Res Ipsa Loquitur

King of Retail

I took WildChild to Wal-Mart Friday afternoon for some new sandals. As we were pulling into the parking lot he said "This not Ma's work Wal-Mart." You are correct, I said. Ma worked at a different one. He thought about this for a few seconds, then declared "This WildChild's Wal-Mart." (Right now he's heavily into the "these things are mine and these things are not" stage.) Oh, is that so? I said. "Yeah," he said. "This WildChild's Wal-Mart. WildChild get big, WildChild work dis Wal-Mart."

I'm giggling at this as we circled the busy lot, trying to find a reasonably close empty parking space. He started demanding that I park the car so we can go inside. I can't, I tell him, until I find a place to park. Frowning, he considers this for a few minutes then loudly yells:

"CARS! WHAT YOU DOING AT WILDCHILD'S WAL-MART? GET OUT OF THE WAY! MA NEEDS PARK CAR! GO AWAY!"

I'm not sure the world of retail is ready for him.

Faux Pas

Larry Elder, in today's WashTimes, claims that social Bush-bashing has become liberal America's #1 hobby. Now I don't know about that, but I do agree that the Bush-bashers I've encountered are seriously lacking in social skills & manners.

Social Bush-bashers depend on something they feel Bush supporters lack: civility. Mature people avoid making others uncomfortable or disputing politics in social settings. They avoid unnecessarily offending people they don't know and don't assume the world is in lockstep with their views.

One of the worst basher I've encountered so far was a customer at the store where I used to work. She took a totally innocuous question from me (How are you today?) as an opportunity to go into an irrational mini-rant about how Bush was destroying America and how, if he got re-elected, she was moving out of the country to probably Canada. She then asked didn't I agree?

In the split-second before I answered, I considered these things. A) I was being paid to work, not to discuss politics. B) Discussing politics with an irrational idiot is much like trying to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of time and generally annoys the pig. C) I was taught that to discuss religion or politics with a complete stranger in an inappropriate social setting is extremely bad manners.

So I suggested that perhaps she consider moving to Italy, because the climate was much nicer. And I said it with a smile.

Her relieved daughter, whom I could tell was embarrassed by the tirade, joined in and the conversation turned to delightful places we'd seen in Europe.

You see, I learned a long time ago that you can't have a productive conversation with an irrational idiot on a subject about which learned minds can disagree.....so the best thing is to distract 'em with something shiny.

Good manners. More people should use them.

No Outcry

Where's the public outcry and loud condemnation of the reprehensible treatment of this POW?

Sergeant Donald Walters was initially listed as killed in action while riding in the same ambushed convoy as former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch.

Now a military investigation has shown Walters was taken alive, and later stabbed with a bayonet and executed with two shots to the back. It appears he fought back until his ammunition ran out.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the screaming Al Gore rants and strongly worded editorials, cuz it ain't gonna happen.

I'm sure in their version of the Geneva Convention shooting American POW's in the back is A-OK.

Tick Tock

Abu Hamza al-Masri, arrested yesterday by British authorities, has been charged by an 11 count U.S. indictment.

The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury on April 19, 2004, and was unsealed Thursday. The indictment charges him with hostage-taking and conspiracy to take hostages in connection with an attack in Yemen in December 1998 that resulted in the deaths of four hostages. The maximum sentence for the hostage taking is the death penalty.

The indictment also charged Al-Masri with trying to set up terrorist training camp in Oregon. Other charges include providing material support to Al Qaeda and the Taliban by facilitating violent jihad in Afghanistan.

There's some question on whom will get him first. Britain has been trying to deport him; Yemen also wants him on charges of advocating terrorism. To further complicate matters, one of the US charges, hostage taking, carries the death penalty. Britain normally won't extradite on charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

But then this is hardly a normal extradition.

Trapped In the Past

Yo Al, dude, I don't know what kind of ganja you been smoking but you need to cut back. You're becoming increasingly irrational.

