Sunday Morning Musings

The commentators at Faux News want the military to screen Muslims and thinks that they should be treated as potential threats.  How 1940s.   And just a few days after running the story of the 442nd Regiment and the 65thh anniversary of their rescue of a Texas infantry regiment during WWII.  Crazy people are just that, crazy.  It doesn't mean that everyone who is Muslim is crazy.  Or a terrorist.

Emphasizing the three Rs means that other courses get lost, such as history.  A survey in Britain revealed that kids between 9 and 15 have a rather inaccurate view of the past, such as Hitler was a soccer coach and Auschwitz was a WWII amusement park.  The Holocaust was the celebration of the end of the war and that America entered the war because a nuclear bomb was dropped on Pearl Harbor. 

Twelve percent of respondents said the symbol of Britain's Remembrance Day is the golden arches of McDonald's, rather than the poppy.

I wonder how American kids would have answered the questions.

The insurance company rescue bill has passed.  Thank goodness I have VA health care.  My doctor actually listens to me, explains his reasoning and follows up to make sure he covered all the bases.  Everyone should be so lucky.  The minute health care reform became about insurance reform the battle was lost.  Money talked and reform walked.  Health care will not become less expensive and as more companies move their jobs overseas there will be fewer jobs that provide health insurance benefits.  Soon the only people who will have coverage will be the Congress critters, their constituents can only hope that Doctors Without Borders will provide services to Americans in addition to serving other Third World countries.

Sacramento politicians are whining again.  The poor widdle babies.  Making $116,000 a year and they're protesting a cut to their additional $35,000 a year per diem rate, a $400 month car allowance and free health care.  Their constituents are unemployed or work for companies who have cut benefits and increased premiums and the state lawmakers don't think it's fair for them to have to do the same. An 18 percent cut in benefits has them up in arms while other state employees who actually provide services to the public and make much less have had their salaries cut by 18 percent by eliminating their work days and calling it a furlough. It must be nice to have a job where the first requirement is that you are clueless.  Marie Antoinette would be so proud.

Yes, the Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, but why does someone who isn't a member of a "well regulated militia" have the right to deprive innocent bystanders of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  The last few days the news has been filled with the unfortunate shootings at Ft. Hood, Orlando and now Amarillo.  It's pretty sad when a tourist can't stop in a bar without being shot for no reason.  How many dead people will it take before American society realizes that not everyone can or should have a gun?  Charles Whitman shocked the nation in 1966 and forty three years later nuts are still running around with guns and a willingness to use them.

Diarrhea of the mouth?  You betcha!  Someone as ethically and morally challenged as the quitbull should keep her mouth shut and attend to the problems in her own family before telling other people what they can, cannot or might do.

I want a cloaking device.  Not to hide me, just my fat.  I'm more into the Eureka personal model than the Star Trek battleship model.

BBB

Friday Quickie

All I know about empathy I learned from Star Trek TOS.  Speaking of which, some of the Republicans bagging on Sotomayor definitely remind me of the Vians.  Add a couple of consonants and they could be villains since they are definitely no gems and certainly are not gentlemen.  Thanks to these bozos and their spiteful comments about activist judges, being a judge has become a dangerous occupation.

Ever since we walked on the moon I've been asking myself "when is the future going to get here?"  I grew up reading science fiction and truly believed that we would be vacationing on the moon and traveling to Mars by the year 2000.  It's 2009 and we can't even get across the country reliably or quickly, even more so if it's snowing.

Is It Over Yet?

The coronation I mean inauguration, feels like it's taking as long as the election did.  Isn't there anything else going on in the world besides what's happening in the US?  Real science instead of infotainment.  Cool.

Must have only asked the rich ones because the majority are in no way, shape or form living the dream or have any possibility of achieving it on an individual level.  Especially in a country where you can be handcuffed, lying face down and still get shot in the back.  Breathing while black is still dangerous and will remain so for many more years.

Shades of the Iran hostage release.  Of course they do.  There is no guarantee that Obama might find the use of phosphorus bombs and blowing up schools and UN buildings to be the proper way to force one's enemies back to the stone age they've never had a chance to leave.

