Hello, Mr. Chip!

Glad to see everyone enjoys the comments feature. Unfortunately, it seems that unless you have a Blogger account, you are compelled to post comments anonymously, but you all seem to be working around that. Thanks for complying with my request for overall grammatical correctness. I did not mean that I will split hairs over split infinitives, dangling participles, or even sentence fragments; rather, I hope to discourage people from posting in the code that seems to have arisen from cell phone text messaging. The chimps who surf my blog on their breaks from writing Hamlet have an excuse. The rest of us are reasonably literate human beings.

And now for something completely different...
Sonja got her microchip implanted today when she went for her checkup and feline leukemia shot. The chip is about the size of a grain of rice and emits a signal that can be read by a scanner at shelters or vets if the pet gets lost. The signal contains an ID number that can be traced through a database back to the pet's owners. We chip our cats because, being that they are indoor cats, they do not wear collars. However, we like to have some kind of ID in case they should get out. The chip is a perfect solution. The vet implants it between the cat's shoulders with a hypodermic needle the size of a whale harpoon, which the vet assured me is no more painful than the vaccinations, and it is in for life. According to the literature and registration pamphlet, the pet microchips "protect virtually any pet you love...dogs, cats, horses, birds, reptiles, exotics, even fish!"

You read that right. Fish. Two thoughts come to mind simultaneously on that:
1. That would have cut 98 minutes off the running time for Finding Nemo.
2. How do you lose a pet fish? Guppynapping? [comment courtesy of Elie]

New Function

I've added the capability for you to leave comments here(translation: I finally found out that updates to Blogger allow for comments). I welcome any thoughts you care to leave about what I've written, even if you don't agree. I only ask that you please be polite, reasonably on-topic and grammatically correct whether you agree with me or not. Grammatical errors make my teeth hurt, and if the comments get uncivil, I can and will disable the function.

New Motto: "Yup, That's Michigan There"

After a long dry spell in my state quarter scavenger hunt, I've added Michigan. To see the best that the state could do with the artistic resources of more than 10 million people, click here. For those who don't want to click, the back side of the quarter is a topographical map of Michigan with the outlines of the five Great Lakes and the words "Great Lakes State" blazoned across Canada. Elie observed that it bears a striking resemblance to a dog leaving a pile on the lawn. Given what I learned about the Toledo sewage system and Lake Erie during my stint as a reporter, he's more correct than he thinks.

Canning Spam

Spammers are getting very clever at avoiding email filters with intentional misspellings and advertising products like Xan.ax and Vicod[n. I've landed on a strategy--aside from having four separate email addresses for various functions--that spammers have not yet thought to protect against. On the email for this site (which, owing to the address being posted right over there, tends to attract a lot of spam), I have set my email filters to route to the Spam folder any email with the word "You" in the subject line. It's amazing how effective this has been. I'd say at least 75% of the spam messages are automatically shunted out of my inbox now to where I can skim it once a week for non-spam messages then mass-delete. Try it.

Lofty Goals

I watched President Bush's address tonight from the U.S. Army College. Nice set of goals. No real plan for achieving these goals, but it is a nice set of goals nonetheless. Maybe someday we can get started on some of them here.

For starters:

"The ministry of education, for example, is out of the propaganda business and is now concerned with educating Iraqi children."

"And when they patrol the streets of Baghdad or engage radical militias, they will be fighting for their own country."

"Successful units need to know they are fighting for the future of their own country, not for any occupying power."

"Our coalition has already helped Iraqis to rebuild schools and refurbish hospitals and health clinics, repair bridges, upgrade the electrical grid and modernize the communication system."

"...form an independent election commission that will oversee an orderly accurate national election."

"A representative government that protects basic rights, elected by Iraqis, is the best defense against the return of tyranny. And that election is coming."

Someday.

More from the Penguin Front

I adopted a penguin today. Well, technically, Sonja is a 4-year-old cat, but she looks like a fluffy, 7-pound penguin. I get the sense from the four hours she's been home with us that she'd be perfectly happy curled up in your lap being pet all day. Chessie doesn't quite know what to do with the interloper yet, but I think they'll get along once Chessie gets used to having another cat in her house. They both have fluffy fur and a penchant for finding the smallest space curl up in.

She was named Mattie at the Humane Society, but she doesn't look at all like a Mattie, except for some minor fur issues. We settled on Sonja, after Heathcliff's girlfriend, when none of our other names seemed quite appropriate for a lap cat: Xizor (the empire's #3 guy, under Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader), Vader, Dante (a nod to both the Inferno and Team Knight Rider), and Bastet (a minor baddy in Stargate SG-1). I'm noticing a theme.

Now, That's a Word Picture

I decided a while back that I had said everything I have to say on the subject of same-sex marriage, and would drop it as a blog topic. The debate over same-sex marriage is not to change anyone's mind, for we've all pretty much decided where we will entrench ourselves, but to see whose point of view gets the more unimpeachable legal status first and becomes the de facto point of view for the nation.

Even so, Penguin Perspectives feels the need to link to Dahlia Lithwick's latest article in Slate, which begins:

Since few opponents of homosexual unions are brave enough to admit that gay weddings just freak them out, they hide behind the claim that it's an inexorable slide from legalizing gay marriage to having sex with penguins outside JC Penney's.

Read the article if you want. Dahlia Lithwick is always good for a well-reasoned argument, even if she doesn't change your mind.

Under Construction

My bro-in-law Jay confirms that it is in fact an OSHA regulation to have the cement mixer parked in reverse and beeping at top volume when pouring cement outside my bedroom window at 7 a.m. Apparently sarcastic comments occasionally land on a kernel of truth.

I've lived in this apartment building for three summers now. The first summer, the state decided to add a lane to the main road 100 yards down, requiring the driving of pylons for the bridge over the drainage gully (ever been roused from a sound slumber by a bass drum for two months straight?). Last summer, developers tore up the field across the street and threw up an office, with the unintended consequence of taking away the complex's de facto dog outhouse. This summer, the developers are attaching a second office to the first. Judging by the layout of the office plot, this summer's project is number two of three, so at least I know what next summer holds.

Sure, by waking up at 7:30 a.m., I do waste an hour or so of precious daylight during the summer construction season, and I'm glad these guys have work. But as they say, no one ever looks at it from the early worm's perspective.

Random Daily Thoughts

One year and counting
Star Wars Episode III comes out in exactly a year. We're hoping to make it to the midnight showing. Unless today is your first day here, you already knew I am a Star Wars geek.

Silent Protest
Click here to read Slate advocating a silent protest against the phrase "Make No Mistake." I intend to join the uprising and make a mistake today. I'm not sure I can outdo the University of Toledo's registrar, who told me yesterday that they had not mailed out my transcript because--get this--they ran out of paper. I don't know which is worse: that someone did not think to order an extra ream or two of watermarked transcript paper for the end-of-the-year transcript rush, or that they admitted it. Sometimes I wish people would have the decency to lie to me when they do something that stupid.

Happy Volcano Day
Get some red food coloring, paper mache, baking soda, and vinegar, and celebrate the 24th anniversary of Mount St. Helens blowing her top and much of one side. Alternatively, rent Fantasia 2000 and pay close attention to the crater at the end of "The Firebird." Craters and Firebirds remind me of my old Pontiac, but that's a story for another day.

Time Travel, courtesy of Peter David

In H.G. Wells' novel The Time Machine, Wells makes a big fuss over the fact that the time machine travels through time but not space.

Yesterday at the comic book convention, Peter David pointed out the fundamental flaw with that premise, and it is not with the physics. There are a few theories that could permit time travel, and at least one of them backs up the travel-through-time-but-not-space scenario. The problem is that space doesn't give a rodent's rear end about our quaint little system of latitude and longitude. As time passes, the Earth revolves around the sun (and, I might add, the entire solar system revolves around the center of the galaxy, which is itself hurtling through the universe). If the Time Traveler moved through time but not space, the odds of him reappearing anywhere near the surface of any planet at all are at best astronomical, and good luck timing the trip so he'd reappear on the 25-30% of Earth's surface that isn't water. The odds get even worse yet if our time traveller would want to avoid reappearing in the carpool lane during rush hour.

There are, of course, theories of time travel that require travel through space. These have their own problems, principally that they are one-way trips and you run a very real risk of being torn apart by gravitational forces and sucked atom-by-atom into a black hole. Still, since there is a spacecraft, presumably with life support, involved, the odds are a lot better than the time-but-not-space-travel machines, HOV lane or no.

More Con Report

I tried the Princess Leia Cinnamon Bun hairdo at the comic book convention today, and found out two very important things:
1. Murphy's Law of the Cinnabon-do: the buns will not turn out symmetrical.
2. When you have your hair done in the most infamous Princess Leia 'do, while dressed completely normally otherwise, people notice and remember you.

