In Washington, it’s now a felony (yes, a felony – $10K fine and five years in pound you in he ass prison) to gamble online. Seems there’s always someone, somewhere who’s pissed that someone else might be having a good time.

Been doing a lot of the job interview thing lately. One thing I’ve noticed is that I don’t feel like I do well when the interviewer is a woman. Seems to me (and this is all anecdotal, of course) that, whereas men interviewers focus on what you have done and what you can do, women seem to focus on what you would like to do and how that made you feel. For example, every woman I’ve interviewed with asked the question:

What is your dream job?

Thoughts running through my head were professional beer-taster, rock star would be cool, and owning my own gun company. But none of those are answers that are particularly appealing to a potential employer. So, I struggle with that question and don’t really perform that well.

Also, a popular question asked by interviewers of both genders involves assessing how you react to pressure or stress. The question has many forms but usually goes like this:

Describe a time when you faced a great challenge and how did you react to it.

Now, the real answer is to pick any situation as I tend to work under pressure a lot. And as for my reaction, it has always been to cowboy the fuck up and get the job done. Now, that answer tends to work on men (minus the cowboy the fuck up part) but for women, they follow up with asking me how that made me feel or how did that strain my work environment.

I’m not the touchy-feely sort and struggle with that sort of stuff.

Countertop has some good advice.

Jamie Satterfield:

A federal jury this afternoon returned guilty verdicts against a 70-year-old retired plumber who fired on a team of lawmen after they crossed his Roane County property in August 2004 to chop down marijuana plants.

[…]

Klyce was the federal officer at issue in the indictment. He testified that he and four other lawmen were stopped at a gate on Hendricks property when Hendricks suddenly fired on them with a .22-caliber rifle.

The officers testified that Hendricks continued to brandish the weapon even after they identified themselves as police and demanded they leave his property.

Hendricks contends he initially thought the crew were members of a pesky clan of neighborhood thieves. He testified he only fired warning shots and never aimed or shot directly at the lawmen.

And the lawyer is going for the jury nullification angle:

Attorney Doug Trant asked jurors today to show Hendricks, who he said is in failing health, some mercy, an argument bordering on a legal concept known as jury nullification. Under that concept, jurors would essentially ignore the facts of a case and the law in favor of their own brand of justice.

Local TeeVee news WATE now has a blog, with comments even. Good for them. I’ve gone a few rounds with some of them and, overall, they’re some nice folks despite my issues with some of their reporting.