Conservative Corner (my brother, Dan)
Unashamed
(my brother, Scott)
Crazy Aunt Purl
(my friend Laurie)
There's Pie In the Lunchroom
(my friend Chuck)
Too Fat For Ponies
(my friend Sam)
Nashville Junk
(a Tennessean insider)
Recent posts:
2006
May 9-16, 2006
May 2-5, 2006
April 17-28, 2006
April 10-14, 2006
March 27-April 7, 2006
March 6-10, 2006
Feb. 27 - March 3, 2006
Feb. 20-24, 2006
Feb. 13-17, 2006
Feb. 6-9, 2006
Jan 30-Feb 2, 2006
Jan 23-27, 2006
Jan 16-20, 2006
Jan 3-11, 2006
2005
Dec 27-30, 2005
Dec 19-22, 2005
Dec 8-16, 2005
Dec 1-7, 2005
May 26, 2006
The Pittsburg Post-Gazette has a nasty little editorial about Rick Santorum. It seems that he doesn't live in Pennsylvania anymore. The house where he claims residency has no curtains or furniture and the lawn isn't being mowed. The candidate information poll the paper sent to his address was returned as undeliverable and unforwardable.
Santorum is way behind in the polls and this isn't going to help matters any. I'm thinking the Dems may pick up that seat in November. Sweet.
The Washington Post reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new guidelines for women. It seems the CDC wants every woman of childbearing age (that is between first menstral cycle to menopause) to treat themselves as "pre-pregnant" even if they have no intention of becoming pregnant in the near future.
The idea here is that 50 percent of pregnancies are unplanned and that women who don't consider themselves in a constant state of pre-pregnancy may harm the fetus in the weeks between conception and discovery. They maintain that this will cut down on the rate of birth defects, low birth weight and unhealthy babies.
But the truth of the matter is that if the government were really interested in decreasing the number of unhealthy pregnancies then there are three things that will solve the problem:
1) Universal Health Care
2) Comprehensive sex education in schools including information on contraception.
3) Following the FDA recommendations and licensing the morning-after pill as an over-the-counter drug.
The fact of the matter is that many unhealthy pregnancies are due to a lack of access to birth control and a lack of health care insurance. Asking a pregnant woman (or a woman who plans on becoming pregnant) to make sacrifices in their lives for the sake of their child is one thing. But to have all fertile women on standby to get pregnant is ridiculous.
What about men? Does the government have recommendations for me? Should every man be required to have a job, health insurance, a car, a physical fitness regimine, healthy diet and forgo cigarettes, alcohol and drugs so that he'll be ready to support a family?
What hogwash.
Add to that the fact that the FDA refuses to approve a vaccine that is extremely effective at preventing cervical cancer because some conservatives believe it will lead to promiscuity and you start to see a pattern. Right wingers want to punish women for having sex.
See, HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer cannot be stopped by condoms. So, it tends to be the big scary bugaboo used by conservatives to scare girls into not having sex. If HPV were wiped out, then there's no more reason to fear condoms. Where would that leave the prudes of the world? No, better that a woman get cancer than have sex before marriage.
I find it hillarious that suddenly Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist are all worried about the right to privacy as soon as the FBI raids a congressional office. They have systematically ignored their responsibilties to oversee the White House and be a check on the Executive Branch when they were tapping our phones and recording our internet activity. But as soon as one of their number is threatened, suddenly there's a crisis that must be addressed.
"These constitutional principles were not designed by the Founding Fathers to place anyone above the law," Hastert said in a statement signed by Nancy Pelosi as well. "Rather, they were designed to protect the Congress and the American people from abuses of power, and those principles deserve to be vigorously defended."
Where were you when my rights were being trampled? Where where you when I needed my rights "vigorously defended?"
I hate to say it, but Newt Gingrich had a point when he said:
"The House is now faced with a reality of power. Either they do things that involve appropriations or oversight that are real, or they earn the contempt with which they are being treated."
Bingo. The Bush Administration believes it has unlimited power and the Republican leadership in the House and Senate has let it go on for too long.
Bush has responded by sealing the materials seized in the raid for 45 days to allow tempers to cool off.
Now, for the record, I believe William Jefferson needs to resign. He's been caught on tape taking $100,000 in cash and they found $90,000 in cash in his freezer at home. That's enough to make you lose your seat. Yes, he's a Democrat, but we don't need those kinds of Democrats in the House.
