WTF????

I'm speechless. Totally speechless. I'll be angry when I've had time to think about it, but right now I'm in that disturbing Eddie Willeresque position of total gobsmackedness.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private economic development.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

Emigrating keeps getting checks in the "pro" category...

The King and I

I love this movie, but I'd forgotten how sad it is.

I've found a new addiction - Scotland Yard! J played it as a kid, and I ordered it online for him for father's day - I've played it three times, and I kick ass! I can't wait to play it again! The first time, J was going easy on me (and he'd not played in a long time so he was very rusty), the second time Uncle Patrick had never played before, and the third time, I think the travel tokens got screwed up - so I wanna play another game, while the children are asleep, now that everybody knows how to do it!

Btw, I used canoed in a scrabble game today! heehee

I have to say, I got the most wonderful phone call last night. Our friends Matthew and Erin, who are getting married in January, called us up while they were both on speakerphone - Erin's asked me to be a bridesmaid!!!!! TOTALLY blew me away. I even got a little teary; it's so flattering to be asked... I've never been a bridesmaid before! Been a bride 3 times; I figured that was fate's freaky way of making up for it. ;) As Erin put it, "Always a bride, never a bridesmaid, huh?" heeheehee. So now I have a WONDERFUL incentive for losing weight. And a deadline! SO, who's going to come work out with me, huh?

I wish I could talk. I don't know what freaky bug I came down with - the first day J was afraid it was mono, but now it just seems like your normal run-of-the-mill respiratory illness, except it might have gone to my sinuses and chest, which is very unusual for me. I must be getting old & decrepit.

Got the kids down for their nap - I think I'll take advantage of this time to sleep as well. As much as I need to clean, I need to get better faster more, or the house will REALLY fall apart.

Okay, I always knew I was different...

I'm not as different as this woman, but I gotta say, I find her Capricorn


really fucking cool. The winged cat is nifty too.
(I like that she uses leftovers rather than hunting things.)

Wanna make your own? (Online, not real one, aren't you relieved?) And then send me a picture!

Things I do while waiting for my husband to finish working in the middle of the night...
This made me laugh until I cried, and all silently so as not to wake the children.
This is amazing, and I know a few people that could benefit from it, I think.

Stuck at Prom

In the tradition of Highly Recommended Thing Of The Moment

An oldie, but goodie. I never get tired of looking at the designs. I particularly like the guitar one.

**edit**
oooooh, and the Starry Night couple is cool too!

Men, sit up and take notice

I dropped by Cyborgirl's blog (like I do most days) and read her latest post... and it really got me thinking. I've been married three times now. I've dated quite a few men, before I lucked into J. And I have to say, men should take lessons in foreplay. So few of them have even the slightest clue about how to turn a woman on! My first husband - lord, what a nightmare. Only time I've ever fallen asleep during sex.

Here's a hint. If we women think the only reason you're initiating sex is so you can get off, we're usually a whole heck of a lot less likely to be into it. So men, here's some advice. Approach your woman with the intention of making her feel good. Plan not to get off yourself. In fact, TRY not to get off yourself. Make that session all about her. If she tries to return the favor, unless she's just uncontrollably horny & turned on and is jumping you, tell her no, to lie back and relax. If you do this often enough, guys, then I would bet the percentage of times the woman initiates sex would go up. Because then we know that you know that sex isn't all about you - it's a mutual pleasure thing. All you women out there - how many times have you & your man been having sex, and when he orgasms, it's over, whether you've peaked or not? Guys, you've got a tongue and two hands; if your penis is done for the night, that doesn't mean you're done! Do you not realize that that behaviour implies that you don't care if we orgasm or not? Which extrapolates to the whole "one woman is pretty much like another in the dark" idea and can make us feel pretty much like a convenient hole for you to fuck?

So now I'm wondering how to teach my son this when he's older... I think that's probably a conversation I should leave to his dad.

Okay, I've not gotten around to sitting down with a notary...

but here's something that should carry some weight.

Having just read the autopsy report of Terry Shiavo, I'd like to make it known that if I am a vegetable, I do not wish to be kept alive on life support of any kind. If the chances of me ever recovering are low, go ahead and take my organs and give them to somebody who needs them, and what's left of me can be cremated (please don't embalm me, ew). My husband knows how I feel about this, and now the rest of you do too.

