The People Are Speaking

And unlike politicians it is not with forked tongue.

LA Weekly: News: The Defeat Expands: "And they were all wrong. As the count proceeded this past weekend, the percentage of California voters who cast ballots was up to 47.3 percent. When the count’s all done — the county registrars have to wrap it up by December 8 — that figure may be close to 48 percent, 11 points higher than each of the two preceding specials.

And the numbers are even more remarkable when broken down by county. As of this past Sunday, turnout in heavily Republican Orange County (which supported Arnold’s measures at a rate higher than any other county in the state) stood at 43 percent, while in Democratic L.A. County, it was 45.4 percent. I cannot recall an election — much less a low-turnout special election such as this one — in which the voting rate in whiter, richer Orange County was lower than that in more polyglot and working-class L.A., but this time around, it surely was."

Imagine that. Voter participation was up in a special election, mainly because the people were so angry, and the absentee ballot option is definitely catching on. Quit wasting our time and our money.

Thanks Skippy.

School Civics Lesson

Freedom of the press. Unless we decide otherwise.

CNN.com - Tennessee high school newspaper seized - Nov 28, 2005: "Copies of a high school's student newspaper were seized by administrators because the edition contained stories about birth control and tattoos, stirring a First Amendment debate.

Administrators at Oak Ridge High School went into teachers' classrooms, desks and mailboxes to retrieve all 1,800 copies of the newspaper Tuesday, said teacher Wanda Grooms, who advises the staff, and Brittany Thomas, the student editor.

The Oak Leaf's birth control article listed success rates for different methods and said contraceptives were available from doctors and the local health department. Superintendent Tom Bailey said the article needed to be edited so it would be acceptable for the entire school.

The edition also contained a photo of an unidentified student's tattoo, and the student had not told her parents about the tattoo, said Superintendent Tom Bailey."

As if they don't know now. If the photo of a tattoo had been Jenna and notJenna would the article still have been pulled (probably, lol)? This was about the content and only the content. That birth control article was the real culprit. Science isn't real big in that area of the country and just stating the facts is threatening the status quo. Kids might start asking questions!

When I was in Acupuncture school something like this also happened. It wasn't an official paper, just a one off put out by two very angry/funny students and one irritated teacher. It was called the Needle and it was hilarious. Freaking hilarious. They ripped on everybody, but the dean Jack Miller had it stuck to him several times, all funny. We had these tacky mailboxes of hanging file folders with our names on them that were located in a hallway. Open access and a great messaging system for nonsecure paperwork. Well, one day this "rag" shows up in our mailboxes and a few hours later the administration goes through everyone's folder and removes said offending item. I got to school about five minutes later and pitched a fit. Mailboxes were for people to put in and individuals to take out, besides humor is good for the soul. I was irritated by what they said about me and that was the whole point, but it was funny and I'm a grown adult.

Just like this school, this administration and my school, they never learned a few basic lessons about life. The more you struggle to regulate thought after it has hit the public's attention, the more light you bring to the issue you are trying to hide. Especially with teenagers. Taking back the paper only made students aware that there was something they were not supposed to see and that it must be pretty juicy. The information will get out and tattoo girl is now doubly mortified because the story went from high school to CNN. Way to go.

Copies of The Needle appeared in the break room, library and odd places around the school. By the next day everyone had a copy.

Shouldn't You Ask A Scientist?

And not a bureaucrat before you decide what is science and what is whimsy? Oh that's right, all the scientists left or were forced out. These are the results.

EPA to Scale Back Testing at Ground Zero: "The fires at Ground Zero burned for three months, and western Brooklyn sat directly within the smoke-and-dust plume from the World Trade Center. But EPA officials said that their tests have not been able to distinguish between World Trade Center contamination and the dust and detritus of normal urban life.

'We would prefer to go further, but the science won't let us,' said E. Timothy Oppelt, an EPA official who has chaired an expert technical review panel intended to guide the testing. 'We can't be whimsical.'

The EPA also announced Tuesday that it is shutting down Oppelt's review panel -- which includes toxicologists, doctors, environmentalists and residents. The committee was supposed to meet monthly but has not convened since July.

The panel will hold a final meeting in December, and that meeting will be shorter than usual."

Oh why bother. They aren't going to do anything anyway, why don't they just cut the crap, say they don't care and tell us to suck it up. Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a democracy (republic).

Critical thinking isn't a strong point of this administration.

Gross

I watched the Thanksgiving episode of CSI and thought it was gross, but I had a really hard time reading this article without wrinkling my face and pursing my lips.

Down the Hatch, Then What?: "Thomas said she prefers soft chow, like spaghetti, eggs, and oysters, because they go down easier. At a regional qualifier earlier this year, a potato skin lodged painfully, if briefly, in her throat. A week later, she had to eat through the pain to win the final.

'Maybe women have smaller throats than men,' she speculates.

Stanford's Triadafilopoulos has another theory. When the muscles that line the esophagus initiate swallowing, they alternately relax and contract in a rippling pattern that pushes food downward. It typically takes 9 to 15 seconds for a swallow to convey food to the stomach, he said. This makes the esophagus the real bottleneck in competitive speed eating, with a mouth full of food waiting for traffic to clear in the tunnel.

Some people can relax all those muscles at once, momentarily turning the esophagus into a hollow pipe. 'That's how people in circuses can swallow swords,' Triadafilopoulos said. Some eaters may do the same thing, and literally pour food down the hatch.

'These people have somehow developed the ability, probably through some kind of training, to relax everything at the same time,' he conjectured."

Gag.

Neither Does Cheez Wiz

And nobody with any sense eats that crap. Men don't have an expiration date and women do, hmm. I'm past my expiration date and happier than than a pug with forbidden food if this is what I would have had to put up with in order to be considered marriage material.

Salon.com Life | Broadsheet: "Ross thinks Dowd has a bigger problem than disagreeable shrewishness: 'Here's the deal, Maureen,' he writes. 'With one exception, men can accomplish anything that we think is important all by ourselves. Explore, build empires, create new industries, invent, discover, make money -- all these things come naturally to us. We don't need your help.' (What about being cowboys and fixing cars? Why does Ross stop himself at six phallic accomplishments?) The only thing men need help with, he says, is having a family. 'For that, we need a woman ... a woman whose youth and fertility will give us the greatest chance of having healthy children.' These children, Ross feels, must be 'raised by a mother young enough to not be an old woman by the time they reach high school, [not] by a woman that's old enough to be their grandmother.' Here Ross is gathering steam for his thesis statement, which readers will be able to recognize easily thanks to his helpful capitalization:

'WOMEN HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE. MEN DON'T. That's the elephant in your living room, Maureen. You may not like to hear this, but it's true.'

Ross has examples! He writes that any man would choose 19-year-old Maria Sharapova (or comparably 'slutty' 24-year-old Paris Hilton) over 38-year-old crone Pamela Anderson. Why? Oh, John F. Ross, please say it again: 'WOMEN HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE. MEN DON'T.'

This mantra, which would no doubt look great on a T-shirt or possibly a mud flap, also explains, in Ross' mind, why professional men choose 'their secretaries over female lawyers' -- 'because the secretaries are younger and more fertile than the female lawyers.' Apparently, you lose eggs every time you take the bar exam. And secretaries are all in their 20s. When they hit 30 they spontaneously combust."