Besides, the FBI had a search warrant to go into Jefferson's congressional office. Hastert can argue that it violates the seperation of powers principle all day long, but they had a search warrant and there is no better police body than the FBI to investigate federal officials. If congress wants to protect themselves from invasion of privacy, they should protect us all.
Max is having a field day today. Literally. His school is having a field day and he's been looking forward to it all week. He began on Monday by telling me he has to be sure and bring a water bottle, wear sunscreen and a hat as well as socks and shoes that day.
This morning it looked a little overcast and he nearly cried. I asked him what the big deal was at field day.
"There are all sorts of games to play and last year the big event was the tugger war." I can't get it through his head that the game is called tug-o-war. This morning he was extremely excited, even for him. He kept jumping up and down and squealing.
It was a little hard to take.
The Washington Post is reporting that a new study shows no connection between smoking pot and lung cancer.
"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."
This is bizarre because previous studies have shown that marijuanna tar has twice as many cancer-associated chemicals as tobacco tar.
As long as we're on the subject, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy going on at the FDA over marijuanna. The FDA has recently stated that that marijuanna offers no medical benefits whatsoever. But the statement wasn't based on science. It also wasn't actually attributed to anyone at the FDA. It was just a general statement of fact.
A month later, the FDA approves the use of Cesamet, a synthesized form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuanna, for use by chemotherapy patients.
See that? Marijuanna has no medicinal value, but the stuff in it that makes you high does. The FDA doesn't like marijuanna because people can grow it and smoke it themselves, meaning the drug companies aren't making any money off of it. At least that's the way it looks from here. I'm always open to alternative theories.
Someone must have been high to come up with this. Scientists believe they are on the verge of creating an invisibility cloak.
Back in 1898 the government enacted a luxury tax of 3 percent on anyone who owned a telephone. This was to help pay for the Spanish American War. 108 years later, the IRS has lost all of it's appeals to keep the tax. So, they're giving up and paying back $15 billion in taxes to cover the taxes collected over the last three years.
Evidently the statute of limitations only goes back so far.
I'm still trying to figure out if this is a joke or not. I think it is, but who can tell? Hufu -- a human flesh alternative for vegetarians/vegans and cannibals who want to quit.
There's this guy named Amir Massoud Tofangsazan who sold his laptop on eBay for £375. The guy who bought it got screwed because, not only did the laptop not have all the features the auction claimed, but once he got the computer, it didn't work.
Amir refused to give him the money back. Bad move. The guy pulled the hard drive out of the laptop and found a plethora of information about Amir, including bank account info, his mother's bank account info, a scan of Amir's passport, access to Amir's MSN account and a ton of photographs that Amir probably should have delted before selling the laptop.
Then the guy set up a web page and posted the story. Ouch.
Man, I've lost my share of eyeglasses over the years, but this is no solution.
May 25, 2006
Rozzy was sent home from daycare yesterday with a fever. When Dollie went to pick her up, she found her on her sleeping mat, blanket pulled up around her, with some saltines and a cup of Sprite.
"Mama, I'm very sick," she said. The daycare ladies, who are constantly impressed with Rozzy's vocabulary and willingness to express herself, made the appropriate boo boo faces.
"Yeah," Dollie said. "She'll let you know about it." She took Rozzy to the doctor who figured out Rozzy has an ear infection. Ten days of antibiotics and everything should be fine.
It used to be difficult to get Rozzy to take medicine. We've discoverd, however, that color is the key. We buy children's ibuprofen that is pink because Rozzy will readily swallow "princess medicine." With Max, I used to have to bribe him with shots of Coke, but Rozzy just wants everyone to acknowledge her regalness.
This morning I stayed home with her until Dollie finished up finals. She told me "her ear confection was feeling much better."
The season finale of "House" was a humdinger. I really feared that the show would become formulaic: House reluctantly accepts a patient, the team come up with a treatment that doesn't work, they come up with a second treatment that appears to work and then makes matters worse, someone says something that makes House space out for a second and he figures it all out.
The only variation seems to be how willing the producers are to gross out or frighten the audience.
There have been some episodes which have broken out of this mode and they really stand out. What saves this series is how well the characters are written and the fact that Hugh Laurie is a freaking genius who's only clue that he's using an accent is when he mimics the Australian doctor on his team -- he's too good at it.
