Maryland, my Maryland

The 13th edition of the Carnival of Maryland is up at Maryland Politics.

Stephen King territory

That's what a neighbor of this woman said upon finding out that police found the bodies of four infants in her apartment.

Police said that they were contacted by social service workers early Thursday at Peninsula Regional Medical Center. Police said that doctors determined that Freeman, 37, had been pregnant but the baby was missing.

Police said they searched her home in the 200 block of Sunset Drive on Thursday night and found the deceased infant. Police said Freeman lives in the upstairs apartment of the house with her boyfriend and four other children.

Later Thursday, the remains of two more infants were found inside garbage bags inside a trunk in Freeman's bedroom, a police spokesman said. A third garbage bag concealed with the other two contained what appeared to be a placenta, police said.

On Friday, the remains of the fourth infant were found inside a motor home parked in the driveway, said Barry Neeb, the spokesman.

WTF???

Did this woman just have sex, get pregnant, drop the kid where it landed and continue on? Four times? And how did the other four children manage to survive?

Gun-toting smoker vindicated

Baltimore prosecutors drop charges against Frank Keegan. Keegan allegedly pulled a gun on neighbor David P. Ayers when Ayers knocked on the door to Keegan's house to complain about smoking.

Police said that Keegan's neighbor, David P. Ayers, claimed to be engaged in an "ongoing dispute" with Keegan over cigarette smoke that Ayers said was emanating from the editor's rowhouse. The two live next to one another in the first block of E. Montgomery St., an area of expensive red-brick rowhouses in Federal Hill.

About 11:30 p.m. May 24, police said, Ayers, 38, complained that smoke from Keegan's house was causing his 3-year-old daughter, Sophie, to have trouble breathing. Ayers called for a paramedic, then, carrying his child and accompanied by his wife, Christine, went next door to "confront" Keegan, according to the police report.

Ayers told police that he "pounded" on Keegan's front door and heard someone say, "You [expletive] lunatics, get away from my door."

Ayers shouted back through a first-floor window, "Look at what you're doing to my daughter," according to the report.

Next, Ayers said, he saw Keegan holding "what appeared" to be a long gun. Keegan "racked the gun in a manner consistent with a shotgun and shouldered the weapon, pointing it at the entire Ayers family from inside the house and behind the glass of the first-floor window," the report said.

It's my belief that if everyone reacted to the unreasonable demands of holier-than-thou neighbors in such a manner the world would be a better place.

Congratulations, Mr. Keegan.

A Lexus? Or a Hummer?

So Wednesday I had to attend a compulsory workshop held by the Maryland Employment Department that is supposed to help us unemployment collectors in our job search. I'll admit that I didn't expect much from this venture, given my past experience with state employment agencies (about which more later).

Unfortunately, my expectations were proved correct.

The day didn't begin well. I woke up late, so I had no time for either coffee or the mandatory (for me) hour of silence I need before I go out and face the world. And there's nothing worse than attending a 5-hour workshop coffeeless, breakfastless and without my morning meditation, which generally consists of slurping three cups of coffee while watching the news and reading my email.

We were told by letter that we were to attend a two-day workshop that began on Wednesday, June 13, the assumption being that it finished up on June 14. Instead we were told upon arrival that the "verbiage" of the letter was "vague" and that the second day was to be held on Friday. Fine. Those of us who had interviews scheduled for Friday, that would be me, would have to come the following Friday. Now, since the classes are always held on Wednesday and Friday, because they can't get access to the facility on Thursday, wouldn't it be wise to change the "verbiage" in this form letter to reflect that reality?

About 10 minutes into the presentation--given with the aid of overhead transparencies--who should enter the class and make her way up to the front row with a loud, "sorry, excuse me, sorry," but Jillian (not her real name), my arch nemesis from my last job. Jillian is one of those people who's always late and always apologizing for it. She really deserves a blog post--or a series of posts--all by herself. For now I'll just say that the mere sight of her fills me with an explosive rage. Indeed, one of the bonuses of losing my job was that I'd never have to see Jillian again. But here I was staring at the back of her head.