Of course women aren't the genetic equivalent of Cheez Wiz. We don't expire, we age like a good French Brie, the older we get the more potent the flavor with an accompanying sense of decadent satisfaction. Guys like Ross don't want a family, they want a nubile young thing to "slake their lust" (read that in the comments section of a site justifying rape) in an effort to stave off aging and the uncomfortable realization that they have less time left on this earth than they have already spent in their misbegotten youth. Yeah men did build explore, build empires, create new industries, invent, discover, and make money, the problem with his thinking men don't need womens help is that he forgets that they used slaves instead. Either a woman or a slave did the cooking, packing, laundry, cleaning, gathering, raising children, and any other chore that was considered beneath a "man's" station in life.

I like how he got so worked up over someone who should be a grandmother because it doesn't look good while totatly ignoring (after he brings him up) that while Quinn physically fathered two young children at 82 he didn't really stick around do the whole job, just the fun part. But that's what this is all about isn't it?

Maybe This Will Jump Start

The Space race.

China Aims to Put Man on Moon by 2020 - Yahoo! News: "China wants to master the technology for a space walk and docking in space by 2012, Hu said. He said China was developing its space program at its own pace, not in competition with the United States. 'It's not the competition of the Cold War era,' he said.

Hu stressed China's intention to use space exploration for peaceful ends, saying the government 'is willing to work hard with people around the world for the peaceful use of space.'"

Like the neocons will believe that. Not likely when paranoia is mainly how you deal with the world. Everyone's out to get us.

A Physical Manifestation

Of the coming battle.

Piece Falls From Supreme Court Facade - Yahoo! News: "A basketball-sized piece of marble moulding fell from the facade over the entrance to the Supreme Court, landing on the steps near visitors waiting to enter the building."

Facade. It's such a nice word. Appropriate, don't you think?

Like A Fart In a House of Worship

Is just how this is going to go over with the conservatives. After they tried to tear me a new one over at VodkaPundit for suggesting the same thing. I have been biding my time, waiting for someone else to put it in print.

Salon.com Books | A history of violence: "So, in that sense, contrary to what the Bush administration would argue, the way to fight al-Qaida is to pull out of Iraq, because [the U.S. presence] is creating tremendous incentive for people to pick up arms on behalf of this mythical new caliphate [pan-Islamic religious-political empire] that they want to create. It makes sense to reduce our footprint in the Persian Gulf, and in fact the whole Middle East, and to remove this seemingly imperial presence that creates so much anger and unhappiness there.

We should also work a lot harder to solve the problems on what neoconservatives like Bernard Lewis call the 'fringes' of the Muslim world -- the conflicts from the Philippines to Kashmir to Chechnya to, of course, Palestine -- all of those disputes need to be reduced because they create heat that keeps the pot boiling. It's the molecules that escape from that boiling pot that are immediately snatched up by these terrorist groups in one form or another. They're catching the angriest, most nihilistic people coming out of this simmering pot. And so we need to lower the temperature.

And then we need to start more generally getting out of the way and letting the people in the region engage in rebuilding their societies and starting on the process of what I call 'religion building' -- in other words, yanking big parts of the Islamic establishment into the 21st century and reconciling it with ideals of secular modern institutions where church and state are separated."

Oh yeah, like they are going to do that. This is the daddy party, you will do as you are told or we will discipline you.

"I think what happened in Iraq shows that most clearly. Here was a secular dictatorship. We destroyed it, and what emerged in its place is largely a Shiite theocracy on one side, and a Sunni movement that because of civil war conditions is itself pulled very strongly into a Sunni Islamic formation. Neither one of these Iraqi whirlpools -- either the Sunni or the Shiite Islamist ones -- need to be victorious. I believe there are many Shiites in Iraq who are unhappy with the theocrats, and there are many Sunnis --- probably the majority in Iraq -- who are nationalists and are secular. But as long as this conflict continues I believe both of those nonreligious elements in Iraq are going to increasingly lose out to the Islamist character of both the Shiite and Sunni leadership."

snip

"So it's a witches' brew. Syria could explode into a vicious, Lebanon-style catastrophe if Assad were to collapse. On the other hand, intelligence people who I've talked to say that Syria was very helpful after 9/11 in providing intelligence to the United States about al-Qaida, that Syria has absolutely no interest in supporting Islamist terrorism, and that if we want to stabilize Iraq we should be approaching both Syria and Iran directly on some diplomatic grounds to help reduce sectarian conflict in Iraq. Instead, what the Bush administration is doing is increasing the pressure on both Syria and Iran ... which is precisely the wrong thing to do if your goal is to stabilize Iraq.

I guess their theory is that the best defense is always a good offense, and astonishingly to me at a time when the American adventure in Iraq has gone completely and utterly off the track, rather than think about retreat, they're thinking about advance.

It reminds me of a piece in the Onion a while ago, which was a satire, saying that Bush announced that we were going to pull our troops out of Iraq, and that they were going to withdraw through Syria. That was a hilarious satire, but it seems to be almost exactly what some people in the administration are thinking."

I love the Onion but lately it has been hard to tell when they are joking because it actually sounds like something the administration would do. And this has the same chance of occurring as the proverbial snowball has of surviving hell.

"Is there a politician who's given real thoughtful consideration to this kind of stuff? Not that I can see, because, so far at least, the political consequences would be fatal. You'd have to come out against the war on terrorism, number one -- at least as it's currently conceived, and number two, you'd have to come out against America's one-sided support for Israel. And either one of those stands politically would be dangerous but both of them together would be fatal for most politicians -- or at least that's how they see it.

Which is why most of us have been depressed.

Frank Rich Rocks!

Frank Rich rocks! I've said that before and I'll say it again. Frank Rich rocks! For five years the MSM have tiptoed around Shrubco, as if they were afraid to wake the baby. Somebody finally decided the baby has been coddled long enough and that it's time to see what Santa brought, and it looks like coal:

"Much more: each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe. The cover-up is failing, however. No matter how much the president and vice president raise their decibel levels, the truth keeps roaring out. A nearly 7,000-word investigation in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times found that Mr. Bush and his aides had "issued increasingly dire warnings" about Iraq's mobile biological weapons labs long after U.S. intelligence authorities were told by Germany's Federal Intelligence Service that the principal source for these warnings, an Iraqi defector in German custody code-named Curveball, "never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so." The five senior German intelligence officials who spoke to The Times said they were aghast that such long-discredited misinformation from a suspected fabricator turned up in Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations and in the president's 2003 State of the Union address (where it shared billing with the equally bogus 16 words about Saddam's fictitious African uranium)."

Oh yeah, and then you'd think he was going after Jayson Blair.

"The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie? The situation recalls Mary McCarthy's explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' ""

Hopefully someone in the WH reads something besides fantasy WMD assessments and catches on to the fact that to the rest of the world they are living in a glass house and boulders are being readied for the catapults outside.

"Sooner or later - probably sooner, given the accelerating pace of recent revelations - this embarrassing information will leak out anyway. But the administration's deliberate efforts to suppress or ignore intelligence that contradicted its Iraq crusade are only part of the prewar story. There were other shadowy stations on the disinformation assembly line. Among them were the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, a two-man Pentagon operation specifically created to cherry-pick intelligence for Mr. Cheney's apocalyptic Iraqi scenarios, and the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), in which Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and the Cheney hands Lewis Libby and Mary Matalin, among others, plotted to mainline this propaganda into the veins of the press and public. These murky aspects of the narrative - like the role played by a private P.R. contractor, the Rendon Group, examined by James Bamford in the current Rolling Stone - have yet to be recounted in full. No debate about the past, of course, can undo the mess that the administration made in Iraq. But the past remains important because it is a road map to both the present and the future. Leaders who dissembled then are still doing so. Indeed, they do so even in the same speeches in which they vehemently deny having misled us then - witness Mr. Bush's false claims about what prewar intelligence was seen by Congress and Mr. Cheney's effort last Monday to again conflate the terrorists of 9/11 with those "making a stand in Iraq." (Maj. Gen. Douglas Lute, director of operations for Centcom, says the Iraqi insurgency is 90 percent homegrown.) These days Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney routinely exaggerate the readiness of Iraqi troops, much as they once inflated Saddam's W.M.D.'s."

