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Last Updated : Sunday, 16 March, 2003
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 16 March, 2003 |
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Monday, March 10, 2003 |
Update at 1015
Sickie
Well, I've apparently recovered somewhat from the unsettled stomach issues of yesterday afternoon.
Being the kindly gentleman I am, I was nice enough to share said bug with my wife. As most of these types of bugs are more affectionate towards us taller humanoids (I swear, there are germs which positively run screaming when Jack starts tearing around), guess who ended up home today? Yup. So I've got to behave. Sorta.
Fair Enough
JHR fired back after last night's rant against Bush & Co., asking, fairly, "So, your solution?"
Fair enough. What would I do were I president?
Let's start with about five minutes after I was sworn in - I would not have out-of-hand repudiated the Kyoto protocols. Clearly, if the United States wants friends to help out in times of need, one needs to work with others. Disengagement with the Palestinians, disregard of Kyoto, and all the rest was a mistake, in my book. I wouldn't have backed off like that. I would have put Powell (or my own Secretary of State - I've a fundamental bias against military secretaries of state, frankly. Diplomacy is one language, force another. While Powell is a capable diplomat, I think there might have been better. I would have gladly put Powell into Defense or some other critical area, because I do respect the man, but State, no) in a room with Sharon and Arafat. I don't care what it would have taken, if I'd had to knock heads, those two would have come out with an understanding.
I would have spent a lot more time worrying about the Taliban and their little corner of hell before things blew up on September 11, and I would have done a whole lot more about jobs afterward. I guess first of all, I wouldn't have used the term "Axis of Evil" back about two years ago. Certainly, there are benefits to naming a thing and calling it out so that we can all focus on it's elimination, in the event that it's a bad thing.
The problem is that when you attach labels to a thing like a country, you've managed to paste that label not only on the ruler or government, but also on the poor people of that country. And certainly, while our argument with Saddam in the coming weeks is with him, there's going to be lots of dying. Could we be assured of his death ending it all, then I'd recommend we send in hit squads. Since we don't have reliable information on where this lunatic is at any given time, we're going to have to be less discriminate in our killing, and go more for the wholesale versus retail approach.
And the problem is that in wholesale killing, with larger numbers of body bags, there are larger numbers of innocents who perish.
So, you say, quit stalling. What would I do were I president?
Simple. You cannot tell me that Saddam doesn't eat. You can't tell me that we don't have a reasonable idea of what he likes to eat, where he eats (probably at home), and so forth. You can't tell me that the CIA and other groups can't find someone to take on the job of being a chef for Saddam, and they can't work to poison the man? Sure, the Iraqis might have a sophisticated lab for testing Saddam's food - so you introduce the poison as discrete elements which combine in the body.
So that's Saddam. Yes, I know there's presidential orders and directives and all the rest there which prevents me from doing that. But if the President can order a thing not be done, clearly, as evidenced by this president's negation of previous agreements, the President can rescind the order and state that a thing WILL be done. Unlike some who seem to prefer "plausable deniability" I'd not say anything until asked "Did you order Saddam assassinated?" And then I'd answer that "I ordered that the various agencies of this country do something to eliminate the potential that Saddam had to do something horrible. We determined that if he was no longer there, and his inner circle was decimated, we could rest assured that the power struggles in Iraq would be of the type that would require international aid - like several hundred thousand Marines guarding the oil fields, the nerve gas bunkers, and all of the biological agent laboratories. And once we had those in hand, Iraq was no longer a problem."
Then, Korea? Well, if we hadn't labeled Saddam and the rest as an Axis of Evil, then we could calmly tell Kim Jong Il that if he stops the monitors on that reactor, we'll reinstall them. And instead of a surgical strike, we'll just plow north to do it. And while he's watching his southern border, we'll slip teams into the country and have them go to work disabling missiles, etc., and when he decides to snap and 90% of his military is gummed up with sugar in the gas tanks, dysfunctional missiles, and a military that's terrified by the nine-hundred-foot tall appearance of some horrible creature from their childhood horror stories, it shouldn't take long.