And if you don't want to join the military because it's the only "job" in town, if you wait just a little while there should be an explosion in prison guard jobs.  This country will not go peacefully into its economic ice age.

Meetings are a waste of time.  Gee, anyone (except the bosses) having suffered through more than one  could have told them that.  I wonder what the next news to anybody with a functioning brain blurb will be.

There's a plot on Lost and it makes sense?  Wow.  The Smoke Monster wasn't just a stray plot device?  I quit watching halfway through the second season, the Tailies drove me nuts.  Specifically that Rodriguez woman.  Her character didn't die soon enough to make me continue watching.

I can go along with that.  Unfortunately what's been lost over the years has been giving people the skills to do for the country.  If schools aren't getting through to kids by teaching them to read, write, color, lay music, do simple math and learn to think for themselves, then the likelihood of being able to do good for your country drops proportionally (hopefully not geometrically) and since you can't contribute, you are reduced to taking.  Whether it be soup lines, welfare or the recent latest craze, stealing from your investors, the same lack of civil charity is not on their radar. 

I'm still fighting to stay on the bottom rung of the greased ladder because if I get knocked off the down becomes an abyss.   Trying to work my way back up means that I leave mom alone for too long and all kinds of weird things happen, such as things important to me go missing and are sometimes never found.  This friend of mine with a psych background finds mom's behaviors and answers to be quite humorous but admits it isn't humorous to be living through it. Maybe in a few years.

BBB

Pride Goeth Before A Fall

It's Sunday and I couldn't resist using the title.  I'm not known for using ghetto jargon but this time I can't resist.  Nigga pleez! Did I spell that right? It isn't my normal language.

For eight years I've been asking how dumb the crew without a clue thought Americans were.  And everyday reveals even more stupidity. Well, we weren't born this morning, we didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday and some of us were able to count all the train tracks, left and right turns and the bridges that fell down to get us to this point.  And by the way, Iraqis didn't want him to come over for a hello or goodbye visit.

Add to the fact that the report was never published  about the corruption in Iraq, just like every other report that Bush and Cheney have swept under the Presidential seal because they truly believe that our ignorance is bliss and theirs is by divine right and you have a Presidency that is more inept than anybody who lived through the Nixon years would ever thought could be worse. Obviously they didn't want Joe the Plumber to know how badly they had screwed up the clusterf*ck that is known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, aka Mission Accomplished, which is turning out to be the fruitcake everyone passes around at Christmas  hoping to never see again.  For a group of idiots determined not to relive the debacle of the Vietnam War, they've managed to repeat everything except the napalming of innocent citizens.  And I'm pretty sure that story will come out eventually. They haven't missed anything else so far so why should that be an exception.?

Have you noticed how the immigrant problem hasn't been in the news as much?  How can there be a problem when even people from impoverished countries don't consider America as a place of pride where you can improve your families lives by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.  Not only do we no longer make boots in this country, we use Velcro because the people in charge think that the average citizen might find that bootstraps are too difficult to operate and besides some of those people not on game shows just might make a success of themselves and that can't be allowed to happen under any circumstances.  If Americans start filling in the dots, crossing the t's and dotting the i's, the curtain is going to come off the whole shebang and all the people of Emerald City will see that it was just a group of inept puppet pulling the wrong strings.

Meanwhile we have 36 more days of revelations.  Not eight days of lights or twelve days of Christmas or the couple of days of that Kwanzaa thing I don't understand the purpose of. No, not even the kind from the last chapter of the Bible where the world comes to an end and only the good people go to heaven that the crew without a clue has been so earnestly working for. These are the kind of news stories that should make you want to make to pull your head out of the sand and cry tears of pain that our country has fallen so far from its ideals. 

You remember the ideals our forefathers fought for don't you?  Freedom from tyranny, security in one's own home, a whole bunchh of others that have disappeared and the ability to work for a living that would support your whole family instead of the whole family trying to support the one room travel trailer that is all that is left of their years of hard work and expensive schooling.  That kind of thing.