They can inflate all they want, it just better be one of those MacGyver cushions because they are about to get drowned in the tide of history, and it doesn't look like there is going to be a search party.

It truly is the holiday season and there is much more out there to go with Merry Fitzmas.

Crimes Against Humanity

Since torture no longer seems to qualify as a crime, our government has decided to go after another group of people with little or no power.

SEASON OF SHARING / Suddenly, no income / Government checks end abruptly for disabled Bayview man, 82: "After paying Omer Mixon workers compensation for two decades, the federal government told the 82-year-old by mail in August that his medical conditions caused by degenerating discs in his back 'have ceased,' so his workers compensation would too.

Mixon, who lives with his wife, Eddie Lee, 83, in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood and was forced by his doctor to leave his job at Naval Air Station Alameda in 1984, can't lift a bag of groceries without pain.

The cutoff meant that the couple suddenly had no income to buy food or pay bills or the rent on the apartment where they have lived since 1978. The federal Office of Personnel Management did say Mixon would begin receiving his government pension instead -- in three months.

Four months later, the Mixons still have no income. "

What does this mean in real terms?

"In the three decades Richson has lived with the Mixons, he has never seen an empty table for Sunday dinner. Richson, whose biological father asked the Mixons to raise his baby boy when he was 16 months old, serves as a caretaker for the couple.

The other children help, too, paying water and power bills when they can, but other bills are mounting. For example, medical expenses that were covered by workers compensation insurance now are the Mixons' responsibility.

Recently, a cancer medicine Omer Mixon needed was so expensive he went without."

Once you start taking medicine for prostate cancer it is not a wise idea to stop since for most men the cancer seems to grow faster since it was held in check.

These people are the tip of the iceberg. The generation that suffered and survived the Depression and World War II, who built this country, paid their taxes and set aside for retirement are getting the big shaft while the extremely spoiled, self-centered, ungrateful generation that benefited from their hard work and sacrifice makes a mockery of their contributions while co-opting the language and the "values".

They made it possible for us to become the greatest nation on earth and we repay them by denying them the rewards promised them and expect them to suddenly be able to survive on nothing. This country is going to learn a very hard lesson.

You are only as strong as your weakest link and ours seems to be compassion and consideration with a distinct lack of consideration for our elders.

How Christian of us.

The Real Reason

We went to war. Corrupt and shameless doesn't begin to cover the reasons why we invaded another country without provocation, without a majority of the world's population approving, without a request from the Iraqi people themselves, and without concern for the lives of the Americans entrusted to their care.

We invaded and destroyed a sovereign nation, created a new generation of people all over the world who despise us, changed the average age in which soldiers die in combat to an older demographic, thereby increasing single motherhood in areas where the soldier was the sole financial support, and last but certainly not least, veterans with physical and emotional wounds that will forever handicap them as they go through their life.

Meanwhile the majority of Americans not entitled to tax cuts have seen their quality of life decrease right along with our reputation around the world. Food and heating costs are rising faster than wages, that is if you have a job with all the corporations declaring bankruptcy before merging into one again, health care costs are unbelievable, pensions have been reduced or eliminated, and people have refinanced their houses to make up the difference. Now the housing market is slowing down, interest rates are rising and that equity is disappearing faster than Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm off to see Chicken Little.

Maybe Harry Potter.

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

Just makes for one ugly pig. What is up with the MSM lately? They are doing their best to trivialize the death and destruction of our troops. These are real people with real lives. What about their family members? Friends? Former coworkers? Yes, some people are going to be able to rise above the difficulties of having their lives literally blown apart, but the majority will no be able to.

From Wounds, Inner Strength: "Friedman said studies of World War II veterans often showed that they valued the experience, even though they had serious post-combat stress: 'Yes, I've suffered,' he said men would report, 'but I wouldn't have given up this experience for anything in the world. . . . The things I experienced have made me a better man today.'

Studies of Vietnam War POWs have shown similar sentiments. One study, in 1980, found that 61 percent of American POWS in North Vietnam believed their experience was ultimately beneficial.

Tom McNish, a former Air Force pilot who was a prisoner in North Vietnam for six years, said: 'There is no question in my mind that the experience I had in Vietnam has had an overall very positive effect on my life. But I don't recommend it for anybody else. And I don't want to have to do it again.'

Wounded veterans of the Iraq war say similar things. Adam Replogle, 25, of Wellington, Colo., a former Army sergeant and tank gunner who lost his left hand and the vision in his left eye in a battle in Karbala in 2004, said that he still has ups and downs but that after his experience in Iraq, not much worries him."

On Dec 28th it will be eight years since I almost died. Major asthma attack from out of nowhere and I was all alone. I remember the terror of thinking I was going to die and the relief of getting some air as I faded out. Nothing rattled me for a few years, but after a while it becomes a thing that happened in your past and the everyday intrusions of life begin to weigh on you once again.

This is a disservice to the thousands who are physically and emotionally traumatized, all you need to do is buck up and change your attitude. Don't worry about the images that are so vivid you might as well still be there.

Jokers, but it isn't funny.

Pug Photos

I only own one pug, Shai Shai the black one, Chris and Corinne own the fawn Jack Jack. They also own the camera, so after four years I now have photos of my baby.



They played tug for a long time before Corinne was able to get a pic of them both looking at the camera.






Aren't they cute? They run our lives with an iron paw. Such is the life of ones who were bred to be the lapdog of royalty, and these guys are true to the breed.

So, That's What It's Called

The Daughter Track, how catchy. I've been on it for over 12 years. Mom has most of her mental faculties and prefers the simpler enjoyments of life whenever possible. My brothers think it is easy and that I should be grateful for the opportunity.

Forget the Career. My Parents Need Me at Home. - New York Times: "In another era, the task of caring for elderly parents often fell to the unmarried daughter who never left home and never worked for a living. But now, in a 21st-century twist on the 19th-century spinster, career women like Ms. Geist who have made their mark in the world are returning home to care for parents in old age.

They are embracing a filial role that few could have imagined in their futures and are doing so by choice. In fact, sociologists are beginning to give the phenomenon a name: the Daughter Track, a late-in-life version of the Mommy Track, a career downsizing popular with younger women.

Women, now as always, bear a disproportionate burden for elder care and often leave jobs, either temporarily or permanently, when the double duty becomes overwhelming , according to recent studies of family care-giving, women in the workplace and retirement patterns. Although there is no precise count of how many women have walked away from careers to care for their parents, more of them than ever are financially independent, unmarried or childless, which makes it more feasible than it might be for women with families at home. And never have more parents needed adult children to care for them, what with long life expectancy and disabling conditions like Alzheimer's disease."

I'm hoping to have more money as she gets older but it doesn't look good so far. I really wanted her to enjoy herself while she could.

