Pawprints From Space

With apologies to the Pop Tart whose song title I just paraphrased, the original Material Girl is back in the news: she did it again - she got a bunch of attention. Even my fave editorial guy is commenting. And he has a point (doesn't he always?). The woman went to Africa was moved by what she saw (you'd have to be frozen not to be) and is trying to adopt a child as a result. At least she is doing something. Never mind that adopting third world kids now seems to be a fashion statement, just ask Ms. Joile. This is one child who will get a chance to grow up. The rest of the world - the developed world - is pretty much ignoring the situation in various parts of Africa. It is a big continent ignoring it will not make it go away. Darfor isn't going to heal itself. The Sudan isn't going to heal itself. The desert is going to keep expanding (they have a tendency to do that). The snows on Killaminjaro are melting. And here we site, in the wealthiest nation on Earth. Pretty much...

Found this on the Web: In El Paso, Texas, two Border Patrol agents who shot a fleeing drug courier in the buttocks were found guilty March 9 of assault, weapons crimes, tampering with evidence, and deprivation of civil rights. Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean face at least 10 years in federal prison for shooting Osvaldo Andrade Davila, a Mexican citizen, as he fled back across the border when they interrupted his effort to carry a package of drugs into the US. Ramos and Compean also conspired to cover up the shooting by removing spent shell casings from the scene. The pair turned down a plea bargain for 18-month sentences. They have been suspended with pay since the February 2005 incident, and Border Patrol officials said they will now consider firing them. They shot him in the butt. Hardly a life threatening injury. Funny yes, life threatening no. As I understand it "policing your brass" that is cleaning up the spent shell casings is normal practice, hardly cover...

Don't have all the details yet, plan to do the research. Apparently two border patrol guys have been sentenced to 11 years in prison for - get this - doing their jobs. Seems they stopped an illegal guy running drugs in a van. Guy takes off running for the border to get back to Mexico (makes sense since once across they can't touch him). So in typical cop style one of them shoots at the guy. Wings him. Didn't think he'd actually hit the drug runner since he kept... running. The drug guy ends up pressing charges and our border patrol guys are tried and convicted (not sure of what, again gotta do the research) and have been sentenced to 11 years in jail. So? What is this? You can patrol the border but you can't actually shoot someone you catch with drugs? A van full of drugs mind you. We hear all this talk about border security. Apparently that is even more of a joke than we thought. Apparently the only news person talking about this is Lou Dobbs on CNN. Why isn't ...

Not too cold today but dark and rainy. Made for a depressing mess. Would much rather stay in bed on a day like this one. So would the cats apparently. There are two black cats in the household. Neither apparently understand that this is October. A month wherein they are to slink and skulk and otherwise make silly people nervous. Instead they snore and purr and look at you funny when you get up to start the day. What is wrong with you, human? Their gold-green eyes say. They know full when that when it is still dark one should not get up. Breakfast be damned. The bed is warm the comforter soft and they ain't budging. The long-haired calico on the other hand wants her breakfast, though it might have something to do with the fact that the human moved her head from the pillow and said calico was using the top of said head as her pillow. Nah, probably not.

I never thought of myself as a city girl. Being a nature nut I figured I was best cut out for the smaller towns - lots of trees, birds etc. Apparently not. After nearly 13 years in a town the size of less than 40,000 I find that I am fed up with small minds, closed minds and those who seem to have no mind at all. Of course you can find these people anywhere in the world but they tend to stand out in the smaller communities when you are not of a ... like mind. Take the issue of smoking for example. Several nonprofits in Ohio have banned together to gather signatures and get an initiative on the ballot to make the state smoke free. Never mind the smoker's rights cries I'm sure everyone expected that. It is the ranting and raving claiming that there is no link between smoking (and second hand smoke) and several kinds of cancer and heart disease - funny there is a ton of research to the contrary. Several claim that going smoke free as a state is just like stealing the property - no...

Ever notice how when the national evening news casts are crowing that gas prices have dropped and that this coming winter looks like it won't be as expensive for the average folk WHAM!! the prices at the gas pumps spike. You bet. NBC/CBS/ABC were all saying that hey gas prices were below $2 all over the country and within hours the price at the corner station went from $2.05 to $2.25. Wrong direction people! So today when the paper tells me that those of us who heat our homes with natural gas will see bills of around $119 or 12.5% less this winter, forgive me if I don't believe a word of it. They also say that the winter will be milder than average (more mild?). Uh-huh but didn't I also read today that the fields in Alaska are down again due to weather? OPEC wants to cut back on production 'cuz they aren't getting as much per barrel as they were last week etc, etc, etc. Oh yeah, I believe that my home heating costs will be better this year... sure I do. It is very i...

