Jericho: Billboard of Stupid

This is just great.

So, let me get this straight: this idiot thinks that if we put a Democrat in the Oval Office we'll have another September 11th-like tragedy. Interesting.

I love that this article is posted on FoxNews' web site. Why? Because both this idiot and FoxNews missed a vital point:

Bush was in office on 9/11!

That's right, a Republican. There was a Republican in office when 3000 Americans died. Was it his fault? Hmmm .... ?

I love how this guy also thinks the terrorists have something to do with high gas prices. Sir? Did you miss the boat? Ya know, the oil tanker that Chevron named "Condoleezza Rice"? Bush, Rice and many others in the Bush administration have major ties to Big Oil. Big Oil has been posting record profits in the last several years. And it never occurred to you, Mr. Billboard, that maybe, just maybe, Big Oil orchestrated all of this?

The perpetrators of 9/11 were in Afghanistan. Yet, we have five times as many troops in Iraq as Afghanistan. Why? I'll tell you why: Iraq has oil and Afghanistan has none! The hype and fear generated by 9/11 has allowed the Big Oil politicians to put together a war that not only uses untold amounts of oil but protects their oil interests. Meanwhile, speculators have driven up the price of oil on that fear.

In Iraq, they pay $.50 a gallon for gas, that's right, fifty cents - and those prices are subsidized with your tax dollars. We are paying nearly $5 a gallon and that includes taxes.

Big Oil is complaining that they can't use several areas that have been reserved, preserved for natural and human use. Yet, they sit on millions of unexplored acres. Why? It's too expensive, they whine! They have billions in profits, but it's too expensive to drill in ares that they have had left for years. Spend some money, Big Oil! Make some jobs, Big Oil! Drive down the price of gas, Big Oil! Or ... give up the rights to the land you are not using!

But they don't want that, do they? They want the market to remain up. They make more money and don't put out additional cost or effort.

So, I agree with Mr. Billboard. I believe the terrorists are in cahoots. I believe that they and Big Oil and the Automobile Manufacturers are have conspired to rob us all. If they haven't conspired, Big Oil has certainly taken advantage of this tragedy. They are profiting from 9/11 and from our dead soldiers. That's called Profiteering. It should also be called Treason.

Who is Big Oil? Look to the White House and you will see it's most obvious incarnation.

Max: The Lord's Day

Today's sermon:

Jericho: Pixie Dust Follow Up

We covered the Finger Replacing Pixie Dust, or should we say "Pigsie" Dust in a post last month.

As a follow up, it looks like the US Government is putting the pig bits to good use by helping some of our brave boys get their parts back.

I love when sci-fi becomes science fact!

Jericho: Patterns

Long time readers of this site, both of you, know that I hate my job and am fat and feel like I have accomplished nothing.

That's still the case.

I've been in the same pattern since I was a teenager. I can't get any momentum under myself and usually the thing standing in my way is my own lack of confidence.

The last week or so I have been thinking about my writing again. I've repeatedly said for years I need a new career and that I would like that career to be "fiction writer".

I've been listening to a great audio book How I Write by Janet Evanovich. This book has been very inspirational. The last chapter of the book had a theme: "Write the damn book!"

I do want to write the book. I do. I have at least one book in me. The audio book is filled with questions from potential authors like me, they have all the same questions I have and the same doubts and fears. Yet, in with those fears, they are writing books. Not me. I'm too tired and I have video games to play and I suck at writing and whatever.

I have to find a way to break my pattern. Really break it. Radically break it. Burn down the house and rise from the ashes. Do something simply extravagant.

I just have no idea what.

Max: The Autism "Epidemic"

An explanation for the "increasing$quot; incidence of autism

Fashion is a strange thing, and many fields are susceptible to it—not least, medicine. There has, for example, been a vogue (among commentators, if not among doctors) to ascribe the rising number of cases of autism diagnosed over the past couple of decades to childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella. That this is fashion rather than reality is suggested by the fact that the explanation proffered in Britain has been that such vaccines provoke an immune response that damages the nervous system, whereas Americans have blamed residual mercury in the same vaccines.

We had once come to think of things like mumps, measles, whooping cough, etc as but extinct. But thanks to scientific and mathematical illiteracy, they will soon be on the prowl again. There is a scary degree of stupidity on the march in this country -- the sort of stupidity that thinks it is better to condemn thousands of women to cervical cancer than allow the use of a vaccine that would *gasp* make sex a little safer. Reason seem to still win most of these battles, but it can only win if we are willing to stand up for it -- even in the face of exasperating stupidity.

Max: Damn Skippy

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: FBI and MLK Jr: Lessons for Today


As part of a recent CNN special called Black in America much new information came to light about the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., information that should stand as a stark warning of the dangers of allowing one branch of government to engage in surveillance of American citizens without oversight from another.

Jericho: Disappointing Weekend

I had a heck of a weekend lined up.

