or tsar, or csar... is to be created by Obama soon. I really wonder how many czars one country can have. Under my understanding of the primary and secondary definitions of czar, we would seemingly be limited to some extent. But hey, what's one more czar when we already have a border czar, homeland security czar, and health and family services czar... What? A health czar? Apparently so, and it isn't the Secretary of DHFS...
President Barack Obama filled out his health-care overhaul team Monday by naming Nancy-Ann DeParle, a veteran of the Clinton administration, as the White House health czar.
DeParle will join Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary
Now I'm confused. From any of the definitions linked above, it would seem unlikely that someone who is a czar would be a member of a team... Alas, another example of our cultural obsession with overusing a word because it sounds cool.
Also, for those three readers out there, I apologize for my long dry spell of posting. It has been a busy couple of months... coaching little league (2 teams), buying a house, selling a house... a lot going on. I guess I need a blogging czar to keep me on track.
Give the site tweetcongress.org a look see when you have some time. You know, if it can be said in a less than 140 characters, without puncuation or capitalization, with little thought before shooting off with some rhetorical bullshit -- politicians are bound to get in the game.
and you'll get the number. That's an old partially chauvinistic adage I heard from a quite chauvinistic (and depending on your viewpoint, mildly successful or completely reprehensible) self-professed professional bachelor. I haven't seen the full details of this study, but from what appears on CNN, it may be more true than I ever believed. Of course, it's important to remember that some women's sense of humor isn't exactly on a parallel plane with the everyday guy's view of funny. So, as a general rule fellas, stay away from the "dead baby" and/or "poop" jokes... For one, they won't impress the ladies, and secondly, they really aren't funny to anyone with much of a brain. Most of the laughs generated are at you and the fact that someone would say something so stupid.
If ladies like guys who can make them laugh, is the converse true? Well...
Do men also think funny women are more intelligent and honest? Time constraints prevented McCarty from exploring this question, but he said research suggests that men don't care much about women's sense of humor.
"A man wants a woman who laughs at his jokes and...
Well, the study doesn't complete the thought I had, but I think any man being truthful with themselves can figure that one out.
Instead of pie in the sky budget fixes... why not try high as a kite fixes?
Estimates value the state's crop of marijuana at $13.8 billion, double that of the vegetable and grape markets combined. Nationwide, it may be the fourth largest cash crop, behind corn, soy and hay but ahead of wheat.
If you need another reason to stay away from Old Country Buffett,this story may assist you in realizing that not only is the food often slop, but you may get ridiculed or stabbed for rocking the boat (or bumping a lady).
It all started when a young man and young woman, who police described as being friends, were approaching buffet tables when they bumped into one another.
"The victim said he had his eye on his next entree when his right arm connected the left arm of the young woman," police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.
"He says the woman responded by commenting on his girth indicating he did not need any more nourishment," DeSpain said.
to steal a line from a song I used to enjoy... and there's reason to believe...
Thus far in December, I have: 1. Severely sprained my ankle -- damaging nearly every ligament in the joint... leaving me with very limited mobility on crutches... 2. Fallen down due to this limited mobility in combination with Madison already having received a blistering 16.5 inches of snowfall for the season. (This is only marginally below the pace from last year's 100+ inch winter)... 3. Had a violent case of stomach illness that has pretty much insured I won't ever desire the Asian Noodle dish from Noodles again... 4. The aforementioned ankle injury occurred during a heated basketball game, which given the severity of the sprain, may be the last truly reckless and wild bball game I will ever play... a dream smashed :-( 5. Gotten very far behind in my reading and blogging... which given all of the time away from work seems somewhat hard to believe, but as I age, I start to understand and grasp at what all this "being sick" truck is about.
So a shitty month, huh? Well, actually, it isn't that bad. Given my fortunate position in the job market, I have not missed being paid a single day though I've been out as much as in the office this month. On top of that, I haven't had to worry about the medical bills associated with this injury and illness, as I am fortunate to be covered by good health insurance. I haven't felt insecure about losing my job in the current economic crisis and I haven't had to worry about my place at work being undermined by being out ill... Honestly, lying at home this past week, I realized how lucky I am. It is a tough world out there... hope you each are finding your way through...
