9 - 2004 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Ayes and nose

Quoth Marn: Before we go any further, here’s what I want to say about skin cancer. *Insert sound of soapbox scraping across stage here*. Eighty per cent of the damage…

Quoth Marn:

Before we go any further, here’s what I want to say about skin cancer. *Insert sound of soapbox scraping across stage here*. Eighty per cent of the damage that causes skin cancer happens before you’re 19. So if you’re a zygote or parent of a zygote and you ever consider going outside or sending your child outside without sunscreen and a hat, then I want you to pause and think about this image:

I’ll leave the image for those who care to click through.

Margie is a lot more diligent about slathering the sunscreen on Kitten than I am, mostly because I hate using the stuff myself, but I need to step up to that.

And, all this summer (and, I anticipate, from here on out), I wear a hat when I go out for my lunchtime walks. Virtuous on so many levels …

Anyway, food for thought as summer winds down.

You are what you watch

A new study by Initiative Media Worldwide has broken out TV shows by political affiliation (the better to target audiences with certain campaign ads, no doubt). GOP? You’re probably watching…

A new study by Initiative Media Worldwide has broken out TV shows by political affiliation (the better to target audiences with certain campaign ads, no doubt).

GOP? You’re probably watching Everybody Loves Raymond, 8 Simple Rules, Without a Trace, JAG, Amazing Race, The Simple Life, and Joan of Arcadia.

Dem? You’re tuned to Will & Grace, Judging Amy, Quintuplets, For Love or Money, Crossing Jordan, Law & Order, and Extreme Makeover.

Sinisterly enough, both parties like 2 1/2 Men and Last Comic Standing.

Undecided? Ah, expect to see Bush and Kerry targeting ads in My Wife and Kids, CSI: Miami, Fear Factor, Friends, Who Wants to Marry My Dad?, King of Queens, Law & Order: SVU and For Love & Money.

And I’m sure it’s meaningful that they also like Everyone Loves Raymond and JAG (like Repubs) and Will & Grace (like Dems).

Further breakdowns of the data are also possible.

For instance, undecided voters who worry about national security tune in to “Everybody Loves Raymond,” according to the study. Republicans who care about family values watch “Joan of Arcadia.” Democrats concerned about health care escape with “Monk,” a cable show that happens to be about an obsessive compulsive hypochondriac.
Overall, Initiative said research shows that “undecided voters have a tendency to watch shows that have ethnic appeal.” They are also drawn to animation, reality TV and talk shows.

So … what does it mean that I only watch one of the shows up there (a Dem one) with any vague regularity (and have never watched the vast majority of them)? Aside from my having good taste, that is.

(via MamaWrite)

Getting a head

Doyce comments that “I firmly believe that separate bathrooms are one of the keys to a happy marriage.” I suspect it depends on the folks involved. Most contention over bathrooms…

Doyce comments that “I firmly believe that separate bathrooms are one of the keys to a happy marriage.”

I suspect it depends on the folks involved. Most contention over bathrooms in marriages has to do with monopolization of the facilities. That doesn’t apply to Margie and me so much, for a variety of reasons:

The counter area of our master bath is large enough for three or four people to share, and not in the same chamber as the toilet.
In cases of toilet contention, there’s another one just down the hall that’s unoccupied 99.5% of the time (which, hopefully, will not change too much as Katherine grows older).
Margie and I don’t keep the same weekday schedules, so we rarely bump heads trying to get a shower taken.
We enjoy showering together on those occasions when our schedules overlap.
Even when in a “I’m reading, leave me alone” kind of mode, neither of us takes so much time in the bathroom as cause a problem for the other. Indeed, Margie is usually much faster than I am (often because I’m the one reading), so my waiting whilst she completes her evening ablutions is hardly a hardship.

And, FWIW, I don’t recall that being a particular problem even in the old days when I had a much smaller bathroom and a different person I was sharing it with.