So we get started by going around the room and introducing ourselves. Then we go over the agenda, which will consist of:

• Interviewing techniques
  
• Networking
  
• Resume information
  
• Cover letters
  
• The application process
  
• Search planning
  
• Search resources
  
• Thank you notes and letters
  
• Labor Market Information

This is not exactly how it went, however. Instead, we spent a half an hour learning what would happen to us if we didn't attend the workshop, along with anecdotes and horror stories. Then we spent a half hour going over how to fill in the form in our work search booklets to account for the fact that we attended the two-day workshop.

Then the instructor's partner went up to the blackboard to prepare a list. We were asked to shout out the things we wanted from a job. Then we were asked to shout out the things employers wanted from us. I could probably have taken this more seriously, if we hadn't kept pausing while the blackboard writer consulted a man in the first row as to which color chalk worked better on the list. When it was decided that the blue she opted to use for the employer's needs wasn't quite right, she began going over our answers on the chalkboard with a lovely shade of pink. And we just sat and watched her as she completed the process.

Then we took a break.

Upon our return, we were told to do an exercise that consisted of circling the thing with which we most identified on the following list:

Lexus or Hummer
Boston or Los Angeles
Popcorn or Snickers bar
Lake or Ocean
Birdor Cat
Piano or Violin
Damor Bridge
Sugaror Garlic
Bat or Ball
New Year's Eve or Valentine's Day
Europe or Australia
Roller skates or Bicycle
The moon or The sun
Speedboat or Sailboat
Apple or A whopper
Orange or Blue
Mountains or Beach
Rock concert or The symphony
Monopoly or Video games

What followed had the dark inevitability of a Greek tragedy as the instructor went down the list asking who voted for each item.

Why, the instructor wanted to know, did the fellow to my left opt for a Lexus over a Hummer?

"Because the Hummer's stupid. It's just a tricked out army vehicle made popular by celebrities."

Wrong answer. It seems Hummer people are more hands on than Lexus people, who prefer to sit in an air conditioned office not getting their hands dirty. And on it went. We were considering the implications of choosing sugar over garlic when I raised my hand.

Yes, the instructor asked.

"You know this is complete and utter bullshit."

I'm sorry you feel that way, ma'am, but this is designed to get you thinking about what you want to do with your life, quoth she.

"It's totally meaningless. Sometimes I prefer garlic and sometimes I want sugar. And I couldn't care less about either a Lexus or a Hummer. I vote for neither.

Well, ma'am, I got this from a Maryland Employment conference and many folks think it's quite helpful, said the instructor, getting defensive.

It degenerated quite a bit from there, with some people shouting out agreement with me. The instructor offered to go on to something else. But she changed her mind when one wiseacre out of a class of 40 said he wanted to continue. So she continued going down the list. But her heart wasn't in it.

Now, I'm pretty sure I could have learned something from a job search workshop that actually covered the agenda we were supposed to cover. I would have particularly welcomed input on the interview process. As it happens, the next exercise consisted of us interviewing our neighbor for 5 minutes and then switching places with said neighbor. During this time, the two instructors were whispering to each other and paying no attention to how any of the interviews were going. No one was asked how their interviewee did. Instead, we just went on to the next segment, which was devoted to listening to one of the speakers read aloud the web addresses of the Internet resources listed on our handout.

All in all, not a great five hours.

Maryland passes 'living wage' law

What is wrong with these people?

The state became an object of scorn for conservatives after lawmakers passed legislation that would have forced Wal-Mart to pay more for health care (the measure never went into effect because it was blocked by the courts), and business groups cried foul over a $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage that the General Assembly approved last year.

But Maryland's living wage legislation has drawn less attention, in part because other states do not appear ready to follow. Business groups, advocates and neutral observers who watch the issue said that while other states have considered living wage laws, none is on the verge of enacting one.

