--- I think my lawn̢۪s confused. We just had our first goodly rain in
quite some time last week, and boy did we ever need it. It̢۪s very dry
around here right now. Around late August I gave up on watering the
lawn. That̢۪s generally the time when I start to not care so much
about how things look, because in a month and a half it̢۪ll all be
dead and the snow will be flying, so why bother? It̢۪s just wasted
effort. Before the soaking, the lawn was fully brown, dormant, and I
was content with that. Now I don̢۪t think it knows what to do with
itself. Ah, rain.
Lovely. It̢۪s still warm enough: I can go back to being green. But,
why should I bother? I̢۪m just going to die in a few weeks anyway.
My lawn seems to be at war with itself: there are rebellious patches
who seem to be agreeing with the former statement, while others are
sticking fast to the latter. I know which part is going to win. I
wonder if it does, though. --- Nothing̢۪s really piquing my interest
today. Wesley Clark̢۪s throwing his hat in the ring. Pffft. What does
that make it? Ten Democratic Presidential contenders? Let me know when
they start physically beating each other and then I̢۪ll tune in. Right
now it̢۪s just plain boring. The only thing I wonder is if this
is the reason why Kerry̢۪s campaign manager jumped ship earlier this
week. I wouldn̢۪t be at all surprised to see that he̢۪s suddenly got
a new job. The one story, however, that̢۪s just baffling me is this one.

Ok, so let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’ve got a 5’7” ballerina who weighs less than 110 lbs. and she’s too fat.
No one wants to dance with her because they complain she̢۪s too heavy
and too tall for the lifts. What the #$%^!
Ballerinas are the least healthy people out there. And I mean that.
They do horrific things to their bodies to stay in the prima
department: they starve themselves and they̢۪re nutritionally
deficient because of it. They generally stay away from any dairy
products because they̢۪re too fatty and as a result, a goodly number
of them have problems with early-osteoporosis. And this doesn̢۪t go
into the arthritis, the fact their feet generally look like a foot
binding gone horribly wrong, or the ripped cartilage, tendons, muscles
and broken bones because, contrary to popular belief, ballet is an
athletic activity. I’m 5’6” and weigh considerably more than Miss
Volochkovaâ€Â¦now. At one point in my young life, I weighed the same.
And I only know this because I stepped on a friend̢۪s scale: I
didn̢۪t own one at that point in time. But I didn̢۪t think anything
of it: I ate when I hungry, plus I was no slouch in the drinking of the
nasty, cheap, college beer. Neither am I athletic; I despise
gyms---always have, always will. I chalk it up to my mom: I got her
metabolism (or at least I did back then, says she, with a grimace). I
look back at those pictures and honest to God, despite the Audrey
Hepburn neck I had going on, it was completely unattractive. I was a
bag of bones. According to the doctor, I was a good thirty pounds
underweight. So, add in an inch of height, and then do your
calculations, and you̢۪ll see that Ms. Volochkova is even more underweight than I was. Also add in that she̢۪s got more muscle on her lean body now than I have ever had or will have in the future. Knowing muscle is heavier than fat, you do the math.

If ice cream was a shippable item, I̢۪d send her cases upon cases of Chubby Hubby and Karmel Sutra. She deserves them.

--- Chuckle of the Day.

And here I thought they were only thinking about how to score their next eight-ball.

I guess you learn something new every day, don̢۪t you?

Posted by: Kathy at 01:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 681 words, total size 5 kb.

--- Yeah, what he said.

Got the link via Instapundit, but would have wound up reading it anyway due to the fact Forbes is one of those gift subscriptions the in-laws keep purchasing for the husband and he̢۪s always saying, you gotta read Paul Johnson whenever a column appears. The husband is simply behind in his reading right now. I think he̢۪s got two Harvard Business Reviews to catch up on, as well.