In the season finale, a man wanders into the team room and shoots House twice -- once in the abdomen and once in the neck. After surgery, House finds out that his boss authorized an additional treatment that actually relieved the chronic pain in his leg, but has left his brain . . . well . . . off. He's hallucinating. In fact, most of the rest of the episode: the eye popping out of the patient with the amazingly swollen tongue, being locked up in ICU with the guy who shot him, the leg that doesn't hurt anymore, the realization that he's hallucinating -- all the delirium from blood loss from the gun shot. At the end of the episode, we see that he's just arrived at the trauma ward.
In retrospect, it seems kind of obvious, but I bought into it for a long while. As an aside, the actor who played the patient of the week (and that really must be a good gig to get if you're an unknown in Hollywood, much better than corpose of the week on CSI) really earned his money.
He had a prothetic tongue, his eye popped out of it's socket and his scrotum exploded. Evidently, when House hallucinates, he goes all out.
Incidentally, one of the amazing techno machines they were using in the episode was a robotic surgical suite. In my capacity as PR flack, I've actually sat in on a prostatectomy in which the urologist used one of these machines. They are fantastic. He even let me look through the viewer so I could see the patient's prostate in 3D.
I also watched the last "Will & Grace." Meh. I won't miss that show. The last "Malcom In the Middle" was funny. Clorice Leachman was fantastic as usual. I love it when she shows up in anything, but like the rest of American, I'm over "Malcom."
The one series I am going to miss is "Justice League Unlimited." They did such a great job with this show. I can understand wanting to move on, but there are plenty of great stories left to tell. Oh well, bring on "Supergirl and the Legion of Superheros."
I've stopped watching "Three and a Half Men" in protest for the alleged way Charlie Sheen treated his wife, the oh-so-hot Denise Richards. That's a shame because the show is funny and I'm glad John Cryer finally got a series worth watching. But I can't support Sheen's actions by watching his show. I try to divorce the actor from the role, but in this case it isn't a politcal stance -- it's a personal one.
The "CSI: Miami" finale was well done. I've been toying with the idea of dropping it from my TiVo, but it redeemed itself over the last few weeks. The "CSI" finale was very cool.
The Enron trial is over in Texas and the verdict is GUILTY. Kenny Boy Lay, Lay was found guilty on all six counts of conspiracy and fraud as well as four counts of fraud and false statements. Skilling was found guilty on 19 counts of conspiracy, fraud, false statements and insider trading. He was found not guilty on nine counts of insider trading.
Sentencing won't be until September, but both could be facing decades in federal PMITA prison. Federal sentencing guidelines are no longer mandatory, so the judge could go lightly, but I don't think so. What I'm hoping is that the sentence is harsh enough that other white collar criminals will take note.
That grey-haired guy who won "American Idol" received more votes than any president in U.S. history.
ABC News reported that Speaker Hastert is part of the Justice Department probe of Jack Abramoff. The Justice Department denies they are investigating Hastert. Best part of that second story: it's an AP wire story running on the ABC News web site, but includes the line "ABC News had no immediate comment." Heh.
YeeeeeeeeeHaaaaawwww, Tennessee is gonna let us hunt from inside the truck.
I normally don't link to this kind of stuff, but Kari Byron (the red-headed science chick from "Mythbusters") did a photoshoot for FHM and I'm only human.
I got 11 out of 13 right in the X-Men quiz at MSNBC.
Wow. In Britain it is very difficult to get ahold of a gun. That certainly cuts down on the number of shooting deaths in the country and leaves the cops free to focus on getting "the scourge of knife crime off our streets." In a recent raid, the cops confiscated a Batleth, which only proves that geeks come in all shapes, sizes and nationalities.
For those of you not still living in your parents' basement, this is the melee weapon of choice for Klingon warriors -- a two-handed sword used in ceremonies, religion, martial arts and dueling.
I can't help but giggle a little bit at the copper holding Warf's sword. Most likely, I'd bust a gut laughing at somone who tried to rob me with one.
The British police have declared a knife amnesty for those who want to turn in their knives. Otherwise, there are legal sanctions.
You can take away a couple of things from this story. One is that if guns were banned in America, it wouldn't stop crime and it wouldn't stop the government from wanting to move on to knives, slingshots and pointy sticks because something is always going to be a scourge on our streets. Two is the reaction to the police initiative, which reflects the current feeling of the NRA:
“It is likely to be supported by the law-abiding public and not those who carry knives for criminal activity. Knife crime will only get worse if we don’t introduce a five-year mandatory sentence for anyone carrying a knife.”
