All or nothing....

Clint Brewer says it best: "Civil rights are not a multiple choice affair." The Bill of Rights is an all or nothing affair, one amendment should be defended just as strongly as another. Thankfully, many people of Generation X are beginning to see that, accounting for the independent voters not beholden to any one political party's ideology.

20Q

Peter Kirsanow of the National Review shares some questions he'd like to ask of John Kerry.

Anonymity....

Over at Luke's website, I once commented how amazing it is what people will say when they can remain anonymous. Case in point....

Lousy crap for crap....

I really hate this new series of commercials from J.C. Penney. These are the commercials with the little animated runt of indeterminate ethnicity (though he mostly looks Hispanic), bouncing along with young school children to some hip-hop dreck for a soundtrack. Even the school bus has obnoxious chrome rims. The commercial would suggest that all such students listen to hip hop while wearing all the lastest trendy, urban-style clothing. Of course, this clothing is rarely the right size.

Fortunately, this ad campaign seems to be aimed at the back-to-school crowd, so I'm hoping it will be off the air sometime in September. Thankfully, that's not too far away.

I'm also not fond of McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" campaign. (You'll see I capitalized the "I" in that.) It's gotten to the point now where whenever Maryanne sees one of their ads, she sings the jingle, sans the "I'm lovin' it" bit. I've been trying to stop this by spouting a random obscenity in place of "I'm lovin' it," but it hasn't worked too well thus far.

Amnesia?

This coming Sunday will be a geek day, and today I realized I had not yet read through the adventure that we'll be starting! And this in spite of Jeff suggesting I read through it carefully, a couple of times!

Now I have to find the time between tonight and then to read through it.

Lucky Seven....

I decided to start reading The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, having found a nice copy at Half Price Books.

"Good-by: I get off here...."

I finished The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories today. I'm becoming more fond of Mark Twain as I read more of his work. He has an irreverent, satirizing sense of humor that cuts like a knife. However, he also capable of writing very moving, reverential prose when needed. He truly is one of America's greatest (if not the greatest) writers.

Sadly, I didn't bring anything else with me today, so I don't have any more reading material. I'm not sure what I'll start on next. I'll have to pick something out tonight.

9K!

I hit 9,000 hits today! w00t!

"Emotional highjacking...."

California resident Howard Nemerov exposes Senator Barbara Boxer, who turns out to be a true comrade to evil incarnate herself, Senator Dianne Feinstein.

The manipulation, deception, and "emotional highjacking" used by these kind of people disgust me.

You can't judge a book....

I was able to finish Dave Barry Turns 40 today. Once again Dave Barry shows why he's a Pulitzer-winning writer, not only for his humor, but for his ability to write effective, serious prose as well. A number of his works have included such brief forays into serious, thought-provoking topics, and I think the fact that he sets them against his "irresponsible and vicious" humor writing style makes them all the more effective.

Next on the dockett is The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories by Mark Twain. It's a collection of short fiction by Twain published by Readers Digest in a beautiful illustrated hard cover. The only think I find unusual about the book is the cover art: it's done in a beautiful Art Nouveau style, but I find it somehow incongruous with all that I associate with Mark Twain.

Over the hill....

Today I started on Dave Barry Turns 40. I wanted something lighter after finishing The Grapes of Wrath last week. It's also much, much shorter.

A bitter vintage....

I finished The Grapes of Wrath today. It's easy to see why Steinbeck won a Pulitzer for it, and why it caused so much outrage. I was slightly disappointed by the conclusion; it was a little unsatisfying, or perhaps seemed incomplete. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book. The realistic dialog couple with the vivid exposition created a very powerful, moving work.

I'm not sure what will be next on the list. I probably won't know until Monday.

Zero Tolerance = Zero Sense

Zero tolerance policies have been the bane of common sense, creating appaling situations like these. When was it decided that the letter of the law was more important than the spirit of the law? When did a child's imagination take a back seat to zero tolerance? Why do so many people lack common sense?

Domestic terrorism....

Just how wacky are whack-jobs like those at PETA? Read this and I think you'll find a very disturbing situation.

Who are you?

James Swan helps show us who the real gun owners are, an image that varies radically for what is portrayed in film and the press.

In no mood....

Maryanne often wonders why she usually drives when we're going somewhere together. Well, truth be told, it's because I hate driving around Madison. If you've read this blog on a regular basis, you see I've occasionally posted "Bad Driver Alerts." These are usually just the people whose license plates I can remember. There's actually far more. In fact, there are some days when it seems like everyone on the road is a bad driver.

Most of it stems from the fact that a lot of drivers around here seem to be discourteous, or downright rude. They drive too fast, or too slow, in the wrong lane, or rarely use their turn signals. They disregard your signal when you use it, making changing lanes or trying to exit nigh on impossible.

Of course, all this had to happen this morning as well. After merging back on the interstate off of Highway 30, I of course needed the next exit, Highway 151/High Crossing Boulevard. The on ramp off Highway 30 merges on to the interstate on the left, and of course the exit I needed was on the right. Do you think anyone was paying attention to my turn signal so I could change lanes? Of course not. Everyone was a bunch of selfish fucking bastards too wrapped up in their own need for speed that they weren't paying attention.

Now couple all this with the fact that Maryanne seemed to be upset with me and it all put me in a pissy mood. What a way to start the day.

California....

What the hell is wrong with California?

For a long time now I've felt that California was, shall we say, out of touch with middle America. Some of the people are nice enough, but most of the state is so painfully liberal that they've got some strange ideas and some strange laws. This is, after all, the state the produced evil incarnate, Dianne Feinstein.