Then it fell apart and I ended up feeling like an idiot - twice.

Friday night I was planning to hang out with a friend. I ended up canceling that due to catching a stomach bug that Steph had earlier in the week. I thought the bug would be worse - but it just ended up being uncomfortable. I ended up feeling like a whiny ass and like I disappointed my friend.

Saturday was pretty good. I spent the morning playing WoW and enjoying the heck out of that. That evening, Steph and I hung out with friends. As we were leaving the friend's house, snow began to fall. The snow was pretty heavy and the temp was low and looking to get lower. By the time we got home, the forecasts were looking pretty nasty.

My plans for Sunday were pretty fun. I have a new D&D game going with some old and new friends and I'm excited about it. I even blogged about it.

However, the weather and the temp and the forecasts were looking like there were going to be icy roads and lots of traffic issues. On top of that - I'm a terrible driver. So, I did what I thought was the adult, responsible thing: I called the game.

I slept kinda late - might as well, I didn't have a game to look forward to. By the time the game would have rolled around, 10 AM, it was about 38, clear and bone dry. No icy roads.

I ended up feeling like a whiny ass and like I disappointed my friends.

Max: Fellow Whackjob

Another Whack

I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.

But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

Continued

From a speech given by Sen Robert C. Byrd, five years ago today.

Max: Birth of the Universe

Max: Pentagon = Pacifist Cowards

Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says - CNN.com

The U.S. military's first and only study looking into ties between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda showed no connection between the two, according to a military report released by the Pentagon.

The report released by the Joint Forces Command five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq said it found no 'smoking gun' after reviewing about 600,000 Iraqi documents captured in the invasion and looking at interviews of key Iraqi leadership held by the United States, Pentagon officials said.

I was once told only pacifist cowards who don't care about their family's well being hold such ridiculous beliefs.

In all non-humorous honesty, I don't see how anyone ever believed the Saddam/al Qaeda connection. My faith in certain people was shaken by their willingness to buy into such obvious bullshit. Some things said about me when I refused to drink the Kool-Aid still sting a bit. I try not to think about it most of the time. However, when the news finds time to slip such reports in between their Brittany updates, it all comes back. How many have died for this lie?

Sorry for once again failing to support the troops by pointing out the ugly truth that, regardless of how clearly brave and dedicated our military is, every troop who died in Iraq died for a FUCKING LIE.

Max: Our God Fearing, Christian Founding Fathers...

did not fear God and weren't particularly Christian.

"[The Founding Fathers] didn't believe that Jesus was divine. They thought he was a great moral teacher," says Wills. "They didn't believe in the efficacy of prayer. They thought 'God doesn't need our advice.' "

From Voice of America

Max: Pot - Threat or Menace?

Max: Shrub - Liar or Moron?

Once again, Keith Olbermann is the only one who calls Shrub out for his crimes.

There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.

We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendentally stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

Max: Science FTW

On this day in 1859 On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin was first published.

Max: What The Republicans Have Saved Us From

Max: Why We Must Go War With Iran

Around 60% of all foreign militants who entered Iraq to fight over the past year came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to files seized by American forces at a desert camp.

The files listed the nationalities and biographical details of more than 700 fighters who crossed into Iraq from August last year, around half of whom came to the country to be suicide bombers, the New York Times reported today.

Max: Buyer's Remorse

The human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

Jericho: Kill me now!

Overheard on the radio:

The worst job you will ever have is the next one you get.

Oy!

Max: Project Censored

A list of 25 news reports that were not so much censored as ignored, not given the attention they should have been given, in favor of stories about Britany Spears.

Max: $1 = CA$1

Sign of US decline? Or sign of how Canada's socialist whackiness is allowing them to catch up to our non-socialist greatness.

Max: More Evidence That the US is on the Decline

Max: Dilbert Blog

The Dilbert Blog: A Feeling I'm Being Had:

Ahmadinejad believes his role is to pave the way for the coming of the Twelfth Imam. That's a primitive apocalyptic belief! I thank Jesus I do not live in a country led by a man who believes in that sort of bullshit. Imagine how dangerous that would be, especially if that man had the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

Max: Take That, Fundies

Homo Floresiensis, not a midget.

An international team of researchers led by the Smithsonian Institution has completed a new study on Homo floresiensis, commonly referred to as the “hobbit,” a 3-foot-tall, 18,000-year-old hominin skeleton, discovered four years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores. This study offers one of the most striking confirmations of the original interpretation of the hobbit as an island remnant of one of the oldest human migrations to Asia. The research is being published in the Sept. 21 issue of Science.
The team turned its research focus to the most complete of the 12 skeletons discovered and specifically toward three little bones from the hobbit’s left wrist. The research asserts that modern humans and our closest fossil relatives, the Neandertals, have a very differently shaped wrist in comparison to living great apes, older fossil hominins like Australopithecus (e.g., “Lucy”) and even the earliest members of the genus Homo (e.g., Homo habilis, the “handy-man”). But the hobbit’s wrist is basically indistinguishable from an African ape or early hominin-like wrist—nothing at all like that seen in modern humans and Neandertals.