Forbes rotates this Current Events column between four different
and highly prominent authors. I don̢۪t know precisely what they̢۪re
hoping to achieve here, but I̢۪m assuming they̢۪re aiming for a
widely varied range of ideas. The overall effect, though, is somewhat
schizophrenic. You have Paul Johnson, historian extraordinaire, who,
some would say is reactionary. You also have Ernesto Zedillo, former
president of Mexico and the last successful candidate of the corrupt
and repressive PRI dynasty, who writes about globalization from the
Third World̢۪s perspective. Zedillo is now at Yale, heading up some
globalization seminar---which tells you something about Yale̢۪s
political leanings, if nothing else; forget all about globalization.
They also have Cap Weinberger (Mr. Iran-Contra) and Lee Kuan Yew, a
senior minister from Singapore (flogging, anyone?) writing for them.
Talk about a spectrum, but the only one I take seriously is Paul
Johnson. He̢۪s good.

The paragraph I find interesting, though, is this one:

All this is wonderful, but it is dependent, even in theory, on the
European Union's expanding continuously, its economy running at full
throttle, its productivity steadily increasing and a profound peace
cocooning the world in a nest of luxurious tranquility. But in the real
world, things are different. The EU has discovered, since the autumn of
2001, that it has little ability to determine events because its armed
forces are small, underfunded, obsolete and ill-trained. Apart from
making trouble at the UN, France and Germany--those two former military
giants that once made the world tremble--have been mere spectators. Now
France, followed by a still more reluctant Germany, is being obliged to
take defense seriously for the first time in many years, thus upsetting
all its budget calculations.
It made a very tiny alarm bell of recognition go off in my head.
Let̢۪s play a little with word substitution and you̢۪ll see where
I̢۪m coming from. It could have easily been written in 1933-34, when
the Nazi̢۪s came to power, because Europe right now is facing many of
the same problems Europe faced back then. All this is wonderful, but it is dependent, even in theory, on Germany̢۪s
expanding continuously, its economy running at full throttle, its
productivity steadily increasing and a profound peace cocooning the
world in a nest of luxurious tranquility. But in the real world, things
are different. Germany has discovered, since the autumn of 1919 ,
that it has little ability to determine events because its armed forces
are small, underfunded, obsolete and ill-trained. Apart from making
trouble at the League of Nations, France and Germany--those two former military giants that once made the world tremble--have been mere spectators. Now Germany, followed by a still more reluctant France, is being obliged to take defense seriously for the first time in many years, thus upsetting all its budget calculations.
Scary, eh? One of the main reasons historians give credence to
Germany̢۪s rise from the ashes under Hitler̢۪s reign was because he
was smart enough to realize that rearming Germany would be good for the
economy. Not only did he feel Germany had been humiliated by the
reparations forced on it by the League of Nations and the Treaty of
Versailles that ended WWI, he knew rearming would bring Germany back to
the economic forefront. It worked. His machinations brought Germany out
of the Depression much more quickly than either the U.S. or the UK.
France, whether they would like to admit it or not, did feel the rising
tide effect of the German economy in the late 30̢۪s; a rising tide
that came courtesy of IG Farben, Krups and Daimler-Benz. If you were
looking at this in a theoretical, Henry
Kissinger-balance-of-power-rules! sort of way, this is interesting: all
of the same ingredients are present. I̢۪m fairly certain they won̢۪t
come up with the same cake that gave that gave us that smash-up,
goodtime known as WWII, but it̢۪s interesting nonetheless. If
circumstances conspire enough, it could
happen, longstanding allies notwithstanding.
I̢۪ll grant you, Europe̢۪s economic woes today are not nearly as bad
as they were during the Great Depression of the 1930̢۪s, but unless
Germany and France pull in public spending, in five years, they could
be. And much like back then, Europe̢۪s economic productivity is tied
entirely too much to America̢۪s. The stock market crash of 1929
brought the whole house of cards down---worldwide: 9/11 did the same
thing, but not to the same extent. The Economist
recently published an editorial urging Europe to unhitch its economic
star from the U.S̢۪s, because it would be better in the long run if
Europe wasn̢۪t reliant upon the U.S. for it̢۪s economic stability.
Europe needs jobs currently. Jobs will solve the income
problems they are having in regards to financing pensions and providing
for their social needs. If Chirac and Schroeder were prone to thinking,
like Hitler, that rearming were a viable means of providing economic
prosperity, and raising their level of prominence on the world stage
because they have the power to back up their words, well, it would be a
different story, wouldn̢۪t it? Then, all they would really need is a
common enemy to rally the people around, wouldn̢۪t they? Le Royale with Cheese anyone?

