breaks, it would reduce the incentive to rush a fetus along in the final days of the year. A child born in December could be eligible for one-twelfth of a deduction or a credit rather than the whole thing.

But maybe I'm just biased. When my mother was getting ready to give birth to her first child, she would tell friends and family that Jan. 1 was the only day she didn't want the baby to arrive. She figured the hospital would be dealing with the aftermath of New Year's Eve, and she couldn't stand the idea of giving birth to New York's much-publicized first baby of the year.

I suspect most people thought she didn't have much to fear, given that the due date -- my due date -- was Dec. 22. But she apparently knew what she was talking about. I arrived late on the afternoon of Jan 1. The doctor complained about missing the Rose Bowl, and my parents missed out on one of the few ways that a child can be a financial windfall.

Link.

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No, we're not beaming the blog to your Palm or Blackberry, you tech-crazed nanobots. To subsidize Dr. No's new life of leisure, we're chopping our landline phone service and will rely solely on our cell phones. That means the 718-832-6511 number you've used for us for years will go the way of the pager. If you don't have our cellphone digits, email us.

Dr. No's new life has meant many changes. For one, I don't see her as often. Well, OK, I can see her, but it's hard in the morning with someone who sleeps past ten.

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At last, a use for the cat!

Don't try this at home.

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"No, man. No. No. Shit, no. I am the Uno king. I am the Uno god."

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The NYT the other day had an article about surfing in Cleveland. It would be interesting, if it hadn't been done before.

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I've become a big fan of Jalopnik, a sort of Gawker for the plugs-and-carbureter crowd -- especially when it highlights car ads. Maybe it's the sincerity advertisers must feel they need to demonmstrate to sell a car, or maybe it's because cars change so quickly. Maybe because the car maker has to make the model -- soon to look boxy and outdated next to newer models -- look baaaad. Or maybe it's just the hair. Whatever the reason, it must be said: Car ads don't age well.

For example, this ad for Renault's Le Car, which is either a sly homage to Bullitt or a tribute made before the invention of irony.

Then there's the Lada, a much-loathed Russian vehicle, and the wonderful ad at the top of the post. To understand the hate of the Lada, watch Jeremy Clarkson of the BBC destroy one. He declares: "This steering wheel has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the direction of travel. This is the world's first wind-guided vehicle."

Or this one, in which Apple Computer cofounder Steve Wozniak gets all hot and bothered over a car Scott Baio might be embarrassed to drive. (Think a Datsun 280Z ad can't get worse hair than Woz's? Think again.)

Or how about a bad to the bone Buick? Hold me.

The judge will rule. Oh yes he will.

Remember the WWF's Iron Sheik? "Invisible Freedom!"

This ad is pretty cool. Wonder how well it'll date.

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We live in a time of tyranny -- the tyranny of electronic suggestions. Rent season one of "The Sopranos" on Netflix? Well, Netflix has a few other titles it thinks you might like. So do Amazon and iTunes and anybody else selling crap webtacularly. There's even a music service, Pandora, built around the idea. From a business standpoint, this makes total sense. But from a taste standpoint, I can't think of a better way to insulate yourself from new music, new culture and new ideas.

That's why I like Unsuggester. Plug in a book title and you'll find out what people like you aren't reading. For example, the main site tells you that readers who liked Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" probably won't like "Confessions of a Shopaholic."

Yeah, OK, I kinda new that already. Still, fun! Right now I'm reading Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer." Here's the top ten of what it says I wouldn't like:

Desiring God : meditations of a Christian hedonist by John Piper (expected 35.3, found 0; unsuggestions)

The pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer (expected 32.9, found 0; unsuggestions)

Knowing God by J. I. Packer (expected 31.7, found 0; unsuggestions)

Wild at heart : discovering the passionate soul of a man by John Eldredge (expected 26.1, found 0; unsuggestions)

Systematic theology : an introduction to biblical doctrine by Wayne Grudem (expected 23.9, found 0; unsuggestions)

The Jesus I never knew by Philip Yancey (expected 23.1, found 0; unsuggestions)

First test by Tamora Pierce (expected 23, found 0; unsuggestions)

A generous or+hodoxy : why I am a missional, evangelical, post/Protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblic by Brian D. McLaren (expected 19.4, found 0; unsuggestions)

Blue dahlia by Nora Roberts (expected 18.2, found 0; unsuggestions)

The ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning (expected 16.8, found 0; unsuggestions)

Does liking Henry Miller mean I hate God?

(Props to Slashdot.)

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