Bad news: The $9 worth of faucets I bought to fix my leaky washer hookup weren't the right type.

Good news: With a little tinkering everything's fine and dandy thanks to 2 wrenches and 3 cents worth of Teflon tape.

Back to Lowe's you go, unneeded faucets!

1) Louisianans seem to think their 100% humidity is much more humid than Ohio's 100% humidity.

2) Hand Grenades® are darn tasty.

3) People get very friendly when you tell them you drove 900 miles to help repair their town.

4) A clothes dryer plugged into an improperly grounded 220 volt outlet can be a little tingly.

The old ladies were awfully inquisitive at the church garage sale tonight.

Them: "What are you going to do with that rack/shelf?"

Me: "I don't know, put it somewhere and put stuff on it..."

5 minutes later...

Them: "I'm curious, what are you going to do with that basket?"

Me: "Ummmm... put it on the shelf and put stuff in it..."

Decrypt the folder on your hard disk BEFORE you upgrade your computer and reinstall Windows. BEFORE!!!

What follows is a conversation overhead yesterday in the video store between a father and his son, who appeared to be about 8.

Son:	*Looks at DVD box, reads title* "Carnival."
Father:	"Read that again."
Son:	"Car.. Carb... Cannibal."
Father:	"Yeah, that means 'meat eater'."
Son:	*~10 seconds go by* "Another word for that is 'carnivore'."
Father:	"Oh, I guess that actually means 'one who eats their own'."
Father:	*~15 seconds go by* "You know, once at a job site I was working at we had a guy who was arrested and taken away for cannibalism."
Father:	*~10 seconds go by* "But that wasn't in America."

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.
...
And although I don't want to underestimate the very real dangers of nuclear technology in the hands of rogue states, we cannot simply ban every technology that is dangerous. That was the all-or-nothing mentality at the height of the Cold War, when anything nuclear seemed to spell doom for humanity and the environment. In 1979, Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon produced a frisson of fear with their starring roles in "The China Syndrome," a fictional evocation of nuclear disaster in which a reactor meltdown threatens a city's survival. Less than two weeks after the blockbuster film opened, a reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant sent shivers of very real anguish throughout the country.

What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do -- prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent of America's electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear workers). Although I don't live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp.

--Going Nuclear

An interesting read.

Orson Scott Card takes a reasonable and refreshing "pox on both their houses" approach to the subjet.

[W]hen you purport to teach science in school, the subject you teach had better be science, and not somebody's religion in disguise.

That's the problem with both sides in this squabble. They are both functioning as religions, and they should stop it at once.

If both sides would behave like scientists, there wouldn't even be a controversy, because everyone would agree on this statement:

Evolution happens and obviously happened in the natural world, and natural selection plays a role in it. But we do not have adequate theories yet to explain completely how evolution works and worked at the biochemical level.

That is a true statement, according to our present state of scientific knowledge.

And when Darwinists scream that we do too know how to explain evolution, and it's natural selection, so just stop talking about it, they are dogmatists demanding that their faith -- the faith that Darwin's model will be found to explain everything when we just understand things better -- be taught in the public schools.

There is no reason for science teachers in the public schools to take a single step beyond that statement I made above. It allows the teaching of every speck of scientific biology; and it makes moot the as-yet-unknowable issue of how each specific complex biochemical system came into existence.

In fact, what every school board in this country should decide is to ignore both sides' demands that the schools teach their faith, and allow the public schools to perform their public service: educating children in our shared culture, including what we have learned through the scientific method.

--Orson Scott Card

Looks like Alzheimer's might turn out to be type 3 diabetes.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. said it will quit marketing a drinking game called "Bud Pong" after discovering that some people were imbibing beer during the game instead of water, as directions specified.

The nation's biggest brewer rolled out "Bud Pong" in July, sending kits to beer wholesalers in 18 states. The bar game is played by bouncing ping pong balls into cups of liquid, with participants taking a drink if they lose a point. Anheuser-Busch suggested players fill the cups with water. A New York Times article Sunday described players using beer instead.

"It has come to our attention that despite our explicit guidelines, there may have been instances where this promotion was not carried out in the manner it was intended," Anheuser-Busch spokeswoman Francine I. Katz said in a statement Tuesday.
...
"The intent of this program was to provide adults who socialize in bars with a fun activity," Katz said in a statement. The company said it was pulling the promotion, and did not want perceptions of the "Bud Pong" game to conflict with a $500 million campaign to promote responsible drinking, Katz said.