It isn't so much that our pride in being Americans is losing its luster, it's that now we have to depend on other countries to give us our buffing.  We'd just better hope they decide to use aluminum oxide grade instead of ceramic  or we can forget sitting down for a very long while.

BBB

Saturday Morning Musings

No more thrill of victory or the agony of defeat for Jim McKay. He passed away today at the grand old age of 86. I will never forget the work that he and Howard Cosell did at the Munich Olympics after everything went so wrong. Rest in peace and thank you for a job well done. I'm a little confused, ABC had to find out from ESPN? What's up with that?

And this is a surprise because? Reagan must be spinning in his grave. Bush and the rest of the crew without a clue must be so proud of what they've accomplished. The destruction of the economy and the rise of Russia as a world power. Again.

I used to take the Amtrak from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on a pretty frequent basis and if there was one thing it wasn't, it was empty. Sometimes it would be standing room only on the way back from Vegas and when they canceled it, it ruined my mini-vacations. So Bush, the man who doesn't want veterans to have a decent G.I. Bill to reward them for the sacrifices he's never made, has signed a 45 million dollar bill for a Maglev between Disneyland and Las Vegas. I guess going from one playground to another is okay, going to college isn't.

Video of the B-2 Stealth Bomber crash from last February.

Well, on the bright side, global warming will do us in before the magnetic field weakens. Recent experiments have revealed that the field has been steadily weakening since 1845 and is predicted to be gone in 500 years.

3Bs

There's No One Like You

OMG! Whatever happened to having a sense of humor? I've been reading (and starring) Stuff White People Like almost since it began. What a hoot! When he did the top 10 ten rap songs and I realized that I have a couple of them on my iPod, but Going Back to Cali by LL Cool J (this video is hysterical and helps to prove the point) didn't make the list I was so heartbroken I almost choked on my tea. I think I'm white but somebody forgot to inform the genes that determine how much melanin I display. As usual the commenters at ABC have gone off the deep end, proving that they come from the shallow end of the gene pool. Oops, Gato Barbieri just finished and the Scorpions are up, my German blood shows up occasionally.

Armchair warriors, indeed. On to the next milestone that people will ignore. The only thing that Cheney regrets is not being able to drop a nuclear bomb. He probably gets a stiffy just thinking about it. Noble, necessary and just. That would be my description of the war crimes that Bush and Cheney should both be charged with, not a description of an illegal and immoral war perpetrated on people who had done nothing and were capable (at the time) of doing nothing to us.

How can he go back to something he can't do in the first place?

I'm running the new Firefox Beta and while I like some aspects of it, I miss some of my extensions. Specifically Tab Mix Plus (just found a build that works), Colorful Tabs (now that one is working) and Forecastfox. There are a couple more that I wish were working, but I'll just have to wait.

Don't drink the water. Or bathe in it, brush your teeth or cook with it. No wonder people think that bottled water is better. If you live in Alamosa, CO, it is. Makes you wonder how many other city's community water systems are in trouble. Other than all the drugs and hormones that they admitted to a few weeks ago.

Selfish and stupid. Deliberately bringing a child into the world when one knows it will die shortly after it's born, usually painfully and completely unaware, is cruel. No matter what your religious beliefs, you are not putting the child's welfare ahead of your own personal interests. Purposefully having a child whose mental impairment means that someone will have to care for it for the rest of its life, is cruel. With the technologies of today, that child could outlive the parents by many years and then who is going to love them? Who is going to fight for the benefits that they will need? Because with the growing lack of compassion people have for those less fortunate, they will have a miserable and lonely life after the parents are gone. What kind of parenting is that? Maybe because I'm watching my mom lose her mind and realize that if it happens to me there will be nobody to make sure that I'm not living on the street that allows me to take the "cold" view.

I'm more than a little tired of the sexism/racism question in the race for president. For me it's empty suit against another dynasty. I can't and probably won't vote for Obama. I live in California so my vote really doesn't count. Otherwise John Edwards would be my candidate but the media made sure that wasn't an option for me.