--- Not a bad condemnation, on the whole, for a guy who̢۪s compared himself with Hitler

The churches, in a statement, likened Mugabe's government to "the
beast in Revelation 13 which usurps power and terrorizes God's
defenseless people thus fermenting anarchy and lawlessness in the land."

. --- Hey, lookie, the Mexicans are pulling a France.
So, if wine made by the Champagne method in the U.S. can̢۪t be called
Champagne, because only France can use the term and must be called
sparkling wine instead, if the Mexicans are successful, what will they
call Tequila that was made and bottled in America? Juice of only the finest blue Agaves?

Margarita Liquor?

Help me out here, kids. I̢۪m bad with titling junk.

--- And here̢۪s Arnold with your Chuckle of the Day.

--- Have a good weekend. See you on Monday.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1086 words, total size 8 kb.

--- “Well ye ken the noo!”
Frederick Forsyth strips the message down to the bare bones for a few
people in certain places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle
East who might not have been paying attention. If you̢۪re one of these
people, you should be informed that “Bring it,” no longer means “come after me.” It now means, because of this we’re going to come after you,
and may Allah and your seventy-two virgins help you. You started it:
we̢۪re going to end it. You may ink-in the changes to your dictionary
now. In fact, it would be best if you did. We wouldn̢۪t want you to
not be on the same page as we are, now would we? We̢۪re pretty fair
that way.
--- The speech. Everyone̢۪s chatting about it this morning on the web.
So, I̢۪ll throw out my two cents and will be done with it. I heard
what I needed to hear. Yes, he wants more money. Not surprising, and
yes Congress should give it to them. Yes, he wants to get the Europeans
on the job. That̢۪s not surprising either. The speech was simply a
reaffirmation of why we̢۪re there, what we are doing, and what it̢۪s
going to take to get the job done. There wasn̢۪t anything new there,
other than the eighty-odd billion dollars the prez wants Congress to
allocate for Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike Sullivan this morning,
however, I̢۪m not surprised, that he didn̢۪t ask for more troops. It
would be a waste of resources to just blindly dump new troops into
Iraq. Areas that are on the verge of being settled now, where they̢۪re
training new police forces, will soon no longer need the massive number
of U.S. forces they are currently enjoying. Those troops will then be
reassigned to new areas that could use the backup. It̢۪s logical,
people. It̢۪s actually translog, as in transportation and logistics,
but that̢۪s beside the point. We don̢۪t need more American troops in
Iraq. We need more international troops so we can cut the number of our
boys and girls that are over thereâ€Â¦so we can save some coin.
For all the money we̢۪re actually spending right now in Iraq, and all
the people who are complaining about it, it surprises me that everyone
forgets the Pentagon has accountants, too. It̢۪s like the naysayers
think the Pentagon has gone on a spending spree at the nasty mall
across town and they need to cut up the Visa before any more money gets
spent on worthless junk. That̢۪s not it at all. They̢۪re actually
being fiscally responsible. Yes, the administration needs more money to
make sure the job is done correctly---and it̢۪s a lot of freaking
money---but the fact they̢۪ve decided not to send out any more troops
is a good thing for all you fiscal conservatives who are having a
coronary failure because of the sheer number of dollars going out.
Relax. They̢۪re using their resources wisely. I hesitate to mention
it, but honestly, do we want a bunch of green soldiers over there
anyway? Right now we̢۪ve got people on the ground who are doing the
deal. Their overall effectiveness rating is going up, despite what CNN
would have you believe. Give them the time to do their job and to do it
well otherwise Iraq will be worse off than when Saddam was in power. If
you haven̢۪t a clue as to what I̢۪m talking about, I̢۪ll give you a
reference point. Go rent Band of Brothers, Part Four, Replacements,
and I think you̢۪ll get an idea. We don̢۪t need anymore dead
soldiers, but sending in new, green, troops would ensure that outcome.
--- I̢۪ve got a few problems with this guy.
Hmmph. God love priests. Especially honest, hard-working,
true-to-the-faith priests who do Jesus̢۪ work. Nothing can possibly be
harder on them right now than the backlash of the pedophilia scandal. I
can completely understand where the Church has tested their faith.
They̢۪re on the front lines, after all. The pope̢۪s the general, safe
back in HQ, calling the shots and they̢۪re out fighting the good fight