It is irresponsible in itself to suggest that water be used during a bar game, said Glynn Birch, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

--Boston.com

4th Avenue Jones - Stereo

We’re too material, materialistic
But one possession I prize is my stereo
I got her when I was five, after I wished it
Now all I need to survive’s a simple stereo
She’s with me when I’m feeling low
And no one else knows
I take her everywhere I go
Uh uh oh

The only girl in my life when the other chicks dis’
Nobody there to confide in but my stereo
She sang Marley we vibe Natural Mystic
Until that day that I die gon’ love my stereo
She’s with me when I have no doe
Totally broke
I take her everywhere I go
Uh uh oh

Well my mother met her at a mall
I believe she had emigrated from Japan
On display but they ain’t never let her music play
Because her moss was a mean old man
And he didn’t like kid’s dancing and rapping all around her bumpin’ that hip-hop
But everybody love her in the ghetto and they start to groove
Whenever she be on the block to ROCK!

We’re too material, materialistic
But one possession I prize is my stereo
I got her when I was five, after I wished it
Now all I need to survive’s a simple stereo
She’s with me when I’m feeling low
And no one else knows
I take her everywhere I go
Uh uh oh

Don't think I'd ever uttered the sentence "I need to report a robbery." before.

BLEEP!

Got out to my car this morning, hit unlock on the keychain, got in the car and noticed there was some stuff sitting on the passenger's seat that I didn't remember getting out. Then I looked at the dash and there wasn't so much a radio there anymore. Bastard got my radio, the FM transmitter for my MP3 player and the recharging cord for my cell phone.

Reported it to the police, not like they're going to find it. And I think the total will fall about $750 below my deductible on my insurance so no help there. Guess I'll have to try and dig up my old radio and see if Circuit City can stick it back in.

Did this stuff use to happen? What is up with all the deranged people trying to rip babies from mothers' wombs?

A Pennsylvania nurse was charged yesterday with bashing a pregnant neighbor on the head with a baseball bat and then slashing her belly in a ghastly attempt to steal her unborn baby.

Authorities said Peggy Jo Conner, 38, hit Valerie Oskin, who was eight months pregnant, with the bat early Wednesday, drove her to a secluded woods northeast of Pittsburgh and used a razor knife to cut along an old Caesarean section scar. The horrifying ordeal went on for six hours before a 17-year-old boy on an all-terrain vehicle stumbled on the bloody scene and foiled the gruesome plot.

The baby was delivered by emergency C-section at Allegheny General Hospital, where Oskin, 30, remained in the trauma ward late yesterday. Authorities said the baby was in stable condition but would not release any further information.

--New York Daily News

Time has a good article up on how geek culture has been assimilated into pop culture.

There was a time--yes, my children, the legends are true--when J.R.R. Tolkien was not cool. Really. Very much not cool. Also video games, and Spider-Man, and the X-Men. There was a time, not even that long ago, when you could get beaten up by jocks in the woods behind the backstop for being down with the X-Men. Not that this happened to me personally. Friend of mine. Friend of mine's cousin, actually. Lives in Canada. You wouldn't know him.

The point is, things like that don't happen so much anymore. Over the past few years, an enormous shift has taken place in American culture, a disturbance in the Force, a rip in the fabric of space-time. What was once hopelessly geeky--video games, fantasy novels, science fiction, superheroes--has now, somehow, become cool.

It's as if the economic hegemony of the geek in the 1990s, when high tech and the Internet were driving the economy, has somehow been converted into a cultural hegemony. Rappers and athletes trick out their Hummers with Xboxes. Supermodels insist in interviews that they used to be losers in high school. Jon Cryer--Jon Cryer? Duckie from Pretty in Pink?--has a hit TV show. Did we lose a war with Nerdistan?
...
It's not hard to see how this happened. It's partly good business: nerds are highly employable, bursting with disposable income, and the entertainment industry has discovered them as a prime demographic to be marketed to, the same way it discovered teenage girls after Titanic. On a deeper level, there's something about the nerd's principled disdain for (or inability to abide by, same difference) ordinary social conventions that strikes Americans--a nation of nonconformists--as noble.

--Time.com

I moved last Friday. Stove doesn't work but other than that it's going ok.

I ordered my phone line from SBC on Monday and it will be installed on Friday. So far so good. But I also want to order their DSL service. (It's $14.95 a month if ordered online.) I try doing it online but because my new phone number won't be live until Friday and the very first question they ask online is for your phone number I can't order online until Friday.

