March Week 1, 2005

``It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.''

Voltaire

Tuesday  March 1 , 2005

I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body.
Then I realized who was telling me this.

Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (1956- )

I got dentaled today... Richard spent an hour and a half grinding down two teeth for caps, one already had a cap but it had to be removed due to the fact that a cavity had developed under it. the other was broken and had to be capped... I have two temps and I will go back in two weeks. The other problem was a cavity, Richard says that it needs a root canal, the cavity is into the nerve... damn,,, root canal at Dr Lund's House of Horrors on Thursday.

Cindy had a great time at the Mall, she came home very excited and proud of herself

Rant time:

I get the 'Today's Headlines' e-mail from the Washington Post and the New York Times... I love to read the editorials especially the ones I disagree with, namely David Brooks, it used to be Bill Safire, but he's gone. David's seemingly innocuous article this morning, called To Have and to Hold, for Richer for Poorer: Spouses having separate checking accounts seems counter to the whole idea, and ..." was probably as inoffensive as he can get... but... (I live for 'Buts') what got me was his inability to keep himself from letting his low opinion of us [the "Common Man") from seeping through; "For one thing, separate accounts can easily turn into secret accounts." When he finishes putting down the unenlightened he passes judgment by lapsing into the usual litany of Should's and Shouldn't's.

Every time I read one of these preachy moralistic diatribes I become more and more convinced that there is a genetic difference between 'live and let live' Liberal/Progressives and the 'my way or the highway' Conservative/Regressives (CR's for short). CR's seem to have a compulsive need for there to be a RIGHT WAY to do things. They seem to be telling us (The ignorant masses) that what CR's deem to be the RIGHT WAY is the only option a sensible person would take. If the world was full of David Brook's that could conceivably be an viable path for society to take but we're not all like him. When up-tight self appointed moralistic twits start telling others what is right and wrong with their lifestyle then we have a big problem.

I was brought up to believe in the United States, the Land of the Free... not Salem Massachusetts in 1680 or heady good old days of McCarthyism. We are supposed to be the Enlightened Generation not the Repressive Generation. I don't understand why tolerance is looked down upon as a weakness. Why is the acceptance of diversity such a scary thing to Conservatives? CR's actually seem to believe that they can dictate what is  and isn't acceptable by the simple exertion of their will. There are people who are trying to tell us how to speak, how to dress, worship, who we can love and how we express ourselves... Hell... David Brooks even implies that it's Un-American to have separate Checking Accounts... where does it end.

Next Rant, Why do Conservatives live in Gated Communities? Or better yet, why don't Liberals live in gated communities?

Wednesday  March 2 , 2005

He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and
opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

Christy and I went out and bought some new living and dining room furniture... not like the good old days... damn that stuff is expensive... We had lunch at the

Chris Rock Mocks Bush in Oscar Monologue
Oscar host Chris Rock got in a few digs at President Bush in his opening monologue at the Academy Awards. Here's what he said:

"I'm not going to bash Bush here tonight. I saw 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' I think Bush is a genius. I think Bush did some things this year that nobody in this room could do. ... Because Bush basically reapplied for his job. And can you imagine applying for a job and while you're applying there's a movie in every theater in the country that shows how much you suck at the job? It would be hard to get hired, wouldn't it? I watched 'Fahrenheit.' I learned some stuff. Bush did some things you could never get away with at a real job.

When Bush got into office, there was a surplus of money -- now there's like a $70 trillion deficit. Now just imagine you work at the GAP. You close out your register and you're $70 trillion short. The average person would get in trouble for something like that. Not Bush. Then he started a war. ... Now just imagine you work at the GAP. You're $70 trillion behind on your register and then you start a war with the Banana Republic because you say they got toxic tank tops over there. You have the war, people are dying -- 1,000 GAP employees are dead, bleeding all over the khakis -- you finally take over Banana Republic and find they never made tank tops in the first place."

More Chris Rock jabs:

"Oprah is so rich that I saw John Kerry proposing to her just an hour ago."

On Michael Moore: "You know he’s thinking 'I should have made Super Size Me — I’ve done the research.'"

Thursday  March 3 , 2005

How did it get so late so soon?
Its night before its afternoon.
December is here before its June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go....
BY: Dr Seuss

Lets see, what did I do today... oh yeah... I had a ROOT CANAL!!!! An hour and a half in that damn chair... no pain until the end when the Novocain started to wear off...

I went home and got my camera to take pictures of the girls at Gymnastics' Practice... a big deal, they will be performing on Saturday night and they just love it... The little kids turn it into an opportunity to wrestle but the older kids take it pretty seriously, I think that fundamentally the objective is to have fun because it gives the kids an opportunity to be silly and play. I wouldn't call it gymnastics except in the very loosest definition, they are learning some tumbling and Adagio fundamentals... sort of like 'Introduction to Cheerleading' 101'.