The living wage has played out as an "extreme extension" of the minimum wage debate, said Marc Donohue, a spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, a small business trade group that opposes both minimum-wage increases and living wage laws.

Maryland takes on the electoral college

New law would give state's electoral votes to popular vote winner.

The plan, passed Monday by the state House, would take effect only if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes adopted the same change.

Some states are considering the move as a way to avoid a scenario in which a candidate wins the national popular vote but loses in the
Electoral College, as Democrat
Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000.

Supporters of the Maryland bill said the state, which has 10 electoral votes, gets passed over by presidential candidates who head to larger battleground states. Opponents say the change is unnecessary and constitutionally questionable.

The final vote in the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates was 85-54, with only one Republican endorsing it. The Senate has already passed the bill, and Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, plans to sign it, said spokesman Rick Abbruzzese.

Delegate Jon Cardin argued that the measure would make Maryland more relevant in the presidential campaign.

"If you want Florida and Ohio to continue to have all the attention, all the money and all the interaction with presidential candidates, and have us be overlooked, then don't vote for this bill," said Cardin, a Democrat.

But House Republican Leader Anthony O'Donnell called on lawmakers to reject the measure, which he argued would allow people outside Maryland to dictate the voters' choice and turn the state away from constitutional safeguards designed to protect smaller states.

"In fact, the citizens of Maryland could vote overwhelmingly, 100 percent, for one candidate, and yet the electors of Maryland — the 10 electoral votes — could go for another candidate," O'Donnell said.

Preaching to the converted

I was driving back from a doctor's appointment listening to a local public affairs call-in show on NPR. One of the guests was someone from some organization called Progressive Maryland. His point was that Maryland voters explicitly rejected lower taxes when they voted the Republican governor, Bob Ehrlich, out of office. And sure enough caller after caller kept talking about how they didn't need tax cuts, would gladly forgo tax cuts and couldn't wait for the state to pick their pockets. I guess people do really get the government they deserve.

I'd rather have woken up to discover that I was a cockroach

After all, it's widely believed that cockroaches will survive a nuclear holocaust.

Instead I woke up yesterday at 4 am to find that my son and my car were missing. Now both son and car had taken off early the evening before to go to work, but I went to bed before he returned. I called son's cell phone and it went straight to voice mail. I paced, alternately cursing son for staying out all night and worrying that he was dead in a ditch.

A half hour later, son came home. Car didn't. And therein lies a tale.

Son was stopped by the cops because they said the car's registration had been suspended by the Maryland Motor Vehicle Agency for not complying with emissions testing. It was further discovered, said the cops, that I had had no insurance on the vehicle since April 2006--again according to the MVA. The car was impounded and son was given a card with the address and phone number of the county's tow merchant of choice and left to make his own way home.

The fact that there was a registration card in the car with the expiration date of April 30, 2008 couldn't dissuade them. An inspection report, duly carried out by an authorized state inspection center, didn't do it either. And the insurance card from Liberty Mutual? Didn't impress.

Now, this was not the first time son had been stopped regarding emissions testing. About a month ago, he was driving his own car when he was stopped and given a ticket ($145!) because, he was told, that he had ignored MVA requests to have his car tested for emissions. Since his car was registered in my name, son told me about it and I had meant to call the MVA but forgot. We heard no more about it until yesterday.

So it's 5 am now and we're both puzzling about the the matter. I start looking on the MVA website to see what this emissions testing wheeze was all about. There was a section on emissions testing, there was a section on inspections. Neither referenced the other and we had heard nothing about having to submit to such a test. Both cars had been registered and inspected in April 2006 and as far as we knew that was all we had to do until April 2008.

So I call the tow people, whose card advertises that they're open 24/7 to see about getting the car. Maybe, I thought, I could pick it up and actually go to work today. No such luck. The guy who answered the phone told me the office was closed until 9.

At 8:30 I decided to call my local insurance agent about the mystifying claim that I had been uninsured for the past 11 months. I get an automated phone system. Fine. I'm not a person who necessarily minds swimming through the layers of the automated phone system. Press 2 for a question about your current policy, press 0 to speak to an agent. Busy signal. Disconnect. Happened three times.