Lesson #2 brings me to the Panels, and more specifically, to talking to panelists later in the day. These conventions have a steady schedule of discussions with the invited guests--mostly artists, writers, and actors. One of the panels today was a chat with Jim Shooter. In the course of recounting his rise to the position of Marvel Comics Editor in Chief--a job he held when he was my age--he commented that he sold everything he ever wrote, starting with comic book stories to DC Comics when he was 13. That sort of cavalier statement is incredibly depressing for someone whose current publication highlight is news stories about raw sewage issues published in a second-rate weekly entertainment newspaper in a backwater city in Ohio. I asked him, in as many words, "What is the secret, then, of not writing crap?" Presumably, if the man has sold everything he ever wrote since junior high school, he knows something I don't.

He didn't have a secret formula for selling every word he ever wrote, but he did have some motivational advice that, for once, did not sound trite. When I caught up with Mr. Shooter after the panel to thank him for what he said, he had an even more helpful suggestion for an aspiring writer. Making an impression, even if it is as the chick wearing Leia buns with a Wonder Woman shirt, can have its advantages.

Con Report

Considering that my weekend entertainment, the Motor City Comic Con, bills itself as "Michigan's Largest Pop Culture Event," I find it odd that I saw nary a Klingon, Starfleet officer, Jedi, or Stormtrooper today. Usually at these conventions one finds at least one of those four. For those of you who have never attended a con, they are more than just gatherings of people whose social lives revolve around dressing up as fictional characters. Cons are an art show, book sale, flea market, and celebrity autograph party all in one.

The highlight of my day was meeting Tony Amendola, a recurring guest star of Stargate SG-1, which is my absolute favorite TV show. Mr. Amendola is a very nice person, as are most of the people at cons. We had a rather nice conversation about Mondays and how Sci-Fi Channel's four-hour block of Stargate SG-1 on Monday nights makes Monday tolerable. I managed to suppress the squeals of joy until after we had left the convention hall, though I think a few people in the parking lot wondered what was wrong with me. Finally, after four years of attending cons, I managed to have a conversation with one of the invited actors without sounding like a complete idiot. I still have brain cells that are trying to forget what I said to Adam West.

More Con reporting tomorrow.

Scary News

Click Here for a scientific explanation of why my college grades went up after I started playing Tetris.

Researchers at Duke University have found out that lemurs are not so stupid, after all. When they have video games that provide a treat at the end, they "show startling intelligence." The lemurs will learn sequences, strategy, and have even figured out that they can get the sugar pellet if they finish a game that another lemur started. Shrewd thinking, no?

Let's recap:
1. Madagasacarian primates are developing strategic thinking.
2. They're using video games to do this.
3. Researchers are helping these lemurs.

Maybe the lobsters aren't the biggest problem.

Off My Soapbox...

I promise I'm off the soapbox, at least for a few days.

I've been enjoying some TiVoed episodes of MythBusters, a show run periodically on Discovery Channel. Two special effects pros test those urban legends and conspiracy theories that make the rounds. Their method: they re-enact the stories, trying their darnedest to get the results in the legend. Only very rarely do they succeed. In the last few episodes I've caught, they've graphically proven:

Nothing in your house, when poured into the toilet, will explode with enough force to eject the occupant of the seat when a lit cigarette is dropped in the bowl. If a half can of black powder or gasoline wouldn't do it, your household cleaners won't.

A cell phone will not ignite a gas-air mixture, even under optimal conditions. Static electricity generated from getting in and out of your seat will, so ground yourself on the car body before you go for the nozzle.

A bullet that would melt inside a human body would not make it out of the gun.

Pressure conditions under which silicone implants might explode would have killed you long before your implants ruptured.

A firecracker in a trombone will not propel a mute with sufficient force to knock the conductor down. Elie pointed out that their demo on this was slightly flawed, as they used a cup mute when most orchestral works use straight mutes.

Walking in the rain really does keep you drier than running.

If you have Discovery Channel, it's a show worth checking out. I await the rerun of the episode in which they answer the musical question, "Is your goldfish bored, or just stupid?"

Party Line

Click Here
Or Here

How long can the press keep up the wafer-to-wafer coverage of every time John Kerry takes communion? They've already passed the point at which anyone, aside from the Catholic officials who created this flap, cares. Their insistence on keeping the issue at the forefront of the secular media, with the argument that Kerry should be denied communion because some of his beliefs are not ones held by the Catholic church, seems to be just about as bad as anything Kerry did to be denied communion. Fortunately, according to this article at CBS, denying communion based on pro-choice stances would be against official doctrine.

I've been exposed to several sets of religious beliefs in my time, and one of the few things that they have in common is that the fulfillment of religious duties was something between a person and God. Taking sacraments, performing mitzvahs, or whatever one chooses to call it, is not a stage show, and is above all else not meant to show everyone else in the room how righteous one is. And, should a church official find one spiritually lacking, a news conference that does not include the person in question may not be the most appropriate venue to discuss the topic.

Anyway, I'm glad Kerry does not march lockstep with the positions of the Catholic church. I'm part of a generation that feels no loyalty to groups, parties, or affiliations, and I do not find this to be a character flaw. I mistrust anyone who takes a prepackaged set of beliefs--political or religious--and adheres to every last one of them without question. It's one thing to realize that a group's platform is right after introspection and research, and more power to you if that group is one you were born into. It's quite another to adhere to a prepackaged set of beliefs out of the convenience of not having to actually consider and develop one's own positions on a variety of issues. It's been my experience that any time any group has a platform that consists of a wide range of issues, at least one of those positions is going to be completely whacked. Those off-base planks do not invalidate the rest of the platform, but if every organization required every member to believe every last thing that organization stood for, only the pathologically lazy would affiliate themselves with anything at all.

There, But For the Grace of God...

An article in Salon today asks, of the situation in the Abu Ghraib prison, "How Could Women Do That?"

Since it's the 21st century, can we just finally admit that women are not, as a group, any more or less civilized than men? That second X chromosome does not contain the polite gene. Ovaries do not inoculate against boorish behavior. For goodness sake, Comedy Central has an entire show devoted to "Girls Behaving Badly." The question we should be asking is not how women could do that, but how could anyone do that?

I have a very optimistic view of humanity on the whole. I believe that people will do what they believe is right. This is a belief borne out of denial; the idea that people would do something even if they knew it was not right has implications for society far beyond anything I am willing to consider. Dr. Stanley Milgram proved, using experiments later deemed unethical, that people will do pretty much whatever someone in a position of authority tells them to do, even if empirical observations indicate that doing so harms someone else. Of course, I will deny empirical evidence, too. I know about Dr. Milgram's results, and I've heard and seen some of the horrible things people do to one another. I know that the world is not necessarily a safe place, yet I continue to believe in the innate goodness of all humanity--not just women--because to stop believing that, I would have to admit that the only reason for my continued happy-go-lucky existence is that no one has decided to tell someone else to end it. If I had to admit that, I would never leave my house again.

Cheeky

My first solicitation from the Alumni Association arrived in my mailbox yesterday, which was my nominal graduation day, though the school will not confer my degree for another couple weeks yet, as they wait for my final grades to come in. It stands to reason that, for the letter to have arrived Friday, it was probably mailed around Wednesday, before I even finished my classes. This begs the question, "Should the Alumni Association be hitting me up for cash before I become an alumna?"

Name That Context

"Easy access allows someone other than the consumer to buy it and then slip it to a woman without her knowledge or consent."

Believe it or not, the "it" in question is not a new date-rape drug, though the statement sounds eerily similar to an email I periodically get reminding me that, when I am at a bar or a party (two places I never go), I should only accept drinks opened in front of me, and always keep one hand covering the glass so no one can slip me a mickey and have their way with me while I'm drugged and will have no memory of the incident afterward.

That quotation is, I kid you not, cut-and-pasted from the Concerned Women For America's website--specifically, the page titled "Talking Points on the Morning-After Pill." By way of evidence for this potential danger, they cite, without sources, two anecdotes of physicians administering abortifacents to their pregnant girlfriends in some very creative manners. Who knew you could administer RU-486 pills vaginally without the woman noticing?

The dosage instructions for the Morning After Pill are to take one of the tablets within 72 hours, and a second tablet 12 hours later, for the medication to be effective. I'd be very interested to hear a plausible scenario where someone could manage that without the woman catching on.

Name Game

Back in February, I posted the top 10 baby names for boys, as determined by babynames.com through a survey of websites where expectant parents post their favorite names. Now, the Social Security Administration has released the top 10 baby names that parents, in fact, gave their infants last year.