That said, it’s good for a man to know how to make a happy marriage (most usefully the one he’s in), so more power to whatever arrangement works for you.

Babies and bathwater

A federal court has overturned Pennsylvania’s child internet pr0n law, arguing that the state ordering ISPs to block IP addresses — regardless of whether or not others are on that…

A federal court has overturned Pennsylvania’s child internet pr0n law, arguing that the state ordering ISPs to block IP addresses — regardless of whether or not others are on that same IP address who are not peddling such filth — is unconstitutional.

Based on the evidence presented by the parties at trial, the Court concludes that, with the current state of technology, the Act cannot be implemented without excessive blocking of innocent speech in violation of the First Amendment. In addition, the procedures provided by the Act are insufficient to justify the prior restraint of material protected by the First Amendment and, given the current design of the Internet, the Act is unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause because of its affect on interstate commerce.

The elimination of child pornography is an important goal and those responsible for the creation or distribution of child pornography should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. To that end, all of the ISPs involved in the case have given defendant their complete cooperation. Notwithstanding this effort, there is little evidence that the Act has reduced the production of child pornography or the child sexual abuse associated with its creation. On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the Act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment. For these reasons, and the other reasons set forth in the Memorandum, the Court is ineluctably led to conclude the Act is unconstitutional.

Part of the “suppression of speech” has not only been the blocking of websites that happen to be on the same IP address (or URL) as child pr0n sites, but the “Informal Notice” process the state used did not require any court order in conjunction with blocking sites. Nor was there any subsequent review of sites (or IP addresses) in the future to see if they still needed blocking. And, of course, national ISPs were ending up having to block sites to customers in all states based on the direction of officials in one state.

Interesting decision to read, and a good one to have had handed down.

Voices from the back seat

A new game that Katherine and I engage in during our drives to/from pre-school: The Case of the Messed-Up Voice. That usually happens when I drop into some accent or…

A new game that Katherine and I engage in during our drives to/from pre-school: The Case of the Messed-Up Voice. That usually happens when I drop into some accent or another during our conversation, that in turn a result from my being a Silly Daddy.

Katherine will then declare that she is going to turn into a magical fairy and use her powers to fix my voice. “Hocus-pocus, make Daddy have his voice back!”

Of course, what makes the game fun is that my voice changes to a completely different accent at that point, which I may or may not “notice.”

Good for several minutes of entertainment, and now she wants to have the game played the other way. It’s a hoot listening to her do different voices — something I don’t know I’ve ever heard other kids her age do. She doesn’t do accents per se, but she’ll drop her voice down way low, then do it pipingly high, then all scratchy, etc. Each of them different. And she knows how to end the game, too.

My daughter: the actress. I love it.

It works the other way, too

When we had the new a/c installed this summer, we had them replace the legacy furnace, too. Seems to be working quite nicely, thank you, and quiet, too, though I…

When we had the new a/c installed this summer, we had them replace the legacy furnace, too.

Seems to be working quite nicely, thank you, and quiet, too, though I need to open the valve on the humidifier before too long.

Not quite as satisfying as novel-writing, but …

… I think I’ve finally gotten the Parish Profile and its Appendix completed, signed, sealed, delivered, approved, vetted, reviewed, second-guessed, word-smithed, argued over, tweaked, polished, revised, saved, PDFed, and ready…

Actually, in some ways novel-writing is a lot easier. Or at least less complicated.

And, in some ways, less fraught with peril, be it from parishioners who think you’ve slighted some favorite group of theirs, or misrepresented ~~them~~ the parish, or whatever, or from what you’ve written wrongly playing a direct role in getting the wrong person into the rector’s role.

Eep!

I’ll post the URL (for those as are interested) once I’ve confirmation that it’s available. I’m sort of proud of the final effort, though there are things I would have done a lot differently, had I had free rein to do so. But I knew this job was dangerous when I took it …

Anyway, now you understand the relative dearth of postage around here today … or, looking at the clock, I guess yesterday is more accurate.

