Relaxed Politics

How cool is this video? 27 kinds of awesome, if you ask me, but I’m a little biased toward math teachers.

Math Teacher Shadow Trick During Lecture – Watch more Funny Videos

Film editors are pretty awesome too!

Editor’s note: captions unnecessary.  Just imagine a laugh track.

We’ve made it two years! Who woulda thunk?

I renewed the domain name this morning, which is why there was a brief tear in the time-space continuum here at the beach house.

Yay Us!

Sign photo emailed by Texteen

Where the heck would people like me be without the ADA?

President Obama spoke on this earlier today:

The Political Carnival has the transcript.

So is it just me and the big kid, or is anyone else super geeked-out excited for the newest Harry Potter movie? “The Deathly Hallows” is coming out in November and we can hardly wait!! It’s the first of the last two movies of the Harry Potter series, and judging from these trailers it looks pretty good. I’m glad they will be making two movies out of the final book-this will allow so much more to be put into the movies than trying to cram that giant book into one 2 1/2 hour movie. We’ve already decided to try and go see it the first weekend, though the big kid is holding out for the midnight showing. This from a kid who is sacked out sawing logs by 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, we have the trailers to get us through-enjoy!!

Sadly, we were first warned about the MIC, that soon (d)evolved? into the IC, by Ike in his ‘Farewell Address’. Well, he had even more to say…

“I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone…”

“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

It is rather ironic that on Sept. 10th, 2001, SecDef Rummy was bemoaning the fact that $2 Trillion was totally unaccounted for at the Pentagon, then the floodgates really opened up…!

From Dana Priest’s excellent exposeTop Secret America…

In the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials – called Super Users – have the ability to even know about all the department’s activities. [...]

“I’m not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything” was how one Super User put it. The other recounted that for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny, dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn’t take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, he said, until he yelled ”Stop!” in frustration.

“I wasn’t remembering any of it,” he said. [...]

Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases. [...]

“There’s only one entity in the entire universe that has visibility on all SAPs – that’s God,” said James R. Clapper… [...]

…One military officer involved in one such program said he was ordered to sign a document prohibiting him from disclosing it to his four-star commander, with whom he worked closely every day, because the commander was not authorized to know about it.

Well, Secrecy Sucks…

…I don’t know much about spooks thwarting attacks, or their turf fights, but I did stand in a line of anti-war protestors and got zapped for it by the spooks in 2004. Dick Cheney came to my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina in 2004 to a fund-raiser for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign at the home of an insurance company bigwig. Along with about 30 other peace activists I stood in a line across the street from the event holding a hand painted sign proclaiming “Dick Cheney is a War Criminal.” Local police on duty at the event who knew me were friendly, but I was photographed and asked to identify myself by a grim-faced spook with Cheney’s entourage.

About three months later my wife and I were waiting to board a flight at the Columbia airport when one of the security officers who was my friend told me he was required to meticulously search through my baggage. I asked him why and he said, “You are on the search list”. [...]

Democracy dies when government lies. Secrecy sucks. How many of us are on the lists of suspects with so many spooks and spies running amuck?

Great question…!

*gah*

When it comes to food, it is rare for me to step outside my comfort zone, unless it is dessert. This is why, when my friend asked if I would like Provolone or smoked Gouda on my sandwich, I was shocked to hear the words “smoked Gouda” come out of my mouth. I’d never had Gouda cheese before, smoked or otherwise. Am I glad I made that choice? Yes. Yes, I am.

Gouda is a yellow cheese made from cow’s milk. The cheese is named after the city of Gouda in the Netherlands, but its name is not protected. Cheese under the name of Gouda is made and sold all around the world. Smoked Gouda is slowly smoked over hickory chips, which gives it a mild, smoky flavor that is absolutely wonderful. While eating my sandwich, I actually checked to make sure she hadn’t accidentally put smoked turkey on it, because that’s what it reminded me of.

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At least according to the Catholic Church.

A missive out from Rome – The List of Grave Crimes – puts the ordination of women on the same plane of sin as the sexual abuse of children. Like most sane people I reacted with disbelief at how utterly clueless The Church is about its prospects for survival in the modern world with formal affirmation of this kind of belief. Of course, given Pope Ratz’s love of the old ways, the pronouncement is not surprising. The Church will always appeal to the uneducated and authoritarian crowd of religiosity who are born into or drawn to its teachings, but in order to grow through intentional conversions? It doesn’t stand a chance.

I have a love/hate relationship with The Church. I hate it for all the human suffering and harm it has caused through almost all the years of its existence. I love it for the art, music and architecture that it spawned. Some of the greatest creative works of human-kind were done under the patronage of The Church, if not exactly to the Glory of God himself. I emphasize this point when I teach Introduction to the Humanities to college students. I make my students study the history of religion along with the history of Art, Architecture, Music and Western Culture in order for them to grasp religion’s hold over us from time immemorial, and how so much of our material world stems from that control. It comes as a huge shock to most of my students who come from traditional Texas school systems and mostly Protestant backgrounds. I don’t bad mouth any religion. I teach it as just another subject, but because I intentionally don’t elevate one belief system over another, I have had a few students decide (correctly) that I am a Secular Humanist and become very concerned about my soul. (I still have the letter from one who wrote me after the semester was over warning me about my prospects in the afterlife.)