As I walk on This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity. I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
And as I walk on Through troubled times My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes So where are the strong And who are the trusted? And where is the harmony? Sweet harmony.
Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry. What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
So where are the strong? And who are the trusted? And where is the harmony? Sweet harmony.
Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry. What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 is chastising Wal-Mart for allowing a death on Black Friday in one of their stores.
"This incident was avoidable," said Bruce Both, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, the state of New York's largest grocery worker's union. "Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner?
Avoidable? No kidding! Death by shopping... that has to be seen as some kind of sick indication of our society... Wal-Mart should not be given a free ride on this, but seriously, this could have happened a lot of places from the little I've seen of Black Friday shopsotic behaviour. Can the deal be that good?
While perusing the weekly delivery of The Economist (oh, that bastion of true liberal sensability, I know!), I stumbled across a very interesting ad on page 47. The ad below is not the exact one from the mag, but is eerily similar and, therefore, makes this whole campaign more disturbing. See if you notice anything at all odd about this ad campaign for Korea Air...
Maybe it is just me, but I immediately saw a mushroom cloud in the imagery. Just about the last thing I can imagine the marketers wanted me to think about when deciding whether or not to fly Korea air and possibly drop in on Seoul for a visit... I may be crazy, but how did this get through the ad approval chain?
Safe sex is a good thing. I am not one to care how we get it on... as long as we can get it on. Well, there are some interesting ideas on how to make this happen out there.
5. Spray-on protection
Since his teens, Jan Vinzenz Krause struggled to find a condom that fit correctly. He thought the pursuit of the perfect prophylactic was hopeless -- until he went to the carwash.
Inspired by the spray-on soap and wax, the German Krause developed a spray-on latex condom, which he claims always fits perfectly and feels natural.
However, many men find the design off-putting; the spray-on condom comes in a hard phallic case.
Men slide themselves into the cylinder and layer on the latex, providing full coverage.
The Jolly Joe, as Krause dubbed it, frightened many men during the testing phase -- they only put the case on their fingers. (Spray on gloves anyone?)
Others felt the loud hissing wasn't sexy and the latex takes too long to dry -- three minutes.
Krause explains to Time, "It needs to be ready in five to ten seconds." So for now, Krause is waiting for a quicker-drying latex.
Uh, yeah three minutes is a bit too long Mr. Krause. But keep trying hard...
how inflation effects "dollar" stores. NPR had the Last Word in Business on this topic this morning. Interesting... At some point, won't they have to go to the two dollar store? or the buck fifty?
Hitchens always offers something to say and a brief review of the last three posts in his Slate "Fighting Words" column shows that he is two for his last three. The old curmudgeon can still hit a little, eh? The column dated 7/7/08 on the death of Jesse Helms is definately a double to the gap.
I make no apology for calling him a provincial redneck, because that, to be fair to him once more, was how he thought of himself and even described himself. It was a scandal that a man with so little knowledge of the outside world should have had such a stranglehold on American foreign policy for so long. He once introduced Benazir Bhutto as the prime minister of India. All right, that could have happened to anybody. But what about the hearings on North Korea in which he made repeated references to "Kim Jong the Second"? In order to prevent any repetition of this idiotic gaffe, Helms' staff propped up a piece of card on which was clearly written the pronunciation "Kim Jong ILL." The senator from North Carolina duly made the adjustment, referring thenceforth to the North Korean despot as "Kim Jong the Third."
Good riddance Jesse...
I won't go into great detail on his post from July 14th on what he feels is a false zero-sum choice proposed by liberals with regard to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I feel this piece is either a hard line out to right center, or maybe it is reaching on an error by the left side of the infield? I am not as convinced as Mr. Hitchens that the war in Iraq is going as well as he would have it, but he does make one point in reference to the Afghanistan war that I believe to be of import.