Happy Birthday!

Before I have to leave for class, I wanted to remind everyone that today's Mike's birthday. I posted an entry for all you well-wishers over at his place. So go tell him Happy Birthday!

And don't start the party without me.

Guilty-161 Counts

Terry Nichols has been found guilty in Oklahoma state court on 161 counts of murder for his participation in the Oklahoma City bombing. No big surprise, he'll prolly get the death penalty.

Oklahoma don't mess around.

Petty Crimes

A smoking-ban opponent has been charged with a misdemeanor.

The Washington County Prosecutor's Office filed Tuesday a misdemeanor charge against an alderman's wife who supported the Free Choice Fayetteville campaign to repeal the city's smoking ban in the workplace.

The charge alleges that Sandra Reynolds, 42, falsely signed a petition as a canvasser.

It's a Class A misdemeanor....up to 1 yr. jail time & up to $1,000 fine. And on what was the charge based you might ask?

Employees of the prosecutor's office said they have verified their research for the filed charge, and Curt Wolfe, a member of Smoke Free Fayetteville, also signed an affidavit in helping the prosecutor bring the charge against Reynolds.

It's good to know there's concerned citizens like ol' Curt to keep dangerous women like Ms. Reynolds under control. I mean, it's not like the city prosecutor has better things to do than political retaliation.....like deal with all the crack whores & dealers that live down under the hill off of 6th Street.

Right?

What's Important

The most important thing about this story is that tests have confirmed that there was sarin in the bomb found recently in Baghdad. May I just say

Ha. Told you so.

Now before anyone starts with the lame excuses that this was only one bomb, it may be an old one, there's no stockpiles and all that, consider the second most important sentence in this story.

Saddam's government never declared any sarin or shells filled with sarin remained.

That, my friends, is a material breach, plain and simple. Which has always been the stated reason for the Iraq war, no matter how anyone tries to twist it otherwise.

Plus, do you really believe that it's the only sarin bomb in the entire nation of Iraq? Puh-lease. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that it's just like finding one copperhead....you better look around you real close cuz odds are that there are plenty more where that one came from.

Besides, even if it were the only one, one of those is one too many.

Just ask the Kurds.

Yeah we saw the headline that suspected sarin had been found last week while in route to California. Once there, we rushed to our stateroom & turned on CNN (the only available news channel) to find out what was going on.....and they finally mentioned it in passing after an hour or so. It was all Abu Gharib, all the time.

Color us surprised. [/sarcasm]

Cuz I Said So

According to this here quiz I found over at Cuzzin Rodge's, I'm an authoritarian centrist.

How the hell does that work?

Who Needs Enemies?

Here's a flash for you honey. Best Friends don't drown your dog. (Link via Fark)

What's with the psycho-girlfriend attraction thing anyway?

I just don't get it.

Summer School

First semester of summer school starts tonight. Macroeconomics. Ugh. But because the community college cancelled my original class while we were on vacation (and thanks so much to the school for that little welcome home surprise) I had to do a little frantic re-arranging of my summer classes Saturday morning. And the few classes I could use the first semester were already full. Except this one, which meets Monday & Wednesday nights from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Double ugh.

But we'll see. It may be better than I anticipate. I've been flipping through the textbook this morning and it doesn't look too bad....written on about an 8th grade level I'd say. So the reading assignments shouldn't be too difficult. But there's all these chapters on the Fed and banking and so on that made my brain hurt just looking at it. Not an area in which I'm particularly interested....or at which I'm particularly good. I should be able to survive 5 weeks of it, though.

I just hope the instructor isn't a complete and total dork. After all these years in 'higher education', I have very little patience with instructors who are dorks. Come to think of it, I've never had much patience for that. My high school guidance counselor once told me "Rita, when you're in college, you're going to find all kinds of teachers....including some that are not very good at what they do. I predict that some day you're going to run across one that is so bad that you'll stand right up in class and tell him just how the cow ate the cabbage. And God help him when you do."