Let's see how good the internet is at predicting actual trends:

Top Boy Baby Name of 2003:
Social Security: Jacob
Internet: Aidan (SSA rank: 39)

#2
Social Security: Michael
Internet: Jaden (SSA rank: 83)

#3
Social security: Joshua
Internet: Caden (SSA rank: 114)

#4
Social Security: Matthew
Internet: Ethan (SSA rank: 7)

#5
Social Security: Andrew
Internet: Caleb (SSA rank 34)

#6
Social Security: Joseph
Internet: Dylan (SSA rank: 19)

#7
Social Security: Ethan
Internet: Jacob (SSA rank: 1)

#8
Social Security: Daniel
Internet: Jordan (SSA rank: 38)

#9
Social Security: Christopher
Internet: Logan (SSA rank: 29)

#10
Social Security: Anthony
Internet: Hayden (SSA rank: 85)

That adds up to being off by an average of about 39 in the rankings. Only one name on the internet list, Jacob, actually turned out to be more popular in practice than the internet survey indicated. So much for reliably predicting this trend online.

My own name, which has never, to my knowledge been among the top 10 (only in my last semester of 18 years of school did I share a class with another Janet), seems to be declining even further. It has gone from 238th most popular in 1991 to 508th most popular now. My new niece Emilia's name comes in at 506th, a steady increase from 935th place in 1991. To see how the popularity of your name has changed over the last 13 years, click here for the Social Security Administration's baby name website. There, you can put in any name and, as long as it is in the top 1000 names, you can see how its popularity has waxed or waned.

Well, This Certainly Sucks Like a Hoover

Got my Jury Duty summons today.

I have long held the belief that, if I were put in the situation, I would opt out of the trial by jury. If my butt is on the line, I want my fate decided by someone whose job it is to know the law and apply it equally and fairly. I do not want to put my fate in the hands of 12 people who couldn't find a way out of jury duty. Yes, I know it is my civic duty to lose two days' pay on top of paying for parking so that I can have lawyers try to use more psychology than law to try to win me over to their sides, and if necessary I will fulfill that obligation. The jury duty system here does not seem particularly onerous; it is only for 2 days, provided I don't get seated on a trial that will take a while. Nonetheless, I find something inherently wrong when a jury of your peers is composed entirely of people who can be replaced at work for a couple of days, and when the most complex cases are decided by the people who have no responsibilities that would preclude them from being sequestered for months on end.

Done...

I just printed out my last final, including an answer to the question the professor said would be on the final but was not: "What would be the biggest problem if we had cars that could travel at the speed of light?" He said it would be that you couldn't pick up comely hitchhikers. He did not appreciate the answer I gave in class, that gas bills would be horrendous, provided we could come up with a way to violate the laws of physics and accelerate something with mass to light speed, so I included a bonus answer on my final: a half-page explanation of why, at the speed of light, you would never be able to tune your car radio.

I hand the final in exactly 8 hours from now. Then we're going out to Coldstone Creamery to celebrate the end of 7 years of college (or 5 years if you don't count the two I took off in the middle after we moved to Ohio). Civilization has now advanced to the point that we have battery-operated dental floss (the link only discusses the manual version, but my grocery store sells a one that takes AAs) and a flavor of ice cream that tastes exactly like uncooked yellow cake batter. Does life get better than this?

Lesson Learned the Hard Way...

It's all fun and games until someone gets hit with a flying DVD.

However, in the process, we also learned that a properly chucked DVD will fly fairly well, though it veers slightly to the left. That is how I found myself staring down the leading edge of an airborne DVD. On the bright side, we found out that the cat goes for anything shiny and flying, and the impact didn't leave a mark.

The alternate lesson comes courtesy of Elie: "I guess this is why they don't play frisbee indoors."

One Down, One To Go...

Finished my Algebra final two hours ago. Now I'm on to finishing the take-home literature final. So far, it's a load of BS, but since I'm supposed to be regurgitate class discussion, that would be just about right.

Bumper Sticker Typos

Driving home today, I saw a van with a bumper sticker that read "Cod Bless America." I stared at it for a full minute as we sat at a stoplight at the offramp. I may misread many things, but I'm pretty sure this one really said "Cod." Are we the chosen people of fish and chips now?

Shot Glass Half Empty?

From an Associated Press article headlined "Study: Ohio Teen Health Habits Improve," reporting the findings of a survey of high school students:

"90 percent said they didn't drink and drive in the month before the survey."

Certainly sounds like good news when put that way. The Ohio Health Department did the study and released the results, and incidentally also sponsors the "Healthy Ohioans Program" (no conflict of interest there), so it's no wonder that they did not choose to report the results in another, equally accurate way:

"In a single month alone, 1 in 10 Ohio teens admit not only to drinking while underage, but also to driving while intoxicated."

NOTE: You may have noticed that I no longer link to the AP stories on which I comment. The AP website has changed how it is laid out, making it a pain in the rump roast to find the articles on a universally-accessible site, as opposed to AOL news, where I read most of them. Be assured that I am not making up the articles.

Blue Car Effect

The Blue Car Effect is that phenomenon by which you don't notice how many blue cars are on the road until you buy a blue car yourself. Mr. Grooism attributes the Blue Car Effect to me, even though I don't quite remember when I would have mentioned it in a context with Larry.

We here at Penguin Perspectives are experiencing the Blue Car Effect--oddly enough, with a blue car, even. Until yesterday, we thought that pretty much nobody in Toledo, Ohio drove Volvos. After all, Toledo is home to the Jeep Liberty and you can't spit in a parking lot without hitting at least 3 Jeep Grand Cherokees. However, since we purchased our blue Volvo yesterday, Volvos are everywhere. There were two, not counting ours, in the Circuit City parking lot when we went in search of a GPS mounting bracket to replace the original one, still attached to the Mustang.

I am going to try to keep up the daily posting in the next few days, but I may get sporadic again before the end of the week, for reasons I will reveal after I have all the details. If I do, check out the links at the right. Not everyone there posts daily (and the shameless commerce page is static), but they all have good things to say.

Yuppies

We've become yuppies. We just traded in Elie's silver Mustang GT for a dark blue 2001 Volvo with beige leather interior and plastic burlwood trim. It also has the latest in cupholder technology: when you press on a panel in the center console, the panel pops up and deploys two beverage-securing arms.

Reference Check

At the moment, I am between interviews on the newest hit TV show, "Who Wants to be Chessie's Pet Sitter?" OK, so we aren't actually taping this for network TV distribution, but we should be. It won't be long until picking a person to feed our cat while we're on vacation will be the only place reality TV hasn't gone.

I've spaced the interviews far enough apart that one potential pet sitter won't run into another one. This has left me with about an hour to contemplate the fist potential sitter's references. The odd thing about references and recommendations (which are, functionally, the same thing) is that pretty much anyone can get two or three people to say, if asked, that the recommendee is a responsible person and provides excellent whatever you're looking for. One simply does not ask people to be references if there is a chance they might say that one smokes crack and hasn't done an honest day's work in one's entire life. At work, prospective students' two required recommendations almost universally say "Outstanding" on all criteria and "would highly recommend." We might as well just print them with all that filled in.

UPDATE: I have fixed some errors in grammar that seem to have eluded my attention, as well as the stupid sounding parts.

I, Robot

The robots are coming.

An assistant professor at, appropriately enough, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has developed robotic highway construction cones that can move themselves, either by remote control or on a timer. Self-motivated traffic cones: somehow, the idea disturbs me.

Thank you all for hanging in here with me in spite of the irregular blogging. Daily, thoughtful posts should replace these sporadic ones very soon.

Happy International Penguin Day!

Well, the Nature Violator will never violate our agreement again. The late Tweety was removed from between the wall studs with a shop-vac. I wouldn't wish that on any bit of wildlife even if it would serve as an example to all other would-be nature violators.

In other news, I submitted the last paper for my English class. Now, all I have left to do is the take-home final for that class next Wednesday and a 25-question Algebra final Tuesday and I'll finally be done. I started this degree seven years and three time zones ago, and I'm ready to have it done. Prepare yourself for an elated entry next week about this time.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

1. The nature violator is apparently a bird, and he was back today, after Karen, bird person extraordinaire, managed to get him out of the ceiling last night.