Oh boy, another day, another stolen laptop with unencrypted patient data. No wonder people aren't as worried about their phones being tapped and their internet habits being tracked as they should be. With all the data that has been lost over the last five years it's no surprise that the average person doesn't care.

You don't say. Wow, a newspaper that states the obvious like it was a new phenomenon. Of course health costs are cutting into wages, Bush's plans have done so much to help the economy. Of his friends and cronies. Walgreen showed a profit for its second quarter, what a surprise. Not.

BBB

What If The Earth Is Just One Big Science Experiment?

Biblically correct, now that's a mouthful. A book written by many men (Ruth and Esther were tokens used to prove a point but Mary, the mother of Jesus and a major part of a world religion, gets scant mention much less her own book, why is that?) to reflect their point of view and the parts that didn't fit in, were discarded. Now some of the "believers" are conducting museum tours and explaining to the young and impressionable that thousands of years of history never happened. Oh sweet Jeebus, how much dumber is our population going to get? Tyrannosaurus Rex was a vegetarian because Adam and Eve hadn't sinned yet, so there was no death? What planet do these people come from? They most certainly didn't evolve from intelligent humans. That Bible belt is cinched a little too tight and preventing oxygen from circulating through their very little brains. No wonder there are very few "American" doctors in practice, you have to have a science education in order to understand how the body works. Praying doesn't help cure disease.

This will really throw a spanner into the works. Not only is the moon not made of cheese, but it isn't even made of the same materials as the Earth and Mars is made of something completely different than the other two. Maybe since we are supposed to be made in God's image, he's just trying to find out whether intelligence waxes or wanes with each succeeding generation. I think we are in the wane phase.

Funny how when I was growing up on an Air Force Base, science was accepted as tradition and you were expected to do well in it. I got kicked out of Sunday School (Southern Baptist) for asking impertinent questions like "if you lived on an island and had never seen a white man, does this mean you go to hell because you never heard of the Bible or Jesus Christ?" When I was told yes, I answered "I don't think God does that, he wouldn't punish innocent people for an eternity just because they had never heard of him." And out the door I was pushed and told never to return. Forgiveness seems to be a sin, unless you're a Republican who has committed a sexual indiscretion.

Then I got involved with the Pentecostals. Now that was an adventure. Reality went on a long hike because only a chosen few will be saved. Once again I was shown the door. This time because I thought it didn't make sense that a person who had committed murder, rape, robbery and other trespasses of the Ten Commandments could repent on his deathbed at 75 and he would go to heaven, but a person who had followed the Commandments to the letter would go to hell because he hadn't accepted Jesus Christ as his savior. An exemplary life doesn't count but crying and begging for forgiveness of heinous crimes does. Didn't sound logical then and it doesn't sound logical now. Jehovah's Witnesses are sure I'm not going to heave either. That's okay, it doesn't sound like a very happy place.

Almost 7 billion people on the planet but just 144,000 are going to qualify to go to heaven. One would have to ask what kind God would do something like that. Maybe a scientist who was looking for deviant bacteria and a way to inoculate the space population from contamination would be my guess.

BBB and IIRTZ

Attack Of The Stupids

Hazardous to their character, because being exposed to people with differing viewpoints or things known as facts might cause them to question your perception of reality? Ah yes, by all means let the stupid and uneducated homeschool their children. Please, let us continue to become more fractured and clueless as a society. One that practices even more intolerance and shortsighted thinking without an ounce of logic or the ability to recognize (a run on sentence) that with over six billion people on the planet maybe exposure to different cultures and thinking as opposed to bigotry might help us get ahead in the future. Instead of returning to our puritanical past, the one of scarlet letters and people were burned at the stake as witches.

"The parent-child relationship existed long before any government and makes it the responsibility of the parent to educate the child," he said. That responsibility includes protecting one's children from "things hazardous to the child, emotionally as well as physically," he said.

Long, 54, said he specifically objected to his children being taught in school about evolution and homosexuality.

"I want to keep and protect them until I feel they're mature enough to deal with these issues," he said. "I believe the creator wants us to protect our children from things we believe are hazardous to their character."

