The Jammer-centric view of the universe

Looks like we could dump Specter

2009-03-25T07:51:00.002-04:00

This Post-Gazette article gives me hope. If we could retire RINO Arlen Specter this next election, Pennsylvania would be all the better for it.

Longtime Sen. Arlen Specter is trailing a Republican rival in the race for the 2010 Senate seat, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll released this morning.

Mr. Specter trails former Congressman Pat Toomey, 41 to 27 percent, the poll said. Twenty-eight percent are undecided, however.

Of course, that means we'd have two junior senators here in PA, but I'm willing to accept that.

Good news from the administration

2009-02-20T20:21:00.001-05:00

My previous post about taxation based on mileage driven has been kaiboshed by President Obama.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Obama administration will not support a policy of taxing drivers based on their mileage, the Transportation Department said Friday after a published interview in which Secretary Ray LaHood called it an idea "we should look at."

In a written statement, the department said, "The policy of taxing motorists based on how many miles they have traveled is not and will not be Obama administration policy."

Okay, so just pretend I didn't say anything.

Taxing you by the mile is a terrible idea

2009-02-20T08:44:00.002-05:00

But that's what they have in mind, folks. Since gasoline tax revenues are way down, the government has to find other methods to fund road projects.

WASHINGTON - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.

This whole sad saga is based on a dumb idea from the start. In my opinion, any time you build government spending around a so-called "established habit" of human beings, you better be prepared for the day when that habit changes. Americans finally got smart when the oil prices shot through the roof last year, and now they're driving less. And with new technologies like Nissan's 100-mile range all-electric car, we'll be buying even fewer gallons of gasoline. Which begs the question: What is their plan for 30 years from now when electric cars are more the norm than the exception?

But the part of that article that really gets my blood boiling is how they're going to monitor your mileage:

A tentative plan in Massachusetts to use GPS chips in vehicles to charge motorists by the mile has drawn complaints from drivers who say it's an Orwellian intrusion by government into the lives of citizens. Other motorists say it eliminates an incentive to drive more fuel-efficient cars since gas guzzlers will be taxed at the same rate as fuel sippers.

The first person who comes to my door with one of these GPS modules for my car will find themselves at odds with my Second Amendment rights.

So what's the solution to all this madness? I have two ideas.

First, user fees. We already pay $36 per year to license our cars in Pennsylvania. Why not tack a little more onto that? And if you have to make toll road or two, so be it. Just don't turn the entire nation into New Jersey.

Second, make mass transit riders pay their fair share. I work in Pittsburgh, which has free bus transit from point to point within the downtown area. Make those people pay a buck or two and put that into the coffers. Some of that might fix our Port Authority trouble as well. The fares have been too cheap for too long.

A true sign of the Apocalypse

2009-02-11T18:41:00.002-05:00

Now I know we're in trouble: The penultimate purveyor of elevator music is about to go south.

(CNN) -- Muzak, the company that put pop, string-filled arrangements of rock songs in your elevator, filed bankruptcy papers Tuesday after it missed a $105 million payment to creditors.

The pipeline of easy listening will continue to flow as Muzak restructures its debt during the Chapter 11 process, the company said.

"Muzak is a solid business with an outstanding customer base, but we are burdened with substantial debt obligations established over a decade ago," Muzak CEO Stephen Villa said.

Muzak's cash flows doubled in the last three years, Villa said, "demonstrating that our business continues to perform well even in today's challenging environment."

Apparently America is dead

2009-02-11T08:30:00.002-05:00

If you watched Obama's town hall meeting yesterday, you heard some amazing things, and I'm not talking at all about what Obama had to say.

I'm referring strictly to the questions asked by members of the audience, like Henrietta the homeless woman who lives in a car with her son, or Julio the 4-year McDonald's employee and college student who isn't happy with the benefits he gets from that job.

Neither of these two folks are truly representative of the whole of America and Americans, but the world will see them that way, and I'm sickened by it.

Let me get an important point out of the way first. There is nothing funny about homelessness. I'm sure it's heart-breaking for those people, and when I see them walking around or sleeping on sidewalks, I do truly feel very badly for those folks. Unfortunately it's not within my power at the moment to help them beyond the occasional dollar or two when they ask. Maybe some day it will be. Until that time comes, I will continue give regularly to the United Way through our company's fund drives. I also make out-of-pocket donations to several local charities when I'm able.

However, if you're homeless and you just languish in it without attempting to help yourself, what can I do for you? Most of the people I see panhandling here in Pittsburgh are able-bodied individuals. The guy who sits on the jersey barrier at the stoplight at Rt. 28 and Ninth Street looks like he could hoist bricks or unload trucks. He doesn't limp and he has all his limbs. Maybe Henrietta isn't in that boat but there are people out there who do things that don't require a strong back. Jobs like receptionist or secretary come to mind.

As for Julio, I have some sympathy as well. I remember working at McDonald's as a high school kid and just after dropping out of college. In both cases it seemed to me that the dream of owning my own car and having a place of my own to hang my hat were just beyond reach, and maddeningly so. But I told myself over and over that my time at that job was only temporary. I knew in my heart that $3.15/hour (minimum wage plus, in 1989) was good but not great, adequate for now but certainly not a career move. There was more coming down the road to me because I knew I was a smart kid with something to offer the world.

And I was right about that. Flunking out of college was a swift kick to the head: my father kicked me out of the house and I wound up living with a friend and her two kids, and between the four of us, we could barely afford the rent. And if you saw some of the places we lived, you'd think maybe Henrietta had it right (one place had no ceiling in the living room and there was a foot of water in the basement).

When Dad told me to pack my stuff and leave, I was angry at him for it. I was a petulant child with about as much maturity as I now see in my own 3-year-old. But Dad was exactly right, and looking back now I can see that it was absolutely the best thing he could have done for me. If he'd let me stay, he would have been an "enabler", and maybe I'd still be living in his basement at age 37. So Dad, when you said "someday you'll thank me for this", you were exactly right.

After enduring a few years of that, I turned it around. I worked a few more crappy jobs in places that were closer and closer to my chosen career path and eventually landed a job building computers and writing software for a very small company at a measly $20,000 per year. I still had a broken-down Ford Tempo and I shared an apartment with another young guy at work. My situation wasn't kingly, but it was certainly improving: in six years I had more than tripled my yearly salary. And I did it entirely on my own.

The next fourteen years saw stellar improvement and I can tell you that I'm pretty happy with my career to this point. I'm a home owner with a small family and two cars that are paid off.

What's the point of those last few self-congratulatory paragraphs? It's this:

If I can do it, why can't Julio or Henrietta?

The folks who endured the Great Depression and World War II did pretty much the same thing I did with much less than I ever had. I don't feel worthy to cast myself into their group by saying we shared a plight but I can tell you that the America I used to live in was full of people like this. People who understood that they were assets to the world and that the only guaranteed way to achieve anything is to go and get it yourself.

You can trace that quality all the way back to the pioneers and the folks who carved homesteads out of the wilderness here a few hundred years ago. And unfortunately, from what I'm seeing, you can find the end of that thread here in the early days of the 21st century.

Finding the silver lining in the recession

2009-02-10T12:06:00.002-05:00

First gas prices return to near-normal levels, and now this: illegal immigrants are fleeing the U.S. in droves.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Pedro Pablo slowly folds up his American flag blanket and stuffs it in his duffel bag. With it goes his American dream.

"I left my family and lost four years with them. I will ask them to forgive me," he said.

Pablo is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who came to the United States to support his wife and five sons back home. When he arrived, construction jobs were plentiful. Over the last year, he says, he's worked three days.

He recently boarded a bus with a one-way ticket home, paid for by the Guatemalan consulate in Los Angeles. "I thought I could get ahead here. I regret coming."

So maybe destroying the economy was all we needed to do. It's like chemotherapy - give the patient poisons and chemicals until the cancer dies off.

All I'm waiting for now is the outcry from pro-illegal alien groups. It's coming.

The Canonization of Obama

2009-01-27T21:14:00.003-05:00

I don't know how much more of this I can take. At first, the media adulation would just give me a chuckle, but now you can buy CNN headline orgasms on a goddamned T-shirt!

A friend of mine laughs whenever I claim media bias and I never have a good example on hand to show him. Until now.

Balls. Big shiny ones.

2008-12-12T07:25:00.002-05:00

Our armed forces are paid to do two things really well: kill people and break things. Oh sure, they do good humanitarian work along the way and sometimes are asked to help out with disasters when Mother Nature gets pissed, but their primary mission is to eliminate threats to this country. Most folks forget that with what Roger Waters calls the "bravery of being out of range".

One group of Special Forces soldiers had bravery but were very clearly in range, and now ten of them are being awarded the Silver Star for their actions in an unbelievable battle in Afghanistan.

A harrowing, nearly seven-hour battle unfolded on that mountainside in Afghanistan's Nuristan province on April 6, as Walton, his team and a few dozen Afghan commandos they had trained took fire from all directions. Outnumbered, the Green Berets fought on even after half of them were wounded — four critically — and managed to subdue an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents, according to interviews with several team members and official citations.

Today, Walton and nine of his teammates from Operational Detachment Alpha 3336 of the 3rd Special Forces Group will receive the Silver Star for their heroism in that battle — the highest number of such awards given to the elite troops for a single engagement since the Vietnam War.

...snip...

"We were pretty much in the open, there were no trees to hide behind," said Morales, who with Walton pulled Behr back to their position. Morales cut open Behr's fatigues and applied pressure to his bleeding hip, even though Morales himself had been shot in the right thigh. A minute later, Morales was hit again, in the ankle, leaving him struggling to treat himself and his comrade, he said. Absent any cover, Walton moved the body of the dead Afghan interpreter to shield the wounded.