2. Ever noticed that Alan Greenspan sounds like Winnie the Pooh?

3. Word from News from ME is that Carrie Nodell, Mart Nodell's wife of 60-odd years, has died. Mart Nodell (co-creator of Green Lantern) was the first comic creator I ever met at a comic book convention, and he's been at pretty much every convention I've been at since. Mrs. Nodell was never far from his side at any of them, keeping all his pens orderly while he sketched, and making sure he spelled names correctly on the original art and comic books he autographed for us fans. She also seemed to be the head one in charge of talking up the original art and Green Lantern merchandise he had for sale at his tables. If recollection serves, Mrs. Nodell was the one who convinced me to buy the reproduction art of Poppin' and Mrs. Fresh (AKA the Pillsbury Doughboy and his wife), another Nodell creation. One day when I have real walls in my kitchen, I'm getting that framed and hanging it up in there.

When Nature Attacks

I am at two with nature. I did my fair share of camping with my family in my younger days, before I married someone who shares my definition of "roughing it" as not having an in-room coffee maker. "Rugged" is having to walk across the parking lot to a restaurant. Not that I don't appreciate having seen temperate rain forest, Hell's Canyon, the Grand Tetons, or Yellowstone, but nature is full of bugs and dirt and things that want to eat you. Now that I am grown, I have made a deal with nature: I'd stay out of nature if it stayed out of my house. This pact has worked well so far. I don't go camping or hiking or do any other activities that would require me to invade the outdoors. In return, nature doesn't come into my house. However, my deal seems to have one minor flaw: I forgot to include my office in the forbidden zone. I was on the phone with a prospective student this evening when the acoustic tiles above my head started to make a sound that could best be described as "scurrying." Several things belong in the space above a ceiling: air ducts, electrical wires, fluorescent light bulbs, the phone lines, and insulation, for instance. You will note that there is nothing rodential, mammalian, avian, or alive in any way on that list. I'm not sure just what has taken up residence in my office ceiling, but whatever it is scurries, in spite of the fact that nothing that belongs in my ceiling should be animate, much less scurry-capable.

I'd tell nature that the deal is off, but that would require me to coat myself in sunscreen and insect repellent. Nothing is worth smelling like DEET.

Me Again...

I haven't been keeping up my daily blogging lately, and if I may say so myself, what I have written has not been all that interesting. It doesn't much matter to anyone why this is, and I don't care to make excuses for it. The important thing is that I'll be working harder in the coming weeks to improve the quality and frequency of my postings.

I may get some good blog fodder in the next few weeks if I can TiVo it off C-Span. Senate Republicans will hold a series of hearings on marriage in the next few weeks. Maybe it's the same urge that makes me try to identify roadkill, but I'm curious about what Senator Rick "man with dog" Santorum (R-PA) has to say on "The Benefits of a Healthy Marriage" and why this particular issue is being presented to the Senate Finance Committee. The guy must be an expert on healthy marriage. He's got seven children.

Happy New Coke Day!

On this 19th anniversary of New Coke, the second-biggest dust-up in the news is over today's Doonsbury strip, which contains the phrase "Son of a bitch!" It's a reasonable response considering the context. BD regains consciousness to find his lower leg missing. Over here, ME gives a rundown of the various responses of papers, including "bleeping" the strip, refusing to run it, and moving the strip over to the paper's editorial page.

The bigger dust-up is over the release and publication of 361 photos from Dover Air Force Base, where the remains of most of the overseas casualties arrive back in the States. They're over here. The proprietor of that website got the photos through the proper channels of a Freedom of Information Act request, which officials say was approved in error, but was approved nonetheless. A policy of not releasing photos of that particular subject matter has been in force for about 15 years now. The official argument for the policy is to protect the privacy of the family members and prevent the families from having a very sensitive moment put in the middle of a political debate. People opposed to the plan write that the government is not so much concerned with the family members as with the effect on public approval caused by photos of flag-draped caskets lined up eight deep.

I'm fortunate to have never lost a friend or family member to military action; my grandpa was wounded in World War 2, but came home alive. I have only the highest respect for people who have lost friends or family, and the soldiers who give their lives so I can go about my life safely and comfortably. In this world where the media faces stiff fines for indecency, perhaps we need these photographs to remind us that war causes the ultimate indecency.

Comic Strip Synergy

Two comic strips are doing story lines this week about soldiers being wounded in Iraq--specifically, both have characters losing a leg. Not surprisingly, one of the strips is Doonsbury (the story line starts here). Doonsbury is so political that several local papers in places I've lived ran it on the editorial page rather than in the comics section as a matter of course. You can click through at the above link to todays strip. It's a doozy.

The second comic strip is a bit unexpected. Get Fuzzy usually tackles the siamese cat-shar pei household dynamic, but here's the start of Get Fuzzy's Iraq story line. Rob, the shar pei and siamese cat's owner, finds out his cousin is coming back stateside because he's lost a leg. Darby Conly takes a completely different perspective on the story from GB Trudeau, with, as one might expect, a bit more humor while still capturing the essential fear of the family back at home.

I'll be waiting to see both strips tomorrow.

Questions...

The big question isn't who put the bop in the bop-sha-bop-sha-bop, but what woman would fall in love with a guy because based solely on the bop-sha-bop-sha-bop?

Sorry, Mark...

Nearly three years ago, Mark Evanier wrote the following:

"It seems like every time we turn around, there's a new and better format available to us, as well as fresh, innovative hardware on which to play that format. Just in the last quarter-century, we have seen the narrowly-distributed 3/4" videotape recorder give way to the popular Betamax format, which was outdone by the more popular VHS format, which was improved upon by S-VHS and 8mm video, as well as Laserdisc and now DVD.

Many people believe that this technological surge is motivated by a primal, human longing to better that which already exists. This is not so.

No, the reason for all this progress is that someone wants to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger."

ME has purchased Goldfinger in at least six different formats so far. Do I hear seven?

According to an article on CNN, "Both [movie studios and movie industry groups]...consider the DVD ripe for replacement next year."

They seem to have agreed that DVDs are on the way out. Now, they just have to agree on exactly what format they will use to make us purchase our entire movie collections over again, in much the same way that the Bush administration has decided to hand over sovereignty to someone Iraq on June 30, specifics yet to be determined.

One Size Fits All?

In the course of making a purchase at condomania.com tonight, I was asked to fill out a customer service survey for a company that does this sort of thing for several online stores. Obviously, they were using the same form survey for this retailer that they would use for, say, jcpenney.com. Needless to say, some of the survey questions became far more amusing than they would have been had I just purchased a new sweater or electric can opener.

Question 1: What did you purchase (check all that apply)? Potential answers on the list included automotive parts and, most disturbingly, pet supplies. If you're buying pet supplies at condomania.com, poor customer service is not your biggest problem.

After the standard questions about how much the order was for and if this was my first online purchase, I came to the coup de grace: "Was this purchase for business or personal use?"

Recommended Reading

Click here for a thought-provoking alternative viewpoint on police brutality. It makes references to incidents in Portland that never made the national headlines, but you don't need the particulars of the events to understand the fundamental questions. The last one she asks is the most thought provoking. When did individual rights completely trump public safety?

The answer, in an academic discussion, is that public safety should always trump individual rights. Ideally, the balance point between individual rights and public safety would be the libertarian philosophy that "my rights end where another person's begin," or, as Mr. Spock said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." That's the ideal. Please email me if, being really honest with yourself, you are willing to be one of the few whose needs are outweighed. There are two types of errors that a system of jurisprudence can make: either it imprisons the innocent or lets the guilty walk. In principle, we would rather not imprison the innocent and that is how the system is set up; however, in practice, we'd rather not let the guilty go free if it gives them the opportunity to perpetrate harm against us again. It's simple human nature for self-preservation.

Fundamentally, the problem of creating balance comes down to deciding what is a genuine threat to public safety. On one hand, we don't want anyone running loose who may want to blow us up; on the other hand, we also do not relish the possibility that someone might deem us a potential terrorist if we buy fertilizer for the flower bed and fill up on diesel fuel in the truck. We want to keep our children away from pedophiles, but we shouldn't doom a person to a lifetime of notifying neighbors that he is a child sex offender because when he was 16, he had sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend whose parents pressed charges of statutory rape when they found out their daughter was fooling around. We want to protect people from domestic violence by making legal protection from the abuser as easy as possible, but the system of rubber-stamping restraining orders for everyone who alleges domestic violence makes an alleged perpetrator guilty until proven innocent and has opened the floodgates for parents going through a bitter divorce to slap restraining orders on spouses, keeping the other parent away from the children--sometimes permanently--even if he or she has never, in reality, raised a voice or hand against the children or spouse.

One of our fundamental American principles is that we won't lock people up just because of what they might do. Unfortunately, this means that they have to do something, prove that they are a threat to public safety by violating that public safety, before we can legally suspend their individual rights. In short, one of us has to be harmed before we can protect everyone else from that source of harm. However, no one wants to be that one person who takes the hit to protect the rest of us. I certainly don't.

Better Late Than Never...