I believe that being exposed to stupidity on a daily basis is hazardous to their character and wonder what his opinion of incest is. A game the whole family can play? After a little research I found that the whole case started because one of eight of Mr. Long's homeschooled children complained that it was being mistreated and the juvenile court judge found that the children were poorly educated. What a surprise that isn't.

Yes, there have been children who have excelled by being homeschooled, but that was because they were too smart for a one size fits all education system and their parents had the ability to inspire their children to achieve, as opposed to being taught bigotry, racism and hatred of those who don't share your religious beliefs or just aren't like you.

Meanwhile, the Governator babbles on about every child deserves a quality education and then cuts funding through the bone to the marrow. In a few years not only will we have lost our status as major world economy, but we'll also have the distinction of having some of the world's most undereducated populace. It's absolutely fascinating how much like a third world country we are becoming. Now all we need are the floods, storms and being ignored by the federal government and we can be just like New Orleans or Tennessee.

Was the cost factored in to the economic stimulus plan? $42 million to let the taxpayers know their rebate is coming. Isn't that what the "news" used presidential speeches used to be for?

I didn't weigh in on the Charlotte Allen article since I was too stupid to understand what she was saying since I spent most of my life admiring Marie Curie and her Nobels chemistry and physics instead of reading romance novels that have no possibility of coming true (unlike science fiction, which has) or swooning over a candidate who doesn't have any concrete plans (at least not revealed to those of us little people) to go with his promise of "change". Why, even little Debbie didn't think it was funny and it's been a long time since I thought she was good at her job.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the stupidest President of them all? That would be Mr. Waterboard himself. Don't we wish. Guy can't even swallow a pretzel correctly.

Finally, a good reason for homeschooling. Because we just haven't had enough school shootings, now some states are allowing hunting education classes. As if people actually depended on that skill for their daily meal.

BBB

Random Thoughts

Back in 1974 I learned to repair the guidance control systems on four (Lance, TOW, Dragon and Shillelagh) different missiles while I was stationed at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL. I liked the city, it was friendly and comfortable to an 18 year old out on her own for the first time. I saw Elvis, the Guess Who, and Alice Cooper at the newly built Von Braun Civic Center. I don't remember the comedian but I do remember the joke. "The Von Braun Civic Center; seating for 50,000, parking for 200." Parking was miles away. Those were good times.

One of the main reasons I prefer being single is because I am incapable of submitting to a man's will, just because he is a man. I am not a servant and never will be. Mike Huckabee is a shining example of everything that I find wrong with marriage and he isn't going to be able to hide the fact that he thinks women are supposed to be maids, cooks, breeders and whatever else his little heart desires.

The RIAA can kiss my backside. I've paid for every song I own, which is one of the reasons I now buy from iTunes instead of cds. Why should I pay for songs I don't want? I've transferred all my cds to the computer and play them in a format that is convenient to me, my iPod. It's small enough to carry anywhere which is more than I can say for a cd. If they are determined to maintain that it is illegal to transfer a song from a cd that I paid for to the computer that I paid for, then I just won't buy any more cds, not even used ones. Ever. And neither will anyone else.

Food labels have undergone several changes in the last twenty years, not all of them good. You used to be able to see the complete nutritional content but then they eliminated all but a few vitamins and minerals (A, C, Calcium and Iron). Well, they are going to revamp them again and supposedly they will let you know which foods are healthy and which aren't by using a 1 to 100 scale. I like the simple method. Cook from scratch but not everybody has the time or the inclination to do that.

Talking out both sides of their orifice award goes to the NY Times. If things are so bad, why did they hire William Kristol? He's been the chief cheerleader in the Iraq debacle and is willing to extend that mistake to Iran. Sheesh, the hypocrisy is mind numbing.

Thoughts Before Christmas

Thank you Christoper Reeve. His determination to walk again and his willingness to be in the public eye helped to change how spinal injury patients are treated. Kevin Everett is up and about four months after severely injuring his spinal cord, proving once again the power of science and medicine. Praying is good if you can't do anything else, but it isn't the most constructive action to take in a crisis. God gave us brains and he expects us to use them and amazing things can happen when we do.