Heh.

There's been a few close calls over the years, but that hasn't happened.

Yet.

Photos Posted

I posted a few of our vacation photos if you're interested.

Matter of Interpretation

Funny, but when I look at this photo, all I see is a lady who wishes she were somewhere else......and is glad her face is covered.

Our Summer Vacation

We had so much fun on our anti-Cheers vacation. We sailed out of San Pedro on Royal Caribbean on Monday afternoon, headed for San Diego. Tuesday we spent most of the day at Sea World, which was awesome except for the fact that I forgot sunscreen. Mike called me a redneck for the rest of the trip.

Wednesday we were on Catalina Island, where we took an underwater tour in a glass-sided boat. It was pretty cool though a bit disconcerting to see a fish swim by that was about half as long as the freaking boat. Thursday morning we were in Ensenada, Mexico, which really wasn't all that interesting except for the Cohibas we picked up. They were right tasty.

Probably the funniest thing we saw on the trip was a sea lion trying to get on a buoy outside the San Diego harbor. He kept timing his jump wrong, jumping when the buoy was at the peak of its sway. And the other sea lions on the buoy were making fun of him. "Dork, dork! Dork! Dork, dork!" they kept barking.

So much for the Cliff's Notes version of our trip. I'll prolly post some photos later. Right now I have a ton of laundry to do, the lawn needs mowed, grocery shopping, all that fun stuff.

And yes, we're still swaying like we're on the ship. At least when we want dessert, we won't have to fight our way through the crowd by stabbing fat women with our forks.

There are some advantages to being home.

We're Back!

We had a great time, everything went well and now we're home all safe & sound & sunburned. And very tired.

It'll be great if our 'sea legs' are gone by tomorrow so everything will stop moving when it's not really moving.

Neo-Bored

Ok, so I had to write one more for the road, after reading this drivel (thanks to Michele for the heads up). Consider this, you silly twit person. Perhaps we're just bored with having the same futile discussions. You know the one....when liberals yell "A does not equal C." And you lead them through the logic. A = B. Agreed. B = C. Agreed. Therefore, A = C.

And then the response you get "It's all about the OIL!" "Bush lied. People died." "Kennedy drank. Mary Jo sank." Oh wait, not that one. Don't forget the all time favorite "Vietnam! Quagmire!" (Is it just me, or do you think about the AFLAC duck every time you hear or read "Quagmire!")

Anyway, you see what I'm saying? With a few exceptions, I've had better conversations with our cat.

This 'neocon' is just 'neo-bored'.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Well, we'll be flying out of XNA at 6:35 a.m. tomorrow morning. Don't forget I'll prolly be posting at the backup site while we're gone. So check in there for updates until we get back Friday night.

Y'all behave yourselves now.

Every Step You Take

The dogs have figured out that we're leaving. I'm not sure what Sollie picked up on, but like I told Mike yesterday, he's been following me around like I had hotdogs falling out of my butt for two days now. (A crude, but apt analogy) And after Sassy saw Mike packing the laptop backpack, she immediately went from happy, perky dog to sad & depressed dog. Head down, ears flat, tail uncurled, moping-around-underfoot dog. And they both keep looking at me with their sad, sad eyes.

I refused to let them make me feel guilty for leaving.

If they'd only stop staring at me.

Tacky

This is just tacky.....and an insult to cicadas everywhere.

Busy Day

I spent the morning at the doctor's & pharmacy, getting something for my allergies, which have been horrendous this spring, & the low-grade sinus infection caused by my allergies. I took the antibiotic during lunch with my Handsome Husband, then the Zyrtec after I got home. 30 minutes later, I was out like a light. "May cause drowsiness" indeed.

But that's better than the last allergy medicine I tried....couldn't sleep more than 2 hrs. per night & walked around feeling all nervous & jittery like I was all cranked out on speed.