It would also be very nice to accept another soft-centered corollary of the Iraq vs. Afghanistan trade-off and to believe that the problem of Afghanistan is a problem only of the shortage of troops. Strangely, this is not the view of the Afghan government or of any of the NATO forces on the ground. The continued and, indeed, increasing insolence of the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies is the consequence of one thing and one thing only. These theocratic terrorists know that they have a reliable backer in the higher echelons of the Pakistani state and of its military-intelligence complex and that while this relationship persists, they are assured of a hinterland across the border and a regular supply of arms and recruits.
Until Pakistan gets serious about the insurgents in the Tribal Regions, an area much neglected and extremely economically and politically depressed, there will be no true "peace" in Afghanistan... no matter how many NATO or US troops are there.
And finally we have the blind salamander column dated July 21st. In this column Hitchens offers an interesting argument against the entire mindset of linear progression, which is of primary import to the Creationists (and is at least partially shared by many other humans). Hitchens proposes considering our current position not as the resultant of a natural progression, but as the temporary status quo of an ongoing and dynamic process, whereby things (cells, organs, organisms, ecosytems, planets, galaxies, etc.) come and go. There is no ultimate end to evolution, it is merely a part of the ongoing change that is the universe.
I am not myself able to add anything about the formation of light cells, eyespots, and lenses, but I do think that there is a dialectical usefulness to considering the conventional arguments in reverse, as it were. For example, to the old theistic question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" we can now counterpose the findings of professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the foreseeable heat death of the universe, the Hubble "red shift" that shows the universe's rate of explosive expansion actually increasing, and the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda, already loomingly visible in the night sky. So, the question can and must be rephrased: "Why will our brief 'something' so soon be replaced with nothing?" It's only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design.
So, I stole one of my favorite themes of the old Sports Illustrated (or maybe they still have it, I wouldn't know as I stopped reading it in 8th grade). But, really what else could be a better title for the fact that Dunkin Donuts has pulled ads featuring Rachel Ray because right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin wrote that it looked like a kaffiyeh. Which, in Malkin's words is
''The kaffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,''
I really don't know if I am more confounded by Malkin's ability to significantly overreact to an artical of clothing, or if the fact that Dunkin' Donuts responded. I guess this could be used to extrapolate the political leanings of the DD crowd? Who knows, I'm just glad I didn't buy that white and black scarf this past winter...
If you look at the reader's choice list of the top 100 Best novels, you will too. (I should also feel a little bad for Tolkien, but you know he probably has a lot of crossover appeal with the Objectivists... though Orwell might too, which is unfortunate for them since he was definatively not of their ilk.)
Taylor Clark offers us omnivores a little insight into the vegetarian's mind, with an essay at Slate. I found the essay to be insightful in some respects, but a little sad in that it seems to promote the odd moral imperative that we should not kill animals and consume them (and craving a hot dog with mustard)...
Believe me, if obtaining bacon didn't require slaughtering a pig, I'd have a BLT in each hand right now with a bacon layer cake waiting in the fridge for dessert. But, that said, I can also tell you that with some time away from the butcher's section, many meat products start to seem gross. Ground beef in particular now strikes me as absolutely revolting; I have a vague memory that hamburgers taste good, but the idea of taking a cow's leg, mulching it into a fatty pulp, and forming it into a pancake makes me gag. And hot dogs … I mean, hot dogs? You do know what that is, right?
I understand that we don't have to kill and eat animals, but I do have some curiosity as to what we should do with all those cows if we don't. I really feel that sometimes this don't kill idea is dragging us away from a key part of our humanity -- as big time predator of an important food chain. It doesn't seem sustainable to me that we could cease eating meat en masse. I do recognize that Mr. Clark doesn't necessarily advocate for such a large transition, but the whole moral/ethical argument is, in my opinion, weak soup. Of course, we should strive to raise and kill these animals in the least offensive and harmful way, but -- call me a biological conservative -- I think that our traditional role as a predator in our food system is important.