The lead author of the study, Matt Tocheri, a paleoanthropologist in the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program at the National Museum of Natural History, was completely surprised when he first saw casts of the hobbit’s wrist bones. “Up until then, I had no definitive opinion regarding the hobbit debates,” said Tocheri. “But these hobbit wrist bones do not look anything like those of modern humans. They’re not even close!”

The evidence from the hobbit’s wrist is extremely important because it demonstrates further that the hobbit indeed represents a different species of human as was originally proposed by its discoverers. It is not a modern human with some sort of pathology or growth disorder. The distinctive shapes of wrist bones form during the first trimester of pregnancy while most pathologies and growth disorders do not begin to affect the skeleton until well after that time. Therefore, pathologies or growth defects cannot adequately explain why a modern human would have a wrist that was indistinguishable from that of an African ape or primitive hominin.

I am looking forward to seeing how the creationists/ID freaks will spin this.

I guarantee that Richard Dawkin's prediction that this would destroy religion will not come to pass. There is perhaps no force in this universe greater than invincible ignorance.

Max: What Am I

As a long time narcissist, I am always fascinated to learn what people think of me. Back in high school - depending upon whom you ask - I was a drug dealer, a dangerous lunatic, a harmless geek to be taken under the wing of the cool kids, mildly retarded, too smart to be allowed out among the general public, etc.

It seems people are still playing the "What is Max" game, and are still getting it wrong.

Some people think I am a "liberal", other think I am "conservative". Jericho thinks I am a dangerous water-brain, but not in a bad way. Perhaps the clearest indication people think I am a fellow traveler (either on the left or the right) are the email forwards they send me. For instance, I was recently sent a forward, sent by one of my more leftish acquaintances, that crows about how Ronnie Regan, upon meeting his Veep's namesake, stated that the young W was slightly less intelligent than a lobotomized squirrel. Another I received today talked about how Oliver North once warned a Senate committee about the serious danger posed by allowing a little know terrorist named Osama bin Laden. He was, of course, laughed at by the know it all liberals who then controlled the Senate.

I am guessing the latter thinks I am part of the Faux News brigade - liberals are all evil and stupid, conservatives are all good, godly men trying to save the country from the depredations of the left.

Some call me a socialist because I support universal health care. Some call me a libertarian because I don't want the government to force me to pretend I am a good Christian. In fact, I am both and neither.

Yes, I support universal health care. Anyone who glibly dismisses health care - if you like the post office, you'll love government health care - has never been unemployed, uninsured, broke and told that someone they love is in dire need of surgery. Much less two surgeries in as many months.

Yes I oppose government enforcement of any religion. If you want to flagellate yourself because you think your imaginary friend will reward you after you die, that is your problem. I don't care to join in.

So what am I? I call myself a realist. I prefer facts to the brain-dead rantings of any ideologue of any stripe. That is why my reaction to the two forwards mentioned above was not amusement at those stupid (liberals/conservative). Rather, I was mainly disgusted. Why? Because neither of the above incidents happened. There is no record at all of what, if any, opinion Ronnie Rayguns had of GW. And at the time of the supposed Senate hearing, almost everybody considered ObD a hero because he lead the fight to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

If anything, I am tired. I am tired of the drooling fantasies of ideologues and demigogues. I am tired of people waving a book at me (Bible, Koran, The Wealth of Nations, The Communist Manifesto, whatever) expecting me to turn my brain off and join in the blind stupidity.

If anything, I am disgusted. I am disgusted at people who think that yelling and cutting off people's mics make them experts and the rest of us fools. I am disgusted at people who have never read a real book declaring that the founders of our country were all right wing fundies. Thomas Jefferson took greater pride in leading the fight to repeal a law making Christianity the official religion of Virginia than he did in authoring the Declaration of Independence. And I am disgusted at people who think that just because one or more of our (proud slave owning) founders blindly held to some belief that we all should.

So, yeah. That's me.

Max: Thought

Guns don't kill people. Exsanguination and organ damage kill people.

Max: Moyers on Rove

Jericho: We're back. Where did we go?

So ... it finally happened!

I have been waiting for this to happen for a while. We've gotten close before, but we smashed it against the wall this time!

What happened? Well, this site is hosted by the lovely folks at DotEasy - you can find their link down on the lower right sidebar there. Frankly, working with DotEasy for the last five years has been a blast - no trouble at all. I frankly recommend them - and if you use that link down there to set up an account, we get a few bucks. Sorry for the shameless plug.

Our deal with DotEasy is pretty sweet, in all honesty. For $25 a year, we get our domain name and hosting. That hosting is 100 MB of space plus, and this is the important part, a gigabyte of through put a month. That means 1 GB of data can get loaded or downloaded every month.