If it wastn't for the lack of money, I would fit right in with the rest of the daughter track.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's the NY Times, but the story was so appropriate.

What was the point

Of using this photo?
USATODAY.com - War's strain wearing on Army troops, tools
Rudy Gutierrez, AP/El Paso Times Pfc. Lori Piestewa checks her equipment as she along with 240 soldiers with the 507th Maintenance Co. prepare to leave Ft Bliss, Texas.

They should be ashamed of themselves. What were they thinking? Trying to point out that the military is worn out and breaking down is no excuse to use this woman.

Didn't she pay enough?

Update: If you didn't follow the link, this woman died in combat over two years ago and there is no mention of that little fact anywhere in this article. Nothing.

My 1500th Visitor

I installed Sitemeter because I thought nobody was reading my blog (they just aren't commenting very often) and I was getting lonely. Well, you find out some interesting things about your visitors.

Mr. 1500 (I just know it has to be a he) came here by way of a google search. Absolutely fascinating.

It was a popular post.

Where To Start

I have a tendency to rant about this subject quite a bit. As an acupuncturist I used to see people come in taking some pretty weird prescription combinations. The first question I always asked was "did you fill all of these at the same pharmacy?" Somebody needs to make sure that they don't end up with three different prescriptions for the same antidepressant (wellbutrin, buproprion and zyban) from three different doctors. Unless.

Salon.com Life | Life: The disorder: "Likely in part because the first heavily medicated generation of teens is now drifting into adulthood and still renewing their prescriptions, and partly because new diagnoses are steadily increasing. 'Adult ADD' -- full name: attention deficient and hyperactivity disorder -- appears to be at the cusp of making the transition of so many psychosocial disorders before it: from unheard of to skeptically acknowledged to culturally sanctioned.

Earlier this year it was the subject of a sober cover story in the New York Times Magazine, after which, curiously, television advertisements for Strattera, Eli Lilly's drug for adult ADD, suddenly seemed impossible to avoid. Robert S. Epstein, Medco's chief doctor, tells the Times that the current data indicates 'a clear recognition and new thinking that treatment for A.D.H.D. does not go away for many children after adolescence.' Another doctor, James McGough of UCLA, adds that still more adults should be on such drugs -- a sentiment echoed a few days later on the 'Today' show by Dr. Edward Hallowell, author of 'Delivered From Distraction: Getting the Most Out of Life With Attention Deficit Disorder.'

Is it me, or is there something peculiar going on here? Adults have taken what began as a controversial adolescent disorder and coolly co-opted it as their own, as if there were never any doubts about its legitimacy. In the '70s, when ADD drugs were first being tested, they were among the only psychotropic meds for which clinical trials involved children and teens first. The thinking was simple: The adolescent years are ones of hormonal pandemonium that make focusing on pre-calc next to impossible for many; pills like Ritalin eased the pain. In time such reasoning was applied to younger kids -- twitchy, foot-tapping 7- and 8-year-olds, too. As for adults? It was assumed that growing up meant, well, growing up, and that taking such pills would be viewed as a frowned-upon crutch. But today's revised attitude has it that the trouble one had with memorizing state capitals or grasping the quadratic formula may be similar to the trouble one has listening to that PowerPoint presentation. We are all -- or many of us are, potentially -- antsy kids spaced out in the back of the class."

Perhaps kids need more exercise to burn off all that energy? When I look back on the childhood that I spent with my nose in a book, I still got outside and learned how to ride a bike, rollerskate, and play other oudoor games. We played all the time and then we went to sleep at bedtime which was either 8 or 9 o'clock. And we went to sleep, the kind that regenerates you and enables you to face the next day.

"We live in a society where it's increasingly difficult to differentiate between adults and kids. Go to a mall, squint your eyes, and see if you can tell the difference between the alarming 18-year-olds who seem 35 and the much more alarming 35-year-olds trying to pass for 18."

So true and thats just the clothes. The conversations are the really frightening part.

"Since time immemorial grown-ups have made a point of telling children that adulthood isn't easy -- that it's a constant exercise in (cue affectedly furrowed brows) doing things you don't want to do. But such preaching suddenly sounds archaic, doesn't it, when the same adult superpowers are now patting themselves on the back for acknowledging that those PowerPoint presentations may, like Pink Floyd's "The Wall," be a whole lot more palatable on drugs?"

Snicker. "The Wall" was such a depressing movie, how about something with a little more color like Finding Nemo or action like The Matrix?

"I don't mean to sound overly flip. I'm simply finding it hard not to see this as a tragicomic step toward the classic concern about psychotropic drugs: the redefining of life as a disorder. Think, for a moment, about antidepressants. Over the past decade they shifted from being adult-only drugs to being acceptably prescribed (off-label) to children and teens. How come? On one hand it was recognized that children suffered from serious depression, and that certain pills were remarkably effective treatments. But at the same time the definition of treatable depression was watered down -- renamed as social anxiety disorder, panic disorder and, my personal favorite, generalized anxiety disorder -- to include a seemingly endless demographic of adults and children. So the same way we recognized that adult disorders can be applied to children, we are now, with ADD, noting that those of childhood can be applied to adults. It makes it hard not to imagine a future in which the smallest hardships (trouble studying, stress over a breakup, or perhaps a desire to prevent such nuisances) lead seamlessly to a fully medicated existence starting well before the onset of adulthood."

Could you see our generation going through the Depression? How about exploring the West? Setting out across the ocean when you think the world might be flat? We're a bunch of whiners. Life isn't going like it does in the movies, I'm depressed. I can't focus in school, I have ADHD. I'm overweight so I would rather take a pill that has the potential to make me crap uncontrollably in public than seriously diet and exercise to take it off and change my life in the process. That is too much work and too much responsibility for their own life. I have a headache, where's the ...?

"But must it be only one or the other? It seems especially stubborn -- dare I say immature -- that the medical community refuses to acknowledge just how much certain psychotropic drugs blur the line between the biochemical and societal. Even more peculiar is that while we usher in a state of being permanently medicated, selective dosing is still viewed as "recreational" and "risky." What's interesting about ADD drugs is that they are remarkably effective regardless of how your brain looks when scanned, achieving what for centuries we've turned to coffee to accomplish, with about the same potential for side effects. So here's a radical thought: Why not just put them in the same category? After all, what's worse, continuing to find ways to define the everyday in terms of disorders until we're all taking pills to curb the effects of other pills, or admitting that we've synthesized substances that can help, from time to time, in different doses for both adults and children, take the edge off in a way that doesn't throw you off track? To me it seems more honest this way, more grown-up, and less likely to rouse our collective inner voices into an anxious chorus constantly wondering what's "wrong" with us."

Nothing. We just spend too much time contemplating our navels. Otherwise know as omphaloskepsis and as a nation the US excels so well I'm surprised we haven't tried to make it an Olympic sport.

Life is hard. Right now it is sucking the big weenie and taking a pill to make me feel less like a failure because it hasn't all worked out like I planned or hoped will not change the fact that it didn't work out like I planned or hoped. Maybe I need to change my plan or ask for help. If I was in Darfur or Iraq no matter how many pills I took it would not change my situation so why should I expect it to make my life better in the US? We seem to spend a lot of time doing and very little time being. Some of you are so unhappy with who you are you are willing to take medications to make you just like everyone else never realizing you are just like everyone else. What a waste of your life. As I was told growing up, drugs don't solve problems they only hide them or make them worse.

Remember, you are unique.

Just like everyone else.