Clark concludes:
Finally, grant me one more cordial request: Please don't try to convince us that being vegetarian is somehow wrong. If you're concerned for my health, that's very nice, though you can rest assured that I'm in shipshape. If you want to have an amiable tête-à-tête about vegetarianism, that's great. But if you insist on being the aggressive blowhard who takes meatlessness as a personal insult and rails about what fools we all are, you're only going to persuade me that you're a dickhead. When someone says he's Catholic, you probably don't start the stump speech about how God is a lie created to enslave the ignorant masses, and it's equally offensive to berate an herbivore. I know you think we're crazy.
Who says we shouldn't say those things to Catholics??? OK, I guess not, and I'll try to be good... My cordial request back to the vegetarians is that they not inform me what is in a hot dog while I'm preparing my homage to the "guts and stuff encased meat products on a bun gods" at the game. I know what's in those dogs (I've made them), and no I don't find it gross. Oh, and please pass the relish too.
But doesn't it seem like there have been a lot of weather related catastrophes recently? The Chinese earthquake, the Myanmar cyclone, the tornadoes (spelling?) in the midwest/south... Maybe I'm just normally oblivious to these things, but it seems like a tough couple of weeks for the human race with regards to our relationship to good ole momma nature.
Apparently, more than one-third of laptop owners regurlarly take it to bed with them. I'm not sure exactly why, but this disturbs me quite a lot...
Joe Guppy, a Seattle couples counselor, says today's couples often find it challenging to keep the communication devices from getting in the way of, well, communicating.
"Communication problems seem to be the No. 1 thing people ask about when they call," he says. "They come to the session and pay me $100 just so they can sit together and talk. And to me, the No. 1 red flag is if each person is engaged in their own cyberworld or video world. I had one couple that would even get into arguments via text message."
Guppy recommends sharing digital distractions so one partner doesn't feel left out (Sekerak and her husband choose Netflix movies together) and establishing limits.
"Over time, we've learned to set boundaries," says Flannery, the PR consultant. "We can't answer phone calls during dinner. We can't bring the phone to church with us."
Nor, should you answer or even think about the internet, phone, blackberry or other communication device most of the time in the bedroom... there are other forms of communication and entertainment available!
I don't think you are going to read this, given you don't have a computer and have never been on the internet, but thanks for having me. That, along with raising me, was very kind. I know that seems like a huge understatement, but there is nothing to be done to thank a mom for her love, caring and hard work in raising a child.
Thanks!
Make sure to call, write, visit, etc. your mommma today....
Even I couldn't make this up ---The drama flairs here in Madison after the University of Wisconsin administration shut down a sex toy seminar. The rationale for this cancellation, was of course, nothing to do with the content, but instead focused on the potential for commercial exploitation of the University's campus:
In an interview Monday, Law School Associate Dean Walter Dickey said the event was canceled for content-neutral reasons, pointing to a Student Organization Office policy that prohibits the promotion or sale of commercial products by a private company.
The student group in charge of the promotion challenged the ruling, and it seems they have won, at least halfway.
Law School Dean Kenneth Davis now says there was a misunderstanding and the Sex Toys 101 event can be held as long as no commercial products are promoted or sold... Maria June Selsor, chairwoman of the organizing group, said the event won’t happen this academic year since classes are ending this week, but it may be rescheduled for next semester.
So, we won't get the opportunity to experience this workshop this year, but it's on the table for the fall... Always something to look forward to here in Madison.
I just heard today, that after an early January visit to cold and snowy Madtown, none other than the Hitch decided to quit smoking.
After the drinks arrive I offer Hitchens one of my Marlboro Lights. Then something life-changing happens. Cool as a cucumber - and with no hint of remorse - Hitchens announces that he has given up smoking. "I got up yesterday morning in Madison, Wisconsin, and I just threw my pack away," he says.
I have no way of knowing if he has stayed on the wagon, but this does point to one potential resultant of smoking bans in bars in really cold places.... Smokers get cold too, and if you have to stand in sub-zero temps for your fix, well it doesn't seem quite as important. I have to admit that this news struck me as startling, because on his last visit in October, I personally witnessed him lighting up in the Monona Terrace Convention Center with not a care to the world.
I'm sure this health conscious decision is making some on the left twinge, since I'm sure a number were hoping that the black lung would get him sooner rather than later.
