The ‘Back-to-School’ Cold

With three kids in school and a teacher wife, there’s one thing about the ‘Back-to-School’ season that I can count on, and that’s the ‘Back-to-School’ cold. Just thinking of the swirl of friendly new germs being brought home each day in the last week from Jenny’s students and the kids’ classmates is enough to make me reach for a kleenex. It hit Jenny first, and then moved to me. It really only slowed her down for a day, she soldiers on, but mine has moved from my throat to my head which now feels about ready to explode. The only question is, can I ride the cold out, or will it take root and grow into the dreaded sinus infection! I hope not.

Must See TV

Kudos to Keith. You give hope that the media still can see, and report, that the emperor has no clothes.

An Answer

Justice on a Short Leash
Why did the president cut off investigation of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program?
The Washington Post, 7/22/06

Because he thinks he’s above the Constitution, that’s why.

UPDATE: Like I said…

If the president has constitutional problems with a bill, the task force said, he should convey those concerns to Congress before it reaches his desk. The panel said signing statements should not be a substitute for vetoing bills the president considers unconstitutional.

“The President’s constitutional duty is to enforce laws he has signed into being unless and until they are held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court or a subordinate tribunal,” panel members wrote. “The Constitution is not what the President says it is.”

Bush’s Tactic of Refusing Laws Is Probed
The Washington Post, 7/24/06

The Fragrant Slug

To the woman who caught a ride into the city with me this morning. Manners prevented me from saying this to you directly, but it must be said. Ease up on the perfume, please! Five minutes into our commute, my nose was irritated and I had a bad taste in my mouth. Soon I was feeling dizzy, and a headache began to take root. By the time we crossed the 14th Street Bridge, I was nauseous and had chest pains. Yes, chest pains. It was a 40-minute long assault on my senses, a personal gas chamber, a commuting nightmare. After you got out of the car, I commented to our rear seat passenger that we’d be wearing your fragrance all day, and he allowed as how he was also feeling nauseous. I can only hope that whatever odor you were attempting to mask would have been worse. Regardless, your attempt to smell nice is a miserable failure.

HELP!

The gays are attacking my marriage!!

I’m not sure we can how long we can hold out, we can feel the foundations of civilization crumbling beneath us!

Send guns and ammo fast!

Big in Beijing and Bankok

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Click on the map on the right. It is a visual display of where traffic to this web site originated during the month of February, 2006. Does anything jump out at you? I’m huge in Beijing and Bankok. And after the United States, the Phillipines sends more traffic to this site than any other country. Why?

I’d like to think it’s my thoughtful musings that attract such an international audience, but I suspect something more sinister. I’ve been a big fan of Movable Type, the software I use to manage this blog, for a few years now. And when I upgraded to the current version, I was particularly pleased with its built-in capability to recognize and divert junk comments. But recently, the junk has been slipping through, big time. I had the settings configured so that no comments went live until I approved them, so none of them ever got posted. But my time was still wasted in having to delete them by the dozens, day after day.

Here’s an example, “Your site is very nice 🙂 Respect to admin !”. In February, I had about 1300 such junk comments posted here.

What’s the point? Apparently it’s all about the return link to their own web sites that they can put in their comment, and the boosted Google rankings they will gain by widely spreading links to their site.

Well, as much as I enjoy the legitimate comments I do receive on my blog, I’ve got better things to do that clean-up the digital trash being left here from the other side of the world. So, for now anyway, I’ve disabled all comments in hopes they’ll go away, or a new upgrade of Movable Type can again give me the upper hand in this ridiculous battle against comment spam.

Our Puritanical Selves

Humans Have Sex: Get Over It

A very worth read by Cenk Uygur at The Huffington Post

The “War” on Christmas

You can skip the below rant it you’d like, and just watch this video. There’s little I can add to it to make it better. But if you’d like to read my attempt, then read on…

All this nonsense in the media about a “War on Christmas” is really beginning to bug me. It will soon be added to previous empty platitudes such as our ‘Wars’ on poverty, drugs and terrorism. It’s a slogan, not a war. It’s a war on nouns.

As my own recent blog entries attest, I am not at war with Christmas. I have embraced Christmas heartily, it is a wonderful holiday. I don’t care a bit if someone chooses to wish me a “Merry Christmas” or more generically “Happy Holidays”. In both instances, they are wishing me well and I would gladly accept it and return it in kind. Wish me a “Happy” Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Winter Solstice, New Year or Festivus, and I’ll wish you one too.

Thank heaven for those who will take on such nonsense. If you’ve read this far, treat yourself to another video clip, this one of the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart responding to Bill O’Reilly’s claim that he’s part of this ‘war’.

with thanks to Think Progress and Crooks and Liars for the vids

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