According to the Associated Press, Karl Rove now regrets the "Mission Accomplished" banner behind Bush on the aircraft carrier nigh on a year ago.

"I wish the banner was not up there," Rove is quoted in the article as saying. "I'll acknowledge the fact that it has become one of those convenient symbols."

No kidding.

Test Post

I'm posting this to test a new setting.

Grandma, email me if you get this.

As if Tax Time Didn't Have You Depressed Enough...

Amount the Bush tax cuts saved President Bush and Vice President Cheney (and their respective spouses) on this year's tax bill: $42,000

Median household income for 2002, the most recent year for which figures are posted at www.whitehouse.gov: $42,409.

For the statistical-analysis-impaired: Bush's tax cuts saved him and his Veep just about as much as half the households in the country make in a year. For the record, the Bushes saved $31,000 and Cheneys saved $11,000.

I'll Have the Spam, Spam, Spam, Xanax, and Spam

My spam seems to come in subject matter cycles. Some times, I get a lot of home-loan messages--I've been tempted to see what kind of rate I can get to refinance my apartment--while other times the spam has subject lines I will not discuss further in the interest of keeping Penguin Perspectives PG-rated. For some reason, the spammers lately seem to think I am in need of pharmaceuticals. I got a message today with the subject line "Hate the doctor's office? You have another option to get those meds." Yep, I'm sure it's an irrational fear of medical professionals that drives people to buy prescription drugs from "shrinkage4108@monnsid.com."

Hindsight

Yes, I watched the President's press conference--live even, which is quite rare since I have TiVo and rarely watch anything when it is broadcast. No, I have nothing to say about it.

I will say that I don't necessarily fault anyone for not "connecting the dots." Connecting the dots to make a coherent, accurate picture isn't quite that easy when the dots aren't numbered and you only get to see five dots at a time.

Cross Purposes

Two vaguely penguin-related Associated Press headlines for today:

"Americans Carving Road to the South Pole"
"Tourists Put Antarctic Ecosystem in Peril"

Peeps

I have now officially resisted the temptation to purchase Peeps for an entire Peep season. I no longer actually eat them. A much better use of the sugar-coated blobs of sugar is to watch them puff up like the Goodyear Blimp when you microwave them for about 30 seconds. You need not use Peeps to see the show--any standard issue marshmallow will work--but the chick-esque shape of a Peep does enhance the effect. A word of caution, though: always microwave your Peeps on a paper towel or similar disposable microwavable surface. The sugar coating of the Peeps tends to slightly liquefy and the underside will fuse to plastic plates, leaving you with a permanent pink or yellow splotch. No amount of soaking will get rid of Peep Smear.

UPDATE: Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT Google "peep smear."

Q&A

Why did the Empire build the Death Star with all those long drops and no handrails?

So that may not be one of the great cosmic questions of all time, but unlike the meaning of life, I think I may have an answer to this one after having watched the last half hour of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones on HBO last night, for about the 15th time (being fair, only five of those times were in the theater). The Death Star is a Geonosian design. Geonosians, being insectiod, can fly. If you could fly, would you waste your time putting handrails around every precipitous drop?

Mark Your Calendar--And Move

Some time in the next 1,000 years, Greenland is going to melt and flood much of Florida.

Click here for the article, and start packing your bags.

News Item

Ten states--Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin--are considering passing laws that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions legally written by licensed physicians if the pharmacist objects to the medication on moral or religious grounds. While these laws theoretically could apply to any prescription, in practice, your pharmacist is not likely to have a moral objection to, say, antibiotics or your blood pressure medication. In reality, these laws (already on the books in the progressive bastions of Arkansas and South Dakota) are used to exempt pharmacists from dispensing birth control or the morning after pill to women.

Bluntly, ten states are planning to allow the people who control the dispensing of medicine to say, "I don't believe in birth control, so you can't use it" to the approximately 17% of women ages 15-44 who use oral contraceptives. The pharmacists are supposed to refer the patient to another pharmacist or pharmacy if they have objections to the medication. Thus, a pharmacist's personal beliefs will place the onus on a patient to drive all over town in search of their legal, prescribed pharmaceuticals--that is, provided that the patient lives in an area where more than one pharmacy is available that is covered by her prescription drug plan.

I have a better idea. Allow pharmacists to not dispense medications that they object to morally; however, any pharmacy that employs a pharmacist who refuses to dispense any medication must, upon hiring said pharmacist, mail notice to any customer who has those prescriptions with that pharmacy to tell the customers that the pharmacy may not be able to fill their prescriptions at certain times. Further, the pharmacy should be required to post at their entrance a list of medications that may not be available and the times that the refusing pharmacist is on duty. That would allow people to know before they enter whether that pharmacy would be able to fill their prescription or if they should save time and go to a competing pharmacy. It's really a matter of full disclosure of available services to patients. Sure, such notification requirements might have the side effect of making certain pharmacists less desirable in the job pool, as the employing pharmacy would know that those pharmacists are not willing to do all the same work as other job candidates. Then again, maybe certain patients would decide to patronize certain pharmacies if they know that the pharmacist will not dispense prescriptions that they, too, find morally objectionable.

I don't often agree with the National Organization of Women, but I think their VP has a point: if a pharmacist has a problem with prescription birth control, don't refer the patient to a new pharmacy; refer the pharmacist to a new occupation. A huge part of their job is providing access to medications that must be dispensed by prescription only, and if they will only do that half-assedly, maybe they should go into automotive repair.

Punctuation Police

The dash plaque in the auction of the previous entry should read, "Yes, it's fast. Yes, it's mine. No, you can't drive it."

When will people learn the difference between "it's" (contraction of "it is") and "its" (belonging to it)?

More Online Time Wasters

Sometimes, for fun, I troll eBay for spelling errors. It's amazing how many items you can find at a good price by searching for misspellings. Right now, there is an auction for 20 pengiun items. Strange that no one has bid on it yet. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if you're looking for penguins, this doesn't come up. In addition to the deals, though, trolling for errors is great for your self-esteem. After all, you'd never do anything so stupid if you posted an eBay auction.

This auction is a new apex of "how could they do that" eBay errors. The item is listed as "Studabaker Emblem Dash Plaque (Its Fast)." The item this person is selling in the auction clearly reads "Studebaker," which is the customary spelling of that particular defunct automobile manufacturer. How does one misspell the key word in an item listing when the correct spelling is right there on the item?

One of Life's Constants

If you drove here, your car keys can't be far away.

The Running of the Sheep

New Zealand's answer to Pamplona: send 2000 sheep chasing after guys on quadbikes. It's meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary of New Zealand's Shearing Championship.

Two thousand sheep running down the street, or competitive sheep shearing--I'll let you decide which one is more disturbing.

Click here for the article.

In one of the grand understatements of the time, Running of the Sheep organizer John Grainger said, "It's pretty hard to get permits for this sort of thing."

Last Chance...

Did you remember to set all your clocks back? Is the VCR now blinking 1:00 instead of 12:00?

For the longest time, I didn't wear a watch, until Elie bought me one because he couldn't see how I operated without one. At work, I sit underneath a clock. I have a little clock on my computer's taskbar. If I'm going somewhere, I have a clock in my dashboard. It's the same logic by which I do not have a cell phone: why carry one with me when I'm never more than 3 feet from one all day? A short list of things we had to reset in our house last night:
-wristwatches (it's useful for remembering which way is left)
-microwave
-stove
-alarm clock
-Batman clock in living room
-counter-clockwise clock in office
-DVD recorder
-VCR
-coffee maker
That does not count the five devices that reset the time themselves.

We have 15 functional timekeeping implements in an apartment with only six doors. Daylight Saving Time (not "Savings") tends to make one notice just how obsessed we are with knowing what time it is.

Not Today...

I'm not even going to try to write anything coherent here. It seems that what I thought was just a seasonal case of the sniffles easily attributed to the start of Spring hay fever season was actually the first wave of Penguin Death Flu that hit with leopard-seal-like vengeance last night. I'm feeling much better now, but I'm a bit hopped up on Day-Quil. See you tomorrow.

When Did God Get An Advertising Budget

For the last three weeks, every Friday, a direct mail circular has arrived in our mailbox addressed to "Dear Neighbors" from 10:35 Community Church, exhorting me to join them for lively worship conveniently located at a local elementary school. This week's slogan: "Get nine holes in and still make it on time. We don't start until 10:35." So, if I'm reading that correctly, the main benefit of this church is that they've managed to arrange services so that professing one's beliefs won't come at the expense of shaving a few strokes off your game. That whole pesky religious devotion thing shouldn't inconvenience one's weekend.