just as an infantryman would. What̢۪s that old saying? No one̢۪s an
atheist in a foxhole? Well, I would have to think that̢۪s true, but
just imagine what it would be like for a priest in that proverbial
foxhole, defending the Church and its actions, while trying to spread
the word at the same time? It̢۪s gotta be hard. It̢۪s not surprising
to me that the much ballyhooed “wall of silence” comes up on a
regular basis. Everyone in the media thinks there̢۪s some grandiose
conspiracy to protect the Church at all costs,
so everyone must shut the hell up, and that includes parish priests.
Yeah, there̢۪s a grain of truth there, but, hell, come on and be
realistic. I don̢۪t think it̢۪s so much the idea of a cover-up on the
average priest’s mind “Shred the parish files and do it now!”
but more that they just don̢۪t want to have to deal with the idiocy of
those above them because they can̢۪t do anything about it. Priests are
like the employee who works for the large pharmaceutical company which
has put out a drug that̢۪s now been proven harmful to five chimpanzees
on the easternmost hillside in Rwanda. These people don̢۪t have
anything to do with the running of the joint, yet they bear the brunt
of the blame when the fit hits the shan. Who can blame them for not
wanting to deal with it by not discussing it? I don̢۪t necessarily
think it̢۪s the most courageous thing they could do, nor the most
responsible, but we have this tendency to forget that priests are
human, too. Now, don̢۪t freak out and think I̢۪m coming down on the
side of the pedophiles. I̢۪m not. The Church had a responsibility to
protect the children and they failed. There̢۪s no be̢۪s, by̢۪s, or
buts about it. But, it has been of interest to me how poorly the media
has interpreted just how such a thing could have happened. It was
ignorance at its absolute worst, and while it̢۪s no defense in this
day and age, I can understand how the Church̢۪s policy of shifting
priests started and how entrenched the policy became despite the new
information that came to light regarding pedophiles. We seem to forget
that pedophilia wasn̢۪t an illness a hundred years ago, or even fifty
years ago: it was just going out and finding yourself and nice young
wife, of childbearing age, who was, most likely under the age of
eighteen. Were the GI̢۪s who brought home sixteen-year-old war brides
after WWII pedophiles? By today̢۪s standards, yes, they were. But back
then, no, they weren̢۪t. Innocence was lost early on because life
spans were shorter. Nor does pedophilia include homosexuality: it̢۪s
the one sexual mental illness that doesn̢۪t discriminate between the
sexes---boy or girl, it doesn̢۪t matter---you just have to be under
age to qualify as a victim. They also had no way of knowing that the
recidivism rate of pedophiles is close to one hundred percent. These were all things they did not know and had no way of knowing because no one knew these things.
And I̢۪m not talking how Canon Law demands these priests need to be
dealt with here: I̢۪m talking common sense.
The Church thought pedophilia a temptation. A sin. A sin that would be
absolved under the seal of confession with the promise of go forth and sin no more inherent in the deal. That was what they expected of priests. Go forth and sin no more.
And they honestly believed this. I know. It sounds loony and very
careless in retrospect, but they expect it of all Catholics, not just
priests. In the Catholic faith the burden is on the individual to make
themselves more worthy of Christ and the blessings of Heaven. The
Church definitely does not guarantee you entrance to Heaven when you
get baptized. That would mean a world full of happy, guilt-free
Catholics skipping breezily through life, sniffing the tulips. I ask
you: when was the last time you chatted with a happy, guilt-free
Catholic? Hmmm? I̢۪m waiting. And it appears I̢۪ll be waiting for quite some time, like
until the second coming, but I digress.
Now, this does not excuse the Church̢۪s actions once it knew what the
scoop was. It doesn̢۪t. It makes it easier to understand why it
happened, but not the for the love of God, I thought you were doing Jesus̢۪ work here, are you sure you know who your boss is? denials and evasions. Those
can be easily chalked up to the fact the Church doesn̢۪t admit it̢۪s
wrong very often. Think about it: they just let Galileo off the hook a
few years ago. And he had the gall to think that---gasp---the Earth
wasn̢۪t the center of the universe almost five hundred years ago. This
guy, however, bothers me beyond repair. Benedictine monk leaves the
priesthood and is now a father, husband and a consultant for a law firm
suing the Los Angeles diocese, advising on Canon Law and the like.