Update: The first story I found after this one had this to say on the subject.

"The findings, say researchers, point to possible instances of inappropriate prescribing to children.

While guidelines call for children to be treated with either mental health counseling or a combination of counseling and medication, the study found a trend of antidepressants replacing talk therapy.

snip

This study, the researchers conclude, "raises concerns about physicians' adherence to evidence-based medicine.""

Why am I not surprised?

The Muffin Man

Do you know the Muffin man?

Housewares : Muffin Man :: "Put the Muffin Man in your kitchen, and you can make delicious, nutritious breakfast sandwiches — for far less money, and in far less time than you can navigate through the local drive through. Two-slice toaster with extra wide slots handles basic bread, English muffins, bagels or croissants — choose your carbs! But it’s the integrated steam cooker that makes Muffin Man so versatile. With it, you can simultaneously poach, or steam-scramble an egg while you toast an English muffin, and while you warm any pre-cooked slice of ham, Canadian bacon, or sausage!"

Does Farquaad know about this?

I want one.

Joke of the Day 11/24/05

Do NOT lose your Grandkids in the Mall!

A small boy was lost at a large shopping mall. He approached a uniformed policeman and said, "I've lost my grandpa!"

The cop asked, "What's he like?"

The little boy hesitated for a moment and then replied, "Crown Royal and women with big tits."


Humor is good for the digestion.

Holiday Eating Tips

Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks.

Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can.

And quickly. Like fine single- malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-aholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it.. Have one for me. Have two.. It's later than you think. It's almost Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it.

That's the whole point of gravy, Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to controlyour eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip:

If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Remember this motto to live by: "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

And that's the truth! Or at least that's my theory and I'm going to experiment until I get it right.

Changing Perceptions

I would love to be a fly on the wall in some of the walls in the south after reading this article. Ya'll come back now, ya heah.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Many Blacks Proud to Be Southerners: "Indeed, some blacks talk about the South in a way that sounds a lot like the stereotypical white Southerner.

David Jansson, an assistant professor in geography at Vassar College, has written extensively on the complexities of Southern identity. In a study comparing the attitudes of blacks in Lynchburg, Va., with those of members of the pro-secession League of the South, he found striking similarities - affinity for Confederate symbols aside.

``Being Southern meant valuing family, community, a slow pace of life, rural landscapes, and so on,'' he said.

``Values are stressed here; family, community, honor,'' said Bianca Matlock, who is from Arkansas and attends historically black Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn.

``Northerners are not used to the gesture of Southern hospitality,'' she said. ``The female values of the `Southern Belle' representing grace and integrity are only found in the South.''

As much as she likes the South, Matlock still comes back to Confederate symbols that, to her, are reminders of pain and suffering. She just doesn't understand whites who see them as benign symbols of ``The Lost Cause.''

``In my nearly white neighborhood, I see the Confederate flag. In fact, my neighbors explained to me that it's a sign of heritage just as the Black Panther sign is to some African-Americans and not of racial implications,'' she said. ``Yeah, right.''"

For the record I have the same reaction to the confederate flag as I do to black power symbols. Yuck, so what? Please don't wave it in my face. I don't run around wearing colorful afrawear, if you can't tell I'm black then you are a nice person who is interested in me and not my attitude and that is just the way I like it. I know that there are quite a few who won't agree with my position and that is their prerogative. We spend way too much time attributing past behaviors to current cultures and that is from both sides of the color wheel. I think people have the same reaction that I do when I see obvious, in your face proclamations of purported racial superiority in inappropriate circumstances. Running around with a pointed white hood and robe on a day other than Halloween (my brother dressed up as a Grand High Poobah one year, :) is childish and reveals more about a lack of individual mental development than the costume hides their shame at having an attitude that the majority of the world finds offensive. The same goes for statues, I am not the Taliban, I do not find it necessary to remove traces of the past because it is shameful or different from the present.

Just don't do it again.

My 300th Post

Any skanks out there willing to take one for the country?

Update. A friend found one for me.

Memorable Turkey Recipe

Since the holiday season is almost here, I thought it would be a good time to send this recipe. When I found this recipe, I thought it was perfect for people, like me, who just are not sure how to tell when poultry is thoroughly
cooked, but not dried out. Give this a try.

BAKED STUFFED TURKEY
10-12 lb. Turkey
1 cup melted butter
1 cup stuffing (Pepperidge Farm is good.)
1 cup uncooked popcorn (ORVILLE REDENBACHER'S LOW FAT) Salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush turkey well with melted butter, salt, and pepper. Fill cavity with stuffing and popcorn. Place in baking pan with the neck end toward the back of the oven. Listen for the popping sounds. When the turkey's ass blows the oven door open and the turkey flies across the room, it is done.

And, you thought I couldn't cook!!!
Would you like my baked bean recipe?

Joke of the Day 11/22/05

A guy stuck his head into a barber shop and asked,
"How long before I can get a haircut?"

The barber looked around the shop full of customers
and said, "About 2 hours."

The guy left.

A few days later the same guy stuck his head in the door
and asked, "How long before I can get a haircut?"

The barber looked around at the shop and said, "About 3 hours."

The guy left.

A week later the same guy stuck his head in the shop and asked,

"How long before I can get a haircut?"

The barber looked around the shop and said, "About an hour and
half."

The guy left.

The barber turned to a friend and said, "Hey, Bill, do me a favor.
Follow that guy and see where he goes."

He keeps asking how long he has to wait for a haircut, but then he
doesn't ever come back."

A little while later, Bill returned to the shop, laughing
hysterically.

The barber asked, "So where does that guy go when he leaves?"

Bill looked up, tears in his eyes and said, "Your house."

Rebuilding New Orleans

I watched 60 Minutes last night and looking at New Orleans from 60 feet up definitely put things into perspective. They had on this guy who was talking about how in 90 years New Orleans would be an island and underwater. He's more than likely right but it will probably happen several years sooner.

Should New Orleans be rebuilt? Yes. Absolutely. It was settled for a reason and just because we have used and abused the land is no reason to abandon a city so unique that it didn't have to be on either of the two coasts. In a few years most of Florida will be underwater as well as several islands such as the Maldives. Knowing that this is part of our future, shouldn't we plan for it? Levees, stilts and canals are short term solutions and not very forward thinking.

Let's think outside the box. How about rebuilding New Orleans to be the world's first underwater city? Prepare for the future and embrace it instead of grumbling about the way it used to be and claiming that the sky is falling. We are Americans and we need a national goal. Something besides waging war on technologically inferior but emotionally charged combatants. We are at our best when challenged to do better, to perform not to retaliate.

Imagine, sitting in the French quarter drinking a beverage, listening to great music as you watched the local sea life float by. Sounds better than toxic sewage and bringing in land from some other area that probably needs it.

Maybe Ellen DeGeneres could reprise her role in support of my idea. Some people don't want to go to the stars (I do!) they want to explore the ocean. Here is our chance and in keeping with the American credo it could actually make money!

They Study The Darndest Things

Seriously.

Salon.com Life | Broadsheet: "Two American scientists set out to determine how distracted a man gets while masturbating. They asked college students to sign up for the study (who better?!); each of the 35 participants was enticed with a small sum of money, of course. They were then asked to answer a survey on a laptop 'designed to be operated easily using only the non-dominant hand.'

For purposes of control, only some of the students were asked to answer the survey while aroused. They 'were first asked to self-stimulate themselves, and were presented with the same questions [as the others, in a 'natural' state] only after they had achieved a high but sub-orgasmic level of arousal.'