Ok, since I CAN'T order it online I'll try ordering it over the phone. I call them up.

"I ordered a phone line on Monday and it's being installed Friday. I'd like to see if I can order DSL before then."

"Ok, let's see if it's available, what's your address?"

I give her my address.

"Ok, it is available there and we can go ahead and get that added. It's normally $49.99 a month but you qualify for a $20 discount so it will be $29.99."

"Online it's $14.95 a month, can I get that?"

"That's if you order online. You don't have any qualifying long distance so I can't give it to you here."

"But I can't order it online, it won't take the phone number yet because it won't be live till Friday."

"Well, you'll have to wait till Friday night, then if it still won't take the number then give us a call and we can do it."

ARGHHHHHH!!!!!

This conversation has established two things.

1) They can take my DSL order before my phone number goes live. They're more than happy to do that and charge me $29.99 a month.

2) The can give me the $14.95 a month price over the phone. If the web won't take my number on Friday they'll be happy to do that.

So they can do both of the things I want them to do for me, they CAN let me order my DSL before my phone number goes live and the CAN give me the $14.95 a month price over the phone... they just WON'T!

What kind of messed up, bureaucratic logic leads them to do stuff like this? It just makes no business sense!

I think a lot of people are vastly underestimating the complexity and the difficulty of the rescue/recovery/relief efforts going on New Orleans. I keep hearing unfavorable comparisons to other hurricane responses or to the Tsunami response. These are not comparable. This isn't even comparable to a future terrorist attack.

What is going on in New Orleans is not a standard hurricane response. In a standard hurricane, or with the Tsunami, buildings are destroyed... people are killed... but afterwards the ground is dry. People can move around, they aren't stranded where they took shelter. Relief trucks can roll in.

This is a unique situation. A major American city is under water and will stay that way for quite some time and there are scores of thousands of people stranded there. You can't simply roll in a convoy of relief supplies and tell everybody to come on down to the town square and pick some up.

To try and cram the relief efforts into the same box as standard hurricane relief is to simplify things far too much. New Orleans is a situation all its own. Recognize it for what it is.

The scale of the tragedy is truly mind-boggling. It may not rival the Tsunami in the number of deaths but sooooo many people have been displaced. New Orleans is a... was a.... city of almost 500,000 people and it will simply be shut down for months.

If you're looking to give I'll just offer up that this is the group I gave to.

:\

As you may have noticed, this is my first post since Monday. There's a reason for this. On Tuesday I had a job interview. They said they'd get together Wednesday afternoon and decide. Turns out they decided much faster and called the consulting company I've been working with 10 minutes after I left and asked if I could start the next day. So I spent the remainder of Tuesday filling out paperwork and showed up to work on Wednesday. For the time being I'll be circumspect and just say it's a large IT company in Dayton and I'm doing Web Development for them. Don't have my own space yet, or my own computer, or working e-mail there and I'm of course working on trying to learn their specialized way of doing things so I'm feeling a little bit like the new guy in the past week's run of Dilbert strips. All-in-all though I'm excited about the opportunity.

A report in the Telegraph says yes.

Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.

A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds.
Radcliffe on Sour power station with Dr Benny Peiser (inset)
Radcliffe on Sour power station with Dr Benny Peiser (inset). He disagrees with the pro-global warming line

A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.

The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.

The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser.

However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

--Telegraph

Gregory Alston called police Tuesday morning to say his white Nissan Maxima had been stolen from in front of his apartment building.

advertisement

advertisement

Trouble is, the car wasn't his. Police say he had stolen it at gunpoint two weeks earlier. The only reason he couldn't find it was because the victim had spotted it and called police, who towed it away.

Not only did Alston not get the car back, police arrested him and jailed him on charges of armed robbery, possession of a stolen car and a handgun violation.

Why did Alston call police?

He had left his wallet in the car and wanted it back.

Even hardened Baltimore police officers were astonished. Detective Gregory Jenkins signed off his report with, "Again, this really happened."

--Baltimore Sun

Strangely hilarious...

A concerned citizen spotted a male juvenile carrying a suspiciously concealed item into Marshall Junior High School early Thursday morning.

Police were called. The school was locked down. Adjacent streets were closed and law officers were perched on roofs with weapons.
...
The school was locked down — no one allowed to enter or leave and students locked inside their classrooms — until police searched the premises and determined there was no immediate danger.

[Principal Diana Russell] said the [object] was discovered after she brought the school together in the auditorium to explain what she knew about the series of events.

