Facebooking the blogosphere?

If you're still reading just this site, half the world is now over on Facebook, and I've got the photos from Picasa feeding to both here and there...so check it out.  Don't know how much I'll blog on here anymore, since it's not as "socially connected" to my friends and family as Facebook.  (We'll see if FB fades out in a few years, and what the "new" way to publish to the web is...who knows?)

Yes, I'm at Celtic Woman *again*...this time in Philly! :)

Finally, the LP gets my viewpoint...

Took a while, but the Libertarian Party is finally able to articulate my view on the gay marriage argument I've been saying for years now.   You don't have to be FOR or AGAINST the government allowing gay marriage, you have to get government OUT of it.  :)  We're so worried about forcing people to live the way we live, because our way is "right" and they're "wrong"...that's not freedom.   That's slavery.

America’s third largest party Monday praised officials in Iowa, Vermont and the District of Columbia for taking recent steps toward marriage equality, and urged legislators in all states to scrap government licensing, taxation and regulation of marriage.

“The government’s power to define marriage has historically been used as a tool to retaliate against minority groups, and the right to marry is the newest frontier of civil rights.  Libertarians everywhere applaud this advancement of civil rights, but warn the only way to guarantee true marriage equality is to get government out of the question entirely,” said Catherine Sumner, LBGT policy advisor for the Libertarian National Committee.

“Removing government from the equation entirely allows gay and lesbian couples to enter into the same legal agreements and arrangement as heterosexual couples, and it would allow individuals and businesses to decide for themselves who to grant the benefits of marriage to,” said Sumner.  “No individual, straight, gay or lesbian, should be forced to accept someone else’s definition of marriage.”

Also, McCain is still an idiot.

Not that I'm enjoying Obama spending my sons's future paychecks, but dude, have you been too busy with Iraq for the past 8 years to notics Afghanistan?:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former GOP presidential nominee John McCain warned Wednesday that the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan.

...McCain said on Wednesday, "When you aren't winning in this kind of war, you are losing. And, in Afghanistan today, we are not winning." He delivered his remarks at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Um, which direction have you been looking in for the past 8 years?  Thanks for waiting 2 months after your golden boy is out of office to start your bitching.   Classy.

Few and far between...

Amazing what being a father does to your time-management skills.  :)   Some new photos on the left from the holidays, and I'll leave you with this ridiculousness:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal anti-terror law that requires longshoremen, truckers and others to submit to criminal background checks has ensnared another class of transportation worker -- mule drivers.

Yes, so-called mule skinners -- in this case, seasonal workers who dress in colonial garb at a historical park in Easton, Pa. -- must apply for biometric Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC), according to the Transportation Security Administration, which says it is bound by federal law.

The requirement has officials of the Hugh Moore Historical Park perplexed. "We have one boat. It's pulled by two mules. On a good day they might go 2 miles per hour," said Sarah B. Hays, the park's director of operations.

The park's two-mile canal does not pass any military bases, nuclear power plants or other sensitive facilities. And, park officials say, the mules could be considered weapons of mass destruction only if they were aimed at something resembling food.

If work is a hologram...do I have to come in tomorrow? :)  Read the full article for more brain-bending stuff, such as "we can tell by measuring the blurriness of the universe".  It almost makes sense...Stephen Hawking, eat your heart out.

According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram."

South America....NOT on my vacation list anymore

Glad my family got to go there as a port-of-call on a cruise as a kid.  Caracas, Venezuela is definitely OFF my vacation list forever.  From CNN:

"Foreign Policy magazine said in September that Caracas tops the list of five murder capitals of the world, with an official tally of 130 homicides per 100,000 residents. The city, which is Venezuela’s capital, has about 4 million inhabitants."

Of the top five, only one U.S. city made the list: New Orleans.  :)

Last minute shopping...

..and it's COLD! 26 degrees, and someone looks warm.

While mom's away...

The men of the house will...sleep?

"I think this bed's too big for me now, Dad."

Tom Cruise, eat your heart out...

Don't look nervous at the airport, or anything....

Several Israeli-based technology companies are developing detection systems that pick up signs of emotional strain -- a psychological red flag that a passenger may intend to commit an act of terror. Speedier and less intrusive than metal detectors, these systems may eventually restore some efficiency to the airplane boarding process.

...developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration -- signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.

...so i can't help thinking, reality-meets-fiction-yet-again.  Didn't "Minority Report" just come out only a few years ago, and "pre-crime" was a "futuristic" idea?  I guess I need to stay out of airports soon.    "Hey, I didn't DO anything yet."  "Well, you THOUGHT about blowing up the White House".  "Asshat...I'm a libertarian...I think that every damn day."   :)

Babys Don't Price Scan...Apparently

Also, self portrait with camera phone and baby-in-hand is kinda hard. :)

If the bills weren't so damn LONG...