The tooth that got the root canal is very sore to the touch this morning... I took one of Christy's Darvocet's and it seems to be helping. The Dr. said it would be sore but I wasn't prepared for this... the trouble with Darvocet is that

Friday  March 4 , 2005

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

Burt Bacharach

Tooth hurts... it's amazing how debilitating being preoccupied with a little thing like a sore tooth can be...

I took some more pictures at the school, the kids certainly are enthusiastic. I used my old camera, with real film... just as an experiment. I was not thrilled with the pictures I got with the Digital Camera, I think I know what I did wrong but I am a little gun-shy. I hate to be in a position where I am experimenting when the pictures could be significant to the subjects...

How do people get to be good at spelling? I can't spell worth a damn, when I have to stop and decide whether to use an 'e' and 'i' chances are almost 95% I will choose the wrong one or it should have been an 'a'. I can't seem to remember if I need to use a single 'r' or two in arrogance, is it '-ance' or '-ence'... 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'... except for the two or three thousand places where the rule doesn't apply...  If I didn't have a spell checker I would be too embarrassed to post anything.

This is amusing:

Science - which is hotter, Heaven or Hell

The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation,
(H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
 

Saturday  March 5 , 2005

The house is reasonably clean, Grandma and Grandpa got here at about 1200. We had lunch and watched some Golf... Tiger apparently came in second... he had a shot at it but missed two birdie putts...

Grandma and Grandpa came out to go see the Gymnastics Show the kids have been working on for a week... but they left early. I was prepared for them to go but Christy wasn't... I even suggested to Christy that she call them and tell them not to bother because she was sick and the roads were just recovering from being washed out but she said no, they want to see the show.

I took lots of pictures and again they came out good and sharp, unfortunately, except for one or two exceptions, the good ones weren't sharp and the sharp ones weren't good...

Sunday  March 6 , 2005

I was wrong, yesterday was only the 3'rd? round. the final was today and Tiger won... cool, second tournament win this year... all is right with the world... I like Tiger Woods, he's the Arthur Ashe of Golf. A classy guy...

I the girls to the park to practice baseball, Calie and Monica want to make the team, Calie's friend's mom, Bernice, a Puerto Rican lady taught them some basics... it was a fun afternoon... Baldo cam along and watched Autumn for me... he did a good job... he even said he enjoyed it.

The Door Slammers

By Det. Steve Rose (View from the Cop)

 I recently had some tantrum problems with child No. 3 that included the slamming of the door. I am offended at the slamming of the door, mostly because I know how much the door costs.

I felt it was fair to issue the mandated one warning, which I was in the middle of when the door slammed. Two minutes later, with the help of a hammer and screwdriver, the door was in the garage.

When you remove the door to a teenager’s room, you gain powerful mojo.

Other than retreating to the closet, there is no place to hide. Occasionally I like to stand outside the area where the door used to be and just stare inside.

My father was a door-remover and his father before him.

Our genealogy book shows pictures of our great-great grandparents holding doors.

This cracked me up, I am a Door Remover too... it really works well.

This weeks articles

This is a long article but it's by Seymour Hersh, he is one of the few spin-free true investigative reporters left... this is about what he believes the next few years will bring... not very heartening but extremely interesting

Bankruptcy bill has big problems Molly Ivins

Molly puts her eloquent 2-cents in on the Bankruptcy bill, it really is an blatant try by the banks and Credit card company to screw the little guy even worse while it provides several simple outs for the wealthy...

Bush, Flipping for Europe By Art Buchwald

I have always like cynicism and Art Buchwald is the grand master.

A Bill Bankrupt Of Pity By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Another article on the Bankruptcy bill... much more detail and some easy to understand breakdowns of the various clauses... it really is a nasty piece of legislation.

 
Bush's Stacked Deck By Brian Cloughley

"Son", he said, "No matter how far you travel or how smart you get, always remember this. Someday, somewhere, a guy is going to come to you and show you a brand new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear. But son, do not bet him, for as sure as you do, you are going to get an earful of cider."

When Democracy Shifts In Reverse BY Jay Bookman

An excellent article on manipulating gerrymandering...

Moses Didn't Write The Constitution By Thom Hartmann

Another excellent History lesson by Mr. Hartman... really good.

Credit Card Penalties, Fees Bury Debtors Senate Nears Action On Bankruptcy Curbs By Kathleen Day and Caroline E. Mayer

This is yet another article on the Bankruptcy Bill... the best of the bunch...

Why I Do It by Karen Kwiatkowski

Karen takes on dissenters, she really is a good writer... her response to Major Ed Smith is classic...

Loving That Democracy by Karen Kwiatkowski

"Remember that the neo-conservatism embraced by the Bush Administration loves, adores, craves, demands and worships democracy, preferably global and always pro-American."

Without a Doubt By Ron Suskind

First hand accounts recounting where Mister Bush is unencumbered by reality..."'Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject. "