Wrap Your Head Around This One

They actually make sugar free Vermont Maple Syrup. I saw it at Cracker Barrell tonight.

Now, I have never personally made maple syrup, though I have eaten quite a bit of maple candy in my life and I have read descriptions of the syrup-making process. I may be wrong, but maple syrup pretty much is sugar. Sugar-Free Vermont Maple Syrup would be like caffeine free Mountain Dew or Twinkies without the trans fats and preservatives. You could, but what's the point?

Who Do You Call? Hamster-Busters!

When the kitten is stuck in a tree, call the police. Who do you call when your fat hamster gets himself stuck in your printer? In Flensburg, Germany, extracting corpulent rodents from PC components falls to the police.

No, I'm not kidding. I do not like April Fool's pranks and would never play one on you, unlike a certain person (and you know who you are) who wrapped me and my bed with toilet paper while I slept.

The Joke of the Last Entry

In case you don't want to follow the link to the article referenced below:

A panda walks into a deli and orders a sandwich. When he's done, he pulls out a gun, squeezes off a couple rounds, and heads for the door.
"What did you do that for?" the manager asks.
"I'm a panda."
"I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"Look it up," the panda says as he walks out.
The manager calls the paramedics for the guy the panda winged, then flips through his encyclopedia (doesn't every deli have an encyclopedia set?). Sure enough, there it is. "Panda: eats, shoots and leaves."

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

We all have something about ourselves that we believe makes us unique in that circus-freak kind of way. For me, it is grammar. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has ever spent more than 15 minutes with me. Karen called me at work yesterday with a simple apostrophe question and was subjected to a five-minute inquiry while I tried to determine whether she meant "theres" as a plural or contraction of "there is." Since I don't want anyone's brain to explode, I won't explain why the word could not have been a possessive, though in most apostrophe-"S" questions, that is also an option.

Every time I go to the laundromat, I fight the temptation to take a bottle of Wite-Out to the sign on the door listing the "Hour's." I cringe when people begin a sentence with "hopefully." That particular adverb means that the action of a sentence was carried out in a hopeful manner, not that one hopes that the action of the sentence will transpire. Last week, I finally pointed out to someone at work, after two years, that the school's enrollment agreements should read "who resides at," not "whom resides at." Rule of thumb: use "who" before verbs and "whom" before nouns or pronouns. Isn't that easier than trying to figure out objective and subjective pronouns? The rule works for all but the most convoluted sentences.

According to this London Reuters article, I'm not alone in my freakish attention to grammar. There is at least one other person in this world who can spot a misplaced comma at 50 yards and is overcome with a desire to correct it. She wrote Eats, Shoots and Leaves. The reporter explains the joke at the end of the article if you can't see the humor of the book's title right off.

I'm Back...

The world needs a Band-Aid that you can put on with one hand. This morning, I sliced my right ring finger open on the serrated blade of a packing tape dispenser, and I think I have discovered one of the top 5 places on the human body where it is possible but exceedingly awkward to bandage oneself solo. All these advances in bandage technology, and Johnson & Johnson hasn't yet solved one of the product's most blatant design flaws. The do seem to have eliminated the little red string, which, for my money, was half the fun of Band-Aids.

And on the subject of first aid products, when did Bactine start getting away with advertising itself as relieving pain? You could fill an in-ground swimming pool with all the Bactine that I was doused with in my younger days, and if memory served, that stuff hurt worse than the cuts and scrapes it got sprayed in.

Chalk Another One Up

I just killed the VCR. I tried to play a tape of Garfield and Friends cartoons (coming soon on DVD). For those keeping score at home, my home electronic homicide rap sheet now stands at:
1 electric stove
1 motorized tie rack
1 dual-deck VCR
The toaster my parents received as a wedding present

Fortunately, unlike the toaster and the stove, the VCR did not go up in a ball of flames.

Addendum

By the way, I only put in half of the quote from RNC chairman Ed Gillespie two posts back. The second half is, "You can hear the laughter, the people in the room obviously saw the humor in it at that moment, and to play it back now in a different context is unfair."

Two words: Howard Dean

Change in Policy

Just got back from seeing "Jersey Girl," which I do not recommend for people looking for the usual Kevin Smith fare. My local megaplex seems to have changed its policy toward minors in R-rated movies. If I'm not mistaken, they previously restricted R-rated movies, and allowed minors in R movies only if accompanied by a parent or guardian. Now, they have a notice up that children under 17 may not purchase tickets to R movies, 17-year-olds may not purchase R movie tickets for under-17-year-olds, and a person over 18 must purchase tickets to R movies for minors, but does not have to actually accompany the minor into the theater.

Guess we can't let the MPAA keep our kids from a religious experience, even if, as the sign says, it may contain scenes disturbing to some viewers. Elie wonders if this policy will still be in force when "Passion of the Christ" pulls out.

Bush Hunts for WMD in Oval Office

At the annual dinner of Radio and Television News Correspondents Association on Wednesday, Bush joked about his inability to find weapons of mass destruction to the accompaniment of a slide show of him poking around the furniture in the White House. For example, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere ... nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?" as he looked under a sofa.

Click here for the video from CNN

Who, I mean who on this green earth could possibly have thought this would be a good idea? Whoever came up with this one should have their ass in a sling, along with the people who approved of it.

The RNC chairman, Ed Gillespie, justifies it by saying, "The fact is that this is the custom in these things. Presidents have made jokes about very serious matters at these dinners." His butt needs to be in a sling, too.

Quick lesson in humor: the humor in some jokes is entirely dependent on who delivers them. Some people cannot make jokes that are very funny when other people make them. Tina Fey can point out on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update that Bush can't find Osama bin Laden, WMD, and his ass with both hands and a flashlight. The leader of the free world can't. Correction: he can and did. He shouldn't.

Beaver News

Just when you thought it was safe to go, well, anywhere, without your waders, according to this article in Time magazine, the beavers are a-comin' back, and they're trying to make the world a more beaver-friendly place (read: lots of swamp). Now, I lived 17 years in Oregon, which is not called The Beaver State for nothing. I've known more than a few people who have contended with a 50-pound rodent's unique perspective on proper landscaping techniques and their tenacious resistance to relocation. I even ran into a beaver once in the middle of Omaha, Nebraska. By "middle," I mean he was damming a stream where it ran right underneath one of the busiest streets in the city. If the beavers are just now making a comeback, I'm going to have to seriously consider that inflatable kayak in the Sharper Image catalog as my next car.

One More Thought On the Previous...

The nation got upset at Clinton's "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is," but somehow is OK with Bush's "God doesn't really mean God" stance.

Irony Alert

Click here and here for two editorials explaining why removing "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance should be a no-brainer, legally speaking. This one nation under God has a fly in the judiciary ointment: God forbid that we have to acknowledge that the law really does come down on the side of the atheist. Of course--and here's the irony of it all--so does Judeo-Christian morality.

Someone on the religious side has pointed out the semi-mind-blowing irony of this debate. "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional because it is blasphemous. The state argues that the phrase in question is not an unconstitutional promotion of religion because "God" doesn't really refer to God, as such. When we say "God," we are not really referring to a deity, making the phrase is constitutionally OK. However, if we say "God" without really meaning an (or The) omnipotent, omniscient being, we run afoul of one of the 10 Commandments, specifically the part about taking God's name in vain. It would seem that the laws of man and the Bible take opposite paths to get to the same place: the phrase ought to go.

In the interest of presenting an opposing viewpoint on the issue, here's what my co-worker Laurie said today about the pledge case: "If they take 'under God' out, we're moving to Canada."

Road Runner Moment

The fact that I met with David Bowman today wasn't the funny part. (If you don't understand why that would be amusing, click here.) For purposes of this blog, the reason I was meeting with David Bowman is unimportant. The important thing is that, at 2:30, he called a guy to have some forms overnighted to me by UPS. In a scene oddly reminiscent of a Roadrunner/Coyote cartoon, the UPS truck pulled up at 3:30 p.m. For one brief moment, I thought, "What? Did he call Acme and order me a pair of rocket-powered roller skates?"

Caveat Viewer

I have not seen "The Passion of the Christ," nor do I intend to, so I am just going on my recollection of the story for the body count here, but I believe this story from Reuters is a first for a movie rated R for violence: more people have died watching the movie than die in the movie. So far, a woman in Witchita, Kansas, and a pastor in Belo Horizonte, Brazil both have dropped dead of apparent heart attacks during screenings.

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me When I'm 64?

The annual report on Social Security is out. The insolvency date is now 2042, though the economist I heard on NPR tonight said this is probably optimistic, since it is arrived at by calculating the money paid in and the money paid out for a year, and doesn't take into account the promises made to future beneficiaries. Me, for example.