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I’m glad that the Obama Administration is apologizing.  Really.  But I think all the talking heads are missing the real point here.

She NEVER should have been asked for her resignation to begin with.  Not without a full investigation and not without a chance to defend herself.

I’m a member of a union and have been since the day I entered the adult post-college work force.  I can be fired, but I have protections.  I can be asked for my resignation, but have the protection of a union rep and union lawyers before I decide if I will comply.  Why don’t federal employees have the same?  Why don’t all American workers?

And why should someone at Ms. Sherrod’s level be forced to resign anyway over an incident that happened during the Reagan presidency?  Especially when we don’t hold Bush Jr. accountable for lying us into war?  We only look backward when “little” people are involved?

Are we American workers all  eligible for the ax the moment someone decides to take our words out of context and someone with no scruples decides to publish edited tape?  We shouldn’t be.  We should all have the right to due process, even at work.

A gigantic fly has taken up residence in the top foot of my apartment — just far enough up in the air that I can’t reach it with my very expensive 99 cent flyswatter. It’s been mocking me for the past two hours (and doing a great job of distracting me from other issues) but I keep imagining that it will stalk me in my bed the moment I tuck my toes in.

But I’ve promised my doc I won’t balance precariously from stepladders swinging at the ceiling. At least not without good cause.

Texteen is at his dad’s of course, but has come up with the perfect solution via text message.

And it works! The damn fly is running scared and staying out of sight. Just wait till it sees the fumigation cane though!

’cause ASKING the repiglicans to cooperate has been so successful in the past.  oy!  Can someone please give these people lessons in politics?

President Obama said today that the federal government has a responsibility to assist the nation’s unemployed as they look for work and urged Senate Republicans to put politics aside and join Democrats to pass an unemployment benefits extension.

A couple of random things have caught my eye lately. Let’s see if y’all can guess the common theme:

First up, this little tidbit, courtesy of TBogg, by way of the L&T Casey. That’s the internet for ya, all connected via the tubes and stuff : )

If he’s like the game he’ll throw a pick every fifteen attempts or so whether he wants to or not, which will make him sad, and which will remind you of Tim Tebow’s other less dignified pose: crying. Fortunately the GameStop managers of Tuscaloosa, Alabama are here to remind you of that pose lest you forget with a custom cover they slipped onto their stores’ copies of the game.

Crying Timmy instead of fearsome Timmy-I love it! Roll Tide!!

Next up, Miguel Angel Jimenez at the British Open today in beautiful St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf. Seems Jimenez got himself in a bit of a pickle, with his golf ball stuck against a stone wall opposite the green. Some folks might take a drop, but instead Jimenez decided to try to make the green. In order to do that, he turned his back, hit the ball off the wall, backwards over his head and onto the green. Sadly, he carded a double bogey on the hole. But it did make for a very cool highlight!

Lastly, in the world of strange injury news, comes this story of Matt Latos. Matt is a pitcher for the Padres, and he was injured on Friday while the team was in Colorado.

Latos said he suffered the injury attempting to hold back a sneeze on Friday in Colorado, a day after he improved to 10-4 and lowered his ERA 2.45 with a victory in Washington.

“I held my sneeze walking down the [dugout] steps and felt a little pull,” Latos said just before a workout at PETCO Park in advance of Friday’s game against Arizona, the first game of the second half of the regular season.

Latos sheepishly told teammate and fellow pitcher Tim Stauffer about the pain and felt a little embarrassed. Latos said that this is the first time he felt pain in his side.

You just can’t make this stuff up, people!!

All the Bumz have been commenting on how hot it is at their respective locations, so I thought we should play it cool this evening. No hot ovens overheating already hot kitchens! And what’s cooler and more evocative of summer than watermelons?

To start, a musical interlude. (You know I’m a sucker for stop action!)

And now some cool, summery, watermelony treats!

Watermelon Granita

Ingredients

* 4 cups seedless watermelon chunks
* 1/2 cup sugar
* Juice of 1 lemon

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Puree until smooth. Pour into a shallow, wide pan and freeze for 1 hour. Rake mixture with fork and freeze for another hour. Rake and freeze for one more hour. Rake and serve in cups.

Watermelon Agua Fresca

Ingredients

* 8 cups cubed seeded watermelon, (about 6 pounds with the rind), divided
* 1 cup water, divided
* 1/3 cup sugar, divided
* 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
* 1 liter (4 cups) club soda, or seltzer water, well chilled
* Lime slices, for garnish

Preparation

1. Combine half the watermelon, half the water and half the sugar in a blender; puree. Pour through a coarse strainer into a large container. Repeat with the remaining watermelon, water and sugar. Stir in lime juice. Refrigerate until well chilled, about 4 hours.
2. To serve, stir in club soda (or seltzer) and garnish with lime.

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