So in the short run, what I would have done was remain engaged in the world, rather than disengage and attempt to reengage. As a very wise, very intoxicated man once told me "it's easier to keep the damned thing rolling than start it up again."
Simplistic? Yeah. Would it have worked? I doubt it would have prevented the September 11th attacks - but I suspect that rather than looking at Iraq with the hairy eyeball these days, we'd be doing the same to Saudi Arabia, and instead of having the Islamic fundamentalists against us, we could merely point out that secular folk are running Mecca... And then get out of the way.
Pet Peeves
Yesterday, for some now-forgotten reason, I was plunging back into archives of various weblogs, blogs, journals, and other sites, looking for links to something I half-remembered. And invariably, I found the single most frustrating issue with "blogs" in general for me is the "not in context" referent. As in "This is freaking brilliant" - "This" linking to a now-dead link.
Or worse, "I agree 100% with what Fred has to say on this issue. He's brilliant". The name "Fred" links to the opening page. Does the remainder of the phrase link to the particular pertinent post/comment? Oh hell no.
I know, I know, the internet is a moving target, and what is there one day is long gone the next. I also know that the simple fact of life is that news organizations (especially the Associated Press of The Damned) expire news stories and pull the rights to them after two or three weeks - thus linking to a news story without context (something I regularly did when I first started this place) is a dumb, dumb move.
But, should you be someone who publishes something along these lines, I strongly urge you to go back two years into your own archives - or if yours do not extend that far back, find someone else's - then try to follow the fray.
I know mine are full of dead links. There's many a "this is stupid - but THIS is smart" crap that now makes no sense - fortunately, as this place is about content rather than commentary on the other folks who comment on ... well, what it is I'm not exactly sure, but since this little dirt-shack on the internet is based around my content, the occasional dead link hopefully doesn't stop the story completely.
But that's just my monday-morning-frustration wailing.
Update at 1915
Well, Maybe...
I was going to resist the publicity and the pre-packaged hype and the forced interest, but something struck me today...
It's Smiling Tim's week in the hot seat here, as his budget again tries to get out of committee and into something called "progress" - doubtful, but he's trying. And while the state has a four BILLION dollar deficit, there are some serious concerns which I have in how Mr. Pawlenty is balancing the budget.
A few years ago the state did make a dent in the uninsured folks in this state, and started a program called "MinnesotaCare". Terribly catchy name for a terribly needed program. Some family farmers couldn't afford health care at all because of the increased costs - so the state put something together.
Right now, if you make something like $800 a month, you pay of that, $17, and you can be in MinnesotaCare. The coverage isn't great, but it's better than "oops, you've got this, if it had been treated a year ago, you'd be fine. Now you've got about thirty minutes to live."
Pawlenty, Mr. "I'm not gonna raise taxes no matter what", has decided that folks who bring home $800 a month (in the land of apartment rents running into the upper $500s for semi-decent one-bedroom apartments, let alone something you could stash a family in) can now afford $380 per month for this program.
I guess it's not the thought of the cost issue which bothers me. It's the promise that the state made to these people that there'd be a way to help them. And guess what? There's a lot of people in the next forty years who are going to hear the same story. "I know, we promised you there would be social security, but we haven't got the political balls to do anything about it and fight the AARP, so you're just going to have to suffer."
Simple fact, though, is that preventative health care is a cost-REDUCING measure. It's a well-known fact that people who receive preventative care and see a doctor on a regular schedule DO NOT get as sick, don't require as long to get well, and frequently do not need treatments to pull them back from so close to deaths door as those who do not have the luxury of health insurance.
When Pawlenty took office, and produced his budget, he mentioned the "800-pound gorilla in the room, health care costs." Again, however, the Republican leadership is looking at the tree in the middle of their path, and not at the entire forest encroaching on the horizon.
Cutting down a single tree will clearly resolve the problem with that tree. Sure, some people will cough up the money to stay covered - probably 2-3% of the people currently enrolled will make that difficult position. The rest will drop out of coverage.