The survey questions were all sex-oriented; the Guardian notes that they asked about 'the attractiveness of different sexual activities, items and opportunities. Among them: women's shoes; a 12-year-old girl; an animal; a 50-year-old woman; a man; and an extremely fat person.'

The study pretty much confirms what most people believe about young men as a group: When already aroused, men might find all kinds of things attractive. (But shoes and animals? That's a bit of a surprise!)"

LOL, waste not want not.

I woke up this morning

and remembered what day it was. As you get older you accumulate memories of events that have affected you profoundly. The day becomes etched in your memory to be recalled with crystal clarity on its anniversary. As time has gone on, JFK's death has seemed to fade from the American consciousness replaced by other tragic events with more sound bites.

AGITPROP: Version 3.0, Featuring Blogenfreude: November 22, 1963: "We feel something was stolen from us. Who knows what Kennedy would have done? At the time of his murder, it was not clear that he would be re-elected. But when I think of the stage JFK was setting (onto which LBJ would soon stride) I still believe. Given our present 'leadership,' I feel the loss even more acutely."

It is devastating. To go from open optimism to closed paranoia in a generation has parallels in history, none of which bode well for the future of our country. As you go through this day try to remember the spirit of what JFK meant and not how it has been implemented to the detriment of the American people.

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Where is the hope?

I'm Living It

Unfortunately.

USATODAY.com - Economy goes forward but leaves many behind: "'If you add up what it takes to get to work, as far as food, buying clothes, gas, car, everything, almost half of what I make goes into just' that, Harris says. 'Things have to get better, because if they don't, I'm not going to make it.'

Harris is one of millions feeling pinched in a time of plenty. Broad economic data show the nation in the midst of a four-year expansion with strong growth, low — though rising — inflation, a muscular housing market and robust corporate profits. But they also show that prosperity hasn't been spread evenly. The poverty rate has risen. Wage gains are among the slowest on record. Many corporate pension plans are in a death spiral. Health care costs are rising. The personal savings rate has fallen.

The Census Bureau says inflation-adjusted median earnings for full-time male workers declined 2.3% from 2003 to 2004. Women's earnings dipped for the second year in a row. Though the drop was a smaller 1%, until 2003 women's wages hadn't declined since 1995. A separate government measure found wages and salaries for workers in private industry advancing at the slowest pace since its record keeping began in 1975.

Those trends, along with higher energy prices and a slower housing market, could spell lower consumption and growth. They have already created political problems for the White House, as polls show Americans souring on President Bush's economic policies."

I don't really care about the White House, I care about my own apartment and how difficult it is to make ends meet while the goal line moves further away every day. And I have that advanced education, which actually happens to be holding me back from some jobs because I'm overqualified and if the economy ever turns around in SiliValley I probably wouldn't stay in a dead end job which is why I went back to school in the first place.

This is going to get ugly.

We Don't Need

No stinking vegetables.

Shortage of Immigrant Workers Alarms Growers in West: "With the lettuce harvest beginning, farmers in the $1 billion winter vegetable industry are panicking about getting their crops out of the ground. Vegetable growers estimate they could be 32,000 workers short of the 54,000 they need for the winter harvest, which runs until March. Last year, local farmers left hundreds of acres of lettuce in the fields because they lacked the manpower to harvest it.

Worker shortages have swept the Western agriculture industry, bringing $300 million in losses to raisin growers in California's San Joaquin Valley in September and causing consternation about this winter's harvest from the Christmas tree farms of Oregon to the melon fields of Arizona.

'Today I have approximately 290 people working in the field,' Jon Vessey said recently. Vessey runs an 8,000-acre winter vegetable farm with his son, Jack, near El Centro, Calif. 'I should have 400, and for the harvest I need 1,100. . . . There's a disaster coming.'"

Great, now food costs will jump astronomically but since you won't be able to afford fuel to heat or eat I guess that won't really be a problem.

The New Missing Blonde Woman

Anything going on in the world that I missed while out trying to make living?

CNN.com - Nike CEO praises pilots for safe landing - Nov 21, 2005: "TV footage showed the right main wheel only about one-quarter extended, apparently blocked by the wheel door. The gear was back to normal when the plane finally landed.

Allen Kenitzer, an FAA spokesman, said the plane crew took steps to burn off fuel and talked with the Gulfstream company to get advice on freeing the landing gear.

'The pilot is the ultimate authority in determining what to do with that airplane,' Kenitzer said.

The airplane made low passes over the Hillsboro runway, briefly touching the runway with the extended left landing gear and then lifting off again, apparently to jostle the other wheel down, said Connie King, spokeswoman for the Hillsboro Fire Department."

Accoding to a pilot who reads this blog, this is a common occurence and nothing to get excited about, but the MSM needs a distraction story from the real news.

One of the best opening lines

That I've read in a long time. Absolutely true, artfully put and on a subject that I touched on a few months ago and will do this season's followup later on this week.

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | I Like to Watch: "While most living creatures' daily lives center around survival -- finding food, water and dry shelter -- in America we live like milk-fed veal in tiny pens. With all of our needs met, we're left to fret over minutiae -- a slow morning commute, our kid's third-grade curriculum, the mole on our dog's jaw, the scratchy tag on this stupid sweater. We're so thoroughly alienated from real emotions and high-stakes situations and so saturated by artifice that our numbed senses are drawn to the faux suspense of fictional and staged reality scenarios like male ducks to a fake wooden mate: Will Kyle win the modeling contract, or go back to her job at Dairy Queen? Will the nice doctors with tumultuous romantic lives find a way to save the very sincere young man with the multiple gunshot wounds to the chest? Will the federal agent be killed by the violent semi-alien lunatic? Will Amy Grant get the disfigured child plastic surgery in time for us to see her brand-new face?

Thanks to the high-definition images in our living rooms, we can laugh heartily and snort in disgust and roll our eyes and clench our teeth and scream and sigh and smile, and then return to the featureless landscape of our daily lives with the illusion of fulfillment. As we trudge through the day, grumbling at our families while loading the dishwasher, issuing orders to our underlings at work, purchasing 50 of the same gift certificates online to get our stupid Christmas shopping over with, we don't even notice that our lives are just really long to-do lists with half the stuff crossed off. If not for the manic fun and horror and poignancy that's pumped into our TVs every night, we'd all be suicidal or nihilistic or at the very least we'd write really bad poetry and shower infrequently."

Or, as I put it:

"During the Amazing Race for Law and Order, the Desperate Housewives realized after Crossing Jordan that Smallville's weapons of mass destruction had once again disappeared Without A Trace. Meanwhile Joey vacations on his ranch fantasizing that by wearing everyday Scrubs his Friends will come back to Primetime and he will be King of the Hill on That 70's show, Once Again. Las Vegas has reduced that Fear Factor to Medium, since according to Hardball it is a Cold Case that Larry King and Inside Editon won't touch .

A Crime Scene Investigation of Grey's Anatomy ensued after a Dragnet revealed Criminal Intent when Meet The Press entered The West Wing and found a Dead Zone. Where's Gannon when you need him. It used to be Joe but I think it's Jeff now. Meanwhile Two and a Half Men want to be a Rock Star and the two Gilmore Girls are playing House as if nothing is wrong. The Average Joes are striking back at the Special Victims Unit and I Want to Be a Hilton, not really. The Bold and The Beautiful teamed with The Young and The Restless for 60 Minutes on the WWF before they went to General Hospital for treatment. Big Brother is just starting to realize that the Empire is in serious need of the ER, while According to Jim, the King of Queens and My Wife and Kids are off Trading Spouses with George Lopez.