9:01 and time to call the tow people. There's an old gag where someone walks into an office to complain about something, sees a guy behind the counter with a hat on that says "Information." Guy starts laying out his woes. "Hold it right there," the counter guy says, "this is a matter for the complaint department." "Fine. Let me speak to the complaint department." "He'll be right with you." Guy disappears, comes back wearing a hat that says "Complaints." Apparently Bob at the tow company had changed into his "The office is now open" hat, cuz the same guy who answered the phone at 6 am and refused to hear me out was now ready to help.

But I digress. (Expect a lot of that if you're going to continue reading this post.)

Anyway, Bob tells me it'll cost $175--cash--to get the car back. Plus $35 a day--cash--for storage. But Bob's a good sport. Since I caught him right after he put on his "The office is now open" hat, he'll forgo the storage charge if I pick the car up by 4 pm.

But there are questions about where car was picked up, make and model, etc. Bob doesn't see the paperwork on car. Bob has to call me back. After a couple back and forth phone calls, Bob tells me he has the paperwork and he spoke to the driver but there's a problem with the paperwork. It seems the paperwork says the car still has its license plates on, but the driver told him that the cop took the plates off. Bob has checked. The car has no plates.

"Bob," I say, "this is not good."

"No no. You have to call the sheriff's office to get a Form &&***@# anyway, so I can release the car. Just call this number and give 'em this incident number and they can get a hold of the officer and you can get your tags back."

It was at this point that the whole affair took on the dark inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

I call the sheriff's office. Rerouted twice. Geezer picks up the phone. I tell him my car was impounded. He tells me I have to come by with my license and registration to get the Form &&***@#.

"There's a problem," I say, "the car doesn't have plates."

"That's not what the incident report says."

"Yeah. But the tow guy said there was a discrepancy between the paperwork and what the driver told him."

"Did you see the car yourself?"

"No. But the tow guy did and he assures me that it's plateless."

"You better go check yourself."

"Sigh. Fine, but what do I do if, in fact, it doesn't have plates?"

"It does have plates. The paperwork says it has plates."

"But if it, you know, doesn't have plates?"

Then we'll have to fill out a report that the plates were stolen."

"But the officer took the plates off the car."

"Not according to the paperwork."

Then I do something stupid. I try asking him about the emissions thing. There follows a whole song and dance that doesn't address my question, but leaves me even more confused: Why does my son keep getting stopped for emissions? It all boils down to the fact that I have to straighten it out with the MVA. "Just go to the information desk," he tells me. "They'll straighten it out." Uh huh.

10 am. I realize that my registration card is in the car, so I call Bob back and ask if he can get it for me. He has to call me back. He finds the registration and off I go to the back end of nowhere to pick it up. Then it's off in the opposite direction to the southern barracks of the Harford County sheriff's office.

In the lobby there's a door on the left and a glass-enclosed booth on the right where I find seated the geezer I spoke to on the phone. I tell him I need a Form &&***@#. He asks for my license and registration. I try to slide them through the little hole. He demands that I pick them up and place them on this here blank sheet of paper. I comply. He pulls out an oddly shaped piece of paper and begins laboriously to fill it out.

Another digression: Why is it that whenever you deal with officialdom, they always must fill out by hand an oddly shaped piece of paper with three carbons: Pink, yellow and goldenrod? Have they not heard of computers? Does it not occur to them that the customer's copy--in essence proof that said customer has duly complied with whatever pettifogging regulation is in question--is completely unreadable, hence useless? And why the official prejudice against the standard 8 by 11 sheet of paper?

Anyway, geezer fills out the form, gets up from behind the desk and leaves the booth. Comes back a few seconds later and proceeds to help the next customer without so much as a word to me.