And they'll return to the health care system with horrible problems in a few years. Or months. Or weeks. The clinics and hospitals will put great devices and treatments into use, and rescue some of these people again from death's door. And then they'll look at the state which says "Sorry, we can't pay for their treatment." They'll look at the patient, who will say "I make $7 an hour at McDonalds." Then they'll look at the thousands of other people who CAN pay their bills, and add a buck onto each of theirs to cover for the hundred or so others - some 68,000 others, in fact, who live in this state and can't afford to pay the bill.
Then, of course, there's the minor problem of those who die. As Scrooge says, "It is good that they die, and reduce the surplus population!" Yup. And every premature hole in the ground for a "surplus" person is
I guess it's a simple equation for the Republicans. Reducing the poor means fewer votes against them and their rich cronies.
The joke my mother told is growing less and less funny as the years go by. While my mother is not a Democrat, it's just not as funny as it used to be. "I'm a Democrat, but some day I want to make enough money to be a Republican."
Me too.
GRRRRRRR
One of the benefits of having no one in the house some days is the ability to form coherent thought. Some days, however, it just don't pay to think.
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Tuesday, March 11, 2003 |
Update at 1145
All Right, I'll Behave
I'll leave politics alone. At least, international ones.
I find the whole issue frustrating in the extreme, perhaps because I've not had any opportunity to put my untested theories into field trials, or worse yet, actual practice. So yeah, I'm a rank amateur on that level.
Then again, who isn't?
Could It Really Be? Spring?
There are some threats about by weather-guessers locally insisting that it WILL warm up, shortly, into the "nearly livable" region. Put it this way - last weekend we tied a record low temperature at eight below zero Sunday morning. Yeee-ow. We usually get one or two minus-one mornings in March - most of the rest of the month is given over to vast accumulations of snow.
Not this month. While there may be great heaping piles of snow set for April, at this point, it's not looking good for Mr. Snowman. The guessing-folk started with a high of teens, yesterday, into the low thirties today and tomorrow, mid forties on Thursday, and "nearing sixty" come the end of the week.
I like that. "Nearing Sixty". Of course, should you be unfortunate enough to live in one of those regions that has accumulated great heaping piles of snow and have not purchased flood insurance prior to early January, at this point, I'm thinking you'd best take that money you saved on flood insurance and put it into sand and sandbags, sump-pumps, gas cans, and hoses. We've got plenty of experience with "gee, we didn't think it'd get THAT deep" floods around here.
If you're lucky, you'll find someone with a light-duty dump truck that's willing to let you weld some supports on the back - get a couple of traffic cones (four to six is about right), cut the very top off (where it curls over), and weld your brackets up to hold those traffic cones - inverted. Dump sand in from above, while some fellow holds them from below, and get two or three shovels full into the bag, and there you go. Remember, the idea is to remain flexible, not solid as a rock. These things have to prevent water from seeping in.
Get yourself plenty of heavy plastic (the type you cut up for your windows, if it's still in one piece, should be about right), and lay that down - start putting the sandbags on it, and start wrapping it back over the bags, using more sandbags to hold it in place. And good luck. Yer gonna need it.
End of flood lecture #48.
Kindergarten Concert
Hard to believe that, four years ago, we took Rhiannon at her word. "What do you need to wear to the concert?" "Jeans is fine, I've got a costume!"
Okay. So we get there, and her costume is a mask. Uh, right. My daughter, the one who now loves to dress up, is there in jeans and a tee shirt with the rest of her well-dressed classmates, celebrating the learning they've done throughout the year by reciting a number of poems, some songs, and a little play about the monkeys and hats and all the rest.
So yes, tonight Jack will look very nice. We learn. I'll just bet you though that there's at least one Jeans-and-tee-shirt kid. That'll be the oldest-in-the-family kid.
And this time, I won't groan. At least, not from the "costume".
Update at 1410
Investment Opportunity
I'd like to offer you all a chance at an investment opportunity. Let me picque your interest.
For every dollar you invest, $18 will be generated in the local economy. For every dollar ou invest, you will directly receive 61¢ in return - that's without factoring in the added bonuses I'll expound upon in a moment. Interested? I'll continue.
