The World She Will Grow up in

I was lamenting to one of my friends - who happens to be a NeoCon sympathizer - that I shuddered to think of the world that my new grand daughter would be growing up in. I was painting a fairly bleak picture of a nation overrun by illegal immigrants, subject to frequent bomb threats and actual random terrorist attacks, gasoline prices shooting above $5 per gallon, a populace whose freedoms would be tightly controlled by a totalitarian government that brooked no dissent. OK, I was admittedly playing the literary license card to advance my own personal agenda which is to throw the current rascals out of power.

I am mostly an independent - which annoys both sides. The cons call me a "flipflopper" and the libs call me a "tool." I subscribe to the political sentiments that I hear from a lot of Brits: "Governments are like a baby's nappys; they need to be changed frequently - and for the same reason."

So, this is why I am willing to help defeat the incumbent party in the next election. The Cons say that Bush administration has protected us. Well, I'm not seeing it. The borders are still as porous as a knitted doily. Nobody thinks the rail system or ports are safe from people of bad intent, with a decent plan and destructive means. Homeland security is a joke that has no one LoL-ing. Kim IL Jong thinks we are a pussycat. Chavez can come to the UN and act like an asshole and get a standing Ovation. (Maybe it doesn't matter if a bunch of boogerglob 4th world countries think he's funny, but I find it annoying - even Nixon was treated better in South America.)
The Republicans have simply failed on all the measures where they had previously claimed the high ground.

• Fiscal Responsibility - check out the national debt; look at the earmarks; look at the Budget! We in the middle class are being crushed by the profligate spending of the current, irresponsible house and senate. What happened to 8 Billion cash "lost" in Iraq? They gotta go!
• Moral Superiority - : Mark Foley Scandal; lobbyist Scandal; Indictments; Earmarks for indefensible projects.
• We won't Cut and Run - The fact is, and everyone knows it - they are looking for a way to do just that - despite the contrary protestations of Mr. Bush. He can't commit us beyond 2008. Anyhow.

So what is the world that my grandchildren are to inherit? Let us also pray it is NOT one presided over by a bumbling John Kerry or a shrill Hillary Clinton, nor a frantic global-warming-warning arm-waving Al Gore. These people need to get off the stage and make room for a sane version of Ross Perot.

A Grandaughter

It's a girl. Mom and daughter doing fine. Here is a picture that looks a lot like her.

The Sky is Falling Part 2

As if to make my point about the difficulty in getting the Truth on this data rich world of ours, I just had to shut off the TV in frustration because the BREAKING NEWS BULLETINS were interrupting all the other programs on all stations to show the same poor quality film clip of a building that was burning in New York City.

The reports had almost no real factual data except that "something" apparently had crashed into a high rise building near the river. The speculation was that it was a small plane or a helicopter. Astoundingly, in the city of 10 million people, a full hour after the incident not one eye witness could be found to say what he or she observed. There seems to be no debris from the crashed aircraft. One neighbor says she heard an explosion, but did not see any aircraft.

So I am frustrated that the news people are in such a hurry to bring us the non-news and to fill our heads with non information (speculation) that I had to shut the damn TV off. Why can't they wait to find out what happened? I am willing to wait for the facts, believe me.

It would be like me posting the news that my expectant daughter is at the hospital in labor. You don't really need that information until we know that the baby has been born and all the attendant facts. So I would never post that sort of information prematurely, even if it were true,
which it is.

The Sky is Falling

It is difficult to sort through the welter of information that is drifting around the cyberverse these days, especially if one is seeking to know the Truth.
There was a report of a study the other day that purported to make some useful conclusions about the personal hygiene of our fellow Americans.
Although 92% of the people polled said that they always washed their hands after using the bathroom, The Soap and Detergent Association reports that a 2005 study it commissioned shows that only 83% of people washed their hands after using a public restroom.
How is the discerning reader to make any sense of this type of sloppy research and reporting. In the first case the question is about all bathroom usage. One can assume that the respondants were thinking about the primary site of bathroom use - the home. In the second case, the observation is specifically about public bathroom usage. Cripes, at least a third of the public facilities in the USA do not have fully functional sinks or towel dispensors. And for guys, if there is any sort of a line, well....

If you asked me if I always washed my hands after using the rest room, I would say yes 100% of the time. Yet, I have noticed that a lot of my fellow males skip this importance phase of the rest room visit. This has created a certain amount of anguish for me.
What is the point of me gallantly washing the germs off my hands if I am going to have to open the door using the door handle that is clearly infested and probably infected with the teeming bacteria of the non-handwashers?
People look at you like you are a wierdo if you just stand around in the men's room waiting for someone else to open the door. Until someone invents the self sanitizing door handle I shall be forced to use the paper towel to open the door.

Some of my friends - especially the dog owners* - think I am a bit too obsessive about germs. But, once the bird flu gets to be a pandemic, the non handwashers will be sneezing their eyeballs into the sink; clean people like me will be the survivors.

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*If you want and education, google this phrase: "Dogs like to eat and roll in feces"