A few minutes later, the door on the left opens and out walks a pig. I say this not to cause offense to the noble profession of policedom, rather it's a descriptive term. He is blond and fat and pink with a nose that resembles a snout. And, because he's much taller than me, and has his head cocked at an unusual angle, I find myself looking directly up his snout where I cannot help but marvel at the abundance of thick, bristly nose hair--grey and blonde and stiff--as though he'd shoved a couple of used toothbrushes up his snout. It's really rather remarkable.

The porcine fellow gives me my Form &&***@#. He tells me that the license plates were confiscated because I didn't have insurance. I do some spluttering in protest. I had an insurance card in the car. Doesn't matter, he says, you need a PR1619 (?). He tells me to take it up with the MVA and my insurance company. I question him about the emissions wheeze. Is there a new requirement I don't know about? He denies any such knowledge. Another song and dance about a wholly hypothetical situation in which I bought a used car from someone who still had a couple months to go before inspection and the inspection lapsed and I didn't get a new one. Not my situation, I say. Take it up with the MVA, he says.

Noon. I head home to call the insurance company who, I am now convinced, have screwed me. For some reason they told the MVA that I don't have insurance, I fume. If I don't have insurance, what were they doing with the almost $4,000 I've paid them since April 2006? Get trapped again in the automated phone system: Press 2 for a question about your current policy, press 0 to speak to an agent. Busy signal. Disconnect. After doing this a couple of times, I find my way to a layer in which I can leave a message. I leave a long detailed message, with heavy emphasis on the injustice of having to pay $175--cash--for something that wasn't my fault. I am speaking very slowly and enunciating every syllable to exaggerated effect. That'll show 'em that I mean business.

Lorraine from Liberty Mutual calls back about a half hour later. She apologizes for the phone problems. I lay out my tale again. Again I fume about the $175--cash--which now seems to be the most unjust thing about the whole sorry tale. She tells me that I do too have insurance. And I'm paid up through April. I tell her I know that, but the MVA doesn't know it. She promises to call the MVA and get back to me.

Lorraine calls back and tells me that the MVA had sent out a random "spot" insurance check demanding proof of insurance, but they had my address wrong. They had Apartment 1, I live in Apartment 11. She faxed them the official PR 1619, but it takes a day or two to process, however, if I'd be willing to drive out to the insurance agency to get the PR 1619, I can hand it in to the local MVA office and get it straightened out immediately. I say that I will, but I explain that my car no longer has any plates. Did they say what to do about that? Lorraine is sure they'll give my plates back to me. She's confident that it will all be straightened out. I still have to pay $175--cash--though, and I'm pissed about it.

Off to Liberty Mutual, about 10 miles from home. In the vague general direction of the impound lot, if you're interested. But not near the MVA. Insert rant about suburban sprawl here.

Lorraine, who seems sweet and helpful, has armloads of paperwork for me. She wants to ensure that I'll have absolutely everything I need when I go to the MVA. She hands me an official PR 1619, another oddly shaped piece of paper, but it only has one carbon and it's printed, not filled out.

Off to the MVA where, in the parking lot, one old geezer almost rams me with his pickup truck while trying to leave the lot at the same time that another old geezer passes me on the right, figuring he can negotiate the area between my car and the pickup truck and make his way to the parking spot he was planning to steal from me. Harford County really ought to have a senior recreation program to get these geezers off the street.

By the time I get to the front of the information line, I'm spent. I begin droning out my story in an affectless voice. Before I finish, the information lady smiles and directs me to a red-outlined doorway in the far left corner. I'm to enter the first door on the left. I walk through the mysterious doorway and enter the first door. On the left there's another door that says "Administrative Hearing" and there's a lawyer type and two clients sitting outside. My heart drops.

Let me explain here what I look like. I still have on the clothes I had slept in: A Looney Toons t-shirt and gray yoga pants with a giant whole in the knee. My sole concession to a decent appearance was to put on a bra. And shoes. So, I have the mistaken impression--for an instant--that I was to be put before a judge and asked to explain myself while looking like a homeless person. A homeless person who's had a very bad day. Then I see that beyond the hearing room is a little anteroom and I walk through.