Your investment will generate increased wages and guarantee job security for some 5000 people in this state, who will continue to buy goods and services, pay taxes, and so forth. And these people are, historically, very loyal to those who help them out, even if those who at one time offered help have since turned on them.
You'll be raising the prices of a crop many people in this state depend on, and their direct reliance on you will further build loyalty towards you and your investor-partners.
Have I hooked you yet? How about the idea that the product you're working with is a well-known and trusted product, which is not sold directly via retail, but as a value-added proposition, required in this state, to a product nearly every single person in this state uses. Furthermore, it's a product with inelastic demand and a high "floor" of purchase - if the price does go down, people might buy more, but they buy plenty regardless.
And the product is also environmentally friendly, is energy-efficient, and reduces imports in measurable percentages.
I'm pretty sure I've got you hooked, but one more - the plants are all in low-cost areas, are relatively new (the oldest is less than ten years old, in the primary equipment), and aren't especially high-tech.
Ready? Great, then, let's invest in Minnesota's Ethanol plants!
I know, I know, I said I'd stay out of politics - but this is local. And quite a bit different.
Governor Pawlenty, he of the short-sighted Republican party in this state, has again shot off his foot in the budget-cutting frenzy he's undergone. Fortunately, creatures like Pawlenty have plenty of feet for shooting off, as they tend to spend a fair amount of time crawling on their bellies for reelection funding. But that's beside the point.
No, Smilin' Tim decided to halve the state subsidy to ethanol producers. Never mind the fact that for every dollar the state gives the ethanol industry, they get 61¢ of it back that very year in taxes. Sure, that leaves a gap of 39¢ a year, but you missed something earlier. Back when I said that the ethanol industry generates $18 a year for each $1 in subsidy? Well, we've got a 6.5% sales tax here in the state of Minnesota. Some stuff isn't taxed, some is.
Let's assume that half of the $18 is spent on taxable goods. That's $9. Or, for the Government, another 58.5¢s in taxes. Or, can you say, for each dollar that the state spends in Ethanol, it generates 61¢ in direct returns and 58.5¢ in indirect returns, for a total of $1.195? Heck, another fifty cents there would get you a gallon of gas!
So, the question is why am I so passionate about this program? Many reasons. First of all, I grew up in dairy-farm country. Most farms weren't exclusively dairy, though. The farmer behind the first house we lived in had about a 40-acre pasture (we called it "the big backyard" and avoided the smelly frisbees), and at least four 80-acre fields where he grew soybeans and corn. I remember playing hide-and-seek in August when the corn rows were dark at the bottom. I also remember playing hide-and-seek in August when if you weren't careful crawling, your rump would give you away in the field.
Another reason? We all depend on the farmers. Regardless of what you do, where you go, or where you live, you gotta eat. If they can't make a go of it, then we won't make a go of it.
Yet another? Ethanol does reduce environmental emissions. There were some hopes of the state being able to get ethanol-only fuel to be viable, but that didn't really take off.
Still another? I don't like stupidity. Watching Pawlenty say "no new taxes" is one thing. Watching him throw away an-almost-20% annual return on investment is nearing criminal negligence, in my opinion. It goes beyond the blundering, amused stupidity we had during the Ventura years and is nearing one of those "high crimes" levels of moronic behavior.
But in the end, it little matters what I rant about here. Pawlenty will do what he will do, and if it's destroying an entire industry, so be it. Sure, times are tough, but I'd bend over to pick up two dimes on the ground. If it was in a pile the size we're talking about, I'd definitely do it.
Update at 2245
Love That Lindner
Some of you might remember my ranting complaint a few weeks back about Minnesota State Representative Arlon Lindner, who is seeking to strip the state human rights statues of protection for gay people. Seems that he's opened his mouth about a few things that have raised the possibility of an ethics complaint. Lovely.
Now, I've got to admit, we're quite blessed here in Minnesota. Nowhere else in the world could I imagine that the free speech debate cover topics as wide-spread as the homosexuality of Nazi leaders, the alleged fact that Africa is a disease-filled cesspit, or the fact that one community of voters apparently managed to elect a misbegotten offspring between a goat and a jackass, that can apparently walk on it's hind legs and vote like a legislator.