Our site deals mostly in text. Most of the graphics you see around here are hosted on YouTube or Project Wonderful or some other site beside ours - we just link to it. Text is tiny through put, and since we don't have a ton of visitors, we rarely if ever get close to our limit.

However, the last few months, I had noticed we were getting closer and closer and I couldn't figure out how that was happening. Even with our advertising on Project Wonderful, we still didn't have that many hits.

One day I noticed it was taking forever to load a post from Blogger. So, I hit the details button and watched what it was doing. It was loading up megabytes of data for my singular, tiny post. That was crazy!

See down there at the bottom of the post, the "Labels" - this post says "Batshit Crazy" and "Facts" - as far as I can tell, Blogger makes an individual web page for each of those Labels. Apparently a rather large page, by my standards. And, they do it for every Label, even if you didn't connect that Label to your post. This turns into a lot of MB per post - especially since we had more than 100 Labels.

We had some pretty dumb Labels, too. They were funny and fun to use. But they aren't much fun if they bring the site down. Some of our Labels pointed to a single post. Others duplicated themselves - if it didn't have a consequence, it wouldn't matter, but if it's going to hurt us, we really don't need a Label for "Bush" and another Label for "Shrub".

So, Max and I both took a swipe at parring down the Labels. We have it down to 38 rather broad Labels. There are a few that are very specific, and we have kept a few that are just plain humorous - several have changed or expanded their names. But I think this will also make the Labels more useful instead of just being another editorial comment.

I haven't loaded up a post since the new Labels came together, so we'll see if there is a difference in size of what gets loaded up. We'll probably have to repeat this exercise as we add Labels and delete them. And, I'm sure we'll find ways to use all of our through put allotment again and bring the site down. However, I'm glad you all came back and hopefully this won't happen too often.

Welcome back and enjoy the Labels!

Max: Incarcerex

Jericho: Ten Down

As of this morning I weigh 503. I've lost 10 pounds in a week. Not bad.

Don't freak out. I know losing more than a pound a day is bad. But, when you weigh as much as I do, losing a pound a day is pretty easy - just diet and get off the couch. Not that dieting is easy, but if you can actually do it, the weight melts off. I also know that I won't stay at this rate forever - I'll be here until I am only reasonably overweight instead of galacticly overweight.

And there's the rub. Steph is really excited I lost ten pounds and she is being very supportive and encouraging. I love her for that. However, I just can't seem to get too excited about this. I've lost weight before, screwed it up and gained it back. Heck, when I started dieting three years ago, I weighed 475 - I gotta lose another 28 pounds just to get back to that.

It's a really long road and 10 pounds is about 3 percent of what I need to lose. I'll be a little more excited thirty pounds from now.

Jericho: The 513 Pound U-Turn

The CPAP machine is working out really well. I don't care if it's just a placebo effect - I have way more energy than I am used to. I get up from my desk and walk off to the bathroom at a real clip - only to end up with my heart machine gunning in my chest. I might have energy, but the body has been on the couch for the last five years. It will need time to catch up.

This machine is what I hope will be the first step in a real U-turn for me. I have meds and a CPAP and today I'm back on my diet. All along the synergy has been against me. I was putting on weight, which was making my apnea worse, which was cutting into my sleep and lowering my metabolism, which was allowing me to put on even more weight, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Now, I have my CPAP restoring my sleep, which is giving me back my sleep and my energy. I am dieting, so we are in a calorie deficit. With the extra energy I might get some exercise. If I can get some weight off, my apnea will lessen, which will make sleep even easier and better, which will allow me to be more energetic and get more time on the treadmill, et cetera. I think I can get synergy back on my side!

But, the start of any journey is often the hardest part. This morning I got on the scale. That's enough to make you want to put your CPAP back on and go back to sleep for the rest of the week. The scale said I weigh 513. That is officially the most I have ever weighed.

It's like a freekin' death sentence. I'm hanging on a cross made out of pizza and fried chicken, a scroll over my head reads "DXIII". There was something in my mind that said "There's no way you weigh more than 500 pounds - there's no way you can gain more weight". But, sure as there are calories in a donut, I can weigh more than 500 pounds! Six hundred pounds sits out there in the distance, hunting me like a really fat but voracious predator.

This will happen. I will take the weight off. I feel better than I have in years. The immediate goal is get back under 500. I can do that with one hand tied behind my back. Maybe I should tie up my hand - harder to feed myself!

Jericho: Burgled

It's been a mixed up couple of days.

Tuesday night I went in for my sleep test. For those of you who don't read this act of love regularly, I'm fat. Real fat. I've also had sleep apnea since about college. Non-diagnosed sleep apnea, but there it was still the same. No shock. I'm over weight, a white male and now I'm approaching middle age. There is also a family history. So, there was nothing unusual about the fact that I couldn't sleep on my back without waking up in the middle of the night after having not breathed for a while. Which grew into not getting much sleep because I kept waking up to breathe.