In 2042, I will turn 64. Is it any wonder I don't much care what happens to Social Security? I'll spend the next thirty-odd years watching money get siphoned off my wages, only to see the system I pay into disappear right before I get to reap benefits. When I get my annual Social Security statement, I just sigh and look at all the money I'm working for and will never see, then call up my financial planner and see how much more I need to squirrel away so I can actually retire myself.

Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup...

Please forgive the sparse posting these past couple days. I've been working on a magazine submission. In 8-12 weeks, I should know whether I am part of the Usual Gang of Idiots or have another letter to add to the file.

Divine Plans

In a USA Today profile, the 14-year-old surfer who had an arm eaten by a shark last October said, "This was God's plan for my life, and I'm going to go with it." (Click here for the entire story)

Now, I am as happy as anyone to see someone coping well with a potentially life-changing event. Nonetheless, do people actually believe the Almighty sat up there and said, "Y'know, I don't think this four limb thing is working out quite the way I had in mind after all."?

Question of the Day...

My cats get Purina brand Whisker Lickins moist cat treats, which come in a variety of cat-yummy flavors and work very well for hiding pills. The chicken-flavored ones are shaped like a chicken. The turkey ones are shaped like a turkey. The tuna flavored ones are shaped like fish. The salmon flavored ones are shaped like fish with more fins.

Why then, are the beef flavored ones are shaped like hearts?

Honesty and Decency?

Click here for a searchable database of 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. The 237 statements exclude any that turned out to be incorrect only in hindsight but were accurate assessments of then-current intelligence.

The database was compiled by the United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, Minority Staff Special Investigations Division, at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), who is the ranking minority member of that committee.

I think a few statements are included in the database that should not be there. For instance, the committee faults a July 2003 statement by Bush, "I believe he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program," because it fails to acknowledge known intelligence to the contrary. However, Bush did not say that the intelligence showed that Saddam Hussein was trying to reconstituted a nuclear program; Bush said he believed that was what was going on. If he believed that, the statement is true. Beliefs can be factually wrong. People believe a lot of things in spite of the facts.

Even with a few of those thrown in, the database is an interesting read.

Those Banner Ads At The Top of the Page

Let me explain that when I post to this site, I actually go through the website www.blogger.com and not the site you are looking at now. I periodically check www.janetharriett.blogspot.com just to see how everything looks to you, but not all that often, since Blogger lets me see everything you see, only without that nifty banner ad about four inches above this.

I seem to be missing half the fun.

On Monday, I posted an entry that used the word "lobster" and/or "lobsters" 13 times. Now, I see the "Ads by Google" feature Maine Lobster Direct, a service wherein a 5-pound live lobster will be delivered to your door overnight, presumably for your culinary enjoyment. My best guess is that the content of those banner ads is somehow triggered by the content of my posts, in a sort of rudimentary word-frequency kind of way. Kind of explains why, in the early days of Penguin Perspectives, I wrote about how silly it was that ads for the prescription sleeping pill Ambien carry warnings that side effects include drowsiness, then found shortly thereafter that the banner ad was a link to Ambien's website.

This is exactly why automation will not replace human thinking in the near future. Whatever search algorithm they use to see what I'm talking about this week, and thus, what ads you must be interested in, does not comprehend sarcasm. It sees that I said "lobster" a lot and thinks you must want to have lobster delivered to your door. It does not see that I said "lobster" a lot in the context of an impending crustacean assault from the sea as we inadvertently help our main course breed intelligence and strategic planning by turning the stupid ones into the exact kind of Complete Dinner that Maine Lobster Direct is hawking.

Perhaps the lobsters will still get us, but I don't think we have much to fear from technology.

What Would Jesus Do?

A Georgia couple is out on bail after they called police on each other during a domestic altercation, resulting in charges of simple battery against each other. What, you ask, could have prompted a domestic dispute that ended with the wife suffering injuries to her face and arms, while the husband was stabbed in the hand with scissors, had his shirt ripped off and allegedly punched a hole in the wall? Having just seen "The Passion of the Christ," the couple was arguing a point about the human or symbolic nature of the Trinity. As the sheriff's deputy said, "I think they missed the point."

Click here to read the whole story.

Thanks, Elie, for suggesting the title of this post.

Lesson Learned the Hard Way...

Click here to read why you should always keep your speed dial buttons straight.

King George III Day...

Since today was pretty boring, I'll just give you all another day to contemplate lobsters returning from the dead.

Night of the Living Dead Lobsters...

We catch lobsters by setting out lobster food and waiting for a lobster to walk into the lobster pot, eat the lobster chow, and not figure out how to get out of the pot the way it came in. Because of this tactic, only the truly stupid lobsters end up in drawn butter, while the smarter lobsters live to spawn another day. Basically, we are throwing chlorine in the lobster gene pool. I figure it's only a matter of time before all the stupid lobsters are out and the intelligent lobsters are ready to take over.

Most people tend to think that my lobster theory is nuts, and I along with it. Even if I am, this article should scare you. Lobsters are getting themselves caught and frozen, then coming back to life. If I were truly nuts, I would think this was the first wave of crustacean spies scoping out the surf 'n' turf ahead of the marine assault. Good thing I'm not nuts.

I'll take "Things Presidential Candidates Said Without Realizing They Were Near Live Microphones" for $100, Alex.

John Kerry: "These are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen, it's scary."

George W. Bush: "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times."

Please note that the House just voted to raise the fine for using a term related to sexual or excretory functions on over-the-air broadcasts (things you can pick up with bunny ears or a radio) between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. to $500,000.

Not that I am saying I think what John Kerry said was any better, particularly if the group in question can prove they are not crooked liars and if Kerry can get his pronouns to agree with his antecedents. "Group" is a singular noun no matter how many people are in the group, so Kerry should have said "This is the most crooked, you know, lying group..." unless he was referring to more than one group of people, in which case "These are the most crooked...groups..." would be correct.

However, grammar aside, now that they've both inadvertently said something indiscreet into a live microphone, we'll just call this a point where no one has the moral high ground.

The Mailbag..

My mom forwarded the following email, very closely related to something over at Mr. Grooism a few weeks back (right here):
"Sounds like a good diet to me
Can't eat beef........mad cow.
Can't eat chicken...... bird flu
Can't eat eggs...... again, bird flu
Can't eat pork.....fears that bird flu will infect piggies
Can't eat fish....... heavy metals in the waters has poisoned their meat
Can't eat fruits and veggies....... insecticides and herbicides
Hmmmm! I believe that leaves Chocolate!"

That would be the answer to all our dietary quandaries, except that, as noted here by Reuters, the cocoa tree is being ravaged by a fungus that threatens to endanger the world's cocoa supply. This bring me back to what I wrote Larry after he posted the about vampire cows, which was in essence: "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow, they will find that everything we eat, drink, and do to be merry including breathing will kill us."

Let's not forget that venison is now in danger of a form of Mad Deer disease, and that the last couple outbreaks of food poisoning were traced to contaminated vegetables. Can Emu Flu and Mad Bison be far behind?

Thought for the Day...

"If you never encounter anything in your community that offends you, you don't live in a free society."
-Former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Cambell, on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher

Speaking of being excommunicated...

The Boston Archdiocese is holding the line on no meat on Fridays during Lent, even though Fenway Park's opening game falls on Good Friday this year. (Click Here). On the Christian holiday commemorating the ultimate sacrifice, Boston's Catholic baseball fans will have to sacrifice a hot dog. The spokesman for the archdiocese said it was very insensitive to Catholic fans to schedule opening day on a day when they couldn't eat a hot dog. No mention of how insensitive it is to the hot dog vendors, who are the real victims of this decision.

Grooism of the Day...

As we all know by now, to Groo is to commit an act so stupid that one's brain cells commit suicide out of the sheer embarrassment of being associated with synapses that would do that.

My remaining brain cells are popping their cyanide capsules as we speak. Today, my boss asked me to get the email address an phone number of a certain person who works at the Ohio State Medical Board. Taking the logical approach, I called the general switchboard number for the Board, which connects to a dial-by-name directory. No one ever answers their phone at the Medical Board, so I was prepared to leave a message when I finally navigated to the right voicemail box. Just my luck, the person I was looking for actually answered his phone. A bit flustered, I proceeded to ask for the requested information. He spelled out his email address carefully, and about the phone number simply said, "well, you called me."

Yes, some part of my brain actually executed the command, "Call this person and ask for his phone number." I think those neurons are being excommunicated.

Yeah, right...