Okay gotta comment. Can't take it any more. While I am glad that the idiot resigned, glad that his transgressions have come to light I am annoyed that Congress can not punish him in any way. Because he resigned. He's out of office so they can't do anything. Nope, punishment is up to the civilian authorities. Really? Let's double check and make sure that the resignation also removed his right to the government health plan for the rest of his life, as well as any pension plan that they enjoy. I'll bet it doesn't. I'll bet he gets to keep that. If so, there is your punishment people - take those privileges away from him. Is it irony to discover that he is guilty of this kind of behavior when he served on the Congressional committee tasked with protecting children from online predators - people just like him? Or is it merely that he saw it as the ultimate cover? No one would suspect him because of his standing with that committee. Interesting, no? It is akin to ...

Remember that line from the movie Wall Street "Greed is good, greed works"? Yeah well Time Warner Cable must have made that the company motto. Here in Nowhere Ohio we do not have any competition to speak of for cable service. Not in the city limits at least. Outside the city there is another provider but they are pseudo satellite since no one has run coax cable out that far yet. Consequently Time Warner can do whatever the heck they want. To whit: recently the CW Network hit the air as a merger between UPN and the WB. Both of those stations were carried on our basic cable service. Not so the new CW. Nope. If you want the CW then you have to have digital cable. This means a digital capable TV set (or you can rent the adaptor from Time Warner of course) plus a higher cable bill. That is crap. That is the big bad cable company forcing the viewers to upgrade so that they can make more money. The local NBC affiliate owns the broadcast rights to the WB locally and thus when the CW ...

It is supposed to be nice this weekend and despite the fact that I haven't opened a textbook all week I intend to be outside working on what is left of the flowerbeds. Those poor, neglected weed-infested things. Good thing I have not only a green thumb but actually ten green fingers or else there would have been no flowers this year. It has truly been survival of the fittest out in the yard and sad to say most of the "fittest" have been the weeds. I have to do some clean up. There are 50 tulip bulbs to be planted. Typically Columbus Day weekend is the time when the tree colors are at their peak. They have barely gotten started around here. Those that have went straight passed red and gold and slammed into brown. Other domestic duties of the weekend include the annual airing of the rugs, hanging of the heavy drapes and generally getting ready for cooler weather. This is guaranteed to keep the warm weather around for at least a few more weeks.

The news programs are buzzing, Fox can hardly stand it, CNN can't shut up about it. Yes ladies and gentlemen Bill Clinton has a temper and some smarmy little news guy from Fox News (a network not known for fair play or even solid journalism) made him lose it. Slightly. I watched the interview. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Parameters had been set before hand as is normal and then the news guy goes off script and hits ole Bill with the Osama bin Laden question. First if I were Clinton's press secretary I'd be upset that the weasel went off script. Second I thought Bill handled it pretty well all things considered. It is about time that someone stood up to these idiots and slammed them back. I feel the same way when a actor punches out a paparatzi for jumping outta the bushes and snapping shots of the wife and kids. Little suckers had it coming. So Bill Clinton has a temper. Fox News has no class. Get over it.

There are days when I actually wonder if I am too old for homework. Today is one of those days. Not that I am having trouble reading, or even that I find the material blah although it is economics so I'd have a legitimate excuse. Rather it is that I can't seem to focus. I simply do not care. And I'd much rather be catching up on all the sleep I am losing from having a very sick kitty who gets me up every couple of hours for one thing or another. I'm thinking most of the problem is related to the sleep issue. So no, maybe I'm not too old for homework but merely too tired to care. At least I do not have a paper due this week.

I have a laptop computer that runs Windows 98se. It has a kick-butt processor, maxed out memory and works just fine. Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows 98se so I thought okay maybe I can upgrade to XP, its only $100 for the upgrade version. So I just ran the "Upgrade Advisor" and oh yeah, the processor can handle it but half the software I have won't work with it. My Palm Pilot, my scanner, the external zip drive, the printer, the jump drive, and so on and so on. Basically the thing is telling me that I have to buy a whole new computer or buy all new other stuff - the computer would be cheaper I'm thinking. That is complete crap. Forcing people to upgrade and/or buying new hardware is merely a ploy to make more $$ at the expense of the consumer and classic monopoly behavior. Our cable company here is trying to pull the same stunt. This only proves my point that Microsoft is evil and Bill Gates ought to be ashamed of himself. No wonder he's giving huge amoun...

