On my street it's posted as cleaning every Monday morning. But I work at home, and I can assure you the cleaning truck comes by only once a month.
The ticketers are out every week, however!

Last month I got a ticket ($75!) for walking my dog off-leash on the beach (an area that has been off-leash since I moved here 30 years ago). Apparently they had just extended the off leash area that very day due to "nesting plovers." There were no signs up--I checked when I got back to the entrance. And no plovers, either.
But here's the best part--they were driving an SUV down the beach (seems disruptive to me!) and after they ticketed me, they drove past an encampment of homeless bums (about 6 of them in filthy wood and cardboard hovels, with an illegal fire going) and nailed another dog walker.
But here the homeless are a protected species, and they don't have money to extort anyway.
I am developing a great contempt for the law.

Agreed! There's a reason why most Hollywood fight scenes are so dull compared to what can be done in places not run by OSHA and the lawyers--Hong Kong, Thailand, etc. American stunt performers simply can't do those things because they are not allowed to. The difference is palpable and all the CGI and hi-tech can't make up for it.

Matthew wanted to call the album "Nothing Lasts," but Tuesday Weld said he could have that title or use her picture...but not both.
I saw him recently on the "Girlfriend" tour and he was clearly having fun with it. I've never seen him so relaxed on the stage, bantering happily with the audience, and it was a great concert. I also had a chance to speak with him backstage and he's as nice a guy as you might imagine.
I really enjoyed his albums from "Girlfriend" through "Blue Sky on Mars," but he started to lose me with "in reverse." His odd little album "Kimi ga suki- Raifu" (sort of a love letter to his Japanese fans) marked more of a return to the old style and I rather liked it. His newest, "Modern Art," has a couple tracks I really like but overall I still haven't make up my mind on it. It's...peculiar.
Still, lots of musicians put out maybe one album (or even one song) and never catch that lightning in a bottle again, and at least for me, Matthew had a good solid run of four albums of genius (five if you count "Son of Altered Beast) and a bunch of songs scattered here and there on compilation albums that were really excellent ("So Far," a bonus track from the "Time Capsule: Best of Matthew Sweet" album is in my personal top 10 Sweet songs). Not a bad run, and that's not mentioning the little gems scattered throughout his later albums ("Millennium Blues" from "in reverse" and "Spiral" from "Kimi ga Suki").
All in all, not too shabby.

I note that none of the huffy replies from the HSUS addressed the appalling fact that HSUS only donates 1% of its income to shelters.
And that's the whole point, isn't it?

I liked Matthew Sweet's new album, "Modern Art." Maybe not as "power pop" as his older albums like "Altered Beast" but not without interest. A good "best of" CD of his work was released last year, too: "Playlist: The Very Best of Matthew Sweet" which provides a good overview of his work for a mere $7.99 (although "Time Capsule: The Best of Matthew Sweet 1990-2000" is only $9.99 on MP-3 and a better selection, I think).

American? None.
How about Helen Mirren, though?

Amen. Oliver Stone didn't do "W" because he was dying to tell the story of Bush. He did it to "control the narrative" and use the propaganda power of Hollywood to create the "accepted version of history." That execrable TV series "America: The Story of us" is a flawless example of that. Now every school owns a set of this revolting Zinn-based rubbish to play over and over again to young minds full of mush.

I rather suspect we can do a more environmentally sensitive job of mining these metals than the Chinese. One would expect the enviros to be eager to have us take over, since the metals are going to be mined in any case. But then, they never had had much use for logic.