When my atrial fibrillation started up, it always seemed to go in the same pattern. I'd wake up out of a dream, I'd draw in a deep breath and then my heart would lose it's mind and start trying to Break Dance and do the Twist at the same time. One of the emergency room workers suggested that it might be being kicked off by my apnea.

Since I started in earnest three years ago to fight my weight, we've known I should get a sleep study. So, last Thursday I talked with the doctor and Tuesday night I spent my first overnight in the hospital ever. To cut a longer story short, they deemed that I was going up to 45 seconds at a time without breathing, that my oxygen levels were dropping to 75% and that my heart would try to lose its mind when my oxygen levels got low. In short, I needed to be on a CPAP machine.

We could see in the test results that my lowest oxygen levels and the times when I stopped breathing were during REM sleep. This completely groks with my experience. I'd always seem to wake out of a dream, take a huge breath and then try to fall back to sleep.

Wednesday morning they hooked me up with the CPAP device and sent me to work.

---

Last night Steph and I came home from work. As we approached the apartment, Steph commented that she must of left the lights on when she left. You see, while I was off having my sleep study - Steph was home alone all night. She likes a lot more light than I do and sometimes forgets to turn them off in the morning. As we approached the door, Steph saw that the screen for the window near the door was not on the window but on the ground next to the window. This began to freak her out. With good reason.

There has been a recent rash of break ins in and around our apartment complex. We're off the main road, but not too far off and there are two large apartment complexes in that area - all prime for picking. Steph gingerly tried the door and it was unlocked. My wife might leave lights on, but locks are meant to be locked! She locks everything as many times as she can. This was not normal. She grabbed the CPAP and other stuff I was carrying and asked me to go in first.

I opened the door not knowing (but having a clue) what I would find. I went directly where the crooks would go - our office. Two new laptops were missing. Steph needed a computer for the classes she is taking. The first one we bought was too bulky so it became my game machine, it was only six months old. We bought her a new machine less than a month ago. Both of those were gone. My iMac was still still right where it should be. The Mac G4 was still on the desk. I guess they didn't like Apples.

We didn't realize it at the time, but they had unplugged and stolen a four year old Palm Pilot and cradle that they had to disconnect from the iMac. I paid $125 for it in January, but I had trouble getting it to work and the battery was dying. The $300 Palm we bought for Steph was sitting on a shelf five feet away and they missed it - funny.

They tore apart the bedroom. They seemed focused on Steph's bra drawer - but all they found were bras - which they left on the floor. They went through the drawers next to the bed - all they found were my big boobs porn tapes - don't know if they took any - but I need to replace those VHS tapes anyway. They found our fire box in the closet, they jimmied it open - breaking it permanently. All that was there were our papers - which they left. We think they were looking for jewelry or cash - Steph was wearing her jewelry and the only cash in the room was a plastic jug of change about half full - maybe $150 bucks - which they took.

They also managed to find our fairly new digital camera, our six year old digital camera and an old inexpensive film camera which they may have mistaken for digital. In all, they probably walked out with about $3500 bucks of stuff.

We called the cops. A lone officer showed up. She took our statement and gave us a case number. That's it. No big investigation, nothing. No prints taken. Probably not worth the effort - everyone knows to wear gloves and it's not like someone was killed.

We called the insurance. We made our claim and gave them the case number.

I'm at a point now that I think we were hit by professionals. They knew what they wanted. I don't think they spent much time in the house. Even the way they broke in - they didn't come through the window as we first thought - the window still had the "safety pin" inserted and I doubt a thief would have taken the time to reinsert it. Steph tells me she thinks the lock is harder to turn, so I think they may have broken in using a lock picking device, something like a snap gun or maybe something more modern.

Anyway, we cleaned up and we both called in sick to work. We wanted to get several things taken care of the next day - the biggest of which was working with the claims adjuster.

So, that's the bad news.

The good news is that I wore my CPAP and got at least eight hours of really great sleep. I felt really good this morning - better than I had in quite a while. Oxygen isn't for losers!

Max: Broke and Broken

As if my life isn't difficult enough.

Laura and I had some free movie passes and were going to make a double feature out of Knocked Up and Pirates of the Caribbean. On the way there, we stopped at the library, primarily so I could renew my card so I could use the online reservation system again but also to grab a couple of books.

We had just pulled out of the parking lot and were heading north on Lindbergh when I noticed a black car coming out of another lot. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a little voice calmly observed that if he didn't turn, he was going to hit us. Then another, louder voice said, "MOTHERFUCKERHEISGOINGTOFUCKING..." That is as far as the voice got before he slammed into the side of Laura's car and we were eating air bag.

Laura's car is wrecked. We are both bruised and slightly burnt from the air bags exploding. On top of everything else.

I could go on, but my hand is killing me and I don't feel like typing any more.

Jericho: Allow me to be clear.

I am not some crypto-fascist war monger - as I am sometimes painted on this site.

