Posts from — November 2006

So, the visitors have safely traversed the continent and their luggage actually occupied the same ribbon of the space-time continuum as they did at the end of the trip. This involved a three hour round trip by car at the start because the last 40 miles by air costs an extra $500 per person for reasons known only to the demons that haunt the recesses of airlines scheduling and fees.

Then it was time to replace the flapper in the toilet because the chlorine laced local water supply “wrinkles” all flappers after a while which causes slow seepage and the noise of the tank filling every fifteen minutes as well as a spike in the water bill. A simple procedure that takes place every year or so, what could go wrong? Well, the overflow pipe could snap off as you are affixing the new flapper. So, until I can drill out all four of the bolts that attach this ancient tank to its base and fit a new valve, I’m forced to flush the toilet with a bucket. The cats are not amused.

Then there was a minor medical emergency that lasted until 4AM because the patient can’t possibly understand what the problem is and the necessary prescription to deal with the situation. No, there must be bloodletting and IVs and testing to determine that, yes, the patient does indeed need a prescription for an antibiotic course, just like every other time the situation has occurred. Having the documentation for past occurrences of the situation makes no difference. And people wonder why the health system is so expensive.

Gatto di tutti Gatti

Nothing to worry about, I’m just checking.

[Editor: This is Molly, the most senior of all the feral cats. She is at least 16 years old and is a contemporary of Holstein, the great grandmother of Dot and Sox. I normally only see her at night.]

Friday Ark

Via Avedon Carol, Kevin Drum seems to be missing the point that veterans are attempting to make about War And Peace, and the chickenhawks. Obviously veterans need to be clearer about what they are saying.

The group of veterans with whom I identify are not saying that you have to be a veteran to decide on military issues. We took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and that means everyone gets to vote. Everyone’s taxes support the military, so we all have that much of a stake in any action.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not all opinions are equal. If you have a problem with your toilet, the opinion of a plumber would reasonably carry more weight than the opinion of a barber. That is not to say that the barber may not have had the problem, and knew the solution, but the odds are better that the opinion of the plumber is more informed because of his/her experience and training.

The disaster that is Iraq is not simply because the advice of the military was ignored, but the advice of the State Department was also ignored.

Teddy Roosevelt stood foursquare behind the war with Spain and when he was refused acceptance in the regular Army, he formed a volunteer regiment so he could fight it. I’m not saying that the chickenhawks should have formed a regiment to fight in Iraq, but they have made every effort not to fight in any war. If you don’t believe in the war enough to fight yourself, why should your advocacy be accepted without comment?

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My view of Thanksgiving was skewed by my Father’s attitude. Having grown up on a poultry farm, he viewed the holiday as the culmination of weeks of work “processing” dozens of turkeys to be frozen and readying a few dozen more for fresh delivery. We generally ate ham when he was alive.

Having been on my Grandfather’s farm at this time of year I can understand my Dad’s attitude: our meal was subject to interruption by people picking up a fresh turkey at the last minute. A sale is a sale when you are business for yourself.

I will be at my Mother’s for a turkey which is under the care of a nephew, his wife and my two-year-old grand nephew. As I have been working on the re-hab while they are here, I am officially “Uncle Bob the Builder”.

Thanks to NTodd I can share a link to My Dad’s favorite Thanksgiving TV show: the WKRP turkey giveaway.

Enjoy your meal and try to forget about the world’s problems for a day: they’ll still be there on Friday.

Mark Fiore has a new one up that you should view as a cautionary tale. People shouldn’t gloat.

On a much stranger front we have Paul the Spud over at Shakespeare’s Sister talking about the Reptilicon reaction to the new Happy Feet cartoon feature with a link to The Carpetbagger Report coverage of conservative cartoon craziness.

Get a grip. These are children’s cartoons. The commercial cartoons are designed to sell toys and such, not launch a political campaign. If they can hold the attention of a small child for more than a minute and give that child’s parent a moment to relax, they are a roaring success. Having spent most of the last week in the company of a two-year-old I understand what parents are enduring, so I would knight SpongeBob SquarePants if he could provide some peace and quiet, I wouldn’t be questioning his sexuality. And what are these perverts doing watching all of these children’s shows: is The Wheel of Fortune too intellectual for them?

Because we live in a tourist area that has a lot of foreign visitors during the colder months when the Federal government messes around with the rules on entry, we take a major hit.

The Pensacola Beach Blog post, Who Rules, and the Associated Press story, Homeland Security Announces New Passport Rules, highlight something that is going to hurt our local economy, and the economies of the communities along the Mexican and Canadian borders.

After January 23, 2007 American citizens are going to be required to carry a US passport to re-enter the US from any other country. It used to be that you only needed a driver’s license or birth certificate to cross the border.

It costs $110 for an adult and $95 for a child to be issued a passport and it takes months. The days of a quick day trip over the border are gone.

This on top of the reduction in time on the visitors permits that Canadians once received for trips to the US are really cutting into the winter tourist season.

Exactly what problem is being addressed by these new requirements? Nothing in them addresses the real problems of controlling the borders; hell, you can’t even locate the border between Canada and the US in North Dakota as most of the markers have gone missing over the years.

This is another waste of time and money to produce a Potemkin solution for a non-existent problem. They don’t want to really take the time to study the real problems and then plan real solutions; they just want to appear to be doing something. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would wonder how long until we needed to produce a passport at state lines?