Last night Maryanne and I were watching Trading Spouses on Fox. One of the families lived in California. They had a beautiful house, valued around $1.1 million. But they didn't spend much time there. A maid did all the work. The kids had no sense of responsibility because everything was done for them. The family seemed to be out of the house a lot. Why spend that much money on such a nice house if you're not even going to stay there but to sleep? The entire family struck me as being very selfish, and the mother was about the only one who seemed not to be completely shallow.

Now that I'm reading The Grapes of Wrath, I see the problem has existed for a long time. It seems that California has long been a home to shallow people who feel empty. They try to feel fulfilled by owning things like land and homes, and thereby exerting their power over others, but they still feel empty.

This past January Maryanne and I had gone out to California to see some friends. It wasn't the best time of year to do so, but it was still a beautiful state. But seeing how the people out there are, I don't think I ever want to go back.

Upheaval....

It looks like the shit's about to hit the fan in the Sevastopol School District.

To keep and bear arms....

Stephen Beale exposes the true intentions of the assault weapons ban, and counters it by showing the facts in the issue.

"Three Little Words"

Mark Steyn opines on the three little words that set the U.S. apart from the rest of the world: "We, the people...."

Stifling productivity....

Yesterday was fairly productive, but could have been better. After a pretty hearty breakfast, Maryanne and I decided to run some errands. We did the grocery shopping, stopped at Walgreens, and stopped at SW Fitness in Stoughton. We wanted to compare the rates at SW Fitness to Princeton Club. It turns out Princeton Club is less expensive, and a better value over all.

Once we got home, I was able to work on the stoop a little bit as well as work on laundry. I worked on the stoop until the batteries for the drill went dead; a little better timing and I would have started earlier, let the batteries recharge, and get a second crack at it.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Lions, and tigers, and bears....

Yesterday was the day of free food as I had to work, and Amy brought in bagels. She forgot the cream cheese though. Since I had to work, Maryanne decided to do some overtime. On our way home we stopped so that we could get an oil change for Maryanne's car. It was a pretty lazy afternoon, and then we drove over to Amy and Luke's house to head over to the AmFam company picnic.

There wasn't much in the way of activities; it was held at the Henry Vilas Zoo, which I had never seen before. It was fairly kid-friendly. Some of the zoo staff were walking around with smaller critters such as birds and reptiles. The food was pretty good, much better than last year, being catered by Lum's.

We left the picnic pretty early, and the four of us went to the City Bar. After a couple rounds of drinks we went over to some place called Maduro. I felt under dressed. The waitresses were wearing cocktail dresses; I felt like I should be wearing a pinstripe suit. It wasn't bad though; fairly pricey, but they seem to specialize in high-end spirits and microbrews. Some friends of Amy's and Luke's, Brian and Carrie, met us there. Brian had gone to school with Maryanne, as it turns out. Small world.

We got home about eleven or so, and it was pretty much straight to bed.

Country boys....

Last night we met Jenni and Jeff at the Maple Tree in McFarland for dinner. The food was good, as always. It was a fun evening, starting around 7:30 and not ending until some time well after 9:00.

At some point our discussion turned to the fact that Jenni and Maryanne are basically city girls, while Jeff and I both grew up in the country. Jeff and I started talking about some of the unusual things we did for entertainment back in the day. This included using sections of pipe to launch bottle rockets from a car, and picking ears of field corn and leaving them in mailboxes.

Of course, Jenni and Maryanne could not understand how this could possibly be amusing.

I think living in the city distorts your sense of humor.

...And all I got was this lousy t-shirt....

Larry Elder, demographic-defying journalist, weighs in on his experiences at the Democratic National Convention.

It sounded like a good idea....

It might have looked good on paper, but the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law has made politics, already an oft-shady business, even shadier.

Unionized....

The Evil Empire attempts to resist unionization in one of its Quebec, Canada, stores.

Are they purple?

Tuesday I finished Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It was typical Douglas Adams fare: well written, good pacing, good dialog, a quirky story that's very entertaining.

I had a flex day off work yesterday, so I didn't start on anything new. Today I'll be starting on John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I'm familiar with some of Steinbeck's work; I very much enjoyed Tortilla Flat. I'm sure Grapes... is a much more serious work, as this edition (from Reader's Digest) weighs in at over 400 pages.

Dog days....

Here it is... August already.... Where has the time gone? All the things that keep me busy makes the time go that much faster.

The start of August marks the progression towards that part of summer that I'm not terribly enthusiastic about. I'm pretty ambivalent about late summer. It's usually hot, humid, what rain we get comes in storms. By this time the birds are mostly done singing their songs, so all you hear in the air is the sound of insects-- crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas. While the trees and grass might be green, I get a sense of impending doom. Is it because I know autumn can't be far away? Maybe it's the slow death as things start to turn brown, burned by the sun and the lack of a quenching rain.

They call late summer the Dog Days of summer. Did you know that it's because it's the time when the star Sirius is at its brightest? Sirius is also called the Dog Star. And in the Harry Potter books, Sirius Black can turn in to a dog. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Almost famous....

Yesterday was geek day, as we got the crew together for D&D. Unfortunately, Eric wasn't able to make it due to a scheduling snafu. Nonetheless, we were able to finish The Forge of Fury. It was a pretty decent adventure. I found the story hook a little weak, in a way, but considering it's for relatively low-level characters, it's not exactly the kind of thing where famous adventurers are asked to save the world. That probably comes later.

Next on the list, I believe, is The Speaker in Dreams.

Forgery....

The Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph catches Michael Moore fabricating material for his "documentary," Fahrenheit 9/11.