Mao Zedong once said that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Mao has a point, but he was way more militant than I. I prefer Roosevelt's idea of walking softly but carrying a big stick - it's still too violent, but it's along the right idea.

It is impossible to bargain from a position of power if you have no power. As the kids say today - duh! However, power comes in many forms. Certainly, a strong military will grant you power. But, as the Soviet Union proved, a military is only as strong as your economy. The United States is the richest nation on Earth. We have a robust economy - even in the worst of times - don't be fooled! We are voracious consumers and as time passes we are consuming far more than we produce. Thus, many nations want to keep us happy because we buy their product. That, however, can be a double edged sword.

When Hussein took Kuwait before the first Gulf War, many in the US were concerned. We were concerned that Hussein was gearing up to be a new Hitler, taking the Rhineland all over again. But, this wasn't enough to bring our troops to "liberate Kuwait". It took concern of another kind. Hussein went after Kuwait for the oil, why not take Saudi Arabia? Saudi implored the US, fearing Hussein. We dropped troops in Saudi first. So, here is a country with no military to speak of, who can summon the most powerful military in the world to its defence. In that case, political power flowed from the oil field. Without their oil, or with higher oil prices set by Hussein, our economy would have been in trouble. I would have loved to see the protests by the "No Blood for Oil" crowd when their houses went dark and gas rose to $10 a gallon.

There is a place for military power. There is a place for diplomacy. If you were a powerful country, would you care what a diplomat said if there wasn't a powerful military or a powerful economy behind that diplomat? No, you wouldn't. Why would you waste your time?

There is a place and time for war, for peace, for diplomacy, for embargo and for charity - a worthy leader would know when to do which. A coward will always choose war. A brave leader will always choose peace. Sometimes a brave leader needs to be a little cowardly. Hussein only understood war. Hitler only understood hate. Gandhi only understood peace. All of them were wrong - they all could have used a lesson in flexibility.

Leaving Hussein to his own devices was a bad idea - he would have taken over the entirety of the Middle East in a few years, killed those that he hated and jacked up oil prices so high our economy would have collapsed. We took him down several pegs in the early 90s. We removed him from power this time. All told we lost about 10,000 troops. It seems like a lot - but remember about 30,000 American troops died in Normandy on D-Day. One battle! One day! Now that Hussein is gone, we need to make sure that the Iraq government can hold its own, then we need to get the hell out of there! They hate us and everything we stand for. When we came to liberate, they cheered, then two days later they booed. They are very much like the French!

We may have to go back and clean up Iraq more than once. Diplomacy is failing in Iran, we may have to resort to military action. Diplomacy seems to be keeping North Korea at bay for the moment. It also seems to be working in China.

I wish Diplomacy worked every time, it doesn't. I wish we didn't need to make less powerful countries client states, but it seems to be the only way to go. I wish our economy was independent of all other factors but its not. We can't live without the rest of the globe and we can't allow them to live without us.

Jericho: Bad Wage Slave! No Sabbatical!

As some of our readers are aware, I hate my current job.

At heart, I'm a lazy bum. I find "going to work" distasteful at best. Having said that, I seem to find more and more stressful jobs and I seem to hold on to them forever. The last job I had, the stress got so bad I was getting headaches that required prescription meds, an MRI and other treatments. This job has allowed me to add 150 or so pounds and given me atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. Yet, I've stuck with it about two years longer than I should have.

So, for about a week I have been mulling over an idea. My health issues are out of control, but most of them could be cured with simple diet and exercise. Yet, my job tires me out so bad that I have no energy to exercise and I have self-medicated with food, my only vice, to fight the effects of the stress. If I didn't have the job, I wouldn't have the stress. If I didn't have to go to work, I would have time to exercise and I would have less access to junk food if I was home with a kitchen full of good nutrition choices.

Finding a new job would get rid of the current suckiness of my job, but I would probably be trading high stress for just as high if not higher stress somewhere else. I seem to attract crap jobs.

Thus, leaving the work-a-day world, even for a short time, would allow me to work on my health. Taking a sabbatical to fix my issues might help me a great deal.

There's no way I can afford unemployment. Our money situation is 100 times better than it was two years ago and about 20 better than this time last year - but we still have bills and a quality of life to support. I gotta have my cable Internet and DVR!

I have a 401k that is doing pretty well, despite the Stock Market's volatility. (If you are working and don't have a 401k, you are mad! Never too early to plan for retirement.) If I cashed it out, even after paying taxes and penalties, I'd have the equivalent of what I bring home for six months. That's a heck of a sabbatical! Cashing out one's 401k is not a smart thing, but at the rate I'm going, seeing 65 is getting less likely all the time. Even if I did get there, my medical bills would eat through my savings in a minute.