Not that I would know what that was like personally, just from what I've read you know. *ahem*

Baseball's Beginnings

A 213 yr. old document, if authenticated, could contain the earliest known reference to baseball.

Officials and historians in the US state of Massachusetts have released a 213-year-old document they believe is the earliest written reference to baseball.

A 1791 bylaw aimed to protect the windows in the town of Pittsfield's new meeting house - by banning baseball within 80 yards of the building.

I'd bet it's even older than that. As long as there's been kids with a ball & a stick, there's been some form of baseball....and broken windows no doubt.

Hell, I've seen kids too poor to have a ball play with a rock.

Alternative Sources

For everyone who's searching for "islamic militant site beheading" or some variant thereof, the original site has been shut down by its IP. (According to Drudge anyway). Adam has a list of alternative sites that have copies if you think you really have to see it.

Photoblog

I discovered how to upload photos to the backup site. That's pretty cool.

Now if the bloody e-mail posts I tried to send will ever show up, I'll be happy.

Backup Site

I'm creating a backup site at the 'new & improved' Blogger, Pro Hac Vice. Which in Latin means "for this one particular occasion", in case you were wondering. Go give it a look-see and tell me what you think.

I'm thinking about posting to it while we're on vacation since I can allegedly e-mail posts in. We'll have internet access where we're going, but it's a bit expensive.

I'm not cheap, I'm frugal. Low maintenance too.

Mike is a lucky man.

Sad Sack Sister

Pfc. England is claiming she is being scapegoated.

"I was instructed by persons in higher rank to 'stand there, hold this leash, look at the camera,' and they took picture for PsyOps [psychological operations]," she told KCNC-TV.

"I didn't really, I mean, want to be in any pictures," she said.

She also said she thought "it was kind of weird."

Is that right? You mean "kind of weird" like this?

Shocking shots of sexcapades involving Pfc. Lynndie England were among the hundreds of X-rated photos and videos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shown to lawmakers in a top-secret Capitol conference room yesterday.
"She was having sex with numerous partners. It appeared to be consensual," said a lawmaker who saw the photos.

"Almost everybody was naked all the time," another lawmaker said.

Sorry sister, but I'm not buying the 'innocent victim' routine.

You are a disgrace....both to the uniform you wear and to the country.

And apparently one sick puppy.

X-treme Outsourcing

I know some companies have been outsourcing, but using monkeys is just plain ridiculous. Here's an e-mail I got this morning:

Dear Citi Cleint,

EzuVvCAnhCWKW1H92A ct4i6wIambe42TDx
N8aowq1tdXuU7wuj0yD6

One small problem, besides the obvious ones.

I don't have a Citibank card.

If you're going to phish, you should at least use the correct bait.

Sheesh.

Kerry's Problem

We were watching the local news last night and caught a piece about the President's visit to Van Buren yesterday. (Van Buren is just a short drive south from here) The reporter was interviewing attendees after the visit, and one lady caught my eye.

She said she was a lifelong Democrat, but that she fully & totally supported "our Republican president". Why? Because he was the best leader we could have for our country right now.

And that is Kerry's biggest problem in a nutshell. He has offered nothing to mainstream Democrats except criticism of the current President. And that doesn't appear to be playing too well in the sticks.....and unlike the far left loonies, these people actually vote.

Which explains, I think, why the polls show Bush's approval rate dropping yet the numbers of potential voters who say they will vote for him increasing.

Better the devil you know than the one you don't.

Meme Time

Here's my book list. I have a confession to make. I am a compulsive reading addict. I will, in desperation, read damn near anything....although Salmon Rushdie is an exception. My ex once said to me in a very accusatory tone "You use books to escape from the world around you!"

I'm like "Duh. Glad you figured that out, Einstein."

Yet another reason he's my ex.