In other words, come down hard for using a gun in a crime and leave us law-abiding citizends alone.
Hoo hoo hoo! Murray Waas, a brilliant investigative journalist working for the National Journal has some interesting news about the Plame leak investigation.
On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men. . . .
Rove and Novak, investigators suspect, might have devised a cover story to protect Rove because the grand jury testimony of both men appears to support Rove's contentions about how he learned about Plame.
If it comes out that the two of them came up with a cover story, then Katy bar the door. That's lying to the feds, conspiracy, fraud and obstruction of justice for both of them. I get all tingly just thinking about it.
I wrote yesterday about how the DoJ's Office of Professional Responsibility had to shut down their investigation of the NSA domestic spying program because they couldn't get clearance. As it turns out, the only classified material they requested had already been turned over to the DoJ. The DoJ wouldn't give the materials to it's own investigators, meaning they wanted to shut down the investigation.
May 24, 2006
It looks like we're never going to find out what's going on at the NSA. Last month the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility closed it's investigation of the NSA domestic wiretapping program because the Bush administration refused to give the investigators the security clearances necessary to investigate.
We're just supposed to roll over and take this because Bush tells us it's all above board. We're supposed to ignore more than 200 years of tradition and the Constitution because Bush doesn't like to be checked up on. I recall during one press conference when a reporter suggested that Bush was utilizing unchecked power, he baulked. He said his oath of office was a check. Not a very good one, I guess.
Now I read where the FCC won't be allowed to look into whether or not the telecoms broke the law by giving all our records to the NSA because the activities of the NSA are classified.
Hmmm. And I thought vampires were supposed to be immortal. As it turns out, "Lestat" the Broadway musical based on the Anne Rice novel closed after only 39 shows. What a pain in the neck.
Woo Hoo! A new Ghost Rider trailer is up. I hope this movie is good. Nicolas Cage needs a hit, people. Truth be told, Ghost Rider used to freak me out a little. It's not a comic book suitable for children. But the character isn't evil. He's just drawn that way.
May 23, 2006
The season finale of "24" was one wild ride, but I have to say, I called it. [spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen it yet]
I told Dolls that Jack meant to get captured after kidnapping the president and trying to force a confession out of him. I knew he'd replaced some piece of the president's personal affects with a listening device.
Also, after all was said and done: the president arrested, the terrorists stopped and Jack could finally sit down, charge his cell phone and go to the bathroom -- when he got the call from his daughter, I smelled a rat.
The agent came up and told Jack that a call from his daughter was forwarded to a landline inside the building behind him.
"Uh-oh," I said. "He's going to get tazed or shot or something"
"Yeah?" Dollie said.
"Uh-huh. Jack hasn't talked on a land line in five seasons. CTU can forward any call to his cell phone. Someone wants Jack to go inside that building."
Then, just as I thought I might be wrong, BAM, the Chinese kidnap him, beat him up and put him on a slow boat to China.
"Just kill me..." Jack croaks.
"Kill you Mr. Bauer?" says the evil Chinese official. "You're much to valuable to kill."
Pat Robertson has developed a protein shake that gives him superpowers. According to Pat, thanks to his miracle shake (and also those protein-packed age-defying pancakes) he can leg press 2,000 pounds. That's right. Pat Robertson can leg press a ton.
Wait, no I'm not. I'm confused. Where in the world did Pat Robertson find a leg press that can hold 2,000 pounds? Pat Robertson is 76 years old. I did a little rooting around on the web and discovered that Dan Kendra, a former Florida State QB, Indiannapolis Colt and Navy SEAL once set a leg press record of 1,335 pounds. The capilaries in his eyes burst .
So Pat Robertson is either a 76-year-old, protein shake drinkin' miracle or he's a lying sack.
My man Studs Turkel is still alive and suing AT&T for giving his records to the NSA.
Hugh Jackman's wife makes him dress up in the Wolverine outfit for her. Heh.
The Australian actor reveals DEBORRA-LEE FURNESS loves the hairy suit and insisted he keep hold of it after shooting on the third installment wrapped. He says, "I feel a bit silly in that outfit but, believe me, my wife, really, really likes it. "They'll have to make a new one for the next movie because she won't let me part with it."