About three problems appeared when I got to this point. First, I'm a lazy bum. If I did this and failed to at least put my health on the right track, it would have been a huge waste of time and money - not to mention jeopardize getting a job when I'm done. Second, taxes. Retirement accounts like the 401k are loaded with tax pitfalls - especially when you use it in a way that wasn't intended. Last, I gotta have medical insurance. COBRA is expensive, but I should be able to get on my wife's plan, right?

I went to Steph with this plan on Wednesday. She saw its wisdom and its pitfalls. The first point above seemed to bug her the most. She began listing out if-then gates; "If you are going to do this then you will be at the gym everyday." and "If you continued to screw around for 30 days, then your fat ass would be looking for a job" - she was nicer about it than that - but I had to agree. I know I'm a bum, having some metrics as a guide would be a great idea. It was actually something of a relief to be able to find an easy was to regulate this. I'm not looking for a vacation here, I'm looking to fix the bad crap that has built up the last 20 years. Steph said she would look into the insurance aspect of it and I immediately sent email to Judi, Max's Mom and Tax Goddess, with tax questions. This might just be doable!

(Judi, if you are reading this, don't worry about answering my email. It just doesn't matter at this point. How's that for foreshadowing?)

Yesterday, my job proved how fucking back-ass-wards it is in so many ways. Too many ways to list here. But, even in the face of adversity, I kept a smile on my face. I had a way out. This was only temporary. I felt like a depressive who has finally set the date for his suicide - I had a secret, it was going to hurt a bunch of people (my employers in this case) and I was ready to go! Excellent.

After work, Steph and I are driving home. Steph tells me she looked into it. Voluntarily leaving a job doesn't constitute a "change of status" in the eyes of her employer's insurance company. So, the only way I could get onto her insurance would be during open enrollment - in January. I can't last at this job that long. I blew up at Steph - not her fault, I know, but I was so angry. I can't catch a fucking break. I come up with a way that could quite literally save my life, a way to make my life better and of course some insurance company is standing in my way.

I AM FUCKING TRAPPED! I HAVE NO WAY OUT OF THIS SITUATION! I CAN'T STAND THIS SHIT ANY MORE!

I regained some composure and apologized to Steph - but it's not enough. She doesn't deserve me yelling at her. I'm really sorry, hun. I just don't know what to do.

So, in a week or two - maybe sooner, I'm going to start looking for a new job. Maybe something for a non-profit - at least then my work will not be making some rich asshole richer. If I wait around until July when they announce my insult, I mean, "raise" - I'll likely end up in the klink on assault charges.

The bad news is that the stress in my life will likely continue to mount as my body continues to fail more and more egregiously. The good news is that my 401k will pay for one hell of a wake - everyone is invited!

Max: Autodidact

For a while now I have been wanting to go back to school to study Comp Sci. I have been teching for a long time and have been wanting to get below the surface of computers, beyond hardware and software troubleshooting. I want to make the software, not just support it.

As with most things I desire, school is out of my price range. Lately, it occurred to me that I know how to read. Further, it occurred that there is a lot of info in books. So, I did some digging around for book recommendations from Comp Sci autodidacts. There are some intriguing Comp Sci books out there. And they all cost a bloody fortune (and sadly, not available at the library). So, rather than buying I have been adding those to my Amazon Wishlist. Hopefully in the not too distant future I will be able to afford them. Though I wouldn't complain if someone generous got them for me.

Max: A Lone Rational Voice

NeuroLogica

Whenever extraordinary unfathomable human actions take place, like the tragic shootings that occurred this week at Virginia Tech, there is an immediate collective struggle to understand what happened. It creates almost a snapshot of the culture’s current paradigms of the nature of humanity and human behavior. Everyone intellectually grasps for what is at hand to explain events, while career moralizers blame the tragedy on their favorite boogeyman. I don’t pretend to have any profound answers myself, but would like to add my neurological musings and other observations to the conversation.

Dr. Novella's blog is a nice break from the incoherant rantings of morons.

Max: Things I Shouldn't Find Amusing

20 endangered rabbits released; 14 promptly eaten

Most of a group of 20 endangered rabbits that were reintroduced to the wild with great fanfare last month have been killed by predators, state officials said.

Only four of the rabbits released on March 13 remained at the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area as of Tuesday, said David Hays, pygmy rabbit coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Jericho: Get over it, Tree-Huggers!

We have talked several times on this site about alt-fuels and the advantages of Plug-In Hybrids, Hydrogen and Ethanol powered vehicles. I think I can speak for Max when I say we support advancements in alt-fuel usage. Oil is an addiction this country has to give up.

Finally, we see a step in the right direction.

Okay, maybe not the Plug-In/Hydrogen vehicle, let's try for plug-in, flex fuel hybrid first, umm-kay? But, I think you see where I'm going. Seeing Bush with an extension cord in his hand makes me feel good all over.

But, the idiot environmentalists have got to step in and make a fuss!

"Making our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas is the single biggest step we can take toward saving American families money at the pump, ending our dangerous addiction to oil, and curbing global warming," said Dan Becker, the Sierra Club's director of the global warming and energy program.