Beowulf Loved it.
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger Only b/c I had to
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales Most but not all
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard I only vaguely remember this one.
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness Read in high school, then later spent half of college semester dissecting it & the movie Apocalypse Now. I would've preferred to, I don't know, plucked out my eyes with cocktail forks. Hated it.
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans Boring.
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno Loved it.
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays I don't know which essays, but I've read a slew of them.
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies I thought of this book often when I did juvenile court.
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad Loved it.
Homer - The Odyssey Loved it.
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame What Disney did to this was a crying shame.
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis One of my favorites.
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird Another of my favorites. I've read this about a zillion times.
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener God I love this one. It doesn't seem to be that well known though. I've used that great line "Because I would prefer not to" countless times and I've yet to meet anyone who recognized it.
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar Seriously depressing. I wanted to stick my head in the oven after reading it.
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales Poe's great, isn't he?
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone Another required reading.
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden There's actually a copy of this in the trunk of my car. Which is where it belongs.
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace I keep meaning to read this one, but I don't share Mike's passion for Russian authors.
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple One of the rare cases where the movie's better than the book.
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray Haven't read it but saw the movie. Does that count?
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie I've read some Williams, but don't remember which ones.
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

Another Atrocity?

The Beeb is reporting that an 'Islamic militant' website has a video that allegedly shows the beheading of an American captive. I won't hold my breath waiting for the public outcry and worldwide condemnation of this heinous act.

The group, thought to be linked to al-Qaeda, said it was carrying out the execution in retaliation for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers.

Like that makes it ok.

& Etc.

• Household chores demand my attention at the moment, i.e., laundry, dishes, lawn, & etc., but sometime today I hope to work in a post that's been fomenting fermenting rattling around in my head since I saw this morning's Cox & Forkum cartoon.

• I also have to find time to go to my daughter's and attempt to remove the Sasser worm that we suspect is on her now dysfunctional computer. I could just smack her. After all the preaching about keeping updated and such we've done....*sigh*....we get this from her. "Did you keep the OS patched?"

  *annoying cute giggle* "No. What's that?"

  Us: "Did you keep the anti-virus updated?"

  *another giggle* "Uhhh, I dunno. I think that stopped working when the subscription ran out a long time ago."

  Aaargh! Kids. So Mike burned a CD with the patches & fixes, which I'm going to install, do the worm removal, get her updated & all that. I gave her the CD yesterday, thinking she could fix it herself since she broke it but after she said "So. I just pop the CD in & let it run?" (deep breath and count to ten) I decided that might be a little advanced for her.

• Speaking of daughter, I'm still trying to find a graduation gift for her....something she can use at work preferably. She & I spent a 4 hr. shopping marathon yesterday, and came up with nothing. She doesn't need a watch, or nurse's shoes, or scrubs. I know there's several of you among my readers that are in the medical profession, so any suggestions? What's something that you've found to be indispensible?
  

Your input will be greatly appreciated.

Great. Gotta run. I just heard the unmistakable sounds of the cat barfing.

Lame Excuse

Martha Stewart shouldn't go to jail because she's irreplaceable.

Lawyers for Martha Stewart plan to say that a prison sentence for the domestic trendsetter could harm her company and lead to lay-offs of some of its 500 employees, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday.

Stewart's lawyers will cite a 1995 decision that avoided jail time for a corporate executive because he was considered a crucial figure in his company, the Journal said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Pardon me while I try to stop laughing. How noblesse oblige of you to not go to jail so that others won't lose their jobs. Like they can't run the place without you. Riii-iight.

Here's some advice for you Martha:

Get over yourself.

It's a good thing.

Happy Ma's Day

Hope everyone had a happy mother's day. I know I did. A 4 hr. power nap and a present from Mike.....new mower blades.

Just what I wanted!

