We Have A National Raisin Reserve

Enjoying fireworks like an American

A New York man who allegedly wanted to kill President Obama and apparently blamed him for the recent Boston bombings has been arrested for trying to build and detonate a weapon of mass destruction.

Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, of Galway, N.Y., spent months designing and constructing an X-ray system that would emit deadly amounts of radiation and could be detonated remotely, according to the FBI. Crawford recruited Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson, N.Y, to join in the plot, and both were arrested Tuesday, the FBI said.

Crawford and Feight allegedly planned to hide their weapon in a truck and FBI experts said it would have been "functional" and "lethal."

According to the FBI, Crawford cited "a political figure" and a Muslim organization as "potential targets." Sources familiar with the investigation identified the "political figure" as Obama.

"Obama's policies caused this," Crawford allegedly wrote in a text message on April 15, the day a series of bombings killed three and injured scores more at the Boston marathon.

"He directed the [government] to start bringing [Muslims] here without background checks," Crawford wrote, according to the FBI. "They don't have to follow any laws, and this administration has done more to enable a government sponsored invasion than the press can cover up."

The FBI launched an investigation into Crawford last spring after he allegedly walked into a synagogue in Albany, N.Y., and inquired about technology that could kill "Israel's enemies while they slept." The synagogue notified police, and within six weeks the FBI had a source secretly recording meetings with Crawford, according an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

xkcd illustrates something that's always bugged me: the tendency of people to think that today's life (for all values of today) is especially hectic, or hurried, or that its people are especially inconsiderate or dumb or lacking in the virtues of previous eras. Well, Skippy, people in those blessed eras thought the same thing, because people are always the same: hurried, inconsiderate, dumb, and have always lacked the virtues that your grandparents tricked you into thinking everybody once had. People don't change: each era just finds new ways to do what people have always done.

The World's Dumbest Idea: the idea that a corporation's sole purpose is to make money for its shareholders.

I'm glad we're here this weekend,

...and not here:

New Pixies

Perch!

I didn't know they were edible. Fun to catch, tho.

• Just finished David Wong's "John Dies At The End". It was very good: very funny. and actually a little scary at times. Crazy other-dimensional demon nightmare monsters attack the world and two slackers have to fix it. Feels a bit like an R-rated slacker Ghostbusters, but gets away with it by being so funny. I'm about to start the sequel.
• Almost done with Nabokov's "Pale Fire". It's a brilliant and interesting construction: a 999-line poem followed by a critique of the poem done by someone who really wants the poem to be about something else - can't say much more without giving it all away. And while Nabokov was a brilliant writer and observer, the style he uses feels a bit dated 60 years out: very intricate, allusive, witty but exceedingly dry; some of his sentences take effort to fully appreciate.

  Also, I struggle a little with the story because the narrator sounds so much like legendary buffoon, Ignatius J. Reilly, that I can't take him seriously (am not yet sure if I'm supposed to, either). And since I can't shake the physical image of waddling, slovenly, hypochondriac Reilly, I can't believe the narrator could have physically done any of the things he says he did. My fault, not Nabokov's, though.

• "Snow Crash" was fine, except for the plot. The futurism was fun - though so much of what Stephenson describes has become Hollywood stock that I feel I would've enjoyed this much more if I'd read it 20 years ago. The ancient-religion-is-a-human-meta-virus thing felt silly, though.

You?

Boarded the return flight from Dallas to Raleigh at 2:40. Person next to us says that a guy a few rows back has a loose armrest on his seat, and that maintenance has been called. At 3:00, the pilot announces that maintenance has been called. At 3:15, a maintenance guy shows up, looks, leaves. At 3:25, maintenance guy returns with ... a roll of duct tape. Fixes the loose armrest with careful application of said tape. At 3:35, we leave: 35 minutes late.

Also: The Dallas airport has a Fox News store. And, the smog around Dallas/Fort Worth is utterly horrid. Those two facts are almost certainly related.