It was afternoon and I was on my way to a chemistry class. I had stopped for a drink of water when the news came over the speakers in the classrooms.

For those who weren’t alive at the time: remember what you felt on September 11, 2001 for a taste of November 22, 1963. It was a massive change for the worldview of my generation and it marked the beginning of a period of disruption and decline in the civility of American society. Arthur had died and Camelot fell.

At his inauguration John Kennedy made the point: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

The colors of my world will never be as bright as they were on November 21, 1963.

The last six years have been a nadir in American life. Hopefully we can recapture some of the greatness America once represented.

If you work at a pretty good job you are expected to show up for work. While there are 260 workdays a year, at a good job you will get 10 days of vacation and 10 paid holidays, reducing the number to 240 days on the job. This session of the 109^th Congress is barely going to make it into triple digits. Under the Republicans Congress has become a part-time job.

The only thing Congress is really required to do every year is to pass a budget before October 1^st, but this Congress still hasn’t done it, and according to Ellroon at Rants from the Rookery it is set to leave the job for the next Congress.

Is it any wonder the voters fired them?

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A group of Islamic scholars were traveling home after a conference and the sun was setting while they were waiting to board their US Air flight, so they said their evening prayers.

CBS News reports: 6 Muslim Imams Removed From Plane.

There is certainly nothing more suspicious than people praying before getting on an airplane, right? It’s not like you’d see a group of nuns traveling together fingering their rosaries in the boarding area?

CBS has comments on some of its article and this was the first item I saw:

mickeyjay31

If you border a plane in Saudi Arabia, you better not have a bible, bottle or playboy, as you will go to jail, as all 3 are illegal, make sure your wife walks 3 steps behind you, she is completely covered, as that is the law there. You know they still stone people to death and behead them in Saudi Arabia. Staged and the media bought it hook line and sinker.
Posted by mjv2944 at 11:43 AM : Nov 21, 2006

Sorry, Mickey, but you definitely are able to take a Bible to Saudi Arabia; you can’t buy liquor in Santa Rosa County, Florida; nor can you buy Playboy in a lot of places in the US. You can’t hold a Christian religious service in Saudi Arabia, anymore than you can hold an Islamic service in the Vatican, and for the same reason.

Have you seen the Southern Baptist recommendations for wives, Mickey?

As for stoning, it’s in the Bible, while beheading has a very long history behind it. I don’t see a lot of difference between those practices and hanging or lethal injection. In the end the condemned are dead.

If the laws of Saudi Arabia bother you, Mickey, maybe you should be working to ensure that religion and state stay separate in the US, instead of worrying about other countries.

I started doing this over at BlogSpot on 21 November 2004, so this is my second blogiversary™

Remember this is Andante’s fault, although I feel much better than I did when I started in 2004.

Thanks to everyone who stops by.

A lot of people have discussed the draft issue, actually Minou of French Tidbits started me thinking about it in comments on an earlier post, and after I wrote about Rangel, I noticed that Mustang Bobby also covered it at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

I was going to write a post on my personal vision of a new draft, but Michael of Musing’s musings wrote Nice that they finally noticed, which is essentially my view.

National service, not just military service, and make it universal without all of the exemptions of the old system.

The gang at Crooks and Liars have Keith Olbermann’s latest special comment: Educating Bush on Vietnam. This time “Sir” translates as “you sniveling little twit.”

Liz at Blonde Sense has The Importance of Teaching Civics in Schools, featuring Richard Dreyfuss on Bill Maher’s show.

The Richard Dreyfuss piece is really vital. We are losing democracy by not teaching civics to American students. Listen and then think about it. The man is speaking truth.

Watertiger has moved to the new and improved Dependable Renegade at DependableRenegade.Com, now with TypePad.

If any of the rest of you is considering the move here’s a line to stick into the “Head” area of your Blogger template:

<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Refresh” CONTENT=”5; URL=https://whynow.dumka.us/”>

It goes after the <head> tag and before the </head> tag, and is used to automatically transfer people to the new location after 5 seconds. Obviously you need to insert your new URL for “whynow.dumka.us” or you will be sending people to this site, but it is a handy way of helping people to find you.

Update: Steve Bates mentioned in comments, not to forget to leave a notice that you moved in the old location and you can do the switch immediately if you change the 5 to Zero[0].

Apparently the media hasn’t bothered to cover the Congress for the last three years, because, like clockwork, every year Charlie Rangel of New York puts forth a bill to re-start the draft. When I read silliness like CNN’s Top Democrat: Bring back the draft, I want to scream at the ADHD middle schools students that constitute the news media to turn off the cartoons and start paying attention to the real world.

Charlie Rangel is personally convinced that there would be fewer wars if the children and grandchildren of the people in charge stood a good chance of fighting the wars they vote for. He thinks that the sacrifice should be shared by all of society, not just the predominantly rural/urban mix in the “all-volunteer” military.

When the military is told to kill and die, while the civilians are told to shop, it’s obvious that the sacrifices are not being equitably shared by all of society.

This is a variation of argument that took place during the founding of the United States. There was a great deal of suspicion regarding a standing army. The founders were more comfortable with local militias responding in defense of the nation, rather than having a professional military. This is why the power to declare war resides in Congress, and defense funding bills may not extend beyond two years.