Behind a dutch door, I see an office with several women sitting at desks. "Can I help you?" says the woman whose desk faces the door. Again the affectless voice outlines the situation. She says, "Why don't you come in here and we'll straighten everything out."

And she does.

Not without, of course, filling out several oddly shaped pieces of paper that absolve me of the emissions and insurance debacles. One for each incident and one for each car. Then she fills out another form that eventually gets me new license plates and a new registration form.

2:30 and I'm out of there, new license plates in hand. (This requires standing in another line, where, after the clerk hands me the plates, I think to inquire about the address they have for me in the computer. It's still wrong, but she fixes it.)

I still have a couple of hurdles to jump, however. I call Bob, but he had taken off his "The office is now open" hat and gone to pick up another car from another luckless Maryland driver so the office is closed for 45 minutes. And when we finally do get there, it is discovered that the cops had taken off the screws that hold the license plates in place. Bob is screwless. So we have to go to the hardware store to pick some up.

At 4:50, I put the license plates on in the parking lot at Lowes. Then I go home.

And that's why I didn't blog yesterday.

Maryland earns another dubious distinction

Second only to New York in length of commute.

Now they can get back to grinding the faces of the poor

Judge overturns Wal-Mart law.

The state law would have required large employers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care or pay the difference in taxes. Only Wal-Mart would have been affected by the law.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz concluded that the law would have hurt Wal-Mart by requiring it to track and allocate benefits for its Maryland employees in a different way from how it keeps track of employee benefits in other states. Motz wrote that the law "imposes legally cognizable injury upon Wal-Mart."

ADDED because I forgot: Thanks, Bob, for the link

Thieving gummint revenooers, part IV

Comptroller of Maryland
Case Number XXXXXX

Dear Ms. Tonk:

Thank you for your response to our notice regarding the above compliance case.

The information that was supplied to us is sufficient to close the case. We now consider the matter resolved.

Sincerely,
XXX

Dear Comptroller:

I cannot tell you how pleased I am to know that I have played a part, however small, in lightening your load. And it only cost me $8 in postage!

However, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, there is still the matter of $667.86 in state and local refunds due me. I know some would quibble about such a paltry amount, and I do hate to spoil the mood, but I'm afraid I have to insist. I figure that, since I helped you close a case, it's only fair that you reciprocate.

Yours in closure,
Tinkerty Tonk

Thieving gummint revenooers, part III

Still awaiting return of the money the state of Maryland stole from me last month. Today I was informed that since a) Maryland intercepted part of my federal tax refund; and that b) the IRS charges $20 for that service; then c) If and when I get back the money that the state of Maryland stole from me, I will receive the amount of money Maryland stole from me less $20.

Special PS to state Senator Andrew P. Harris and Delegates Richard K. Impallaria, J.B. Jennings and Patrick McDonough: Great constituent work guys! Consider yourselves officially on my shit list.

Thieving gummint revenooers, part II

Further to this, now the state of Maryland has seized half my federal tax refund

Thieving gummint revenooers

The state of Maryland, in its infinite wisdom, seized my state tax refund. Why? Because I didn't file a state tax return for 2002 and they figure I owe them more than $500. The only problem is I didn't live or work in Maryland in 2002, which I explained to them--in writing--last year when they presented me with the bill.

I'm afraid I was rather harsh to the woman who answered the phone when I called to complain. See, she started getting a little defensive, which only made me more defensive: "Listen," said I, "if you're gonna work for a government agency that make a habit of stealing money from its citizens, you'd better get used to calls like this. Or find another job."

Wednesday's my last chance

At winning the Maryland lottery.

Welcome Maryland readers

It seems the entire state wants to know about women's studies expert-turned prostitute Brandy Britton. I looked for a picture of her and all I could find was this:


from the Fabulous Girls of Las Vegas Calendar. I don't think it's the same one. But this sort of validates an earlier comment from AirForceWife:

Umm, her name is Brandy Britton. What the hell other career was she SUPPOSED to have? Other than pole dancer, maybe.