It̢۪s a great story. The man loves the Catholic faith, but not the
Church and he̢۪s made that clear. I can understand: I feel the same
way. But it seems to me that it would be better for everyone involved
if he kept his mouth shut from now on. I can barely understand what a
burden it must have been to be the cover-up boy, and I sympathize, but
there̢۪s no mention of him complaining to his superiors about the vast
and overwhelming intelligence (duh!) behind this policy. In fact, he
dodged it just as well as anyone else, despite his claims to have had a
crisis of conscience over it. He was in the Church. He had the power to
make a change and yet he didn̢۪t. He was just as chicken as everyone
else who didn̢۪t do anything; who just kept their mouths shut despite
their insider knowledge. This is a wee bit much to bear, Father, er,
whoops, but the point still stands. If not you, then who? As hard as it
is, I̢۪ll let him off the hook on this one, though. However, I̢۪m
still going to hold a grudge. There̢۪s no getting around it, but I do
understand it was the Church hierarchy who was responsible for this,
not the average, non-pedophile, parish priest. To rip him a new one
over this makes no sense to me because he most assuredly wasn̢۪t
Patton: he was just one of the millions of soldiers on the frontlines,
fighting the good fight. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with how
the Church works should know this. The real problem that I have with
him is that he completely disregards the sanctity of the confessional
and then uses those tidbits gleaned over years of listening to
confessions for anecdotal evidence. Arrrgh! What̢۪s said in the box,
as he so charmingly calls it, is supposed to stay in the box. It
doesn̢۪t matter if he̢۪s not a priest now---he was a priest then.
It̢۪s completely irrelevant if a sinner or a saint was doing the
confessing; he felt the need to violate the sanctity of the
confessional to back up his point. He thought it was ok to do this in a
if you̢۪re going to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs
sort of way and that̢۪s just wrong.
I can̢۪t even explain how this notion of his, that it̢۪s
good---usable---evidence, just enrages me. I don̢۪t want to think that
when I go to confession the things I say or the sins I confess might be
bandied about in a newspaper ten years from now because the priest I
confessed them to left the priesthood, was being interviewed by a
reporter and needed my confession to back up his point about how the
Church was wrong. Confession is between you, the priest and God. No one
else is involved. No one else is supposed
to be involved. That̢۪s the way confession is designed. Who, in their
right mind, would go into a confessional and spill their guts with the
knowledge that the priest wasn̢۪t going to keep the information to
himself? No one. I know I wouldn̢۪t. And yet this man thought it was
ok to completely disregard that, even though he divulged the
information in a reference based, anonymous, sort of way. But that̢۪s
a slippery slope, isn̢۪t it? Nothing in this world of instant research
via the web is anonymous. You wouldn̢۪t even have to go that far to
find out who the victim was: all you̢۪d have to do was go to the
parish and get chummy with the members and do a little detective work
from there. Sound hard? It wouldn̢۪t be. The article listed the parish
he was working at when he heard the confession of one of the victims.
I̢۪m sure there are more than a few people out there, in that parish,
who read the article who knew exactly whom he was referring to.
What happens if a reporter tries to seek out this victim by doing a
little snooping around? The same is true for the sinners who confessed
to him. What if they̢۪ve actually gone forth and sinned no more? What
if they̢۪ve actually redeemed themselves? Reputations they might have
worked hard to put behind them are now in jeopardy because Mr. Wall
opened up his big fat mouth. He just dropped a bunch of bread crumbs
for some enterprising reporter who really wants to know the extent of
the whole scandal. And what̢۪s worse is that it worked. It did show
just how bad a problem this was that he was absolving victims of their
sins, despite the fact they had committed no sin to begin with (which
is wrong, but that̢۪s another topic for another day). It̢۪s
positively revolting, but quite frankly, I̢۪m not sorry he felt the
need to leave the priesthood. He could have used any other bit of his
many years in the priesthood to prove his point, but not this one.
The revelations from the confessional that he felt the need to divulge
are only going to shake Catholics̢۪ faith even more than they already
have been. And that̢۪s one thing beleaguered Catholics like myself don̢۪t need.