But that's beside the point. Rep. Lindner, that mental giant, or at least, he is when he walks along an otherwise empty sand-filled beach (assuming the relative IQ of sand as Zero, and as Lindner hasn't yet fallen flat on his face and suffocated, we'll assign him a one), has managed to get past the first rule in debates, which is "invoke Hitler or Nazis and you lose" - he claimed that the reason that homosexuality is evil is because many of the Nazi leaders were gay.
But of course. And those pink triangles on the victims in the death camps marked those people as squeaky clean? Come on.
Using Lindner's "logic" - if we can call it that - then a fair portion of the state's population should also be considered guilty instead of innocent due to the fact that they are of German descent. And after all, nearly all of the Nazis were German, weren't they?
I must admit I'm still in awe of Lindner's mental capacity. I can't recall ever seeing someone with less brain activity manage to stand up and blame Africa for the spread of AIDS in this country. Of course, equating Minnesota to Africa is known to get you plenty of friends, because in this progressive state, facing someone who is anything other than off-white is just going to freak people out.
And just when you're sure that the bottom of the barrel is about to smack you, you've seen it all, they yank the false bottom out of the way and you continue to fall. In this case, Lindner's also the chair of the House tourism committee. How nice. I can see the new brochures now. We'll market the state's new intolerance to those meccas of progressiveness, and those fine, bigotted, heavily-armed folk from Washington state, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming will flock to this state based on Lindner's say-so.
Isn't that just wonderful?
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Wednesday, March 12, 2003 |
Update at 2015
Humor
"I don't know why people are surprised the French don't want to help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France."
--Jay Leno
"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates Americans, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. People, he is French!"
--Conan O'Brien
"The last time the French ask for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
--David Letterman
"It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us."
--Alan Kent
"Going to war without France is like going duck hunting without your accordion."
--Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense
"Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It's not known; it's never been tried."
--Rep. R. Blount (MO)
"Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that's because it was raining."
--John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv
"What do you expect from a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?"
--Dennis Miller
"The French will only agree to go to war when we've proven we've found truffles in Iraq."
--Dennis Miller
Yeah, they came again from my sister the French Major. . .
Keep Yer Fingers Crossed
Due to some rather positive occurrences in the last couple of hours, things might just be looking up around here after all. Which would be a good thing.
And while our day was good, some had it better. Believe me, I'm happy for the Smarts. Like her uncle said, "Miracles do happen."
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Thursday, March 13, 2003 |
Update at 820
Well, Then
I know I said I wasn't going to say anything about international politics, but it seems Saddam couldn't keep his mouth shut. Which would, if logic had anything to say about it, play into Bush's hand. Since this is geopolitical brinksmanship, a topic I steered very clear of in school, I'm clearly (as so many pointed out) unqualified to comment on this one.
Oh well. Personally, I'd rather not be on the receiving end of any bombs, let alone the "mother of all bombs". Talk about serious remodeling issues...
And my morning? Well, making head and tail out of this, I guess ...
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Friday, March 14, 2003 |
Update at 0545
Doc Keyboard Is Temporarily Down
Chris Ward-Johnson's Colocation host (here in the US) is down, which has caused DrKeyboard.net and the other various sites to be unavailable. They're working to get it back up, but in the meantime, let's hear it for those colo folks, shall we? Between Mr. Bilbrey & Mr. Lincoln's problems last weekend and now Mr. Hassel's problems here, I think you had better be very, very careful when you select a colocation facility or dedicated host for your web sites.
Should you be in need of such services, I'd suggest that you speak with Mr. Beland, who seems to have (he said, pounding hell out of the woodwork) a good partner in the one he's selected. Now, to go sacrifice several small species of furry creatures (not my children, mind you) to make sure the perverse gods of chance do not smile down upon me ... and piss into a router somewheres.
Why So Early?