I repeat myself, but again, why you can have too much government: (does anyone still really think we need "just one more program"?  Comment if you do, PLEASE.)

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson rejected using the government’s financial-rescue program as a “panacea” for economic difficulties, clashing with lawmakers who want the funds to help beleaguered homeowners.

Barney Frank, who heads the House panel, cut off Paulson...saying “the bill couldn’t have been clearer” in also being aimed at reducing foreclosures.  “We don’t have a lot of time and I don’t usually do this,” Frank said in interrupting Paulson during an exchange on how to deploy TARP cash. “I read sections of the bill that says -- write it down -- give them assistance."

Well, we wouldn't be having this argument if you (Congress) hadn't inflated the original proposal from 3 to 451 FUCKING PAGES (PDF download, if you have no life and want to read it). Read the top 10 sweeteners...wooden arrow makers, rum in Puerto Rico, wool-makers...)  There's probably the kitchen sink AND the Second Coming of Christ in that bill if you read enough of it.  Vote smaller, dammit!

The "right" of marriage? Not in at least 3 states.

Irony:  As of 1961, there were 16 states with anti-interracial laws still on the books.  Two people who wouldn't have been allowed to marry back then (in those states) are the parents of the man now elected to run the country.  So now, the gay community sees it all over again.  California, Florida, and Arizona voters decide to tell people how they can love each other.  Watch as Keith Olbermann gives an emotional defense.

While I believe marriage is not a "right" from a libertarian perspective, the government should be out of marriages completely, and only recognizing all as "civil unions" for tax/property purposes if necessary.  The question is not "should gays be allowed to marry?", but "why should ANYONE ask permission of the government to marry?".  That's the only way I see this resolved.  I didn't want to apply for a marriage license....it's a contract between two consenting adults; the government is merely an intruding third party.

How's that cabinet coming along?

Just because Bush is on the way out, I've still got to beat on the establishment.  :) Still think we have a free country?  Check back in 4 more years. From an excerpt from Obama's pick for chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanual's book, "The Plan: Big Ideas for America":

"Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs."

Think that's just a scary future?  We're laying the groundwork now.  A blurb from Obama's new "Change.gov" website as he prepares for office:

"Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. "

IT'S NOT FREE.  YOU JUST WORKED 100 HOURS FOR IT DUMMY.  That's $40 bucks an hour, not bad, but still...the school kids get ZILCH for theirs.  My children will learn to volunteer because they want to do the right thing, not because someone mandates it.

Post-election musings...

OBAMA FOR TEH CRUSHING WIN.  Well, we'll have to see how the next 4 years goes now.  I wish him the best of luck in fixing this country, but it's a tall order, one that "more government" will not likely help.  Still, I'm looking forward to critiquing a President more engaging than a stick of celery. 

Post-campaign revelations from a Newsweek project they've been doing since 1984 with an internal team following the campaigns, only disclosing the day after polls close.  I'm gonna have fun with the new guy, heh:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Shopping is Bo. Ring.

First trip to the mall and he's oblivious. Storing up energy for
waking Dad up at 4am. :)

NOM NOM NOM

Finishing up placating a hungry baby @ the annual farm/corn maze

Silly parents...

The stork doesn't bring babies, silly...they grow in pumpkin patches!

(Jason will hate me for these pics one day)

A mote of light in a pile of a crap-tacular law

Well, at least in all the "pork" to get the bailout bill through (it went from 3 pages to 451 on Bush's desk!), there's a silver lining if I can just get my current car to last a few more years:

WASHINGTON -- Congressional leaders have added $1 billion in tax breaks for plug-in electric vehicles to a $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill. The provision would grant plug-in vehicles with at least a four-kilowatt battery pack a $4,168 tax credit. A vehicle like the extended range 2011 Chevrolet Volt with a 16-kwh battery would qualify for the maximum $7,500 tax credit for vehicles under 10,000 pounds.

Holy crap, now THAT is a tax break. If you pay attention, sometimes the sucky "system" can indeed be used for your benefit. Stretch those dollars...we're in for a loooooong depr...er, "recession". :^)

Economics for kids...

Is it sad that an old episode of "Duck Tales" can be used to illustrate why inflation of the money supply is bad? Bring it on, Feds....I'm still trying to beat the 5.4% inflation rate this year on top of it.  Can't wait for the underwhelming "good" 3% raise this year.  No fault of my employer, but it's effectively a pay cut in adjusted dollars...so sad. 

Also, why can't they make good cartoons like that anymore? :)