...snip...

As Ford and Staff Sgt. John Wayne Walding returned fire, Walding was hit below his right knee. Ford turned and saw that the bullet "basically amputated his right leg right there on the battlefield."

Walding, of Groesbeck, Tex., recalled: "I literally grabbed my boot and put it in my crotch, then got the boot laces and tied it to my thigh, so it would not flop around. There was about two inches of meat holding my leg on." He put on a tourniquet, watching the blood flow out the stump to see when it was tight enough.

Un-frigging-believable these guys are. I would have been crying like a little girl with a skinned knee. Damned glad (and proud) we have guys like this on our side.

This is delicious

2008-12-08T11:43:00.002-05:00

Sounds like some Lefties have buyer's remorse now with Barack Obama.

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Did anyone really believe he (or any candidate for that matter) was going to give you all he said he would? Campaign promises are made from the cheap seats, and once the daily briefings kick in after the general election, the President-elect always gets a sobering wake up call about the state of the nation.

But it is delicious to see this happen, given the euphoria over his election and the near-orgasmic joy that emanated from the liberal media outlets when he was elected.

In this day and age?

2008-12-03T15:54:00.002-05:00

I think it's a total load of crap that the election has been over for nearly a month and there's still no winner in the Coleman/Franken race in Minnesota.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Democrat Al Franken caught a couple of breaks Tuesday as the recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race drew closer to a finish, though not enough to undo Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's persistent lead.

As Ramsey County wrapped up its recount, officials there discovered and tallied 171 ballots that weren't counted on election night. Franken gained 37 votes on Coleman's lead.

Coleman led by 215 votes out of 2.9 million cast before the recount. The lead has bounced up and down since the recount began, but the exact margin is difficult to know because both sides have put thousands of ballots in limbo through challenges. The disputed ballots won't be sorted out until a canvassing board meeting that begins Dec. 16.

Why is it so frigging difficult to computerize and automate the voting process? You can go on the Internet and order black rubber dildos in any quantity you like these days but when it comes to choosing an elected official, you may as well forget it.

We ask ourselves every day why it is that manufacturing and innovation has left this country and gone overseas. Look no further than examples like this for your answer.

Somebody 'splain this to me

2008-11-14T11:04:00.002-05:00

Rick Santorum (former Republican U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania) most likely voted for John McCain this past election. The guy lost. We all know this, and there's nothing that anyone can do about that.

And yet, Mr. and Mrs. Santorum's absentee ballots are being challenged on the grounds that they're not actually residents of Penn Hills.

Round two of Vecchio versus Santorum takes place today at the Allegheny County elections offices, with the former senator's Nov. 5 absentee ballot under challenge by a Penn Hills couple determined to prove that he doesn't live there.

In one corner are Rick and Karen Santorum, who list a legal address in Penn Hills but have resided in northern Virginia. The former U.S. senator declines to say precisely where in hopes of warding off his enemies.

In the other corner is Ed Vecchio who, with his wife, Penn Hills Democratic Chairwoman Erin Vecchio, tried two years ago to prevent the Santorums from voting in Penn Hills, saying they don't really reside there and that the home they own in that municipality was rented to another family.

This time the Santorums voted absentee. Ed Vecchio said he paid $10 apiece to challenge each ballot.

As ever, each side has only the warmest of feelings.

"Let him prove it otherwise. The guy's a weasel," said Mr. Vecchio.

And I ask you: so what? What purpose does it serve to remove two votes from an election that can't be re-decided anyway? And is Mr. Vecchio tracking down any other ballots from folks he finds to be undesirable? I'd be willing to bet that I'm right on the answer to that last question.

I think it's pretty plain who the weasel is here. Hope you get your twenty bucks' worth, Ed.

Good enough for the goose

2008-11-11T16:11:00.002-05:00

Shook his hand. Had photos taken with him. Presented him with a custom Steeler jersey. But apparently they don't like his policies all that much:

Four Rooney brothers are working on details of an agreement to sell their shares to brother Dan Rooney and his son, Art II, and to get NFL approval by the end of the year.

...snip...

The brothers want to have a sales agreement and get NFL approval for it by the end of 2008 because of the extra tax consequences they believe will be introduced retroactively to the beginning of 2009 by the new Obama presidential administration and Congress.

This is an odd stance to take now. Where was your anti-tax stance a month ago?

Another article that seems oddly timed

2008-11-06T19:21:00.002-05:00

This article on CNN is oddly timed, just like the last one I reported. Three days ago, it was taboo to talk about Mr. Bush in anything other than a bad light. Now this piece says that maybe, just maybe, he'll be viewed more positively as Obama transitions into the Oval Office.

Again, where was this sort of thing two weeks ago?

And they wonder why we cry "bias!"

2008-11-06T18:38:00.002-05:00

Where was this article during the election? I'll tell you where: sitting on someone's desk because it would cast Republicans in general (and McCain in particular) in a positive light. You may think that's crazy but since the Left was busy painting McCain to be George W. Bush's evil twin, this kind of news needed to stay in the desk drawer until it could do no good for anyone.

Headline: Bush admin. makes immigration strides in 2008

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government arrested and deported record numbers of illegal immigrants — nearly 350,000 — in the past year, authorities say. It has also naturalized a record number of new Americans during the same time period, more than 1 million. Bush administration officials consider these to be great accomplishments within a system that President-elect Obama calls "broken and overwhelmed" on his transition Web site.

Had this article seen the light of day two weeks ago, there would have been something else to talk about during the campaign. And that something just might have been good for the Conservative movement. We can't have that, can we?

A company with (Christmas) balls

2008-10-24T07:15:00.005-04:00

It's nearing that time of year again - Christmas music playing on the radio and in the stores, halloween decorations being replaced with pilgrims and turkeys and then eventually reindeer and sleighs. As a kid, I lived for these holidays, especially after spending hours drooling over the Sears and JCPenney catalogs.

Now that I'm an adult (opinions vary on that point), Christmas has lost a little of its charm for me. The presents under the tree for me are more practical gifts like pants and socks, and I gave up the catalog daydreams a long time ago. All of the joy in Christmas that really remains for me is the sparkle in my kids' eyes when they open presents on Christmas morning. And I'm okay with that.

However, what I'm not okay with is the annual anti-Christmas movement that goes on all around the country. Companies and organizations have been distancing themselves from the holiday by not using words like Christmas in their ads and events. Never mind the fact that without Christmas, they'd have no holiday shopping rush (who really is out there doing last-minute Kwanzaa or Hanukkah shopping?).

They say it's not inclusive enough. Non-Christians will be offended. I don't really understand this mindset - I was never offended over my Jewish friend's holidays, and Kwanzaa wasn't something I'd ever heard about until the last few years.

But every now and then, something beautiful happens. Something that reminds me that I'm not alone in feeling this way. Something like this:

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. - A famed fireworks company is pulling out of a holiday boat parade because "Christmas" was dropped from the event's name.

Fireworks by Grucci won't lend its sparkle to Patchogue's Nov. 23 parade — decorated yachts on the Patchogue River — because the organizers have renamed it the Patchogue Holiday Boat Parade. It was the Patchogue Christmas Boat Parade last year, when the Grucci company donated $5,000 worth of fireworks.

The company's vice president, Philip Butler, who has criticized the secularization of Christmas in the past, said parade organizers were "using all the themes of Christmas and plagiarizing all those themes."

Bravo, I say. This is a move that puts the lie to the notion of greedy corporate America. Mr. Butler has principles and has made a stand, profit be damned. I doubt you'll hear any liberals complimenting him on it though.

As a consumer, I'm not really a direct customer of a company like Grucci, but if I was on a town committee that organizes fireworks displays, I'd definitely consider throwing them our business.

So this December, have yourself a Merry Christmas, and if that offends you, tough shit. I'll wish it for you anyway.

Static cling to go with my guns and religion

2008-10-16T15:09:00.002-04:00

How this asshole keeps getting elected in Pennsylvania is beyond me. Today he tells the Post-Gazette that there's "no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area".

Of course he apologized later:

(CNN) -- Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, a supporter of Barack Obama's presidential bid, apologized Thursday for calling western Pennsylvania "a racist area."

"While we cannot deny that race is a factor in this election, I believe we've been able to look beyond race these past few months, and that voters today are concerned with the policy differences of our two candidates and their vision for the future of our great country," he said in a statement issued by his office.

"Senator Obama has shown sound judgment and has presented us with a change from the failed policies of George Bush and John McCain. I believe he will win both Pennsylvania and the White House."

Murtha represents Pennsylvania's 12th District in the southwest corner of the state.

Murtha's apology came after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted a story on its Web site Wednesday that quotes the veteran Democratic congressman as saying, "no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area," and predicting that those attitudes could cost the Illinois senator on Election Day.

I don't know if you can really call that an apology, just like I'm not sure you can really call him a human being, even if he decides to apologize to the Marines involved in the Haditha case.

Finding the silver lining

2008-10-02T14:40:00.002-04:00

Apparently the current financial crisis does indeed have a bright side.

(CNN) -- The flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States has slowed in the past three years, a major think tank reported Thursday.

The Pew Hispanic Center report cites no statistical reasons for the decreased rate. It notes the U.S. economy has suffered a downturn and greater immigration enforcement measures have been enacted, which a Pew survey "indicates has generated worry among many Hispanics."