Now this isn't everyone's idea of 7th Heaven, but we can't all be a Monk and live like a lowly Apprentice. The Daily Show might recommend an Extreme Makeover of the upcoming E-Ring, not a Nip/Tuck, but this is a Less Than Perfect solution when what Amurica really wants is The Shield to Rescue Me from Over There in 24 so we can return to Everwood to pass the Days of Our Lives with All My Children.

Behind the O.C all is not yet Lost! The polling Numb3rs reveal that with Hope and Faith the Arrested Development of Veronica Mars can be fixed with 8 Simple Rules to ensure that there will be at least one Survivor among the 4400 who will be able to say that What I Like About You is the Stargate you built so I can join Battlestar Galactica and battle enemies that don't believe in the one true god. Revelations."

If One Innocent Person

Is put to death, then we have committed murder.

CNN.com - Executed man may have been innocent - Nov 20, 2005: "Meanwhile, Cantu's co-defendant, David Garza, recently signed a sworn affidavit saying he allowed his friend to be accused, even though Cantu wasn't with him the night of the killing.

Cantu was executed at age 26. He had long professed his innocence.

'Part of me died when he died,' said Garza, who was 15 at the time of the murder. 'You've got a 17-year-old who went to his grave for something he did not do. Texas murdered an innocent person.'

Miriam Ward, forewoman of the jury that convicted Cantu, said the panel's decision was the best they could do based on the information presented during the trial.

'With a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we'd have gotten the right information,' Ward said. 'The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that.'

Sam D. Millsap Jr., then the Bexar County district attorney who decided to charge Cantu with capital murder, told the newspaper he never should have sought the death penalty in a case based on testimony from an eyewitness who identified a suspect only after police showed him Cantu's photo three separate times."

This is why we have an appeals process that should not be shortened. He must have been so terrified right up until the last moment, believing that because he was innocent that he would be saved. This isn't Prison Break. No new series after your current part is over.

Just pushing up daisies.

My Favorite Babylon 5 Quotes

B5 is over ten years old, but the conspiracy storyline has had more than it's share of parallels with the last five years of politics. Joe Straczynski wrote one of the finest shows ever.

"The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." Kosh, Believers
"The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar, Survivors
"There comes a time when you look into the mirror and realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. Then you accept it, or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking into mirrors." Londo, Chrysalis
"I can only conclude that I'm paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate." Ivanova, Points of Departure
"Why does any advanced civilization seek to destroy less advanced one? Because the land is strategically valuable, because there are resources that can be cultivated and exploited, but most of all, simply because they can." G'Kar, And Now For a Word
"I have been nothing but compassionate and understanding. I mean, all you had to do was to admit you were wrong and I was right and everything would've been fine." Ivanova to Talia Winters, Divided Loyalties
"With our basic freedom in stake, no response can be too extreme. There maybe some minor and *temporary* abridgments in the traditionally protected areas, such as speech and association, but only until this crisis is over." Julie Musante, Voices of Authority
"I thought the purpose of filing these reports was to provide accurate intelligence."
"Vir, intelligence has nothing to do with politics." Vir and Londo, Point of No Return
Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiot would fight a war on twelve fronts."
"We can handle it. Our resources are greater than you think." Londo and Lord Refa, Ceremonies of Light and Dark
"I have seen what power does, and I have seen what power costs. The one is never equal to the other." G'Kar, Epiphanies
Last, but certainly not least
"The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. The language is not narn or human or centauri or gaim or minbari. It speaks in the language of hope."
"It speaks in the language of trust. It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us and the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born. The small, still voice that says: 'We are one. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. .. We are one. No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. .. We are one.' Here, gathered together in common cause, we begin to realize this singular truth and this singular rule that we must be kind to one another. Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light our way to a better future. We are one."
"We are one."
Sheridan/G'Kar, the Alliance Preamble to the Declaration of Principles, The Paragon of Animals

Don't I wish.

I Enjoyed New Orleans

And could care less about building bridges in a northern state when this beautiful city needs our help.

An Editorial: It's time for a nation to return the favor: "Americans wanted the oil and gas that flow freely off our shores. They longed for the oysters and shrimp and flaky Gulf fish that live in abundance in our waters. They wanted to ship corn and soybeans and beets down the Mississippi and through our ports. They wanted coffee and steel to flow north through the mouth of the river and into the heartland.

They wanted more than that, though. They wanted to share in our spirit. They wanted to sample the joyous beauty of our jazz and our food. And we were happy to oblige them.

So the federal government built levees and convinced us that we were safe.

We weren't."

They have been forgotten, now it is time for investigating minutiae, namecalling and blameplacing. As the people slowly return to their homes because the thrill is gone for the rest of the country and they have nowhere else to go, the urge to help has met with the reality of taking care of extra people when they couldn't take care of what they already had, more dead bodies will be recovered by family members instead of disaster teams and they will be left with the horror as the rest of the country callously moves on. Concerned only that Mardi Gras might be a dud.

This was a valuable city and it wasn't just for the entertainment. They are our fellow Americans and they deserve our help.

What's the problem?

Do You Recognize

Your country anymore? Sounds more like the old USSR or several current third world countries recently in the news.

Detroit 'Sleeper Cell' Prosecutor Faces Probe: "It is a highly unusual case. No charges have been brought and many details remain secret, but information in public documents and testimony in U.S. District Court in Detroit suggest an effort by federal prosecutors and important witnesses to mislead defense lawyers and deceive the jury. U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen said the government acted 'outside the Constitution.'

Rosen and Justice Department investigators concluded last year that the prosecution stuck doggedly to its theory in defiance of plausible explanations and advice from other U.S. government officials. Records suggest prosecutors withheld evidence that cast doubt on their conclusions, even when ordered by superiors to deliver documents to the defense."

Makes me wonder how many innocent people are in jail. This isn't the first time and I doubt if it will be the last.

Nice.

Osama Been Forgotten

Is running around relatively free (dead or alive was the mantra a few years ago) and approximately 693,000 people were busted for pot last year, preventing our law enforcement people from looking for criminals, finding missing blonde women or unlearning racial profiling.

The case for legal pot use: "A Harvard University professor of economics, Jeffrey Miron, has crunched the numbers, and he's determined that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion annually in money spent on enforcing dope laws.

That breaks down to $5.3 billion in savings for state and local governments, and $2.4 billion in cost reductions at the federal level.

This is noteworthy because the FBI reported the other day that more Americans were arrested for pot last year than at any time in U.S. history. And of the more than 770,000 people cited for dope-related offenses, nearly 90 percent were charged only with possession.

Those are hundreds of thousands of criminal cases that didn't have to be taking up the time and resources of our cops and courts."

To say nothing of jail space which consists of room and board plus supervision by highly paid guards.

"In his study, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," Miron places the illicit U.S. market for marijuana at about $10.5 billion in annual sales. (Figures close to $11 billion seem to be the consensus among people who guess at such things.)

Decriminalization would result in lower production costs as dope farming and processing go mainstream. It would also lead to what Miron believes would be only a modest increase in demand because "the people who care about it are already consuming it."

Umm, yeah and they would be willing to pay taxes if they could walk into a store and pick what they wanted and leave. My dad always used to say that as soon as they figured out how to tax it, the government would make it legal.