--- And here it is. I know you̢۪ve been waiting for it. The Chuckle of the Day.
Start breakdancing with me and shout it from the rooftops Ghostbusters!

Posted by: Kathy at 01:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 2443 words, total size 16 kb.

--- We fare thee well, Galileo.

Was catching up on my Economist
reading the other night. A few weeks previous they̢۪d done a big story
on how unsafe the shuttle was and came to the ultimate conclusion that
science should be able to do better. Someone, it seems, agreed with
them---in the letters department. ”Sir—Most of the technology used to build the space shuttle
and its behemoth support systems were old before the vehicle hit the
drawing boards. Having been involved in various bits which fed into the
project, I was surprised it ever got off the ground. From the
heat-shield tiles which are “glued” on (some of which tend to fall
off each flight) to the insane idea of pumping volatile propellant
through the craft to its engines, the shuttle represented the “get it
working quickly” approach to space flight. NASA was not interested in
investing the time and money to get things right but was more than
willing to throw cash at patching older solutions. NASA should become a
technological incubator rather than a space-launch agency, allowing it
to offer technologies to a wider space-launch market.”
John Crabtree
Scottsdale, AZ
The guy̢۪s got a point. I don̢۪t know if the Apollo missions helped
or hindered the overall mission of NASA. Obviously, they succeeded in
getting to the moon, but as a result of all they learned and how they
learned it with those missions---in a trial by fire way--- there seems
to be, at least to me, a co-dependent attitude at NASA: they like
dealing with crises. It̢۪s the only time they learn new things. The
rest of the time they seem very confident in their abilities and their
knowledge, to the point where everyone else is probably wrong, but they̢۪ll just have to check on it to make sure.
Just once, I̢۪d really like to hear a quiver in the woman̢۪s voice as
she counts the timer down before a launch. I don̢۪t think the awe,
wonder and sheer amazement at the idea of space travel ever really gets
conveyed by the robot-like calm she exudes as she ticks the seconds
off. There hasn̢۪t been a lot of good news out of Houston lately: a
shuttle crash, failed missions to Mars, bureaucratic infighting, cost
overruns---the horrible things that happen when scientists aren̢۪t
allowed to do what they do best which is to figure things out. It
doesn̢۪t seem as if a whole lot of that has been happening over the
past few years. So, it̢۪s nice to see a lowly $1B satellite did its
job extraordinarily well and ended its mission successfully in a manner
the geeks at NASA controlled, instead of in some uncontrolled, cross your fingers and pray that it does what we want it to do, fashion.

--- Well, someone finally had the balls to say it.

More Economist.
There̢۪s no reason to link to it---you won̢۪t be able to see it
anyway unless you pay for it---so since it̢۪s relatively short I̢۪m
going to type it out for my five readers. I have faith in you. Note
that this is copyrighted 2003---by the magazine (there are no bylines
in any issue of The Economist---ever) and don̢۪t rat on me. I̢۪m saving you money, so be nice.

Something must (not) be done
When disasters prompt new policies, the results may be disastrous.
Disaster demands a response, but it is often the wrong one. That is
what the experience of Sir Bernard Crossland, a safety expert who led
the inquiry into a disastrous underground railway fire in London in
1987 which killed 31 people, suggests. This week Sir Bernard questioned
the ₤300m ($450m) spent on fire-proof doors, metal escalators and
such like on London̢۪s underground after the disaster. The money, he
said, might better have been spent on putting smoke detectors in
people̢۪s houses. It would have paid for one for every house in the
country. House fires kill around 500 people a year, mostly in houses
without smoke detectors.
After a disaster, governments̢۪ instinct is to halt or restrict the
activity concerned. That may be right, but it isn̢۪t necessarily.
After a rail crash in Britain in 2000, which killed four people, the
rail authorities imposed speed restrictions and track inspections. That
drove passengers from the railways to the roads. Given that road travel
is much more dangerous, this probably caused more fatalities than did
the original crash. It also nearly bankrupted the railways. Arguably,
the same could be said of some of the response to September 11th. The
initial security measures imposed on airlines were based on a hunch
rather than serious analysis of costs and benefits. America is now,
belatedly, moving away from random screening, which led to absurdly
rigorous treatment of obviously harmless categories like small
children, veterans and even the planes̢۪ own pilots, to a computerized
system that checks identities and assesses potential risk.
The same applies to most industrial accidents, environmental
catastrophes and health scares. The clean-up after the Exxon Valdez oil
spill was hugely expensive and is thought to have damaged the
environment more than the original leak. Nature deals with crude oil
better than people do. In coping with epidemics like HIV/AIDS, or SARS,
simple cheap public health measures (condoms, lifestyle, quarantine)
usually work much better than expensive technological fixes like
vaccines. The culls of cows and restrictions on movement after
Britain̢۪s foot-and-mouth epidemic are not generally recognized to
have multiplied the cost of the outbreak, rather than containing it. If
possible, the best solution is to let individuals decide themselves how
much risk they will bear, and how much safety they want to pay for.
Given the choice, many airline passengers might prefer a slightly
cheaper flight on an airline that does not carry useless lifevests
under every seat, just as they may choose to buy a Lada rather than a
Volvo. Politicians need to avoid bowing to the cries from newspapers
that they must be seen to “make things safe.” Encouraging sensible
and informed attitudes to risk will make people richer and happier in
the long term, but would require courage and honesty up front. Don̢۪t
hold your breath.