That's one way to put the brakes on the illegal alien issue. Set Wall Street afire and the border problem seems to dry up. I wish someone would have thought of this sooner.

Who didn't see this coming?

2008-08-05T07:09:00.002-04:00

A teenager in Thailand has killed a taxi driver in an attempt to emulate what he'd see in the Grand Theft Auto video game.

Police said the youth, an obsessive player of "Grand Theft Auto," showed no sign of mental problems during questioning and had confessed to committing the crime because of the game.

"He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," chief police investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak told Reuters.

The youth, described by his parents as polite and diligent, was arrested late on Saturday after he was found trying to steer a cab backwards out of a Bangkok street with the severely wounded driver in the back seat, newspapers reported.

I found out pretty quickly that my 2-year-old will mimic anything she sees or hears on TV, so it doesn't surprise me that someone out there would take it this far.

Makes me wanna play with my Wii

2008-07-11T21:58:00.002-04:00

I don't have one yet, but makes me want to run out and buy one.

And if I can find one, I'll pick up a Nintendo Wii too.

Unbelievable story of cruelty

2008-06-16T08:31:00.003-04:00

If this guy makes it into the justice system, it will prove to me that there is no justice in the system.

TURLOCK, California (AP) -- Police killed a 27-year-old man as he kicked, punched and stomped a toddler to death despite other people's attempts to stop him on a dark, country road, authorities said.

Investigators on Sunday were trying to establish the relationship between the suspect and the child they say he killed Saturday night. The Stanislaus County coroner said the boy appeared to be between 1 and 2 years old based on his size, according to county sheriff's deputy Royjindar Singh.

I've been seeing entirely too many stories about death and injury to small children. I become physically ill and filled with rage when headlines like this come into view.

People who do this sort of thing should not be allowed to draw another breath.

Even more stone age society news

2008-04-30T07:51:00.002-04:00

A six-year-old girl, walking a path that is traditionally reserved for a higher class of citizen, was acosted by a teen ager and thrown onto a fire because she didn't deserve to take that path.

(CNN) -- A man, incensed that a six-year-old girl chose to walk through a path reserved for upper caste villagers, pushed her into burning embers, police in north India said Wednesday. She was seriously burned.

The girl is a Dalit, or an "untouchable," according to India's traditional caste system.

India's constitution outlaws caste-based discrimination, and barriers have broken down in large cities. Prejudice, however, persists in some rural areas of the country.

The girl was walking with her mother down a path in the city of Mathura when she was accosted by a man in his late teens, said police superintendent R.K. Chaturvedi.

The sooner we rid the world of silly notions like castes, the happier we'll all be.

This is what's wrong with America

2008-03-27T08:02:00.002-04:00

This week, I have twice had the occasion to hit a fast food restaurant for lunch. In both cases I didn't get what I ordered, and the food was anything but fast. Total time waiting in line for these two trips amounted to almost twenty five minutes. In the first case it was a completely different hamburger, and the second time I received a someone else's order entirely.

This morning, my car pool buddy related a story to me about his attempts to find mudflaps for his new pickup truck. He went to a big-box auto parts store and asked them to look up the mud flaps he needed. The items they sold him were not correct, so he took them back and had them look again. This time they ordered him a set that took two days to arrive. When he picked them up, they were identical to the set he had just returned.

Stories like this in my memory are too numerous to mention. I'm sure you have some as well.

I've done quite a bit of thinking on this recently. In my opinion, what this all amounts to is a total lack of competence by my fellow man. People these days just aren't capable of thinking on their feet, or they aren't interested in trying. There's no reach for excellence, no desire to attain a level of proficiency. Folks are just watching the clock and hoping that they won't have to deal with customers, or are just doing the bare minimum to satisfy the situation and move on. It's as if the entire service industry has ADHD.

For my own situation, I admit that I'm no top expert in my field. I'm a web developer in a large firm that moves slowly and adopts technology a lot later than some of its peers. If I stayed even with that pace, I'd be so far behind the current state of technology that I'd be no better than some of the COBOL programmers I know. To avoid that, I read voraciously, buy books and software continuously and attend classes in new technology, and I do this on my own time and with my own money. Show me the same level of initiative in an employee of any fast-food restaurant or big box department store. I dare you.

Some will argue that this is because those folks are minimum wage earners. That may be part of it, but I would counter with the notion that the minimum wage was never meant to be a life-sustaining level of income. Jobs that pay the minimum were meant to be training positions, occupations that teenagers could work as their first jobs so they could start to build a work ethic and learn the value of a dollar. Nowadays I see a lot of 25 to 40-year-olds working in menial jobs for the bare minimum, and they're no damned good at it.

To make matters worse, the minimum wage keeps going up, which forces companies to hire fewer (and perhaps older and hopefully more dedicated) people. This squeezes the teenagers out, and the work ethic isn't being instilled in them at all. It's become an old joke in America; the boy behind the counter of the burger joint with a glassy-eyed stare and slack jaw.

I've grown tired of it all, and I'm very afraid for the future of my daughter and my unborn son. The empty persons that she will encounter in her lifetime will be far more numerous than they are today. How can I fix that? What can I do to help her understand that she is the only person she can really rely on?

For my part, I am resolved to raise her with a firm but gentle hand. My children will understand that giving a 75% effort in anything is unacceptable. This will be a difficult task because I can't guarantee that their peers won't be the same sort of misfits I'll be warning them about.

But as I see it, this is all I can do.

The system failed this young man and us

2008-02-16T09:27:00.003-05:00

This week, a gunman left six people dead at Northern Illinois University.

DEKALB, Ill. - Steven Kazmierczak's quiet, dependable and fun-loving exterior masked troubling details from his past that emerged as a stunned community struggled to understand what caused the 27-year-old to open fire on a class at Northern Illinois University, leaving six people dead.

A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications.

He also had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he didn't show up for work. He was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he'd gotten a psychological discharge.

The article goes on to indicate that Kazmierczak had a medical discharge from the Army based upon his psychological condition. Reading on we discover the he was still legally permitted to purchase and own firearms. They only did a criminal background check on him and his state-issued firearms permit background check probably didn't uncover any anomalies with his mental history.

My question on that is simply why not?

When I applied for my firearms permit, they did exhaustive checks on me and then called all of my references. I was at my best friend's house when the sheriff's office called to ask him if he felt safe in the knowledge that I might be carrying a gun. That experience made me confident that the Pennsylvania system was at least making the attempt to ensure that guns aren't being carried by complete lunatics.

My beef here is three-fold:

First, a person with a known history of mental problems was still able to purchase and own firearms. I'm a Second Amendment and firearm supporter but I do acknowledge that there are segments of society that should probably not be allowed to possess guns, the mentally infirmed being among them.

Second, incidents like this tend to give the law-abiding gun enthusiasts a black eye, one which we generally seem powerless to prevent. Sure, we have the NRA on our side, but they're already tainted with the perception that they're the front group for a bunch of gun-toting extremists. The end result of this shooting and others like it is that the media will concentrate only on the guns and by extension the rest of us who keep ours in a peaceful and law-abiding manner.

Finally, institutions like this university tend to prohibit firearms anywhere on their campus, and if just one person in the classroom had been lawfully carrying a concealed weapon, there may not be six people dead in Illinois right now. It's the liberal anti-gun establishment that should be required to shoulder at least some of the responsibility for the lack of protection these six young people received.

I work with some strange people

2008-02-11T16:02:00.000-05:00

I opened a package of Smarties at work today, and I offered one to a coworker. "Can I have two?" she asked. "Um, sure," I said, being that I was caught totally off guard by the request.

So curiosity gets the best of me and I asked her why she wanted two. Her response was that she always likes to eat two of something that small so that she can chew them on both sides of her mouth and wear her teeth out evenly.

I just don't know what else to say about that. It's funny on multiple levels, and most of them aren't fit to print here.

More lunacy from The Land of Fruits and Nuts

2008-02-08T13:14:00.001-05:00

The city of Berkeley is trying to kick the U.S. Marine recruiters out of their city.

(CNN) -- Berkeley, the famously liberal college town in California, has taken aim at Marine recruiters, saying they are "not welcome in our city."

Republican lawmakers in Washington fired back this week, threatening to take back more than $2 million of federal funding to the city as well as money designated for the University of California-Berkeley, the campus that became a haven of protests during the Vietnam War.

The battle erupted after the Berkeley City Council approved a measure last week urging the Marine recruiters to leave their downtown office.

"If recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders," the item says.

These folks are exercising their First Amendment rights to say whatever foolish thing they want to, and that's okay. It's amazing that the very people they're protesting against have been dying on foreign soil for over two hundred years to guarantee their right to sound like complete morons.

Now don't get me wrong. I understand the anti-war movement. Nobody likes war, and if they do, they need to be sent to fight in one immediately so they can see what fun it is. Robert E. Lee said famously that "it is well that war is so terrible - lest we should grow too fond of it." My only point is that beyond the combat that may occur while you're in the service, there's an awful lot of good that will come from military training if you apply yourself. Things like discipline, self respect and leadership skills come to mind.

I think the government should proceed with their plan to deprive Berkeley of every dollar of federal funding that they're currently receiving. And let's make sure every government-sponsored research project at U.C. Berkeley gets reassigned to some other institution.

Miracles do happen, whether you believe they're divine or not

2008-02-08T07:17:00.000-05:00

A baby in Tennessee was found alive a hundred yards from the remains of his house after a tornado destroyed it earlier this week.

His mother did not survive the tornado. Nor did fifty five other people who lived in the path of these dangerous storms.

Whether you believe in God or not, you still have to be in awe of whatever circumstances spared the life of this little boy.