Countdown Begins

One week from tomorrow we are going on a well-deserved vacation. With all that's been going on at work, family and whatnot, Mike & I haven't gotten to spend much time alone with each other that hasn't been taken up with discussions of work, family and whatnot. So we decided to take advantage of my short break between semesters to run away from home....temporarily of course.

Our one criteria for picking a destination was someplace where we wouldn't run into anyone we knew. Given our widespread families & friends, including of course you, dear reader, that was a little difficult. In fact, it proved impossible. So I'm not telling you where we're going.

Nothing personal, it's just you know....sometimes you want to go where nobody knows your name. Just think of it as the 'anti-Cheers' vacation.

Lazy Spring Day

It's such a beautifully lazy spring day that I just can't work up any enthusiasm for writing. My roses are especially pretty this year. Here's one, and there's one on each side just like it.

That one blossom on the lower right that's fully opened is bigger than a saucer....and smells soooo good.

I love spring.

Role Model

Now this is my kind of family court judge. (Link via Fark)

For some men showing up in court for being habitually behind in child support, their choice is jail or a vasectomy....Foellger, the only family court judge in northern Kentucky's Campbell County, said he has never ordered a man to have a vasectomy.

Foellger believes he can legally give the ultimatum because the men are in contempt for not paying the child support, and a judge has wide latitude to enforce his orders. In such instances, the child-support cases are civil, not criminal.

Creative, effective. I like it. Too bad there's not a similarly easy procedure available for women.

She's Baaaa-ack

Welcome back Miss Rachel.

Dirty Bomb Material Seized

Yikes!

Ukrainian security forces seized nearly 375 pounds of a radioactive material seen as a likely ingredient for a "dirty bomb", authorities said Thursday. In a joint action, Ukraine's police and state security agents seized two containers of cesium-137 and arrested three men from the southern city of Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula, police spokesman Yuriy Kondratyev told The Associated Press. An unspecified number of people also were detained throughout Ukraine.

When I read things like this, I always wonder how many they didn't catch.

Good Idea/Bad Idea

Good Idea:

When all stressed out from being trapped in construction traffic while on your way to a final you're not prepared for, rolling down the car windows & popping in your Ramones CD.

Bad Idea:

Not turning the volume down far enough so that the 2 state troopers on the side of the road keeping an eye on the traffic jam can't hear this:

There's no stoppin' the cretins from hoppin'
You gotta keep it beatin'
For all the hoppin' cretins

Cretin! Cretin!

Cuz they'll give you that State Trooper glare and start fingering their holsters.

Trust me on that one.

Final Final

My last final of the semester was this morning. Yay! Free for a couple of weeks!

My daughter will be graduating from nursing school (FINALLY!) this weekend. Double Yay! The party's at her house Saturday. I'll be making the best coleslaw you ever had, plus hand-cranked, homemade ice cream. And sweet tea of course. There'll be BBQ, potato salad, all that good stuff.

Y'all stop on by if you're in town. There's always room for one more at the table.

My Funny Valentina

Oh my, he actually did it.

Ya gotta respect a guy who does exactly what he promises.

And the pink hair really brings out his eyes.

Heh.

Henny Penny--Updated

Henny Penny was an IT systems security engineer. One day Henny Penny ran a little audit and found that there were all these holes in the sky. Henny Penny ran from department to department, telling everyone "The sky is falling. The sky is falling. Better install patches." Everyone just laughed & laughed. Everyone knew Henny Penny was, well, an over-protective hen. They installed patches here and there, but didn't really make a serious effort to install ALL the patches. Because, after all, they had much more important things to do than humor a silly old hen.

Weeks went by. Every day Henny Penny produced more audits. Every day Henny Penny was pretty much ignored. "Patches? We don' need no steekin' patches," said the programmers. "Patches? Who has time for patches? We have Very Important Programs to install," said the engineers. Even when Henny Penny grabbed each of them by the neck and banged their heads against their work pods, no one took Henny Penny seriously.