Wouldn't payroll and the costs of being open seriously cut into the profit margin?

I know television has already let the cat out of the bag and the rest of the world knows that The Decider is an idiot, but now he's going to take the show on the road and let them experience his stupidity in person. Hopefully he'll be able to properly exit stage right the next time.

Last year I made an Alton Brown Rib Roast recipe (it's not on the site anymore) and this year I'm going to make Paula Deen's Foolproof Standing Rib Roast with my own seasonings and a homemade Horseradish Sauce. Our starter will be Golden Beet Soup (if Cosentino's gets them in this morning), otherwise I'm going to have to think on the fly. The accompaniments will be Macaroni and Blue Cheese with Chives and Spicy Southern Greens (my own recipe). It should be fun.

Different Day, Mostly The Same Crap

Over a year has gone by since we changed the deck chairs on the Titanic, also known as the Demowienies taking "control" of Congress. As most people have noticed, nothing changed. Absolutely nothing. Bush is still running the country into the ground; his cronies are still increasing their portfolios at phenomenal rates; the poor are even poorer and now have even more competition for the bottom of the economic ladder; New Orleans is being remade into a city that the former residents can't afford; and even more corruption, lying and cover-ups have been revealed. See what you get when impeachment is off the the table? If we do have an election next year, they all need to be replaced with people who really will represent us, not rage and cave, or even worse, bluff and fold.

Anybody who thinks that the tapes were the only thing withheld from the 9/11 commission, is not dealing with a full deck. And people wonder why conspiracy theories abound. No matter what Bill Maher believes, I come from the school of if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it ain't a goose.

The little Christmas tree that could...bring a tear to my eye. That was a great story. How many Americans would have kept a tradition that long and under such difficult circumstances?

My family knows this one well. Dad died on the Fourth of July and mom had her stroke on Christmas Eve. Don't you just love the holidays?

I've been following this study since I was in school in the nineties. We have learned so much about Alzheimer's from one guy's need to do a thesis.
However many kids these nuns may have terrorized in their youth, what they have done for the rest of us is very much appreciated.

Bigger. Faster. Better. No, it's not the Bionic Woman or the Six Million Dollar man. It's the collection and collation of biometric data on people who haven't done anything wrong, they're just breathing and they might be a little brown. Will this information be put to good use? Somehow I doubt it. What I don't doubt is that we are at 665 and aren't aware that a really bad number comes next.

3Bs

Educational Differences

Why are the Chinese ahead of the United States in math and science?

Let's see, this is China.


This is America.


Any questions?

Real Genius?

First it was fiction, now it's fact. Somehow I just don't feel safe.

Monday Morning Blues

The Vietnam War returned many a young soldier as a drug addict. Operation Iraqi Freedom is doing the same but this time they are drugs by prescription. Dose 'em and forget 'em, but whatever you do, don't treat them for the problems created by repeated tours and the tragedies of war that leave the mind in a sensitive state.

Simple, warm and comfy are my choices.

Don't you love when they miss the obvious? If you believe in evolution, then just because chimps are raised in captivity it doesn't mean they gave up the genetic ability to notice more about what is going on around them because they aren't going to be killed at any moment. This also means we are going to have quit maligning them and find a new nickname for the nitwit in chief.

The 100 Best Mystery Novels (with links) of all time. I've read a few of them but it's hard to take a list seriously that has Murder on the Orient Express at
41 and Red Dragon at 27. Horror is not a mystery. And all this time I thought that Daphne du Maurier was writing Gothic romances.

Under Color Of Authority

Normally, no one wants an employee who makes mistakes that cost the compay money.

After all, nobody wants a worker who keeps making the same mistake, and “if we fail and don’t learn from it, it’s not an intelligent failure,” he said.

And then, unfortunately for us, there's the Bush Administration.

Excuse me? Atheism has led to the greatest cruelties and violations of justice of all time? The Pope is off his rocker. Again. The Crusades must have slipped his mind. Along with the Salem Witch trials, Northern Ireland, the Thirty Years War and even more importantly, priests who sexually prey on those they are supposed to give guidance to, like children.