We keep hearing about all the progress being made in Iraq and that the media won't tell the real story because they're all a bunch of Bush-hating terrorist lovers. If that's really the case, then why has the Voice of America's Baghdad bureau been closed for six months? According to the Washington Post, it's because their last remaining correspondent was pulled when her guard was killed in an ambush.
How exactly does this square with the "steady progress" meme we're getting from Bush/Rumsfeld/Rice?
Well, Dodd's in.
And I'm out...
May 22, 2006
It was an eventful weekend. Ravsputin, my beloved RAV4 has been traded in on a pickup for Dollie. It had close to 200,000 miles on it and needed a new set of tires. My 75 mile daily commute was ragging it out pretty badly. There was a coolant leak and the brakes weren't acting the way they should. So we had a choice to make: keep pumping maintenance money into a car that was paid for, or trade it in on a used pickup for Dollie.
Dollie needs a pickup. She plans on hauling a lot of stuff around. She's been wanting a pickup for years so she can pick up stuff on the side of the road. Whenever we see something someone is throwing away, Dollie wants to check it out and see if it's worth picking up. With a truck (even with the short bed) she's going to be much more willing to bring junk home.
Oy.
We found a 2003 Ford Explorer "Sport Trac" on a lot that was having a "hail sale." The few minor dings on the hood knocked $3,000 bucks off the sticker, so we were happy with the deal.
Dollie wanted a 4-door pickup so we can put the kids in the back and while she's not all that happy about the short bed, like the guy on the lot said "drop the tailgate and let it hang out."
Speaking of which, the guy on the lot was an older gentlemen. The sales board in the window of the store showed him way behind the leader (some woman who has sold 72 cars so far this year. Dollie said she probably has big ones). He mumbled a bit and repeated himself. During the test drive, it came out that he was from Shelbyville. So am I. Now, I don't know how it is where you're from, but in the South, when two people are from the same town, you start listing relatives until you find a relationship either through kin or school or something.
As it turns out, the guy knows my grandfather. His ex-wife may be my grandfather's cousin (the details are murky). But he knew my dad, my uncle, my aunt, my great uncle, some distant cousins and on and on and on. This fascinated the guy and he kept bringing it up.
So we drove it home on Saturday and Dollie hauled a bed home that had been sitting at Tracey's house waiting for us for weeks.
I got a call from my mom on Saturday. She has a new litter of kittens and wants Max and Rozzy to come stay with her and pet them, because "if you don't pet them, they'll get wild." Why do I see another kitten in my future?
We took the kids to see "Over The Hedge" this weekend. It was a lot of fun. I've read the comic strip the film was based on and, being a comics guy, I'm always glad to see a funny strip make the jump to the big screen. Let's see that makes . . . uh . . . "Peanuts" . . . "Over The Hedge" . . . "Blondie" . . . "Garfield" . . . "Brenda Star" . . . "The Phantom" . . . That's about all I can think of. Any others?
"X-Men III: The Last Stand" opens this weekend. If the kids are going to my mom's house to pet kittens, I may actually get to go see it. Then the new Superman movie is due in June. Heeee hee heee heeee.
The Washington Post has a great essay about how conservatives feel betrayed by the Bush Administration.
Rep. William Jefferson, a Louisianna Democrat, is in some serious trouble. Not just because he used National Guard troops to visit his flood-damaged home during the Katrina rescue efforts. Not just because the FBI has him on tape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an undercover informant. No, Jefferson is in trouble because with all the Republican scandals currently swirling around D.C., the presense of a Democrat in the news for corruption will give the GOP an out to scream "bipartisan! corruption is bipartisan!"
Oh my... That was a bad call on some copyeditor's part. The Democrat-Reporter in Marengo County, Ala. ran a story about people in a small neighborhood the complained about an effort to move three mentally retarded adults into a house there. The headline reads: Residents Reject Retard Housing.
Badger, my neighbor, told me the other day that he's finally coming around on the whole shaved head thing. He was against it from the beginning, for reasons that I'm still not clear on. Evidently enough time has passed so that it's not new anymore and he isn't shocked by me scalp.
I just wish I could get some more sun on my head without burning to a crisp.
Pat Robertson says that God told him a tsunami was coming this year. Eric Julien, self-proclaimed psychic, agrees, but says it will be sooner than you think. He says it will happen on May 25.