Then one day the sky fell....and everyone had to work around the clock until the sky was put back in place.

"Stupid asshats. I told you so" said Henny Penny.

Moral: Patch 'em if you got 'em. This is a nasty one.

Never Surrender

I'm still struggling with my VB.Net Final Project that's due tonight.....struggling as in trying to get enough of it written to keep my A even though the damn thing isn't going to work correctly. Of course, since it doesn't work correctly, there's no way to test the remaining bits & pieces that I'm writing now.

grrr.

I shouldn't get so stressed, most of the 8 out of 21 of us left in the class aren't going to finish it either. (Yeah, a rather high attrition rate. The instructor sucks that badly.) Except this one kid, who was showing the instructor in class last week all the fancy bells & whistles he'd added to his that weren't even assigned.

I hate him.*

Not really, he's a nice kid, and obviously a much better programmer than I.

Definitions

Whoa, just noticed a huge (for me) traffic spike from people searching for "res ipsa loquitur" & I'm all like, what the??? Then it dawns on me. It's law school finals time. So here you go guys, and thanks for stopping by.

Res ipsa loquitur translates loosely as 'the thing speaks for itself'. It refers to a inference of negligence theory....that the action (or whatever) that caused the harm couldn't have happened without some type of negligence. Start with the case about the barrel of flour that rolled out a warehouse window & hit someone. It's an oldie but a goodie.

Who needs an Instalanche when I've got law finals twice a year? Heh.

Wild Weekend

Or rather, a WildChild weekend....same thing really. He was in fine form, all wound up because both Pa AND Ma were with him the entire time. We were shopping in one of those big warehouse stores on Saturday when he started pretending he was a dog. Pa had to pretend that he was a monkey. Then WildChild told me to be a dog. I of course obliged with a few woofs. WildChild then scrunched his little hands into claws, wrinkled up his face and in this loud, deep scratchy voice boomed out "MEOW!" He sounded like a tomcat on steriods....or like he was channeling Tom Waits. Freakin' cracked us up.

It worked both ways, though. He had a bit of a diaper rash, so I was checking him frequently & changing him to keep him as dry as possible. He got rather annoyed at all the interruptions while he was playing. I had just finished yet another diaper change when he started shaking his finger at me & imperiously demanded "You pull my pants up RIGHT NOW, Ma!" I immediately snapped to attention, saluted and said "SIR! YES SIR!" He thought that was hilarious.

But alas, all good things must come to an end and his mom came to get him around 6 yesterday evening. He flatly refused to go, clinging to me while I carried him to the car & tearfully saying "WildChild stay Ma's house." I reminded him that Ma had school today, so he said he'd stay with Pa. Pa has to go to work I said, and you can't stay here with Sollie & Sassy by yourself. Then it was "WildChild stay with [my daughter]," and on and on until he ran out of people that lived nearby. In desperation, he pointed across the street and sobbed "WildChild stay that house." Nice try, but unfortunately for him those neighbors are in the process of moving. He was still wailing & protesting as they drove away.

Now before you feel too sorry for him, I should point out that he never managed to work up any real tears....not too heartbroken I'd say.

Besides, he'll be back Friday.

One Down

Just finished my Final Project for Web Page Design that was due today, and ftp'd it to the school web site. Nothing like waiting til the last minute, is there? Oy, do I have a headache.

One down, two to go.

Dishonorable Conduct

"He who fights monsters should take care lest he thereby becomes a monster." Nietzsche

Inexcusable behavior from what's supposed to be some of America's (and Britain's) finest, wasn't it?

"I can't describe what I felt when I saw those scenes; they revolted me and proved the barbarity of the occupation forces," said Mohammad Salman, a traffic policeman.

"What's the difference between them and Saddam? They are finishing what he started," he said.

The difference is, as Laurence points out, those responsible will be punished & condemned, not rewarded & praised, for their reprehensible actions.

And that makes all the difference in the world.