Speaking of stupidity, wanting to have a woman executed because some seven year old kids named a doll Muhammad and your name (like so many others in your country and around the world) is also Muhammad, is just a little strange. As well as confusing to little kids.

Innocent and still served time. How can a lawyer forget his client is in jail? Obviously the defendant wasn't the one paying the bill, because he would have noticed when he wasn't paid.

Every once in a while justice is served.

Oh great. Flying taser ships for the cops to use to subdue suspects and crowds. Sounds more like the infancy of Skynet.

Thinking About Things

When I used to practice acupuncture, one of the things I told parents was that their kids were at a greater risk of osteoporosis than previous generations. Kids no longer live the life portrayed in The Sandlot. The idea of playing outside with your friends all day long has been replaced by computer games, television, Ritalin and ridiculous amounts of useless homework. Not only do they not get enough calcium in their diets to build their bones, but they also drink too much soda which has the opposite effect. Old age is not going to be pleasant for the younger generation.

When did pregnancy become a disease? All those scans and tests and we are still near the bottom in infant mortality. Oh well, as long as they weren't aborted.

It's such a shame about Sean Taylor. What a waste of talent. From what little I've read, it seems that there might be a chance that this was no accident. Somebody had it in for him. Rest in peace, hopefully they will be able to find your killer.

Maglev trains. Every decade or so, they start talking about building them here in the US. I guess it's that time of the decade.

So much for improving my cooking skills. The Rachel Ray Network has canceled Emeril Live due to "contract issues". Mom is really bummed. She likes the band and the interaction with the audience. I'm tired of watching people giggle and eat, I want to watch them cook. No more Mario, and the wrong guy won the Next Iron Chef (Michael Symon giggles like a teenage girl) and isn't nearly as easy on the eyes as John Besh. I hope nothing happens to Alton Brown, he's both cute and informative.

Lazy Sunday Morning

What a cool toy! When I was a kid, I always had a difficult time focusing binoculars and microscopes. The ability to have your television magnify what interests you by 200x is going to send a lot of junior geeks into nerd heaven. Since real chemistry sets (I spent hours with mine and had to promise not to try and blow anything up) are out of the question, it is going to be difficult to encourage budding scientific minds, but this should help. Where are our next generation of inventors going to come from if everything is restricted? And the really sad part is that we are still going to have terrorists and drug users, we just won't have scientists.

GreaseMonkey has some pretty useful scripts for Google Reader and one of them is the ability to view the original article in Reader. You can make comments or reorder your NetFlix queue without leaving the page.

The Economic Consequences of George Bush have been pretty clear to me for quite a while and unfortunately, are finally becoming clear to others. Whether or not it is in time for us to salvage our country is a matter for debate, but it doesn't look good.

Another interesting article on race and IQ. My question is this. Where do I fall in this theory? Dad was obviously black, but incredibly smart and yes he did have a big head, Mom is "white" but one of her grandmothers was of Mongolian descent and her father was Jewish. As multi-racial children increase, won't that change the IQ stats?

Cranky Saturday Links

We've gone completely nuts. In our efforts to control every segment of a person's life, Prince George County in Maryland has decided that if parents won't vaccinate their children, they can go to jail and pay a fine. Is there any aspect of life that the government doesn't feel like interfering with? Considering that so many schools have a no hugging policy, why do kids need to be vaccinated against Hepatitis B? Are they swapping needles and having unprotected sex in the school bathroom? If so, they have a much more important problem. And why isn't the cervical vaccine required?

United we stand, divided we fall. Ever since Reagan destroyed the Air Traffic Controllers Union, employees from every walk of life have continued to lose money, benefits and respect from their employers. Job protection is nonexistent and retirement is out of the question for those on the the lower end of the pay scale. Work until you die, as long as the people on top can vacation when and wherever they want and then come home their McMansions. Meanwhile, the little people scrimp, save, and suffer for the good of their masters employers and are supposed to be grateful that it isn't worse. Strikes do work, but in other countries they manage to do it all at the same time. It has more of an impact that way.