And now to bed, and the sleep of the relatively contented.

Autumn is a-cummin’ in … (Redux)

And the maples in front are turning a bright red ……

And the maples in front are turning a bright red …

I suspect we’ll see this scene played out again

“The Irony Gods are rolling on the floor right now,” was my comment to Margie as Katherine wailed like the damned for being ejected from her bed to go to…

“The Irony Gods are rolling on the floor right now,” was my comment to Margie as Katherine wailed like the damned for being ejected from her bed to go to school. Margie’s at all-day off-sites, so we arranged for Katherine to attend the on-site child care at her pre-school in the mornings, followed by her class in the afternoon. That meant getting her there by 8 in order to have breakfast.

Now Margie seemed to interpret the comment as meaning that the Irony Gods were laughing at us for our past getting-up sins and tormented howls to our own parents. Pish-tosh. I thought they were laughing at Katherine for all the times she’s dragged one of us out of bed, when all we wanted to do was sleep in, snug under the covers, undisturbed.

Of course, the Irony Gods are equal-opportunity laughers. They have no hesitation about laughing at everyone.

Happy Birthday to the Boy

‘Nuff said….

‘Nuff said.

When will these people learn?

Yet another variation on a tired old on-line scam. Next thing you know, they’ll be threatening you with force or something….

Yet another variation on a tired old on-line scam. Next thing you know, they’ll be threatening you with force or something.

True Believer

Brian Michael Bendis convinces the New York Times to run a cartoon. About Brian Michael Bendis, of course. (via Thought Balloons)…

Brian Michael Bendis convinces the New York Times to run a cartoon. About Brian Michael Bendis, of course.

(via Thought Balloons)

Adding a little surreality into life

I love Calvin’s Dad. No, really, this sounds like a lot of conversations I’ve had (and will have) with Katherine ……

I love Calvin’s Dad. No, really, this sounds like a lot of conversations I’ve had (and will have) with Katherine …

How Christlike … not

It’s perhaps inappropriate to ascribe motivations to people, but certainly it’s not inappropriate to say that Jimmy Swaggart doesn’t seem particuarly Christian in this proclamation: During the program, a rambling…

It’s perhaps inappropriate to ascribe motivations to people, but certainly it’s not inappropriate to say that Jimmy Swaggart doesn’t seem particuarly Christian in this proclamation:

During the program, a rambling sermon by Swaggart who is trying to rehabilitate himself after an arrest for soliciting a prostitute, the televangelist turned to the subject of gay marriage.
According to a transcript of the program, Swaggart said: “I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.”
The remarks were met with applause from his congregation.
The program was taped at Swaggart’s ministry in New Orleans where voters Saturday agreed to amend the Louisiana constitution to bar same-sex marriage.

It is certainly Mr Swaggart’s privilege to consider gay marriage stupid (just as I consider a number of things “stupid” that others think are correct). It’s sort of ignorant for Swaggart to somehow judge that it’s idiotic just because he never found himself attracted to men. I’ve never seen a raw tomato that looked gustatorially attractive to me, but that doesn’t mean I think folks are idiotic for wanting to eat them. Still, there’s no accounting for tastes …

But assuming Swaggart’s final comments are recorded accurately, I can’t imagine Christ suggesting that someone who looks at you lustfully deserves killing (and deserves prevarication toward God about it).

I don’t agree with the complaint brought in Canada for the broadcast of the sermon (it’s better for folks to hear Swaggart making a jerk of himself than to suppress that speech). Though don’t get me started on Louisana’s new constitutional amendment.

But regardless of all that, Swaggart’s statements are not what I see Christianity as representing, and I certainly, as a Christian, condemn them in no uncertain terms.