I don̢۪t agree with their stance on HIV/AIDS (we need
a vaccine for HIV/AIDS---end of story) but the rest of it makes quite a
bit of sense to me. --- Hey. It̢۪s something new and exciting. The
Strib finally admitted one agency in Minnesota finally is not the best
of the Midwest. They must be cheering wildly in Wisconsin, Iowa, North
and South Dakota and Nebraska. Check this out and then this and finally this.
MnDOT is short for the Minnesota Department of Transportation and they
handle everything from drivers̢۪ licenses to building roads. I̢۪m not
a big fan of them, but not for anything eminent domain related, which
is where it seems they really excel in sleaziness.
The crux of all this is that MnDOT needs land to expand freeways. Ok,
fine, that I can understand. So, they come up to the door, say we̢۪ll offer you x number of dollars for your property and we have this appraisal to back up our offer. What MnDOT doesn̢۪t tell the property owners is that they get two
appraisals for each piece of property, and always use the lowest one on
which to base their first offer. If the owner balks, they might come
back with something a wee bit higher and then if the owner refuses the
second offer, like in the case of the Chanhassen couple, they say
well, if you don̢۪t take this, we̢۪ll revert to the first appraisal
in any subsequent proceedings and we̢۪ll condemn your property anyway.
And, until recently, the owner never had access to the appraisals that
were the basis for the settlement offers, unless they sued.
But wait, it gets even better. If the homeowner does decide to appeal
and then sue, all of the legal costs, unlike in neighboring states, are
paid by the homeowner, not MnDOT. So, to get a fair settlement these
people have to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers---sometimes years
after the property is condemned---and the burden is on the property
owner to make sure they get it. I know I don̢۪t want to have to sit in
traffic any more than the next person, but hell, I don̢۪t think I want
it this badly.

--- Mr. H. This one̢۪s for you. I thought you might have missed it while you were out communing with nature this weekend.

Heheheheheh.

--- I think I̢۪m going to throw up.

Ten?

--- I̢۪m sorry, what could I have possibly been thinking?

Here I was all upset about the continued objectification of women. But Of course it̢۪s all right for a woman to think that her only valuable asset is her vagina---as long as it̢۪s a woman who̢۪s pimping her out.
Because you actually care, right? You're giving your escorts access to
a whole different breed of clientele, right? They won't get slapped
around, or raped or any of that wicked business that happens with men
who are only willing to pay $20 for a quickie liasion. Nothing like
that could ever happen with a rich man. I don't know how I could have possibly been so naive. Forgive me.

It̢۪s all about consensual sex, after all. Far be it from you to be all puritanical and judgmental about it, Ms. MacDonald.

Or did that only happen when your cut was less than thirty percent?

--- Chuckle for the Day
So, now that they̢۪ve broken up, do you think Ben̢۪s going to get a
serious case of the bloats? Do you think it̢۪s going to be a case of
“In-N-Out Burger here I come?”
I feel for the fast food franchise that hooks it star to that guy.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1640 words, total size 11 kb.