More stone age society news

2008-01-30T07:34:00.000-05:00

Fishermen in Bangladesh beat a rare river dolphin to death because they'd never seen an animal like that before.

Scientists believe that hydrogen is numero uno but I've always maintained that stupidity is really the most common element in the universe. Incidents like this only serve to validate my theory.

Let's just hope and pray that the first extraterrestrials visiting Earth don't touch down in that part of the world. Otherwise we really will end up in an interstellar war like all the bad sci-fi movies would lead you to believe.

Stone-age societies still exist on planet Earth

2008-01-21T18:37:00.000-05:00

This article is unbelievable!

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Two years ago, a knock on Fatima and Mansour al-Timani's door shattered the life they had built together.

It was the police, delivering news that a judge had annulled their marriage in absentia after some of Fatima's relatives sought the divorce on grounds she had married beneath her.

This woman has been forced to live in jail with her two children, all because her relatives decided that her husband wasn't worthy of her.

Hell, I'm sure that goes for 90% of the males on the planet, folks. Myself included. But leave it to the Saudis to make it illegal.

God help us all if that sort of society becomes anything more than a minority in this country.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out

2008-01-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

The world is one gigantic mixed nuts jar for sure, but this asshole must be that large, unidentifiable nut that lives all by itself in every jar (for those of you with a peanut allergy, you can use the analogy that he's the blackened and burnt potato chip in every bag).

(CNN) -- On a videotape released Sunday, American al Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn renounces his U.S. citizenship, destroys his passport and cites U.S. President Bush's upcoming trip to the Middle East.

<snip>

"We raise an urgent appeal to our mujahedin brothers in the Muslim Palestine, the Arabian Peninsula in particular, and the region in general, to be prepared to receive the crusader butcher Bush on his visit to Muslim Palestine and the occupied peninsula at the beginning of January," he said. "They should receive him not with roses and applause, but with bombs and booby-traps."

Adam Yahiye Gadahn, also known as Azzam the American, is an American-born muslim raised in (you guessed it) California, or The Land of Fruits and Nuts as I like to refer to it.

But don't take my word for it. Go read his Wikipedia entry and decide for yourself whether this guy is a screwball.

Here's hoping someone finds a way to allow this guy to achieve room temperature just like the rest of his bomb-wearing brethren.

Don't think this will be covered by your standard $15 co-pay

2007-12-19T09:54:00.001-05:00

A little girl suffers a burst appendix on board a cruise ship and gets medical attention from the U.S. Navy.

The USS Ronald Reagan answered the disress call and steamed overnight almost 400 miles to get a helicopter within range to pick up the girl. Even then, the chopper had a 90-minute round trip plus time on-station to lift her off the ship.

Somehow, the standard $15 co-pay just doesn't seem to cover it, does it? Just looking at one of my recent insurance bills, I'm thinking hers would look a little like this:

1. Divert the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier (5,000+ crew members) and send it 325 miles to meet the ship. Billed by U.S. Navy: $1.5 million; paid by insurance: $2,500. Remainder written off and unbillable to patient.

2. Launch a helicopter with medical crew to airlift the girl from the ship (no landing pad). Billed by U.S. Navy: $15,000; paid by insurance: $975. Remainder written off and unbillable to patient.

3. Fly back to the Reagan and perform surgery. Billed by U.S. Navy: $31,500; paid by insurance: $9,750. Remainder written off and unbillable to patient.

Of course, this doesn't take hospitalization and prescriptions into account. Makes you glad you have coverage, doesn't it?

File under "what earthly reason"

2007-12-10T14:53:00.000-05:00

I'm having a little trouble understanding just what could be gained by asking Mike Huckabee if he'd retract his 1992 statement about quarantining AIDS patients. What's past is past. Mr. Huckabee makes no secret about his religious background (he's a former pastor, for crying out loud). Did anyone really expect a different answer?

In fact, I find it refreshing that he didn't recant. If I disagreed with him (which I don't), I'd like to think that I would at least respect his right to the opinion.

I wish I knew the whole story on this one

2007-06-12T19:46:00.000-04:00

Apparently a pair of pants is worth a helluva lot more money than any of us imagined.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A judge had to leave the courtroom with tears running down his face Tuesday after recalling the lost pair of trousers that led to his $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner.

Administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson had argued earlier in his opening statement that he is acting in the interest of all city residents against poor business practices. Defense attorneys called his claim "outlandish."

Actually, I find the whole thing pathetic. In the old days, when someone wronged you or lost your pants, you took them out back and beat the shit out of them. You felt better and usually walked away with a pretty good story to tell your grandkids. Whatever happened to the good old days?

To help this poor distraught jurist, I propose that we all send him a pair of pants that we don't need any more. Apparently a law degree and a job on the bench isn't paying as well as it used to. As soon as I can get an address for the poor bastard, I'm shipping him a pair of my old 42/29s so he doesn't get cold this winter.

When you look up 'twat' in the dictionary...

2007-05-28T21:44:00.000-04:00

...here's what you'll find.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rosie O'Donnell says she will likely never speak to "The View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck again after an on-air tiff last week that led to O'Donnell's early departure from the show.

The former host of the ABC daytime chatfest says in a video blog posted on her Web site that she has never tried harder to be friends with someone, but she doesn't think she succeeded with Hasselbeck.

"I haven't spoken to her, and I probably won't, and I think it's just as well," she said. "I wrote her an e-mail, and she wrote me back, and there you have it."

If I'm Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the Bacchanalian celebration would commence for seven straight days. There can be no finer place to be than on Rosie's "no-speakie" list.

Waterboarding is not torture

2007-05-24T13:58:00.000-04:00

At least, not compared to these images from a recent Iraq safe house/torture chamber raid. There are some gruesome concepts in here, from "blowtorch to the skin" to "eye removal". The photos of actual victims are pretty repulsive.

So, if all we're doing is the occasional waterboarding, I'd say we've taken the high road.

Holy spin!

2007-05-16T08:57:00.000-04:00

Last night, Pennsylvanians voted on a referendum that would increase income tax and potentially decrease property taxes as an offset. It was called "Special Session Act 1 of 2006", and it was soundly defeated.

But that isn't the real story. What really irks me about the article is Governor Rendell's response:

Gov. Ed Rendell had pushed hard for the referenda. His spokesman, Chuck Erdo, said, "The governor doesn't believe that the defeat of the local tax shifting question is an indication of anything other than confusion."

He added, "Many voters didn't have the information they needed to make a good choice."

Translation: It's not that the people decided that the measure was a bad idea. We just didn't get our message out.

A taller and steamier pile of dung I've not seen in all my thirty-six years. In effect, their stated position on the outcome is that the electorate is stupid and can't be trusted to think on its own. Of course, their view is the reverse when Democrats (or Democratically sponsored initiatives) are voted in.

I'll bet those folks living in the quieter rural areas of Pennsylvania can put their ears to the ground and hear our founding fathers slowly rolling in their coffins over this one.

So they do have a voice...imagine that!

2007-05-10T16:33:00.000-04:00

This article shows I'm not always right - muslims apparently do occasionally get upset at the rhetoric that comes from one of their own.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — The leader of the Islamic Center of Johnstown has stepped down, two weeks after calling for the death penalty for a speaker who was critical of the Muslim faith.

The resignation comes in response to a request by board members, who said his statements do not reflect the views of the center's members.

New York Times best-selling author Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown in April.

Fouad ElBayly said Wednesday he has complied with the request and resigned as the center's imam – prayer leader – and president.

I've stated in the past that our troubles with islamic fundamentalism will continue until an outcry emanates from within the culture. The bombings, killings and mistreatment of their underclasses will not stop by the hand of anyone in the West - it's an internal issue that needs to be settled by their own. And maybe, just maybe, we'll see more of this in the future.

Government is to free market what oil is to water

2007-05-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

Stumbled upon this article about a gas station owner being forced to raise his gas prices because of meddling by the state government.

MERRILL, Wis. (AP) -- A service station that offered discounted gas to senior citizens and people supporting youth sports has been ordered by the state to raise its prices. Center City BP owner Raj Bhandari has been offering senior citizens a 2 cent per gallon price break and discount cards that let sports boosters pay 3 cents less per gallon.

But the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection says those deals are too good: They violate Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price.

Bhandari said he received a letter from the state auditor in late April saying the state would sue him if he did not raise his prices. The state could penalize him for each discounted gallon he sold, with the fine determined by a judge.

Since when did it become a crime to sell something at cost or even at a loss? If you want to take a bath financially, it should be your prerogative to do so. You won't be able to do it for long unless your pockets are unusually deep.

Common sense and government - two things that will never peacefully coexist.

Go ahead and price yourselves out of existence

2007-02-26T08:48:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Postal Service is debating the idea of creating a 'forever stamp' that would be purchased at today's postage rates but would be honored forever in spite of any future rate increases.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The next hike in postage rates could be ameliorated by the introduction of a "forever" stamp that would cover first-class postage despite future increases.

The independent Postal Regulatory Commission scheduled a Monday morning briefing to announce its ruling on the Postal Service's requests to raise first-class rates 3 cents to 42 cents and to establish the permanent stamp.

I don't know about you, but I rarely use snail-mail for anything these days. I pay my bills almost entirely online. In fact, the only things I've mailed recently are my gas bill (a small, local gas company that hasn't caught wind of the web yet) and my mortgage (a large international bank that has no nose either). Truth be told, I bought a full sheet of stamps over two months ago and more than a third of them are left.

Someday soon, that little box at the end of my driveway will become another outdoor flower garden for my wife to fill with geraniums.