Women's studies expert charged with prostitution

Life after academia.

In more than a decade of academic work, Brandy M. Britton earned a doctorate in sociology from the University of California at San Francisco, established an expertise in women's studies and founded the Institute for Women and Girls Health Research out of her Ellicott City home.

Howard County police allege that she also ran another business from her tidy beige house: a prostitution service with hourly rates of $300 and up.

...

In 1999, Britton lost her job at UMBC and filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the university. In dismissing the suit, which is on appeal, a federal judge in Baltimore cited complaints about Britton from UMBC students and colleagues, and an accusation by the National Institutes of Health that Britton falsified data on a federally funded research project.

After losing her job, Britton directed the Institute for Women and Girls Health Research Inc., under her home address and one on St. Paul Street in Baltimore, according to Web sites. Britton also participated in meetings of a committee of the Maryland Drug Treatment Task Force, chaired by then-Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

I'm sure she was just conducting research.

Maryland: We're uglier than average

Beautiful-only online dating site ranks Maryland 31st in the nation in looks. Washington, DC comes in at 40, which makes sense if you factor in such part-time residents as Teddy Kennedy.

The site- which has its roots in Europe but started up in the United States five months ago - took a look recently at the distribution of its 8,000-plus members and decided that Maryland ranks 31st and Washington, D.C., is at a sad, sad 40th in the nation on its beauty barometer.

The rankings are based on percentages - the number of people from a particular area who applied to get into the online club, and the number of those who actually made it in.

Using that technique, New York topped the list of beautiful singles, with 25.8 percent of applicants being good-looking enough to get in. Those poor folks in North Dakota came in dead last.

And somewhere in between were all those rosy-cheeked skiers in Vermont. Those sweethearts in Tennessee; the potato-fed, manly men in Idaho. Those outdoorsy types in Oregon. The golden-tanned folks in New Mexico. The mild-mannered Michiganders.

In all, more than 38,000 people who have applied to the site have been rejected, administrators say, or more than one out of five.

BeautifulPeople Network bills itself as "a meeting place which is reserved for people, who because of their attractive appearance and personal qualities, stand out from the majority."

So, how do you make the cut?

The decision to allow you to enter our exclusive club lies with our members; who are given the chance to rate all new applications during a three day rating process. The majority vote is final.

We are proud to be the first online community in which existing members decide whether or not a new applicant should be accepted through our revolutionary rating technology. Once you have uploaded your profile, you will be rated by existing members of the opposite sex over a three day period. They will judge whether your picture and profile are deemed attractive enough to grant you coveted access.

While you are awaiting the rating verdict, you may browse members' profiles and mail them; this might improve your chances of getting accepted.

You will notice that all the members in BeautifulPeople.net are exactly that: beautiful.

Wanted: Upscale supermarket

Ann Althouse lusts for a deluxe Whole Foods supermarket like the one recently opened in Austin.

I've been known to make meals out of peanut butter -- just peanut butter -- for days, purely to avoid the experience of setting foot in a food store.

Hell yes. I can relate to .that. Since I moved to Maryland, north of Baltimore, I've been aching for an upscale supermarket. Just this afternoon I heard that Baltimore city approved a supermarket that aims to be a cross between Whole Foods and Balducci's and I immediately wanted to move just to be near it.

I live near two supermarkets and both stink. One, a Weiss, has relatively low prices but it's dingy and the produce department is depressing. Nothing at all exotic in the store--not even sushi. The other, a Giant, looks slightly better but more than a few times I've seen items on its shelves past the sell by date--last week it was bagged salad greens, another time someone had pulled the sell by date off a really dicey-looking steak. Also, the gourmet section consists of such exotica as Twinings Earl Grey tea and marmalade.

I've been lusting after Wegmans since this post by Virginia Postrel. Five hundred cheeses, prodigious pulchritudinous produce, international newspapers and 130,000 square feet of store. Plus all the regular brands you find in a supermarket.

Heaven!

And read this post, too: Wegmans fanmail