“The kid was sitting there as I’m describing this (citizen report of a student with a suspicious package) and he’s thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, they’re talking about my burrito.’”

After the meeting, which included students and parents, Russell said the student, Michael Morrissey, approached her.

“He said, ‘I think I’m the person they saw,’” Russell said. “He said, ‘It was my extra-credit project. I put a white T-shirt over [a 30 inch burrito] because I wanted it to stay warm.’”

--Clovis News Journal

I've got about 5 potential posts, but they can all pretty much be summed up as "the following people are displaying their idiocy" so I won't bother...

The new Carnival of the Vanities is up, or rather the anti-Carnival of the Vanities. The first one was a rather mean-spirited one (including towards my Opening Day post and Baseball in general) so Laurence Simon felt a real Carnival was called for.

At least I'm managing to knock some nagging stuff off my to-do list.

In addition to yesterday's suspension of Alex Sanchez, 38 minor leaguers have been suspended for violations of the steroid policy. All but one were given the 15 game first-timers suspension. David Castillo in Oakland's org was given the 60 day suspension reserved for 3rd offenders.

All told, players from Seattle, the Cubs, th Angels, Oakland, Texas, San Diego, Colorado, St. Louis and the ChiSox.

Good.

...especially when the only thing people seem to be talking about is something your determined not to talk about. It's even cutting into my media consumption options, I'm not going to sit and listen to endless cries of "sanctity of life" this and "persistant vegitative state" that and the absurdly hypocritical shrieks of "exploitation!" coming from the media.

The Fantasy Draft has never been one of my strong suits. We'll see how this goes...

My team:
C J. Varitek (Bos - C)
1B D. Ortiz (Bos - 1B)
2B J. Kent (LAD - 2B)
3B C. Blake (Cle - 3B)
SS M. Tejada (Bal - SS)
IF A. Dunn (Cin - 1B,OF)
OF M. Ordóñez (Det - OF)
OF A. Jones (Atl - OF)
OF E. Byrnes (Oak - OF)
Util K. Greene (SD - SS)
BN L. Overbay (Mil - 1B)
BN M. Cuddyer (Min - 1B,2B,3B,OF)
BN M. Lieberthal (Phi - C)

SP M. Prior (ChC - SP)
SP C. Zambrano (ChC - SP)
RP M. Rivera (NYY - RP)
RP D. Graves (Cin - RP)
P J. Lieber (Phi - SP)
P J. Westbrook (Cle - SP)
P W. Williams (SD - SP)
BN Ja. Wright (NYY - SP)
BN D. Wells (Bos - SP)

Link

The whole thing just makes me sad.

The following are depressing words to wake up to on the news: "We're going to be looking at her release from prison all day long."

A consumer group sued the federal government Thursday, saying that salt is killing tens of thousands of Americans and that regulators have done too little to control salt in food.

Despite advisories to take it easy on sodium, Americans are now consuming about 4,000 milligrams a day -- nearly double the recommended limit to keep blood pressure under control, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said.

So the CSPI renewed a lawsuit first filed in 1983 to ask federal courts to force the Food and Drug Administration to declare sodium a food additive instead of categorizing it as "generally recognized as safe." This would give the agency the authority to set limits for salt in foods.

--My Way News

The world really needs soembody somewhere to stand up and oppose the insanity that is the letter "c". It just isn't needed. It just takes work away from the hard working letters "s" and "k".

I don't think it was a very good year for commercials. Not very many really memorable ones, and a good deal of the ones I do remember are remembered only because I didn't like them.

The best one I think was the Fed Ex Kinko's one with the bear and Burt Reynolds. Careerbuilder.com's Yeknom commercials were good. The 24 promos were also a nice change of pace from the normal ads plugging the network's own shows.

I didn't care for the Cadillac commercial with the car shooting out of the tunnel. I also didn’t so much care for McDonalds’ Lincoln Fry ads.

The Mustang convertible commercial was good the first time, not so good the second time, and we just plain didn't need to see it the third time. If you're going to run multiple commercials during the Super Bowl you should at least make different versions of the commercial, like Careerbuilder.com.

In the game I was rooting for the Eagles. The Boston area fans have gotten a bit uppity lately and I'll root against any team Corey Dillon's on. Don’t really know what to think of the Eagles’ effort. On the one hand, they came awfully close; there were several points where a different outcome could have led to them winning. On the other hand they got lucky several times and made some pretty dumb mistakes.