How to muddy up a candidate without getting your hands dirty

2007-02-24T22:14:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney is making a run for the White House in '08. I don't know a lot about the guy, other than the fact that he's a Mormon. Makes no nevermind to me, however, the MSM is doing their best to remind the American public about his religious affiliation at every turn. They've even gone so far as to point out that some of his ancestors were polygamists.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

I have only one question: WHO CARES? Since when does it matter if a politician descends from polygamists or even rapists or murderers? It's the content of their individual character that should matter. Mr. Romney has been married only once, and for 37 years so far. He finds the practice of polygamy strange and has noted that his church excommunicates people for the practice.

It's exactly this sort of crap that makes me loathe and despise the American political process, and after this episode, the world is going to have to work even harder to convince me not to vote for the guy (even though Giuliani will probably get my vote ... he's no Reagan conservative but I like how he handled himself and his former constituents in NYC during his tenure as mayor).

Maybe being a 'late adopter' will finally pay off

2007-02-19T15:38:00.000-05:00

I've got friends who have been trying to get me to buy into the whole satellite radio scene. "The content is excellent," they said. "No commericals," they said.

Now, I've listened to both, and their offerings are attractive, but I was always afraid of buying into the one that would eventually go tits-up. Looks like I won't have to worry about that any longer.

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., the second-largest U.S. pay radio service, agreed to buy its larger rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. for $4.57 billion in stock, combining the only two companies in the industry.

Of course, I'm still going to wait a while, as the article mentions that neither company has yet to turn a profit. Hey, I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid.

Putting your money where your mouth is

2007-02-14T15:38:00.000-05:00

I've always said that my one beef with political commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Al Franken is that they talk a great game but don't have the guts to really give politics a shot. They have the bravery of being out of range, as Roger Waters would say.

However, that changed today as Al Franken announced he will run for the U.S. Senate against fellow Minnesotan Norm Coleman in the '08 election.

Franken's announcement came on the final day of his radio show on Air America. The former "Saturday Night Live" performer's celebrity instantly makes him a heavyweight contender and brings national attention to the Minnesota race.

"Minnesotans have a right to be skeptical about whether I'm ready for this challenge, and to wonder how seriously I would take the responsibility that I'm asking you to give me," Franken said in a video clip posted on his Web site.

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with the guy's political stance or his opinions on nearly everything, however, it takes a lot of guts to throw your hat in the ring these days. He will be publicly eviscerated by the media and his political enemies before the votes are finally counted. He'll have to endure a sizable pay cut too, as he's quitting his radio show on the liberal Air America network.

And, of course, he'll have to make good on whatever promises he's about to make. Oh wait, never mind - politicians rarely ever do that.

A new year, a new me

2007-01-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

So I've got this wacky idea that I can lose a ton of weight this year, and I wanted to keep a journal of the adventure just so I could have something to chuckle about in the future. Using a paper notebook for such an epic seemed so-1900-ish, and you know by now what a tremendous geek I am. I was left with only one option.

Yep, that's right, a new blog! I just couldn't help myself.

So swing on over and have a good laugh at the expense of my blobular self. I promise you'll feel better about yourself instantly.

Back to the peanut farm, Mr. Carter

2006-12-21T15:34:00.000-05:00

I've been toying with the idea of writing a book for a number of years. Of course, my book is going to be a work of fiction, which releases me from the burden of having to prove that I know what I'm talking about.

It appears that I'll be in good company because the world, it seems, is full of fiction writers, including our own former president, Jimmy Carter. However, Alan Dershowitz has very little good to say about Mr. Carter's latest work of fiction Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Carter's book has been condemned as "moronic" (Slate), "anti-historical" (The Washington Post), "laughable" (San Francisco Chronicle), and riddled with errors and bias in reviews across the country.

Of course, Carter's book wasn't meant to be a work of fiction. It appears that he believes every single word that he's printed between the covers. I haven't read it myself and I'm no scholar on the subject, so my opinion is worth less than $0.02. But from an outsider's perspective, it appears that the naysayers are outnumbering his supporters.

People used to laugh at Ronald Reagan and say that he suffered from some sort of dementia toward the end of his presidency. Maybe Mr. Carter is having the same sort of problem now. There are those who thought he'd cracked up in holding the Camp David Accords in '78. Maybe the book's shortcomings can back that up.

I don't think we'll really know unless Mr. Dershowitz gets his shot at a debate. I really would like to hear from someone with some real knowledge on the subject.

Humor: The original WMD

2006-12-16T18:07:00.000-05:00

Rosie O'Donnell is a moron, something she makes abundantly clear each time she opens her mouth on her show "The View". I'd wager that most sentient beings on and off the planet are behind me on this one. But as I read and re-read these news clippings about Her Arrogantness this week, I was struck by a startling and totally obvious realization:

Humor, in nearly all its forms, is almost always at someone else's expense.

This is a simple concept. Every third grader on the planet is hip to this - tell a joke about someone on the playground and the laughter gets charged to their account. We've all done it. Sometimes we're the joker, and sometimes we're the butt of the joke. Personally I think the world should just get over this and move on. It's as if no one on the planet is capable of laughing at themselves any more.

If this is what we have left, we are in trouble

2006-12-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

So my company has this vendor we use for monitoring traffic on our web site. We'll call them "Fred" for purposes of this discussion.

It seems that Fred has the ability to get us real-time data about our web site in an industry-standard format, and they talk a big game in their documentation about how we could use the data to display up-to-date metrics about the site to our users. In other words, it sounds like we should be able to get that data any time we want in a split second, and our users would thank us for it.

However, after fiddling with it for a week now, I've found that isn't the case at all. And, to make matters worse, it's probably my fault.

You see, I take things literally. Like just about every other computer geek I know, written instructions are gospel. If it's on paper and the source is deemed reliable, it's as good as if Jesus himself had written it down. In my life, this is a gold standard, and I operate daily with complete faith in my library of O'Reilly, Sams and SitePoint books so that I can achieve my objectives.

And when Fred came along, with his twenty-page API on exporting data in real-time from his database, I was positively giddy. Just the thought that I could bypass his sluggish-ass GUI interface and provide a comprehensive "dashboard" application to the boss was just, well, delicious. I'd be like Scottie on Star Trek...providing the impossible in a crisis situation, and my boss would love me. Chicks would dig me. A general sense of well-being would ensue.

But no! It turns out that Fred's export mechanism crashes my browser or returns data in wildly different formats each time I refresh the page. There's nothing more infuriating than getting exactly the opposite of what your documentation tells you to expect, so my next trick is to call Fred's technical support and give them the big WTF. Here's how that went:

Me: Hi, I'm having trouble with your export mechanism.
Fred: That's a shame. Tell me about it.

Me: Well, you see, there's this page, and it has these nodes on it, and...
Fred: Sorry, you'll have to back up. What's a node?

Needless to say, I was nonplussed. I had called technical support, but had apparently reached a clerk instead. I went on:

Me: The data I'm expecting is <this> but I'm seeing <that>.
Fred: I'm seeing <that> too. Are you sure you have the right address?

Me: Yes, I'm positive. It came from your documentation.
Fred: Okay, let me try a couple things here.

The sound of keytapping emanated from his end of the conversation. This went on for about five minutes, during which time we said nothing to each other. It felt like a marriage, but I didn't remember getting to dance or even consummate. And then:

Me: So do you see what I'm talking about?
Fred: Yes, it all makes sense now.

Me: So what do you think is the problem?
Fred: Well, I'm not really up to speed on this product, so I'll have to elevate this to level 2 support. In the meantime, you should understand that you share our databases and hardware with all of our other customers, so issues like this will arise from time to time.
Me: I understand that, really I do. However, we pay you $x,xxx per month to supply these services to us. If this is how it will perform, I don't really feel like we're getting our money's worth. Would you?
Fred: <Silence>

And so our conversation ended after some assurances from Fred that he'd get working on the problem and that I'd hear from him soon, but as I hung up the phone I was struck with the feeling that I'd accomplished nothing, and that I could expect no solution to my problem. This frustrated me, and colored the rest of my day in that shade of light blue that has MALAISE written all over it.

And so I sit here, waiting for an answer, or at the very list commiseration. I'll update you when I hear something from Fred.

Oh yes, the whole point of my discussion. As America transitions from industrial powerhouse to a service-based culture, one can assume that this sort of so-what-ish attitude will become more prevalent with every passing day. Eventually you'll call 911 and get the exact same sort of response that I did today. Of course, your house will have burnt to the ground, but at least you'll feel safe knowing that Level 2 Support will be there shortly.

Western Pennsylvania politics (or How to Shoot Yourself in The Foot on Election Day)

2006-11-01T08:14:00.000-05:00

Republican Rick Santorum is running in the race of his life this year, and he's behind Democrat Bob Casey by a varying number of percentage points depending on which poll you look at.

Most of my peers seem to be enamored of Mr. Casey of late, and I felt it was important to point out some things that will be lost in the glare of the election day hoopla. Regardless of your political slant, these items should interest you as a Pennsylvanian.

1. Santorum is a powerful voice in the Senate - He's been in Congress since 1990 and is now the third-ranked member of the Republican leadership. The man has historically championed the rights of the less fortunate and was instrumental in getting welfare reform legislation passed, which has helped thousands of Pennsylvanians to leave welfare behind and get a fresh start. If Bob Casey gets elected, you'll have a freshman senator in that chair, and freshmen are generally nobodys for the first couple years (it's during that time their party - and sometimes the other party as well - has their way with them). During these volatile times, do we really want a nobody responsible for the interests of Pennylvania in the Senate?