Today marks the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall. Which if you like football games is probably okay. However if the rest of this dying season is as wet as the last few days it is not going to be fun at all. Don't get me wrong I love the colors of Fall. The crisp air is not the best for asthma but it smells clean and woodsy. Walking through the woods is nice, the rustle of the leaves and the way the cooler light filters through. But it is Fall and it is the season of dying, of settling down to sleep. Plants die or settle into sleep depending on whether or not they are an annual. Animals scurry collecting winter stores of food and birds gather together to fly south. But have you noticed that thanks to mild Winters and weird weather patterns some birds never leave? It was mild enough last year that robins never left. That can't be good. I recently bought Al Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth. Haven't started it yet. There's no doubt in my mind that Global Warming...

Washington DC - The Capitol at Sunset 

Time to get political again. An editorial in the paper today made me think. I don't normally like this guy - he's ultra conservative and just a plain pain in the butt but today... he had a point. I've been reminded that while campaigning for office our President opposed the McCain-Feingold Bill saying that it violated the Constitution and restricted free speech. Once elected though he signed it into law. He didn't have to, he could have vetoed the thing but nope, he signed it. So if he believed the bill would make a law that was unconstitutional didn't he violate his oath of office to uphold the Constitution? Kinda looks that way folks. And for the literalists out there he did violate his oath. Mr. Protector of Free Speech has created "free speech zones" where protestors have to stand anytime the Prez appears anywhere so that they aren't interfering with his public appearance - translation so they are out of view of the media. Oh yeah and if you compla...

In news of the cool.... Yesterday the ISS (international space station for you non-space people) unfurled its new solar wings for the first time. These wings are able to move with the sun to maximize power generation. Naturally there was a glitch in the software that held the occasion up by a few hours but as usual NASA got the bug worked out and voila! 240 wings in space (okay Earth orbit). Thoughts on the last weekend of Summer.... Fall officially starts next week with the Autumn Equinox on Saturday the 23rd (as does Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan and the celebration of Mabon - gee, are the Christians the only ones without a holiday?) and so Summer leaves us. Well in the Midwest it feels as though Summer left us about a month ago with below normal temps and bunches of rain. It is supposed to be sunny and 78 today but so far when I look out yon window all I see is fog and mist. And yup, it is that kind of chill that settles deep. For Pete's Sake if I wanted this kind of weather for weeks ...

Cute and fuzzy? Not for long if he keeps eating the flowers! 

When you are working on stuff around the house or in the garage and you drop a screw or a nut you can usually pick it up without too much trouble. Drop something during a space walk and it might end up tangled up in something important and screw everything up big time. Also on the where did that go front... so where is the install guy? I bought this door it is going to be tricky to install so I figured I had better pay the extra $$ and let the store's install guy do it. So yesterday he calls and I'm in meetings all day so I tell him today is better and that I'd be available after 2:00. It is now 4:45 and no sign of him and he is not answering his phone. Tomorrow is not an option and I am booked solid and/or traveling all of next week. This does not bode well. Trying to figure out how I got stuck with scheduling a meeting on a Saturday afternoon with a volunteer to talk about work. Oh but you HAVE to work on the volunteer's schedule. Apparently somewhere in the paperwor...

I heard a bit on NPR yesterday about this guy who has a blog on the Vatican. He doesn't work at the Vatican, doesn't even live in Rome (or any other part of Italy) and he isn't a member of any religious order. But he has a blog and he has sources and various folks who do belong to religious orders and who do work/live in Rome take what he says pretty seriously. Apparently this guy has some really good sources. Anyway I have been browsing his blog today and find it interesting. If you're curious check it out at: http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com It is worth a look. On a regular basis even.

There is nothing quite like the smells coming from the kitchen on a Sunday evening. The Sunday Dinner. I don't cook very often, too busy and all that, but Sunday I do. And I've been surprised to discover that I actually enjoy it. Granted my most domestic quality remains the fact that I actually live in a house but a once a week meal I can handle. Most of the time. A way to recharge and face the week ahead fortified with homey goodness.... and a few glasses of whatever wine in the rack goes with the food in the oven.