There should be more feel good stories like this one. Once again high school students kicked some major collegiate ass in a science competition. Proving that one doesn't always have to attend the best school to have the better ideas.

Now all they need is to change the color of the uniforms to match the brown nosing jackboots. Or as we used to say when I was in, "if the CO makes a right turn, the people following will break their neck."

Just think, if you have neighbor issues this can lead to a whole new level of harassment. Right now it depends on parental consent, but the Fourth Amendment is on life support and most Americans (especially the ones who think they won't be affected) are willing to pull the plug. I wonder what the whackos who think that assault weapons for "hunting", think about this plan. While I may not be a fan of assault rifles, I am a fan of search warrants and due process.

Saturdays are supposed to be peaceful and pleasant, so I'm going to go outside and play.

People Need To Get A Grip

I am neither on the fringe or "pre-nursing home", but I am a voting citizen and I believe that Dianne Feinstein is a traitor to both the Democratic Party and to the citizens of her state. She believes more in the dollar and what it can do for her than she does about the effects her votes have on the non-rich citizens of California.

"But it's consistent with other things she's done in her career where she does break on lots of important issues", Anders said. "She has not shown much concern for civil liberties in the context of criminal justice and national security."

I love orange cauliflower, it has a richer taste than the plain old white. The purple one looks spectacular against a white bowl and they all tasted good as a starter soup. I usually just simmer with a little stock until tender and then hit it with the stick blender. You can add herbs if you want or you can try this recipe if you have a few extra cranberries and like pine nuts.

I have lots to say about the Barry Bonds witch hunt and the supposed thirty years in jail, but I'll just leave it at this. Scooter Libby. Since lying about revealing an acting CIA agent wasn't considered important by anybody on the almost never right, what is the big deal now? Sheesh, you'd think he had lied about a blow job.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has made the big time. Speeches being given at the American Academy of Religion include these gine contributions from some articulate Pastarians.

The presenters' titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. Snyder will speak about "Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster's Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion," while Gavin Van Horn's presentation is titled "Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master."

Surf's up. It turns out that the theory of everything might be even simpler than we thought. See what can happen when you aren't slaving away for every dime?

Wednesday Wanderings

Chubby may be the new "healthy", but the upper end of it looks like I swallowed an inflated beach ball. Ever since the sixties people have been trying to convince themselves that the emaciated look is attractive, even though it doesn't look that good on Ethiopians or Holocaust victims. Marilyn Monroe was one of the sexiest women of the century (Elizabeth Hurley can take her attitude and shove it), and her weight varied throughout the years but that didn't affect her sexiness. Or her health. Plus, you get to enjoy your life instead of worrying that every little tasty bite will be your last. It's the quality, not the quantity of life, that matters. Which is why I just joined a gym. With a sauna.

Police don't listen to the voters any more than the politicians do. 54% of the 2005 vote in Denver was in favor of the police ignoring adult possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. Instead, arrests increased. Now the people have passed another initiative, this time by 55%, that states that they want their police department to make marijuana arrests their lowest priority. But the cops can't envision not arresting people for pot. The cynic in me says; nice use of resources, this way they don't have to catch anybody committing a serious crime because they can justify to themselves that they are catching "criminals".

WTF? It's easy for someone to say that a recession has its good points when they aren't going to be affected by it. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world are getting hammered at both ends. Everything is costing more, from food to fuel, and at the same time we are working harder while earning less money due to fewer hours at jobs that have no benefits. Oh yeah, and any safety net programs for those who aren't used to being poor have been eliminated and they're supposed to depend on the charity of people like him to survive these so-called good times? Not good, not good at all.

I can honestly say that I've never seen any of the Top 10 Most Disturbing Movies.

I did find this one to be disturbing. While I dream about having a luxurious kitchen, it certainly isn't for the same reasons. The racism and sexism are disturbingly obvious during the Asian based segment. It was offensive, but just like watching a bad accident, I couldn't stop watching.