The government delusions spread. The Department of Health and Human Services is trying to fight obesity by encouraging us to take baby steps to be more active and eat better, thus losing weight. (Click Here). The Ad Council, who brought us Smokey the Bear and "Loose Lips Sink Ships," has ads out touting "small steps" to fighting obesity: snack on fruits and veggies, take the stairs instead of the escalator at the mall, and take a walk down the beach. If only losing double chins, tummy paunch, and love handles were as easy as these ads make it sound. I've tried snacking on fruits and vegetables. The only place I lost weight was in my checkbook.

What are they smoking at the Mint?...

The U.S. Mint seems to be have some serious attention span issues. I could deal with the 50-state quarter thing. It was kind of cute and took a bit of the drudgery out of the laundromat with the prospect of maybe getting a new state quarter out of the change machine. But since last Wednesday, they've decided to replace Monticello with a seal commemorating the Louisiana Purchase on the nickel, and are bandying about the idea of replacing Sacajawea on the dollar coin with all the presidents from Washington to Nixon in order of appearance, including Grover Cleveland twice. Why Nixon? You can't put anyone alive on a coin (or a postage stamp, which proves that Elvis is dead).

Couldn't they give us a week's downtime between redesigning our currency? One would think that these constant revampings would make counterfeiting easier as we, the general public, lose track of what our money is supposed to look like? It's not like we see enough of it to keep track of all the changes.

Fun Birthday Facts...

I'm in charge of the "on the day you were born" section of my new niece's baby book.

Emilia was born on the day I got the following:
-a campaign solicitation for a defunct political campaign
-my first Tony Packos hot dog and deep-fried pickle, at the original Tony Packos.
-a flat tire
-multivitamins
-the urge to throttle an entire Girl Scout troop selling cookies inside the mall as if they were at the Cairo bazaar, by yelling "Girl Scout cookies, $3 a box!" every 15 seconds.

None of that really fits in the context of a baby book. I'm just glad the top movie this week wasn't The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something like that.

Very Special Birthday...

Happy Birthday, Emilia Larsen! My niece arrived at 6:35 p.m. Pacific Time today.

D'Oh!

My father once told me that if there was an easy way and a hard way to do something, I would find a third, even more difficult way. Case in point:

Volvo just rolled out a new concept car at the Geneva Auto Show (Click here). I was listening to the story on NPR this morning on the way to work, and this afternoon, I told Elie all about the new, woman-driver-friendly features of the car: low maintenance, headrest shaped to accommodate ponytails, and sensors that will park the car for you. However, the feature I was most excited about was the adjustable heel rest that makes driving in high heels easier. I explained to Elie the geometry of why driving in heels is difficult, and considering that I drive mostly to and from work in heels, the adjustable heel rest would be a really great feature to have in a car. I probably went on for a good five minutes before Elie asked, "why don't you just wear your sneakers to drive?"

In the cartoon version of my life, I am still slapping my forehead.

Too Little, Too Late...

Congratulations to John Kerry, who is no longer the most insulting Democratic presidential candidate of this election cycle. I just received a letter from Clark '04 For President. It is insulting not because it came 4 days after the primaries, nor because it is a form letter that came in a window envelope while the other candidates at least had the courtesy to have a campaign volunteer hand-address the envelope and write a short note. I'm not even so much bothered by the fact that the Wesley Clark campaign did not even acknowledge the question I asked (how his tax plan benefits families with no children), much less try to avoid giving an answer. No the insulting thing is that all he sent with the generic form letter was a "contributor card" to facilitate my donation to his campaign. I just asked for some more information to make an informed judgment about my vote, and instead of receiving information, I was hit up for cash for a campaign that ended 3 weeks ago. John Kerry just rose a notch.

Better Late Than Never?

John Kerry's campaign wrote me back. The cover letter is dated March 1, and the envelope is postmarked March 3. Too bad I voted March 2.

The campaign sent me the standard list of Kerry's platform, headlined "A Real Deal: One Hundred Days to Change America," a one-page bio of Kerry, and a nifty form letter thanking me for my suggestion to the campaign. Scrawled across the bottom of the form letter is the note, "Sorry for the delayed response. You wouldn't believe the amount of mail we receive daily. Your comment about domestic violence was helpful. Here is some more info about Senator Kerry."

The Kerry Campaign loses points for the following:
-assigning campaign volunteers with atrocious penmanship to write notes to supporters
-assuming I support Kerry, when in fact the entire point of the letter was that I was not sure I supported him
-not even pretending to answer the question I asked
-lack of timely response
-making excuses for lack of timely response, based on volume of mail

I think I would have felt better about Kerry if he hadn't written back at all. I'd rather be ignored than patronized.

Generation Labels...

Click here to see why we call them The Greatest Generation.

I think this goes without comment.

The Bush Perspective...

Allowing a marriage involving only one gender is bad. (Click Here)

Allowing public schools involving only one gender is good. (Click here) You'll need the NYT registration for that, but you all are already registered or you would have given up reading Penguin Perspectives long ago.

Actually, this is an entirely consistent viewpoint, based on the principle that it is OK to exclude one group from something just as long as "substantially equal" opportunities are granted to the excluded group. Has anyone mentioned to the White House that the Supreme Court blew down that argument 50 years ago this May?

From the Suggestion Box...

Karen has suggested that, given my track record with presidential candidates, the best thing I could do now is to throw my support behind Bush. I seem to be worse for a candidacy than an endorsement from Al Gore.

Super Tuesday Live Primary Blogging...

Well, triple crap. I threw my support behind Howard Dean and he dropped out two weeks later. I considered voting for Al Sharpton, just to find out he never even dropped into Ohio's primary, much less out. John Edwards has dropped out of the race a matter of hours after I gave up my independent voter status to do vote for him. I seem to be going 3 for 3. They're dropping out faster than I can support them. I feel like a used Kleenex.

I'm turning off the news. Wolf Blitzer is getting on my nerves.

Crap and Double Crap...

I finally decided to vote for Al Sharpton, only to get to my polling place and find Al Sharpton wasn't even on the ballot. So I went with Choice #2, John Edwards. CNN just called Ohio for John Kerry.

On the bright side, this means I can now complain no matter who ends up winning in November. I won't start on the media's impact on primaries.

Special Birthday...

I wish we could do what they do in Katroo.
They sure know how to say "Happy Birthday to you!"
In Katroo every year on the day you were born
They start they day right in the bright early morn
When the birthday honk-honker hikes high up Mount Zorn
And lets loose a long blast on the big birthday horn.
And the voice of the horn cries out loud as it plays,
"Wake up, for today is your day of all days!"
(from Happy Birthday to You, by Dr. Seuss)

Unfortunately for the world, Dr. Seuss will not wake up for today, his 100th Day of All Days in Katroo, having died in 1991. However, next week, he gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is in line for a postage stamp.

There is good Seuss news, though on this Seussentenial. A New York Times article quotes Mrs. Geisel, overseer of Seuss Enterprises, as saying, "Let's just say after `The Cat in the Hat' film experience we've decided not to go with live actors."

For anyone interested in the grown-up side of Dr. Seuss, I recommend Dr. Seuss Goes To War, a collection of his political cartoons from WWII. After seeing the stack of turtles with the turtle caricature of Hitler at the top, you will never look at Yertle the same way again.

Mailbag...

Today, the mail brought my Mastercard bill, a circular for MP3 players, and a magazine. No word from the Edwards or Kerry campaigns. An email to Al Sharpton's campaign also remains unanswered. Makes me think no one wants me to vote for them.

Where's Waldo?

I used to be quite good at the Where's Waldo? books. Today, I found Waldo again, and I wasn't even looking. Actually, I was looking for Toledo, but I Grooed.

To Groo, if you are unfamiliar with the term, is to commit an act so unspeakably stupid that your remaining brain cells commit suicide out of sheer embarrassment, from this character. I had to go to a meeting in Columbus, Ohio, this morning, which is a bit over 2 1/2 hour's drive from my house. No problem. I went to www.mapquest.com, printed their handy driving directions from my door to the location of my meeting, broke out my blazer and business pantyhose, and even dug up a legal pad to take notes on instead of my usual spiral notebooks. Not until after the meeting did I realize I had neglected one very important bit of preparation: I had no directions to get home. Still, not a problem, I thought. I can just reverse the directions I used to get there and take 71 North to 570 West to 23 North to 15 East to 75 North to 475 North. That plan worked for about 3 miles. About 20 miles past what should have been my first highway interchange, it became painfully obvious that the exit I should have taken was not labeled as 570 West. Ten more miles later, I finally found an offramp, which came handily equipped with a truck stop where a very nice woman gave me directions to get back on track by cruising through Edison, Mt. Gilead, and Waldo, Ohio. Which brings me to my next Lesson Learned The Hard Way: nothing makes you stick out in a truck stop like wearing a business suit.