WOOHOOO!

I've always been a weird mix of introverted and extroverted. This Wednesday night I get to exercise my extroverted side, for the first time in a long time. It's Girls' Game night at my place! J is taking the kids to the grandparents' house, so we're planning on a manless, kidless evening of board games, or card games, or whatever! So, if you wanna come, drop me a line!

An easy post for a late Sunday morning

Snitched from Monster


Ceara is...
Ceara is fom the Old Irish name, Cera, the meaning of which may be "bright red."
Ceara is also Irish for "spear."
Ceará is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast.
Ceará is in the zone of droughts.
ceara is the goddess of the forests and the wild things
ceara is 650 000 tonnes
ceara is now issuing a international call for bids
ceara is forbidden
ceara is affected by the south east trade winds which blow relentlessly towards the equator
ceara is aloof and dignified
ceara is amazing at two and a half
ceara is the daughter of the scottish cheiftan tearlaich and his irish leymen
ceara is a powerful jedi
ceara is quick and agile
ceara is great
ceara is involved with the drama club
ceara is given to luke skywalker and adopted by him
ceara is attractive
ceara is kinda busy and will be for at least another month
ceara is determined and strong


Ceara is tired.

I'm opinionated

Here are a few of mine. Read at your own risk.

I believe that a fertilized egg is a potential human life, and whether it lives or dies is not up to me. I cannot imagine ever having an abortion, and I hope I'm never put in that position. That being said, I firmly believe that abortions should NOT be illegal. Historically, when abortion was illegal, the AMA decided to push for its legalization because it was a health issue - women were dying from infections, complications, etc. due to "back alley" abortions performed by unqualified practicioners. I believe that a woman who has been raped should not be forced to carry a child as a result of that rape - while I doubt a day would go by that she would not remember the rape in the next 9 months, there is no reason to make that memory a physical fact. I believe that if you are against abortion, you should be standing up and screaming for better, more available birth control. If people that don't want to get pregnant don't get pregnant, the number of abortions will go down dramatically, DUH. OH - and for god's sake, EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN. It never ceases to amaze me in today's day and age of information availability what some of the misconceptions about sex are. Yes, you can get pregnant while you are on your period. Yes, you can get pregnant if you have never had a period before. Yes, you can get pregnant if he pulls out. I can't even remember some of the stupider ones; my brain has blocked them out for self-preservation. I'd start getting trigger happy if I were surrounded by that much idiocy. I think I'm going to make a bumpersticker that says "YOU CANNOT LEGISLATE MORALITY"

I believe that 'creationism' and 'evolution' are not incompatible. I think people that interpret the bible literally are doofuses (and that's being polite). I personally don't believe that Genesis says HOW God created the earth - it says he did, and briefly mentions how long it took him. (About that, by the way: the Hebrew word translated as "day" is yom, which can mean "a length of time" as well as a "day".) Anyway, I consider anybody who argues that God did NOT use evolution to create everything is a raging egomaniac. How dare they presume to know the methods of God? They weren't there! And, if you want to get spiritual about it, doesn't the enormous complexity of evolution make the existence of God more believable? And as for what gets taught in schools - oh, give me a break. We don't teach religion in school (unless it's a religious private school, like the one I went to) and creationism is religion. Would Christians like us to also teach that the world was created when the Divine Turtle rose out of the primordial ocean with mud on its back? That too is a creation story. If you argue that evolution is 'just a theory' then you need to understand the meaning of the word 'theory' when used scientifically. There's a whole hell of a lot of data, found independently by many people over many years, that supports the idea of the process of evolution. Scientists are not out to destroy religion. I know a lot of scientists with very strong faith. A lot of them actually consider what they do to be somewhat spiritual, as they look at it as learning about God's creation - and they understand that science has nothing to do with faith, and that the existence of God is not the purview of science. So why can't religious fundamentalists understand that?