2. Santorum is a western Pennsylvania senator - If Bob Casey gets elected in a few days, we'll wind up with two eastern Pennsylvania senators, and you can bet that the federal money that comes to our half of the state will be diminshed. Imagine what the roads and other infrastructure will be like a few years after that. Whether you like Rick or not, if you're from western Pennsylvania, you'd be well advised to keep him in his seat.

3. Arlen Specter's days are numbered, if only because he'll retire some day. I've never been a big fan of the RINO but he's still a Pennsylvanian who fights for our state every chance he can get. He'll be eighty years old for the 2010 election. By then, we'll have Bob Casey, a four-year senator from Philadelphia, and possibly another freshman senator elected to fill Specter's seat, and maybe they'll be a Democrat. How many states fare well in Congress when their senate representation is 50/50?

So there you have it. In short, a vote against Rick Santorum is a vote against this half of Pennsylvania. Please bear that in mind when you're reaching for the lever in a couple days.

As if we needed more reasons to laugh at public education

2006-10-18T11:37:00.000-04:00

Remember playing dodgeball in elementary school? Maybe you were the kid that got whacked in the face with the ball, or maybe you were the one who threw it. Either way, I doubt the experience enhanced or damaged your life in any real tangible way. Yet, not so long ago, schools everywhere banned the game because it was considered "exclusionary" and "dangerous".

Since then, we've all laughed at that sort of thing, but it's come back around and this time it has taken aim at something even more harmless: Tag.

ATTLEBORO, Mass. (AP) -- Tag, you're out! Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

I'd like to call for a show of hands of all the people who have been irreparably harmed by something that happened at recess. Anyone? Bueller?

Seriously folks, it's time we find these people who have the time to pontificate about the benefits of banning games like tag and dodgeball and remove them from the food chain. Is this what they're training future teachers and school administrators at teacher colleges these days?!

I guess it's time to go study up on home schooling - at this rate, my one-year-old will be eating tofu for snack and meditating at recess to avoid personal injury.

And this would be why we're alone in the universe (so far)

2006-10-12T20:20:00.000-04:00

Some dork in the Ukraine thinks this is high fashion. A buddy of mine told me this weekend that art is "an independent voice", and so this must really be art. There can't be another person on the planet that's singing this tune.

This is why beings from beyond our planet have quietly passed us by. They've slipped into our solar system and tuned into the electromagnetic waves that flow from Earth. After bouts of hysterics, they've pointed their star compasses in the opposite direction and kept on trucking.

Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways

2006-10-09T20:23:00.000-04:00

They squawked when he called them a part of the "Axis of Evil", and now they're angry because he hasn't done anything about them.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats seized on North Korea's brazen act to criticize President Bush's record in confronting the communist regime, contending the administration's focus on Iraq ignored legitimate threats.

Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the president's rival in 2004 and a potential 2008 candidate, assailed Bush's policy as a "shocking failure," and said, "While we've been bogged down in Iraq where there were no weapons of mass destruction, a madman has apparently tested the ultimate weapon of mass destruction."

(snip)

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, accused Democrats of playing partisan politics with a nuclear weapons threat. "Listening to some Democrats, you'd think the enemy was George Bush, not Kim Jong Il," he said.

Well, which is it, fellas? The rhetoric coming from the lefties would lead you to believe that George gave them the bomb, but anyone with a brain knows that this is a worldwide diplomatic issue.

What worries me most is not the bomb itself, but rather its timing and the Democratic response - there is obviously a partisan political element to both.

Everyone send Mr. Steinbrenner a hanky

2006-10-09T09:34:00.000-04:00

The New York Yankees have been to the World Series so many times that it just isn't funny, but Mr. George Steinbrenner is really upset that they aren't headed there in 2006.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said he was "deeply disappointed" at his team's elimination in the first round of the AL playoffs, calling it a "sad failure."

(snip)

"I am deeply disappointed at our being eliminated so early in the playoffs," Steinbrenner said in a statement issued Sunday by spokesman Howard Rubenstein. "This result is absolutely not acceptable to me nor to our great and loyal Yankee fans. I want to congratulate the Detroit Tigers organization and wish them well. Rest assured, we will go back to work immediately and try to right this sad failure and provide a championship for the Yankees, as is our goal every year."

So throwing $194.6 million at your players isn't a guarantee of a championship any more.

I wonder how long it will be before Wal-Mart is blamed for this...

Hitler, Stalin, Ahmadinejad: A very select club

2006-09-05T11:45:00.000-04:00

Looks like Ahmadinejad wants to purge his universities of the sort of people he doesn't agree with.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Things are going downhill fast over there. I just hope Europe, Russia and the rest of Asia can get their collective arses in gear to contain this mess.

From the DUH! files...

2006-07-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

Another thing that I'm sure nobody saw coming:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Lance Bass, band member of 'N Sync, says he's gay and in a "very stable" relationship with a reality show star.

Who knew?!?

Hopefully this will put that stupid fad to rest

2006-06-20T16:43:00.000-04:00

If you've ever chuckled at those dorky teenagers that run around in pants that A) won't stay up, or B) are wider at the leg than they are at the waist, this article will give you reason to pump your fist in the air.

I was a teenager 20 years ago, and I recall that we wore some pretty wacky stuff, but none of it was as impractical as the low-rider jeans you see kids wearing these days.

Now if we can just get them to wear baseball caps correctly, all will be right with the world.

Holes in the floorboards

2006-06-20T09:55:00.000-04:00

If you don't have access to western Pennsylvania news, you probably haven't heard about the murder of twelve-year-old Gabrielle Bechen by a total scumbag.

Maybe that's too harsh a word for the suspect they've arrested. Maybe the problem isn't him, but the system that let him loose from the chains that should have kept him out of society in general and poor Gabrielle in particular.

If you haven't the time to read the article, here's the Cliffs notes. He's been in trouble with the law for things ranging from DUI and bad checks to telephone harrassment. In almost every case, he was let off of probation while still owing something, whether it be fines, restitution or services required to expunge his record. And to make matters worse, the system knew he wasn't going to make good, and still let him loose:

"He's not really capable of holding a job," said Craig Wise, Greene County's chief probation officer. "We try to hold people in the system for as long as we can in hopes of getting the money they owe. He's one of those who would never be able to pay."

Sickening.

If something like this were to ever happen to my child, I can guarantee that the system wouldn't fail her: He wouldn't make it into the system, if you know what I mean.

The things we talk about at work

2006-06-20T09:06:00.000-04:00

One of my coworkers is a huge fan of HBO's Big Love series (Bill Paxton, polygamy, you get the picture), and conversations about the show always lead to polygamy. We decided as a group that polygamy just doesn't make a lot of sense. Really, who needs more than one "honeydew" list? And just how would you work out things like living wills, powers of attorney, and deciding who is the benificiary of your life insurance?

After a time, this discussion migrated toward its natural end: the NHL. We decided that just as polygamy is a bad thing for America, so is NHL expansion into areas of the country that aren't naturally covered in ice for part of the year. We feel pretty strongly that hockey should not be played in places like Arizona, southern Texas and Florida. Hey, we don't have championship rodeo and frog-gigging contests up north here, so please leave the hockey to us.

Yeah, it's starting to look like a slow day here at the office.

Yep, let's all go home now

2006-06-15T14:31:00.000-04:00

"Stay the course", he said. "We won't leave until we achieve victory", he said. Well, hells bells!

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The document, purporting to reflect al-Qaida policy and its cooperation with groups loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein, also appear to show that the insurgency in Iraq was weakening.

<snip>

While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said.

The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants' financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.

What would these captured Al Qaida documents be containing right now if John Kerry had been elected in 2004? I'd wager Iraq would be making the seventh circle of Hell look like Club Med.

Stupidity in media

2006-06-13T15:29:00.000-04:00

If you've been shacking up with bin Laden over the last few days, you probably missed out on the exhaustive media coverage of Ben Roethlisberger's motorcycle crash. The rest of us in western Pennsylvania did not, I can tell you, because we're all fervently praying for "one for the OTHER thumb" in 2007.

The most interesting aspect of all of the coverage is how the media is driving local watercooler discussions, rather than just feeding them content. An excellent example is this headline from today's post-gazette.com:

Ben's case unlikely to change Pa.'s helmet law

This is an obvious "well, duh!" moment if ever I've seen one. Of course it isn't going to change the law. Even if Ben's gourd had been broken into three pieces that resembled Donovan McNabb (though you can bet that goldenpalace.com would have paid top dollar for them), the law would still be there the next morning, month, and year.

Just another example of how the media thinks we're all stupid.

Living in the dark ages (or how Pennsylvania could grow if it really wanted to)

2006-06-09T11:02:00.000-04:00

Here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we can't marry our sisters any more. That was a great first step in moving the social direction of our state a little closer to the rest of the country.

However, we still have to buy our wine and liquor from approved state-owned retailers, and a big chunk of the price of a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 is tax. According to this article, we've been paying an 18% tax on liquor to pay for the clean up of the Johnstown Flood.

Now I understand that over 2,200 people died that fateful night in 1889. It's a tragedy in anyone's book, no doubt. However, I can't believe we haven't paid for the damages many times over already with that 18% tax. In fact, a quick examination of this PLCB audit shows that they took in an average $173,000 each year over the last five years in "Emergency Tax". Work that forward for seventy years and you get a little over twelve million dollars.