Okay, first, Dan, put down the pipe. Obviously, you are not in this conversation. Allow me to catch you up. E85 will do exactly what you are describing. The "E" stands for ethanol. The "85" is for the percentage, by volume, of ethanol in a gallon (or liter for that matter) of fuel. If we are using 85% less gasoline, isn't that cutting our gasoline usage by 85%? To get gains like that, you would have to nearly double the MPG of the average vehicle. This would mean a Ford Explorer that got 30 city and 42 highway MPG. It would be great if it existed, but the only way to do it would be to make the vehicle out of paper! And if you think the American public is giving up their SUVs - where have you been the last two decades?

E85 will do more than save money for families in this country, it will make money for families in this country and aid the environment in the process. American farmers will be called upon to grow feed stocks to make the ethanol in question. Material that is currently headed for landfills will be used as fuel. And, in the end, carbon held in the earth will remain there and carbon in the atmosphere will be reduced - or at least not increased. By all accounts, North America will take up alt-fuels, but oil will drop in price and fuel the developing economies in China and India, unless they, too, get sold on alt-fuels. It would be nice if large and influential groups, like, say, the Sierra Club, helped these countries see the light.

Dan, saying "Let's have more MPGs" is one thing. Telling us how to get there is another thing. E85 is compatable with our current infrastructure in every way. It reduces our usage of oil by, you guessed it, 85%. It adds jobs to this country. It will lower the price of domestically produced oil and thus lower the price of fuel in general. As E85 takes hold, it will become cheaper to produce and further cost savings at the pump, in the taxi, at the grocery store, etc. Dan, do you have a plan that does the same? We'd love to hear it.

In closing, Dan, I must say this to you: SHUT UP! Use your pulpit to support something worthwhile. Don't be a stumbling block in the process. We all want lower MPG, but this is a huge step in the right direction. Let's get this off the ground, this is something that can be done TODAY, then we can work on that 40 MPG Explorer.

Jericho: Congestive Heart Failure

I was in the ER again this morning. About 1 AM I woke out of a deep sleep. For about half a second it seemed like I was just waking up - then my heart started jumping all over the place. Some of you out there are saying "Ah-ha! Sleep apnea." Most likely, you are correct. I wasn't breathing. This sets off the atrial fibrillation. I went to the bathroom and then went and lay down again - hoping that if I just relaxed, it would stop or "convert" on it's own. I've had one incident that did and I am ever hopeful that I won't have to spend the night in the ER. But, it didn't stop. It was powerful and erractic. My left arm got numb very fast and my chest tightened up. I woke Steph about twenty after one, time to go to the ER.

When I got to the ER, I was still in a-fib, but it had slacked off some. They got me on the table and hooked me up. They set me up on the IV and drew blood. The waking out of sleep, the chest jumping, the numb arm, the tight chest, the ER and the IV, these are all routine to me now.

We talked with the nurses and with a doctor. In the process they noticed something a little different. I am retaining a lot of fluid. My heart is enlarged. The nurse said "They are thinking of keeping you over night, you have had some minor CHF".


Congestive Heart Failure.

Those three words sat me up in my seat. Those three words killed my grandmother. I know those three words and I know them very well.

They wheeled in a scale and I got up on it. I nearly had a heart attack right there. The read-out was upside-down, but 507 is pretty easy to read backwards. That's right, 507 pounds. I thought I had hit bottom when I hit 475, but I forgot one fact: I'm a Brown. When we hit bottom we ask for a pick-ax and explosives!

They upped my beta blocker dosage. They are telling me to cut my salt. Hmmm, I haven't had caffiene since September, they want me to do low carb, low fat, no salt. That leaves distilled water and brown paper bags. The beta-blockers have dropped my energy so low that I don't know what to do. Combine that with the Benadryl I'm taking to fight my allergies, I might as well just spend the day in bed. Throw out sugar and carbs in general, and I have no energy at all. We have had a treadmill in our living room for a month now and I don't have the energy to step up on it much less use it and now I have more beta blockers to deal with!

Eventually, my heart slowed on it's own, they gave me some drugs and that finished the job. They didn't have to shock me this time - although, with the news I got, I guess they did. They just didn't have to connect the paddles.

I stayed home from work today. My heart has flip-flopped a few times, just enough to remind me how much trouble I'm in. I ate smartly, but with no salt, the food was completely tasteless. And, please, don't tell me about Mrs. Dash or some other herbal alternative to salt. I'm not a salt addict. I barely use the stuff. What little I use is now gone. I know how the human sense of taste works. There are taste buds for sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. I am left with sour, bitter, a little umami - but it better not be from MSG, and various artificial forms of sweet. In all, brown paper bags are probably the best option.

I don't know what to do. I really don't. What's the point of eating if nothing tastes, much less tastes good? There's no point it drinking anything but water - all the artificial junk