I believe that drugs should be legalized. Dammit, people, haven't you ever heard that saying about not learning from history and being doomed to repeat it? Look at Prohibition! It was widely ignored, and its existence helped organize crime take hold in the United States. I need to track it down again, but I once read about a study that said if a percentage of the population wants to do a certain act, then making it illegal is pointless because it will not dissuade people from doing it. Make drugs legal! Then regulate them. That eliminates people having trouble because the coke they bought was cut with rat poison. Tax drug sales. Think of the revenue! And then use some of that revenue to fund rehabilitation programs and education programs. Legalization eliminates the black-market demand, thus lowering the price of drugs, and eliminating the need for violence in the distribution system. This also eliminates the incredible amount of money this country is wasting on the "War on Drugs" both at home and abroad. This would allow other poor countries that currently produce a lot of the current drugs (Afghanistan, Columbia) to develop in a more free-market way, and would hopefully end the rule of armed despots in those countries as well. After all - nicotine and alcohol are chemical substances that affect the body, just like cocaine, meth, etc - why should those two be legal, and all others not? Because we grow tobacco & grain here in the US? I wonder if drug dealers paid as much money into our Congress as the Tobacco lobbyists do, if legalization would be heard more often.

Our policy on Cuba is stupid. Look at the USSR: we refused to interact with them - they endured. We open up our markets, culture, etc. - and bam! They open up. Think of Cuba as a battered wife to Fidel, the abusive husband. We're basically trying to keep her isolated from everybody else, providing only the most basic of necessities (and sometimes not even that) and yelling at her to leave her awful husband. Well, hell, it's not like you've shown her a better alternative! Take her out, show her how caring people interact with her, show her what she's missing - give her the means to leave, and don't you think it's much more likely that she will?

Illegal immigrants - the phrase should be retired. I think we should open our borders completely. You wanna come work in the US? Fine! Great! We'll pay you and take Social Security & all other taxes out of your pay. If you're willing to do for $8/hr what another worker is unwilling to do for less than $30, then I don't blame the employer for wanting to hire you. Let's just make sure the employer does it above the table, rather than under the table, as is common now. Come on in and work! And unions - consider this a huge influx of potential members. Decent working conditions, fair wages, etc. should be universal. Companies that remain in the US can even get tax breaks, or something. (Let's just please close all the damn tax loopholes that so many of them are currently jumping through, okay?) Looking around the world today, I'm anticipating a huge crash when things start to equalize - a person in Detroit making automobiles is paid a whopping amount compared to what a person in, say, Korea is. We are all interconnected, and at some point our pay and standard of living is going to have to come closer to other countries' pay and standard of living - and wouldn't you rather attempt to bring their levels closer up to ours, rather than ours crashing down to theirs? Make it a requirement that American countries have to pay a decent minimum wage to employees regardless of where those employees are (Alabama or Thailand) and that companies on foreign soil that an american company buys from must pay a decent minimum wage and provide a safe working environment.

As I've drifted into economy, here's a pet peeve: People, learn to boycott. If you don't like what a company is doing, DON'T BUY FROM THEM. They pay attention to you when you cease handing them money. I know it may make your life a little inconvenient or complicated, but that extra time you take shopping could be saving a little foriegn child from slave labor.

I think our dependence on fossil fuels is awful. I think the government should be encouraging conservation in all areas - giving tax breaks to companies that build 'green' buildings, or energy/water efficient fixtures... Build your houses with solar panels! Use grey water reclamation systems! Got a big factory? Plant stuff on the roof! Use recycled materials! Give tax breaks to people who use biodiesel cars! Give tax breaks to car companies that design more fuel efficient vehicles! As a government, the only way to encourage behaviour is by the reward system.

Education - my god, don't get me started. It's 2:30 am. I'll finish this another time.

stolen from meta

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 88% Existentialist 88% Idealist 75% Romanticist 56% Modernist 44% Postmodernist 44% Materialist 25% Fundamentalist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGH

I think fate is toying with me.

Okay, so I meet another human that looks like he & his wife might be worthwhile friends, and then I go to ZGeek and read this.

A bit of an excerpt:
*************************************************************************
By Kevin Corcoran
kevin.corcoran@indystar.com

"An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple's divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion.

Bradford refused to remove the provision after the 9-year-old boy's outraged parents, Thomas E. Jones Jr. and his ex-wife, Tammie U. Bristol, protested last fall."
*************************************************************************


What the hell??!! What country do I live in again? Let's all make as big a stink about this as possible. I'd LOVE to test the people that lately have been screaming about "activist judges" be forced to either call THIS judge an activist and support the wiccan parents, or reveal themselves to be total hypocrites.

wow, sometimes when you ask fate for an answer, you get a prompt response...