Another example of this at the Federal level is the Federal Excise Tax, which was enacted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish-American War. It was repealed just recently. It manifests as a 3% charge on all local and long-distance phone services and is also paid on cell phone bills. Imagine how much coin this one brought into the government coffers over the years. Makes you wonder why they even need income tax.

So I guess it pays after all

2006-05-17T16:47:00.000-04:00

Crime dramas rule network television, or so CBS seems to think.

NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS is canceling its Sunday movie in favor of two successful crime procedurals and will add a new Thursday series next fall with James Woods portraying a defense attorney who becomes a prosecutor.

CSI is about all I can stomach of these shows, and that's largely due to the scientific undercurrents that weave in and out of the plot lines.

So what do all of these shows promote? Is it the crime, or is the real aim to make the legal profession look fun again?

"Religion of peace" my ass

2006-04-11T16:02:00.000-04:00

They're at it again, these so called "peaceful" muslims. Why does the world tolerate this?

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- A suicide attacker detonated a bomb during an outdoor Islamic prayer service Tuesday, killing at least 41 people and wounding dozens, police said. An angry mob burned cars and threw stones at police, who fired into the air to disperse the crowds, a witness said.

Someone needs to sit these assholes down and say Look, you claim to be peaceful and tolerant, and yet you kill innocent people every day like it's going out of style. Either put your houses in order, or we (as in the world) will do it for you.

I know I'll catch hell for this, but I'm beginning to believe there's some truth to the new addage that Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims. These people are an afront to the rest of the human race.

And where is the outcry from the international Islamic community, those muslims throughout Europe and Asia who are peacefully moving through their daily lives? Do you realize how pathetic these people make you look? Is this the legacy you want attached to Islam for the rest of eternity?

I won't pretend that other religions haven't had their problems. Pope Pius XII turned a blind eye to the Third Reich's brutality during World War II. However, there's no evidence that shows people went out of their way to burn Jews by the millions in Nazi death camps in the name of Catholicism, but the same cannot be said of the islamic extremists in the middle east today.

Anyone want to count the seconds until some twit on television declares this act of violence as yet another side effect of decades of U.S. foreign policy?

I'm no evangelist

2006-04-10T16:20:00.000-04:00

but this latest RFID story has me wondering.

When Brenden Walker got his new MasterCard PayPass ATM card in the mail last month, he headed to the gas station to try it out.

To test the card's "Tap N Go" convenience, he passed it in front of the scanner, which activated with a beep and displayed the word "authorizing ... " on its LCD screen.

-snip-

Pets and people are getting chip implants under their skin that carry identification or medical information. Governments are beginning to use radio chips in driver's licenses and passports. Retailers use them to track inventory. The banks that are now using chips in their credit and cash cards say they make transactions more efficient -- and more convenient for customers.

If you've ever read the Bible (specifically the New Testament), Revelation 13:16-17 should sound familiar to you:

¹⁶He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, ¹⁷so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

You won't see me out on the sidewalk preaching fire and brimstone any time soon, however, we've seen it before and we'll see it again. With any new technology comes a thousand ways to exploit it to the detriment of society. This one's no different.

Pet peeves in Pittsburgh

2006-03-31T13:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't had a whole lot to say recently (hold your applause, please) so I thought I'd just rattle off some of the local things that really raise my blood pressure:

Revolving doors
I'm on my way into PPG Place for lunch and I'm the only one pushing to keep the revolving door moving. The next time some tie-wearing twit enters the revolving door and doesn't pull his weight, I'm going to let go of the handle and watch him slam his nose off the glass. This is just one example of society's ever-widening departure from common courtesy.

Passing lanes
For the love of Christ, people! The left lane on any highway (and Rt. 28 in particular) is there for only one reason - PASSING. If you are toddling along over there and there's no one in front of you and a herd of cars behind, chances are real good that you are the reason we have traffic reports on the radio every ten minutes. Get the hell out of the way! I'm not above high beams, the horn or even a vertical digit aimed in your direction. If only grille-mounted machine guns were legal...

The 'Pittsburgh Left Turn'
I can understand that you're in a hurry, and I really feel for you. However, turning in front of me as the light goes green will likely get you a honk at the very least and some foreign paint on your car at the worst. Yes, I know, you'll be sitting there waiting for the rest of us who have THE RIGHT OF WAY but you'll be guaranteeing your own personal safety if you just take a deep breath, relax and wait for an opening. Really.

Picksburgh?
I don't care what race, creed, color or level of education you have. If you pronounce it 'Picksburgh' in my vicinity you will get a hairy eyeball and perhaps my verbal estimation of your level of intelligence. The same goes for just about any street-level misuse of our language. And don't even think about 'axing' me a question. You'll be greeted with a blank stare or maybe the finger.

Spend a little more time buying your clothes
I saw a DHL delivery employee running up the steps of a local building at lunch time. He had a package in one hand while the other hiked his pants up no less than three times in seven steps. I know you think it's cute to have your boxers exposed in the back but isn't it a pain in the ass to have to pull your pants up every three steps? If nothing else, buy a goddammned belt.

What's that thing on your head?
A while back I was stepping out of my car in the Giant Eagle parking lot when a teenager got out of the riced-up Acura that had just pulled into the space in front of me. His hat was on sideways with the brim inverted and pointing skyward. As his girlfriend exited the car, he asked me what I was looking at, as if his 17-year-old machismo was any match for mine. I replied that it was obvious that his hat had come with out proper directions, to which his girlfriend howled in laughter. The poor lad was crushed. He'll probably be doing 3 to 5 for grand larceny soon as I think I stripped him of any self-respect he may have had to that point.

If I never win the lottery

2006-03-13T14:21:00.000-05:00

I'll settle for this:

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer.

Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.

By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar in Kristiandsund, western Norway, had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for Gundersen's apartment.

Now why can't stuff like that ever happen to me?

Today's WTF?! photo

2006-03-08T14:12:00.000-05:00

I don't know what's more troubling - this woman's hairdo or the fact that the U.S. Postal Service is considering a 63¢ stamp.

I don't care who the stamp honors. Who is going to be using the U.S. Postal Service by then? I mail three bills a month. The rest are paid online. If I start getting my bills online, I'll be able to remove that unsightly mailbox at the end of my driveway and replace it with something that can keep my empty garbage can from rolling into the street.

I wonder how long it will be before my garbage can be picked up online...

Oh the years have been unkind

2006-03-06T16:39:00.000-05:00

I got just one question: What the hell happened to Eddie Van Halen?!?!

I guess Valerie must have put a physical, mental and spiritual hurtin' on the poor fellow. Either that, or David Lee Roth has some sort of special equipment at his radio show booth than can suck your will to live.

Reidey, you got some 'splainin' to do!

2006-02-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press is reporting that Senator Harry Reid has collected nearly $68,000 in Abramoff-related donations, and even wrote four letters on behalf of Abramoff clients in the past. This surfaces after Harry himself went on camera and proclaimed proudly that this was a Republican scandal, and that he'd never met Jack Abramoff.

This whole thing stinks, but now it's in stereo, with the odor wafting up from both sides of the aisle. Will you hear about this with the same amount of zeal and fervor as before, or will the MSM sweep this under the rug?

Revisionism on Capitol Hill

2006-02-09T09:54:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia, the popular online free-content encyclopedia, is a wonderful example of the goodness that ordinary people can create on the Internet. It's a great source of information on nearly every subject on the planet, and if it's lacking on a subject you happen to know something about, you can go in and start educating the world by adding your information.

But the BBC is reporting that the staff of members of Congress have been making partisan changes to the Wikipedia biographies of many members of the American political scene. In fact, so many changes were made to George W. Bush's entry that it had to be locked down to prevent further updates.

In one example, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman's biography was changed so that the word "liberal" was replaced with "activist". Staff also deleted references to Coleman's voting record in 2003 (he voted with President Bush 98% of the time in 2003, even though he ran as a moderate).

And who could forget about Senator Tom Harkin's imagined combat missions over North Vietnam? You won't read about that in Wikipedia any more either - his staff has removed all mention of it and his recantation.

So now we have to add Congressional staffers to the list of folks we can't trust in Washington, D.C., though they were probably there in the first place.

Google is everywhere (George Orwell, call your office)

2006-02-09T09:12:00.000-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. is offering a new tool that will automatically transfer information from one personal computer to another, but anyone wanting that convenience must authorize the Internet search leader to store the material for up to 30 days.

<snip>

"We think this will be a very useful tool, but you will have to give up some of your privacy," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience. "For many of us, that trade off will make a lot of sense."

Why in the world would I want the contents of my PC stored out on the Internet?! If I wanted my old tax returns, bank statements and family photos out on the web, I'd put them there myself.

I love Google, I really do. Well, maybe not in the physical sense. Maybe more like the love you might feel for a pet or a sibling. But even the people we love deserve a slap across the face from time to time, and I think Google's is coming very soon.

These same people are pissed at George W. Bush for wiretaps. Unbelievable.

A fool and his life, parted

2006-02-05T07:58:00.000-05:00

Timothy Treadwell
1957 - 2003

Spent a couple hours watching Grizzly Man, a film about a misguided and naive animal lover who ultimately is loved (savored even) by the very animals that he wanted to protect from humanity's sprawl. The story is gripping and confirms several theories that I've held for a long time:

Nature can kill you
Humans who ignore this fact and try to make friends with it are stupid

The movie is about Timothy Treadwell, a recovering alcoholic wannabe actor with no formal training in the area of Ursus arctos horribilis, who spent thirteen summers living among wild grizzlies in an attempt to understand and protect them from poaching. Using video cameras that he carried into the wilderness, he would document his brazen attempts to humanize these bears. To him, they weren't dangerous, only misunderstood. The footage shows him within inches of these half-ton behemoths, sometimes touching them and always talking to them in a sing-song voice.