(via Volokh)

Well, here’s some interesting spam …

A refreshing relief from offers for investments, unclaimed wealth, and erection aids: How can one become a terrorist? You\’re invited to shop for large selection of bombs and different kinds…

A refreshing relief from offers for investments, unclaimed wealth, and erection aids: How can one become a terrorist?

You\’re invited to shop for large selection of bombs and different kinds of rockets such as surface-to-air, surface-to-surface and weaponry available at reduced price. With the following types of rockets you will be able to commit terrorist attacks, destroy buildings, electric power stations, bridges, factories and anything else that comes your mind. Most items are in stock and available for next day freight delivery in the USA. Worldwide delivery is available at additional cost. Prices are negotiable.
[…] Recently received *NEW*
Hydra 70 2.75 inch Rockets
Air-Launched 2.75-Inch Rockets
FIM-92A Stinger Weapons System
Stinger 101: Anti-Air
Our clients are well known Al-Qaida, Hizballah, Al-Jihad, HAMAS, Abu Sayyaf Group and many other terrorist groups. We are well known supplier in the market and looking forward to expand our clientage with assistance of Internet.

Almost certainly a spoof — I hope — or a scam (by law enforcement or otherwise), but I think I’ll avoid the ICQ and phone numbers.

Aunt Mary would be proud

Katherine’s latest pastime during our various drives about town is identifying car brands. She recognizes the Ford blue oval, and the Honda “H” and the Toyota “flying saucers” (“like Mommy’s car!”), the Lexus “L” (“like Nono and Nona’s car!”) and a few others, but she’s most proud of recognizing both the star cluster logo and spelled-out “SUBARU” that is so common in these parts.

I’ve never been a big car guy, but it’s a keen thing for Katherine to learn, and she gets a big kick out of it.

A bit of automotive trivia from Subaru’s web site:

“SUBARU” is a Japanese word meaning “unite,” as well as a term identifying a cluster of six stars, with the Greeks called the Pleiades — part of the Taurus constellation. According to Greek mythology, Atlas’ daughters turned into this group of stars. In 1953, five Japanese companies merged to form Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. The new corporation adopted the “Subaru” cluster of stars as the official logo for its line of automobiles.

Autumn is a-cummin’ in …

This should be enough to snap the trees into fall plumage: … Sharply colder temperatures along with snow in the high country expected Tuesday and Wednesday… The first cold storm…

This should be enough to snap the trees into fall plumage:

… Sharply colder temperatures along with snow in the high country expected Tuesday and Wednesday…
The first cold storm system of the season is expected to move across the area the next couple of days. Late Monday night… a cold front will move through the area which will usher much colder air into the area. By daybreak Tuesday… widespread showers will develop in the foothills and Front Range. At higher elevations … Snow is expected by Tuesday morning. The snow level will fall throughout the day Tuesday and may drop low enough to produce some light snow accumulations on grassy areas along the Palmer Divide.
The rain may briefly mix with snow in areas of the Front Range immediately adjacent to the foothills by Tuesday evening.

Katherine is eager to have snow arrive.

Definitely getting to be time for me to upgrade …

Art imitates life

Damn straight I’m irked. Damn straight I have them on pre-order….

Damn straight I’m irked.

Damn straight I have them on pre-order.

Hawks for Kerry

Michael Totten has the first of two articles he’s writing on why to vote for the “other side.” This one is on the Hawkish case for Kerry, and it’s an…

Michael Totten has the first of two articles he’s writing on why to vote for the “other side.” This one is on the Hawkish case for Kerry, and it’s an interesting (and damning with faint praise) read. His two theses:

Bush’s unpopularity (or virulent unpopularity among certain factions) at home and abroad, rational or not, has become a strategic liability.
Kerry isn’t likely to do things all that differently from Bush, once actually faced with the same challenges.

Interesting stuff, and points I’m not likely to dismiss out of hand. Totten’s next article will be the Liberal case for Bush.

UPDATE (7-Oct-04): Totten’s article on “The Liberal case for Bush” is up.