Okay, so Sunday mornings are my morning out - J watches the kids, and I usually go to some coffee shop with net access to drink froofy drinks and play on my iBook, or read, or whatever. So I'm sitting in the coffee shop, organizing my email, surfing the web, and reloading music on my iPod, when a guy comes in with a backpack and sits down next to me.

I figured at some point he was going to talk to me, as he sat down at the table right next to me, and sat down facing the same direction as I was - when there were other tables available, etc. But then, maybe he was there because it was relatively close to the outlet on the wall next to me, so I didn't think any more about it until he asked me how long I'd had my iBook.

So we started up a very nice conversation - what do you know, an intelligent person! His name is Adam, he's married (good), he's in med school and is looking to start a practice in the panhandle... we had a nice long chat about technology issues, amongst other things - I think he might be a kindred spirit! Here's to hoping. *makes toast with my leftover iced chai*


OH, and if you need a laugh, go watch this - if I hadn't had an asleep baby on my lap, I would have been on the FLOOR. It's hard to laugh that hard and try not to move or make any noise...

being cynical

I really hope the human race rises up and proves my cynicism wrong. I do. Honest. I would love to learn that most people are not, in fact, lazy, apathetic shitheads who aren't interested in living to their fullest potential or helping the following generations live to their fullest potential. I would love to wake up one morning to discover that people are not, in fact, greedy selfish asses who don't care what happens next year or next decade or next century because it doesn't affect them anyway, and whatever doesn't benefit them personally isn't worth wasting time on...

I am so tired of idiots. I'm not saying I don't do idiotic things - I do, and I have. I belive I've learned a lot from them, too - something some other people seem congenitally incapable of. But I try not to live the unexamined life. I try to be honest with myself, and with others. I try to remember that A is A, and no amount of wishing or ignoring will change reality. I've grown a lot in the last five years (no, not just around the middle) and have become I think a more mature, caring, worthwhile human being.

The only problem is that I'm running out of sympathy.

I can really sympathize with Frank (whom I think I'll ask out for drinks or coffee or something sometime soon) - I'm beginning to feel positively homicidal when it comes to a large part of the population of meatbags that call themselves humans. (I personally don't think a lot of them qualify at the moment.)

heeheehee

canoecanoecanoecanoecanoecanoecanoe
canoe
canoe
canoe
canoe
canoe

I'm intrigued

What do you think?

Bizarre, but engrossing....

I REALLY need to learn flash. Really really really.

Oh, and I forgot to mention....

I am a totally awful slacker.

Those of you who know me are saying "No shit, Sherlock" but I have a particularly egregious example.

Poor Patrick - he was flying in from San Antonio and I have a key to his apartment - I was supposed to go drop off his key so he could get in, and I TOTALLY FORGOT. Not only that, but I didn't hear the phone ring when he called us to ask us where the hell we were...

I'm such a schmuck.

I'll make it up to you, man.

And don't worry, I'm never going to ask you to help us move again. ;)

What an absolutely crappy night/morning.

So, my two 1/2 year old isn't sleeping well at the moment; J & I are discussing plans. I need to find my sleep solutions book and start working with it.

J's first day... we have to return a 300 lb mud-pump at 8:30 am... neither one of us got much sleep...


ugh.

Teh stoopid, it hurts...

You know, some days I feel like Robert Stadler - stupidity just has a way of sending me over the edge.

Take, for example, a recent news story:
Evidently while Saddam Hussein was in the US's custody, pictures were taken of him. Including pictures of him in his tighty-whities. Which has now been published on the front page of the Sun in Britain. Bad guy or not, many people are saying this was inappropriate, demeaning, and possibly against the Geneva Convention. And the quote from our president is this:

Speaking to reporters himself, Bush did not condemn the photographs and said he doubted they would stoke the anger of Iraqi insurgents.

"I don't think a photo inspires murders," Bush said.


What? He doesn't think a photo inspires.. holy god, I know he wasn't at the top of his class in his Ivy League school, but he did supposedly get passing grades - I think I'm going to send him a letter.