Do you suppose those bears looked at him the way that Wiley Coyote saw the Road Runner? In a few scenes the bears would swipe at him or otherwise make it known that they felt threatened, but you never really see any fear in their faces. To a thousand pound bear, a hundred-weight human is but a morsel.

So, to sum up, the movie isn't really about bears, but more about human stupidity. We live in this world and we pretend that we're the dominant species, but take us out of the cities and we're just another prey animal.

The folks who pretend that nature is the Coca-Cola polar bears-love-seals commercial are doomed to be dinner.

I'm a nerd (betcha didn't know that)

2006-02-03T12:26:00.000-05:00

Found this intriguing quiz page on the web that rates your nerdness after answering some questions. As you can see, I scored well (depending on your perspective):

Amazing what amuses me these days. I can remember a time when I would have laughed at someone who scored well on this test (or even took one to begin with). Maybe you're laughing right now.

Like they say, pimpin' ain't easy

2006-02-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

From this Associated Press article:

MARTINEZ, Calif. (AP) -- A married couple pleaded no contest to charges they ran a brothel across the street from a Concord police station, Contra Costa County authorities said. Debra Watts, 52, will serve one year of home detention after pleading to three felony counts of pimping and pandering, prosecutor Jose Marin said Monday.

Doing something this stupid takes balls. Or a total lack of brains.

Why 200 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean is a good start

2006-02-01T13:34:00.000-05:00

Look no further than this article. The NFL works very hard to make sure that advertisers refrain from using the phrase "Super Bowl" in their ads this time of year.

Don't those people have anything better to do? I think we should pass a law that says a lawyer (and the plaintiffs) must perform community service each year with the number of hours contributed equal to the time they spent working on frivolous lawsuits.

Humans argue politics without their brains

2006-01-25T15:06:00.000-05:00

Or so it would seem in this article over on LiveScience.com. The premise makes sense. I know I find myself heating up when I engage in political chitchat with friends and family. When I step back to ask myself why, I always feel like I've been slighted by the other person. I tend to overreact.

After reading the above article, objectively approach your own views on things like abortion, the growth of government or whatever else you feel strongly about. Maybe it will help you understand how the folks on the other side see you and your point of view during an argument.

Of course, they're still wrong, aren't they? <grin>

Time...is on (someone's) side (but it ain't mine)

2006-01-22T21:56:00.000-05:00

I'm one of those people that you might accuse of living in the past. I love '80s music and yearn for the years when I was too young to pay taxes or do anything other than go to school and play in the yard. In short, I long for a simpler time.

I'm also one of those people who marvel at how fast time slips by. As I've gotten older, the sands seem to have picked up speed on their way to the bottom of the hourglass. I dread the day that I will look in the mirror and finally see those signs that I've reached middle age. People tell me it happens to everyone. I keep praying that it skips me.

But one thing that makes the passage of time somewhat bearable are the memories that come to the surface when I think about key events in history. A few big ones have happened in my 34.83 years on this rock: Watergate. Vietnam. The end of the Cold War. Hostages in Iran. September 11th. And of course, the Steelers dynasty of the '70s.

Our boys are headed to Super Bowl XL. They've been there five times and won four, and as I looked over the list today, I was reminded of what I was doing when those games occurred:

1996: Dallas Cowboys win 27-17
Worked for U.S. Steel. Drove an '89 Ford Tempo, which put a serious bite on my wallet. Dated a few women but no real stand-outs. Lived in Monroeville in a crappy garden apartment with my kid brother. Ate a lot of pizza. Quite a lot, in fact.

1980: Steelers over the L.A. Rams, 31-19
Eight years old, skinny and mouthy. Rode my bike all over the West End of Butler. Walked to West End Elementary every day, and wound up being in the last class to graduate from that building. Ms. Mroczek was my teacher. She was fresh out of college and I had a gigantic crush on her (and her white Pontiac Monza). My Dad bought a used Ford pickup from his company that year. I think our other car was a '73 Impala in a hideous green color. I remember slamming my finger in the door of that car. It's still a little crooked.

1979: Steeler beat the Cowboys: 35-31
Seven and scrawny. Mrs. Winters was my teacher, a stern short-haired woman with a penchant for sweaters. Had a gold metalic bike with chrome fenders and a banana seat to which I had affixed a blue Ranger Rick sticker. It also had one of those handlebar gadgets that made a motorcycle sound.

1976: Steelers and Cowboys, 27-10
Four years old. I barely remember anything from back then, except that it was the bicentennial and my father's parents came to visit that summer. Tornados went through western Pennyslvania that summer and we toured some of the damage. I distinctly remember our old house in Valencia and the two friends I had back there.

1975: Vikings 16-6
All I remember of that year was that my Mom was pregnant. My baby brother would arrive in early December of that year. Everything else is just a fog.

Serendipity and The Dream

2006-01-18T14:12:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else find it interesting that TV Land chose to run an All In The Family marathon on the day before Martin Luther King Day?

Their web site purges the programming schedule after a time but I took this partial screen shot for proof.

So, was that a statement or just coincidence? I wish I had caught this earlier; I would love to have seen what their programming schedule included over the week of Kwanzaa.

All roads lead to Detroit (after they pass through Denver)

2006-01-17T08:38:00.000-05:00

Our Steelers are headed for Denver. I hope they spent the night there on Monday, as they'll need time to get themselves adjusted to the thin mountain air they'll be running through next Sunday. My only hope is that the referees from the Indianapolis game are as far from Denver as humanly possible.

I still cannot believe that the NFL doesn't have a set of checks and balances in place to prevent this kind of crap from happening. The officiating at that game was atrocious. I've seen better play calling in midget and college football.

Someone told me that NFL referees are not professional referees (that is, they all have regular jobs and work for the NFL on Sundays). If it's true, it has to be fixed. The league needs the people in striped jerseys to have a singular focus on the task at hand.

Either that, or all of us that threw beer bottles through our TV sets on Sunday should band together and file a class-action lawsuit against the NFL.

Iran may be next, if the Europeans can stomach it

2006-01-12T14:03:00.000-05:00

BERLIN (AP) -- The British, French and German foreign ministers said Thursday that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a "dead end" and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

I doubt very much that the Europeans have the stones to put a stop to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nuclear aspirations. Should it fall to the rest of the world to do so, I hope that it isn't done with an "Ivory Soap" coalition like we have in Iraq (99 ⁴⁴/₁₀₀% U.S.).

Speaking of which...have we heard any press reports on how many Islamic countries are involved in the coalition in Iraq? Are there any? Would you see the Saudis involved in a possible conflict with Iran?

"It wasn't me" the watchword in D.C.

2006-01-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

So it looks like Senator Harry Reid (D) has taken as much as $61,000 in Abramoff money.

Yep, it's an entirely Republican scandal alright.

Western culture has an expiration date

2006-01-05T08:58:00.000-05:00

Mark Steyn has written an excellent piece on his theory about the West being in danger of disappearing. Here's an excerpt:

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries.

It's long, but worth the read. Big nod to the excellent blog Irish Pennants for pointing this out.

Sago tragedy and some personal reflection

2006-01-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

There are days when I don't like my day job. Hell, there are days when I downright despise it. But after watching the Sago mine tragedy unfold, I've decided that I need to be a little more thankful for the direction my life has taken up to this point. I have a decent job in a department full of good people, and I don't have much chance of dying at my desk or going home covered in dirt. After some thought, it has occurred to me that I've got just about the best job there is.

Of course, even if I wasn't doing what I do, I still wouldn't be working in a coal mine. I'm claustrophobic as hell, and just mentally putting myself into a coal mine gives me sweaty palms. I've been saying now for a couple of days that I'd rather scrub sidewalks with a toothbrush than work in a coal mine.

That being said, my heart goes out to those families. My standard of living (and the fact that electricity in Pennsylvania is cheap and coal-driven) is enabled by the hard work and dedication of people like the Sago 13, and I hope that this incident will drive an effort to make things safer for the people who do that thankless job.

My current addiction

2005-12-31T01:25:00.000-05:00

is Lunascape, a European group with a lead singer who sounds like the second coming of Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries and looks like Claire Danes. I'm always amazed at the one-inch punch that those spritely European women produce with their voices.

You might also like Tristeza, a group that deserves a better classification than the "Alternative" label they've been given on iTunes. IMHO, they're 1/3 jazz, 1/3 techno and the rest a concoction of prog rock and ambient. Very cool and bordering on danceable.

The best investment I've ever made was a subscription to Echoes Online, a PRI radio show that expanded onto the web a couple years ago. It has turned me onto more cool new music than any conventional radio station ever has.

Where have all the cowgirls gone? (apologies to Paula Cole)

2005-12-30T15:57:00.000-05:00

So I've got this buddy (we'll call him Fred) who is having trouble meeting a woman that isn't totally insecure or carrying knives.

Fred's in his mid-30s and a likeable sort. He doesn't smoke or do drugs and he has a solid head on his shoulders. We've had tons of great conversations and he loves to have a good time. He's in shape, of above average height and intelligence, and he has money in his pocket. In short, there's nothing wrong with this guy, other than the fact that he must have some invisible mark on his soul that says "PISS OFF".

On the other hand, there's me. I'm short, round, balding and ill-tempered, and somehow I found a wife and we have a new baby. If anybody ought to be flypaper for the wrong sort of women, it should be me.

So where did Fred go wrong? Any women out there inclined to share why they find perfectly normal men unattractive?