As for the halftime show... I wouldn't call it great, but it was better than pretty much any one I can remember. It's refreshing that they decided to put just one performer up there and have him entertain us rather than try to trot out 30 disparate acts in an attempt to placate everyone while entertaining none.

A study in Virginia has found that red light cameras don't actually reduce the number of injury accidents but instead actually increase the number.

Despite a distinct sympathy in favor of camera enforcement, the researchers found a "definite" increase in rear-end accidents and only a "possible" decrease in angle accidents. Most importantly, the net effect was that more injuries happened after cameras are installed. Camera proponents explain this away by asserting angle accidents are more serious, but this claim has not been scientifically studied according to this report. The rear end collisions caused by the cameras still produce injuries -- the original promise of camera proponents was that they would reduce accidents and injuries, not rearrange them.

--theNewspaper.com

My life would be sooo much easier if the computer at work would simply decide on one way in which letter size paper should be put in the printer and stick with that. Instead it's an eternal guessing game as to how to orient the paper. I swear to God, yesterday I printed something and it came out sideways on the paper. I flipped the paper 90 degrees, simply printed it again... AND IT STILL CAME OUT SIDEWAYS!

When I went to get into my car for the drive to work this morning my pants were a shade of brown significantly lighter than coffee. I know this for a fact because by the time I finished getting into the car this could no longer be said for about a third of the pair of pants. Gotta say, so far I'm not a big fan of this week.

First they signed an exclusive contract with the NFL, preventing any other company from making competing video games using NFL teams and players. Yesterday they signed an exclusive 15 year deal with ESPN to use their shows, personalities, branding, etc...

Poor Sega, (who previously had the rights to the ESPN name in video games) between losing ESPN and losing the NFL they're in trouble. They'd been putting some pressure on EA with decent games at 2/5 the price but now...

And I mean really scary... try this.

How do you go 6 days without realizing you have a 4" nail embedded in your head?

A Michigan woman downed three glasses of Listerine (not a good idea if the bottle's instructions to call Poison Control if swallowed are to be believed) and was arrested for drunken driving after she rear-ended another car.

Police are also looking to charge her with having an open container, the container being the bottle of Listerine.

Sometime between the 5th and today it seems it went and broke itself, disabling comments. Everything should be good now.

Feel free to let me know what you think of the new design.

For comparison:

Once again I'm working up a revamp of the site design. My main intent was to get away from the lighter blue. Instead it's somehow evolved into an even paler blue. There's a very good chance the revamp will go live by the end of the weekend.

... stop making major changes on the backend of the site and totally screwing it up 25 minutes before you plan to go to sleep! It was one of those can't sleep because you're worried that you won't get enough sleep nights.

It was the California Angels, then it was the Anaheim Angels, now it's the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Sheesh!

The president's father and Clinton will lead a bipartisan effort to seek out donations both large and small to provide relief assistance to millions left homeless by the Dec. 26 calamity that killed thousands in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

--Reuters

As I think about it though I wonder where Jimmy Carter is in all this, this seems like something right up his alley.

Perhaps it's a little belated, but may your 2005 be better than your 2004.

If you're looking to help the victims of the big earthquake/tsunami the Christian Science Monitor has a round-up of places where you can donate.

--Addendum-- (12/29/04 - 14:31)
Amazon has so far raised over $2.15 million in donations for disaster relief.

--Update-- (12/30/04 - 14:08)
Amazon's now raised more than $5.13 million.

Had some issues while trying to upgrade mt-blacklist and as a result mt-blacklist no longer works. Therefore I have disabled commenting for unregistered users. If you want to comment please sign up for a free Typekey account.

--Update 12/26 00:15--
mt-blacklist is working again so I've reenabled commenting.

--Update 12/26 00:22--
Heh, in the 7 minutes it's been up blacklist has blocked 11 spam attempts.

CHARLIE BROWN: I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about.

SHOUTS

Isn't there anybody who knows what Christmas is all about?

LINUS: Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

WALKS TO CENTER STAGE

Lights please.

LIGHTS GO DOWN, SPOTLIGHT ON LINUS AS HE RECITES LUKE 2:8-14

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

LIGHTS COME BACK UP AS LINUS WALKS BACK

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

I'll call the snowfall so far at 10" and still coming down hard. Shoveled the drive at 5"-6" and it's back up to 5".