To President George W. Bush:

I recently read your response to journalists regarding the photographs of Saddam Hussein that have been published, and would like to ask you a question. You were quoted as saying "I don't think a photo inspires murders", is that correct? I am a 29 year old stay-at-home mother who has a two year college degree from my local community college. In less than five minutes I pulled up the following stories online:

Photo on a phone leads to shooting
A 27 year old man has reportedly shot his older sister in a so called "honour killing" after he saw a picture of her on a friends mobile phone screen. The shooting occurred in Jordan's second city, Irbid last week. The brother turned himself into the police shortly after the shooting.
"The man told police he shot and killed his sister to cleanse his family's honour because he saw her photo on his friend's mobile," the source told The Jordan Times.
The suspect told interrogators he was sitting with his friends on Sunday evening and started playing with one of their mobiles when he saw his sibling's photo, the source said.
The suspect left immediately and headed home. He reproached his sister about the photo and her alleged "immoral behaviour," according to the source.
This is the 5th person killed in an honour crime in Jordan this year.
(from http://www.cellular-news.com/story/12678.shtml)

A good lesson from history: Remember the Maine! Now, in this case, the pictures on the front of the newspapers were drawings, not photos, and they had a lot of bombastic words to go along with them - but pictures helped turn an unfortunate accident into a causis belli.

From their own administration: General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sought to delay release of the photos of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. "What I asked CBS News to do was to delay the release of the pictures given the current situation in Iraq . . . because I thought it would bring direct harm to our troops. It would kill our troops."...


If a photo doesn't inspire murder, then the whole rationale behind wartime propaganda kinda falls apart, don't you think? Take World War II - I mean, if you're not putting up a picture of a Nazi murdering defenseless gypsy children in order to inspire your troops to fight harder in the war (of which a large part involves killing Nazis), what ARE you putting up the picture for?



Okay. I have real work to do. I can't do George Bush's job (as much as I sometimes feel like attempting to take over) so the least I can do is do my job well.

I'm choking on laughter here

Trying not to wake up C with my mirth - have you guys seen this? Some of the comments are PRICELESS.

My favorite: "Which one is Bush?"

The only sad thing is that I don't live in place where I could do this.

I am never opening a pool cleaning business.

Geez, what a day. I find out yesterday that my parents' next door neighbors have called the Health Department to complain about the mosquitos in the pool. (In actuality, my parents have been putting in those bacteria discs that destroy mosquito larvae, so there are actually no mosquito larvae in the pool. The mosquitos in the neighborhood are probably coming from the drainage ditch/creek that runs past the end of the cul-de-sac.) However, me not realizing immediately that the Health Department could come test the pool water and see that there were no larvae, figured that my weekend was now going to be blown by cleaning the pool (something I'd planned on doing this summer anyway, but after school was over so mom could watch the kids - not on a 3 day deadline from the Department of Health.)

Aside from the normal stress of dealing with my parents, being amazingly grumpy to begin with (because yesterday was J's last day at his old job and nobody said SHIT - the owner of the company hasn't spoken to him in a week or so; nobody said good luck, thanks for everything, see you soon, no goodbye from all of us card, no taking him out to dinner - he's worked with these people for 2½ years, is it unreasonable for me to think this is kinda crappy of them?) Anyway, I was short tempered to begin with, and renting a mud pump (which some moron before us had put kerosene in; poor man had to clean it out before we could take it) and figuring out exactly how we were going to do what... oh, raging pain in my a$$.

There was one redeeming part of the day.

I scooped out 101 bullfrog tadpoles from the pool. Yes, I said ONE HUNDRED AND ONE. And I'm nowhere near done. These things were huge; their heads were anywhere from 1-2 inches long, and the tails were 2-3 inches longer than that - big honkers! OH, and the most pleasant surprise was pulling two of these out:



Allow me to introduce you to the Central Newt - a subcategory of the Eastern Newt; we pulled out two in their super-nifty adult aquatic mating phase! Now that I've looked them up, I wish I'd kept them - they were probably a breeding pair, dangit. I'm really hoping that they'll make it in the pond we released the tadpoles in. *sigh*

I am now going to take some painkillers to ease my aching, itchy body.