Dunno. I could easily sleep until three or four this afternoon, given the way my eyeballs feel - it's like I've managed to collect all of the sand and salt dropped on the roads this winter and shove them under my eyelids. But you know they say "Bright-eyed and bushy tailed" - you don't get that bright-eyed look without polish, and as we all know, polishing is an abrasive act. Now, before I descend further into the hellish puns I could make, I'll just be off for the day - then again, when unemployed, one is off, just a little bit, every day. Ahem.
Update at 2355
Well, For Once...
Yup, the weather-guessers got it right. We nearly hit sixty officially, and we definitely hit it dead on down here. I was out this afternoon in the yard looking around - we stored a friend's boat in the side yard this winter to get them out of a bind, and now we've got to find a way to get the boat out of the yard without tearing it up. The yard, not the boat. Which means we need to wait for the south-side driveway ridge to melt, and follow that with a cold snap so he can get his Ford Excursion in here and hitch up to the boat, and haul it out. I tell ya, it's not going to be pretty if we wait for the ground to get all soft. Yuck. But, the good news is that we're due to drop out of the steady fifties this coming Wednesday, and that might be the time. If he's available...
Not Much More Than That...
Yeah, a busy day, I spent much of it working on computers or on the phone. Neither was particularly pleasant, especially since the computers were mine, not ones someone would pay me for. But the good news is that I've got the new drive and motherboard into the old case with the old processor and RAM, and that's looking promising. I've also got a sixteen gig and a twenty gig drive now available for shifting.
The bad news is that if you have the opportunity to shop online, AVOID an outfit called "Shop4Tech.com". I ordered a Maxtor drive from these people a couple months back to replace a suspect one. Now, I know everyone's got a particular take on hard drives - my opinion is that it's like cars. The shit made on Mondays and Fridays uniformly sucks, Thursday morning seems to be the best time, etc. I've had every single type of hard drive I've ever worked with fail at one point or another. Seagate to Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM, Samsung, you name it, I've watched it quiver and die.
I have the sort of aura that tends to drive WD drives south faster than you can say "don't step in that". For the most part, Maxtor drives do not fail around me. So I ordered one.
The putz who does their ordering and I spent a couple days back-and-forthing on the phone. He said he was seeing a lot of Maxtor drives being returned. I said "that's fine, I still want a Maxtor." He offered me an IBM for less money. More capacity. I stuck to the Maxtor. The box arrived, and I set it aside (moron that I am), awaiting a free minute.
Which didn't arrive until this morning, when I opened the box and out tumbled ... an IBM Deskstar drive. Pleased, I was not. Irritated, I was. Yoda-like, I wish I was, but in speech patterns, pattern this is one must break I. Or something like that.
So, should you be shopping for tech stuff, avoid those jerks like the plague. I filled out the complaint form on Pricewatch, but I doubt anything will come of it. Oh well.
On the other hand, but for their use of styrofoam peanuts, I can recommend both MicroWarehouse.com and Cyberguys.com - MWH for their rather broad range of stuff, and Cyberguys for the cool geek toys and fiddly bits you need - decently priced, too, I must say.
Nuff for me now, I gotta go get some shut-eye. Hopefully, tonight will not see two extra inhabitants in my bed. Before you get all hot and bothered under the collar, both were my minor children. And if that gets you hot and bothered, please let me know, and include your address, phone number, present location, including GPS. Either the police will get you, or I will.
Oh, and one more thing - if you can't see this, it's because DNS needs to propagate - Matt switched servers this morning. So you'll be able to see it - I won't until some time on Sunday night, most likely. Enjoy...
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Saturday, March 15, 2003 |
Update At 2330
Vroom Vroom Vroom
Well, we had fun today. This morning after I made eggs for Jack, I was politely informed they were crap - Mommy puts butter into the pan first, then the eggs. Well, gee, I didn't know that. Apparently makes all the difference in the world.
So after that, we loaded up, and ... well, you know the story about out of the frying pan into the fire? Yeah. We've had plans for over three weeks now to visit some friends we haven't really seen since last August, and we scheduled today to visit my Mom and Dad briefly, then visit our friends for the afternoon/evening.
Unfortunately, since our friends had a scheduling conflict, we had to swap that. We hit their house first, then we headed out to my folk's house.