A day like this can really teach you a lot about your weather professionals. I've been very impressed by WXIX's Rich Apuzzo. He's been on top of this storm from day one, with the most accurate numbers. You have to respect a weatherman who has as much fun forcasting the weather as he does. This morning WDTN's Carl Nichols was still calling for 6"-10" total. (We had the 6" by 3PM.) WHIO's 11 o'clock news tonight was just an embarrassment; it was all scare stories about old people dying shoveling their driveways and how alcohol doesn't help the cold. WRGT and WKEF's newscasts are always an embarrassment.

It's really kind of sad that Dayton residents have to watch a Cincinnati station to get anything approaching a decent weather newscast.

Done with my Christmas shopping. Still have what might euphamistically and very generously be called a massive amount of assembly to do, but the shopping's done. Bring on the 16" of snow!

It's awfully hard to find something decent on the radio at 6:30 on a Sunday. It's all public affairs and infomercials.

The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders' commitment to privacy rights.

Some board members say the extensive data collection makes a mockery of the organization's frequent criticism of banks, corporations and government agencies for their practice of accumulating data on people for marketing and other purposes.

Daniel S. Lowman, vice president for analytical services at Grenzebach Glier & Associates, the data firm hired by the A.C.L.U., said the software the organization is using, Prospect Explorer, combs a broad range of publicly available data to compile a file with information like an individual's wealth, holdings in public corporations, other assets and philanthropic interests.

The issue has attracted the attention of the New York attorney general, who is looking into whether the group violated its promises to protect the privacy of its donors and members.

"It is part of the A.C.L.U.'s mandate, part of its mission, to protect consumer privacy," said Wendy Kaminer, a writer and A.C.L.U. board member. "It goes against A.C.L.U. values to engage in data-mining on people without informing them. It's not illegal, but it is a violation of our values. It is hypocrisy."

--The New York Times

"This year, it is a 'Giving Tree,'" the guy at the local newsstand made his disgust clear. "For 2,000 years, it's a Christmas tree. Now all of a sudden, it's a 'Giving Tree.'"

This is the week of Hanukkah, and also of St. Nicholas Day, marking the beginning of the annual "reindeer tussles" all across America: hundreds and thousands of mayors and school officials try to figure out just how much Rudolph you need to add to the nativity scene to make it all constitutional.
...
Religious liberty is hard. It demands that we live side by side, amicably and with mutual respect, with citizens with whom we disagree about the biggest and most fundamental questions of life. Advocates of this new religion of "tolerance" wish instead to avoid the demands of religious liberty by airbrushing religious ideas out of the public square, or insisting that all religions are really the same (which is just another, bigger airbrush). Anyone who believes otherwise is "intolerant." Tolerance turns out to be just another hunting license for excluding and stigmatizing people with whom you disagree.
...
When did we begin to accept the idea that it's OK to be offended by other people's displays of religion? That people who are made uncomfortable by other people's religions have a right to have those religious ideas and symbols excluded from public celebrations? Who decided that in order to enjoy a communal celebration such as a Christmas parade, we first have to get Christmas out of it?

--Maggie Gallagher

Blockbuster is doing away with late fees starting January 1^st. Instead customers will be given a 1 week grace period after the due date. At that point they will be sold the movie. They then have one month in which to bring back the movie and be credited the amount less a "restocking fee".

It's either genius or a horrible idea. I'd be interested to see what kind of price they charge for the "sold" items and how big the "restocking fee" will be. Will they be charging the full list price? (Meaning, will you get charged $25 for a movie you can get at any Best Buy for $15?) Either way I don't think this will be enough to get me away from Family Video where it costs just $2.50 for a rental.

Actual accumulation of snow on the ground this morning and it's about time. It's been looking a lot like a gray, rainy day for a while now. A gray snowy day is a nice change of pace.

Boy, it's just incredibly windy out there today. I halfway expect to see my car go fluttering by down the street. Heaven help the people with the inflatable Christmas decorations out, those are probably halfway to New Jersey by now.

Nine out of 10 Chinese calling into a suicide-prevention hotline in the capital Beijing are getting the busy tone, a newspaper said on Monday, adding that nationwide four people were killing themselves every minute.

So far, more than 110,000 people had dialed in to the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center hotline since it was set up in Beijing last year, the China Daily said.

It quoted an expert as saying poverty, unemployment, bereavement, breakdowns in relationships or legal and work-related problems were all causes.

But a lack of funds meant that not everyone who needed the hotline was getting through, said Michael Phillips, executive director of the suicide prevention center.

"Nine of every 10 persons only hear a busy tone," he told the newspaper

--Yahoo! News