What is taking so long? Our space program sucks too, no mind expanding possibilities there either.

The Tip of the Iceberg

Even though Mom is 75 she works, at a Valero station which gives me a little personal insight. People are really mean and curse her out because of the price, like she has anything to do with it.

Service stations feel the squeeze / Some operators walk away from their business, returning it to the company: "Today, many dealers say the oil industry bonanza of 2005 is passing them by. Their parent corporations have posted record profits -- $9.9 billion during the three months that ended in September in Exxon Mobil's case -- from prices that briefly topped $70 for a barrel of crude and $3 for a gallon of gas.

Angry motorists, convinced they're being gouged, often blame the face behind the service station counter. (Stop that, people are really rude to my mom, there is no need to call her names. Respect your elders!)

But ask dealers about their profit margins, and some insist they're making 2 cents or less per gallon. They may even be losing money selling gas.

To understand why, you have to peer into the murky mechanics of street-level gasoline pricing. Dealers compete against each other while paying a host of fees to their parent companies. Government demands its own cut, through taxes and permit fees.

And all of these affect the price you pay at the pump."

I stand at the corner and compare prices with the Rotten Robbie across the street. Currently there is a 15 cent per gallon difference on regular and 30 cents on premium. The Valero station a half a mile away also has lower prices, but it is owned by the company. Her boss has no choice in the prices he sets, they tell control everything including the type of lighting and the lock on the bathroom door. He made no money during the price gouging and he will have to close at the beginning of the year to replace the tanks, again. I know he isn't making a profit and pretty soon the tax writeoff won't be worth it.

Has anybody noticed that in the last few years our choices for everything from cable to gas, grocery stores to department stores and anything in between have been severly limited? It's sort of like reducing stock for gravy. If it is salty when you start, it will only be more salty when you finish. High prices condensed to a few companies equals much higher prices.

Or go without.

Can't We Do Anything Right?

Incompetence, malfeasance and blaming others. Why am I not surprised?

A Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks: "The need is great. By the time the Taliban fell, decades of fighting had damaged or destroyed eight out of 10 Afghan schools, leaving half of all school-age children with no access to education. Four out of five adult women were illiterate. Health conditions ranked among the world's worst, with a life expectancy of 43 years. One in four babies died before turning 1.

'People need these clinics, and right now they are angry about it,' said Azizullah Safar, a health director in northern Afghanistan. 'People come to me and tell us, 'You cheated us. You took our land and there is no clinic.'

'Tell the Americans that the money they would otherwise be spending on their children and their schooling, that has been sent to the Afghan people-- it has been wasted.'

USAID officials pointed out that working in Afghanistan is a difficult and perilous job. Some construction sites are in remote areas, where materials and skilled workers are scarce. Security is a constant concern, they said, noting that workers have been kidnapped and killed while the buildings have been rocketed and burned."

Every day that goes by there is more bad news about our "war on terror". There seems to be the same amount of success as the "war on error". A miserable failure. So what else is new? Three years after supposed success it is still too dangerous to work in the country without being kidnapped or killed, poor housing and schooling, crappy medical services, etc. We just love to come in to a place, blow things up in the name of democracy and peace, destroy the infrastructure and screw up the rebuilding. How did we improve these peoples lives?

No wonder they are freely electing members of the Taliban to office. At least they keep their word.

Burkas Anyone?

I followed a link and found this site. I'm sure these will go over well with the fundamentalist fathers, not so well with the swim team.

Wholesome Wear - The Culotte Swimmer: "THE CULOTTE SWIMMER

The original culotte swimmer is modest swimwear for the more active swimmer. This design has a body fitting undergarment made of Spandex for maximum flexibility. And the looser fitting taslan scoop-necked romper outer garment gives a stylish modest look."

I can't wait to see the prom dresses.

Short People

Rule!

Angus Young Tops Maxim List of Short Men: "Angus Young, lead guitarist of AC/DC, tops Maxim's list of the '25 greatest short dudes of all time,' standing tall at 5 feet 2 inches.

Former NBA guard Spud Webb, at 5 feet 7 inches, is No. 2, followed by Napoleon Bonaparte (5 feet 4 inches), Naim Suleymangolu (4 feet 11 inches) and Yuri Gagarin (5 feet 2 inches)."

Still taller than me and we all fit under a normal showerhead.

Not at the same time of course.

When I'm Depressed

I don't eat.

USATODAY.com - Women like sugar, men like meat: "Just what triggers people to turn to 'comfort foods' — and which foods they pick — often depends on whether you're asking a man or a woman, according to a new study by Cornell University researchers.

It turns out women are slightly more likely to eat comfort foods high in fat and sugar like cakes and ice cream — along with a hefty serving of guilt, loneliness and depression.

Men, on the other hand, are more likely to turn to soups, pasta and steaks as a reward when they're feeling upbeat.

That's significant because those who associated comfort foods with positive emotions were more likely to pick healthier fare, according to the study recently published in the medical journal Physiology & Behavior. The study was conducted with researchers from McGill University in Canada and was drawn from a Web-based survey of 277 participants."

I eat like a guy. I love a good steak and seafood when I want to celebrate and I don't really like cakes, cookies or candy. I am so weird.

Thanks goodness.

If You Want It Done Right

And don't want to hurt someone's feelings

ABC News: Are Women Ready for the 'Stud Farm'?: "But Berman said there could be a number of reasons for women to visit a male prostitute. 'To say it's just going to be women desperate for sex will not be the whole story,' she said.

Berman said the 'stud farm' could appeal to women who want a taste of sexual adventure and experimentation, or even to try to reach orgasm, without the pressure of pleasing a regular partner.

Ulku, a 40-year-old woman originally from Turkey, said she believes women who are 'not satisfied in their relationship,' would visit male prostitutes, precisely because it would be anonymous and far removed from their regular lives.

Destination Sex

Fleiss told the Los Angeles Times she wanted to revamp the Cherry Patch Ranch's Western theme into a more 'Hollywood' look. Berman said that ambience and atmosphere would be very important for many women — while men, she said, 'are more interested in the woman they're with.'

Perhaps the stud farm could become the new place for bachelorette — or even divorce — parties for women. 'I could see this as a destination for women to go to together,' Berman said.

Berman suggested that Fleiss should offer a variety of spa-like services, not just straight sex. 'Like a massage service that could go further if the woman wanted,' Berman said.

But a number of people — both men and women — still question the marketability of male prostitution, saying that women simply don't have to pay for sex — they could have it pretty much anytime they want for free.

Ann Shillinglaw, a 46-year-old single woman from California, told ABC News via e-mail: 'I would never need to visit a male prostitution place because there are SO MANY men my own age and younger who are willing and able to have sex with a woman at the drop of a hat. I know several guys I could call for sex any time I was free. …No need to ever pay for this."

Umm yes, there is. If the guy is already a friend you have decided he wasn't that attractive to begin with. Trolloping around in my own neighborhood would not be my idea of healthy friendship. Every once in a while a woman might want to fulfill a fantasy (jaw dropping good looks and it isn't all about him!) with her only responsibility being to enjoy herself and it is her partner who has to perform no matter what the circumstances.

Broadsheet has a pretty good discussion going on the subject with some great letters, one of which helped me to crystallize my feelings. Because you can get what you want, how you want it, pick who you want it from and then go away. Not have to deal with anything but what you came for.

Hopefully.

The Love Pug

Before play










After play