The best part of the first stop was as we departed - our host was passing out lunch to the assembled throng, and as I was leaving, I tossed over my shoulder "well, I'm barely holding on at my house. The first two guys I brought into the house, she took their nuts off!" (neutered cats). As the kid's dad was putting food on the table (the kids were eating homemade chicken nuggets), he said "keep eating, kids, it's really chicken." We lost it.
After that, on the way home, there was the following exchange;
Jack : "Mommy? What does elephant start with?"
Ann : "What, Jack?"
Jack (annoyed) : "Mommy, how does elephant start?"
Ann : "Well, when a mommy elephant and a daddy elephant love eachother..."
Jack : "No! What letter does Elephant start with!"
Ann : "Oh. What does it sound like?"
Jack : "I dunno."
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Sunday, March 16, 2003 |
Update At 2200
Same Song, Second Verse
Yeah, same shit, different day, pretty much. Got a phone call at 9:30 am which jarred us out of bed, even though we were expecting it. We then had visitors, who collected their cookies. Then we did some cleaning and opening up around here (yes, we hit at least the mid-sixties today, which meant "open the damned windows and let the dust out"). We then ran around, delivering cookies - well, the first and last stops were deliveries. In between, we hit the Burnsville Mall for Rhiannon's glasses to get repaired, a quick snack, a quick run through the Disney store (They're closing the Burnsville Center location - tomorrow is the last day - someone new wants the space - I think we'll avoid them), and then over to Target to let Ann use her birthday present from my folks (The Greek Wedding DVD made it's way into the cart, amongst other things, so I know she's happy), then to the grocery store to get about 70% of what we could remember, a stop for the last cookie delivery, then home.
Were I to comment on the coming outbreak of war, the best thing I've seen lately is a yard sign - "Support our troops. BRING THEM HOME."
Oh well. Justified or not, legal or not, supported or not, I would guess that by this time next week we will all know just how fast a bunch of tanks can move across open, lightly-defended desert. And roughly how many people a "MOAB" will indeed turn into vapor.
And for the record, no, I'm not going to be happy about it. I'll be happy when the shooting stops and we can make sure all the fathers and sons and husbands and wives and mothers and daughters are still accounted for and among the living.
And I'm sure we'll also know how many letters President Bush will have to write to the families of servicemen and women who will not be returning. I just wish that if we were going to waste good lives for something, it was more worthy than a bunch of desert with a mad-man in charge. I'd much rather see us cleaning house in Saudi Arabia than Iraq, but since the Saudis are our "friends", we'll just have to watch it go the other direction.
Irish Humor
An Irishman, Englishman and Scotsman go into a pub and each order a pint of Guinness. Just as the bartender hands them over, three flies buzz down and one lands in each of the pints.
The Englishman looks disgusted, pushes his pint away and demands another pint.
The Scotsman picks out the fly, shrugs, and takes a long swallow.
The Irishman reaches in to the glass, pinches the fly between his fingers and shakes him while yelling, "Spit it out, ya bastard! Spit it out!"
Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train. His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and bruised and he's walking with a limp.
What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.
"Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.
"That little sod, O'Conner," says Sean, "He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."
"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."
"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself. Didn't you have something in your hands?"
"That I did," said Paddy. "Mrs. O'Conner's right breast, and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."
An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulls him over.
"So," says the cop to the driver, "where have ya been?"
"Why, I've been to the pub of course," slurs the drunk.
"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few to drink this evening."
"I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.
"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms across his chest, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"
"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."
Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.
"Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I've somethin' to tell ya."
"Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?"
"That's what I'm here to be tellin' ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery..."
"Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me..."
"I must, Brenda. Your husband Seamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry."
Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?"
"It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout and drowned."
"Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly?"
"Well, no Brenda... no. Fact is, he got out three times to pee."
A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional box, sits down but says nothing. The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention but the drunk just sits there. Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall. The drunk mumbles, "ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either."
Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady's after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears. He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"
She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."
The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, did he have any last requests?"
She says, "That he did, Father..."
The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"
She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down that damn gun...'"
And, of course, my all time favorite. Didja hear about the two gay Leprechauns? Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald.
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P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
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