Fried-News-Day

In political news, Barack Obama really wants to be the first US president to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office. This would, of course, be in contrast to Bill Clinton, who wanted to be the first US president to have a lap dance at his desk in the Oval Office. I'm sure Leno will make a similar joke, if he hasn't already...
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In news about old stuff...

Archaeologists say they found witch doctor skeleton
Nov. 18, 2008 01:40 PM Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Archaeologists believe a 12,000-year-old skeleton found in a grave containing 50 tortoise shells, a leopard pelvis, a cow tail and part of an eagle wing is the remains of a witch doctor. The skeleton was covered by several large stones, which may have been placed there to keep the witch doctor's spirit entombed.

I don't know - if her own tribe buried her in such a way as to try and keep her soul entombed, is it really a good idea to turn her loose?
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In news about really old stuff...

Nov. 19, 2008 11:25 AM Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Scientists for the first time have unraveled much of the genetic code of an extinct animal, the ice age's woolly mammoth... Crucial to the mammoth mapping are about 20 hairballs.

Did they find the hairballs in the stomachs of fossilized sabertooth cats?
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And, finally, in evolutionary dead-end news...

Naked man targets women in suburban Philadelphia
Nov. 19, 2008 12:02 PM Associated Press
BUCKINGHAM, Pa. - Police in suburban Philadelphia are looking for a man who has been taking off his clothes and approaching women.
Police in Buckingham Township in Bucks County say the man grabbed a woman who was out jogging on Monday afternoon and held her in a bear hug.

The bizarre mating ritual of the male Homo Stultificatus is generally credited with this species' endangered status.

How to make a serving table in two short years or so...

Several years ago, Pam came up with the idea to build an outdoor serving table out of recycled materials. We bought the first of the necessary recycled items a bit over two years ago. Since then we have assembled the remaining ingredients and finally this weekend we finished the project. Here's a photo record of the project. As always, clicking on a photo will take you to a larger version.

The frame we constructed from two old window security grates from a salvage yard and a bed frame from a thrift store (also used for many years until replaced with a larger bed). After we put the top on it we decided it needed additional bracing, so I had to make a trip to Home Depot for the two crosspieces. This is actually my second welding project. I'll be very happy if it holds together... :-)

The table top is based upon a recycled door we found at our local Habitat for Humanity Home Store.

We sanded the door down to bare wood, routed out the panels a little bit, and stained the top level.


Finally, we covered the holes for the latch with some metal pieces recycled from the same window grates, and from some old metal shelving, and with an old belt buckle. And we filled in the panels with ceramic tile. Yeah, it was purchased new...

So, come on over and we'll try it out!

Fried-News-Day

In fossil news:

Fossil of female's pelvis found in Ethiopia
by Anne Ryman - Nov. 14, 2008 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic

The story contains this observation:

Because researchers lacked a female pelvis, they had to make certain assumptions about the female anatomy based on the Turkana boy fossil.

Apparently researchers with a female pelvis do a better job in paleoanthropolgy than those without. Clearly this is a job where possession of male anatomy is not advantageous. Is there corrective surgery to give men a female pelvis so they can compete?
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In martial arts news:

Samurai swordsman surrenders peacefully
by Parker Leavitt - Nov. 12, 2008 01:12 PM The Arizona Republic

Police arrested a 39-year-old man who reportedly used a samurai sword to assault another man Tuesday in a northwest Phoenix neighborhood. There were no injuries.

Middleage mutant ninjacompoop...
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From the wild side:

Man arrives at bar with pet alligator; cops called
Nov. 14, 2008 09:20 AM Associated Press
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. - Heard the one about the guy who walked into a bar with an alligator?
At Johnny's Saloon in Orange County, it was more than a joke early Saturday when a man arrived with his 3-foot pet gator on a leash.

OK, OK, so this guy walks into a bar. Just about knocks himself out. His alligator, however, walks right under it, unscathed.

Moral of the story? I don't really know any funny alligator-in-bar jokes...
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And finally, new from Obamania and bad puns:

Nov. 12, 2008 03:55 PM Associated Press reports that a team of researchers has created carbon nanotube images of Obama that can be seen only through electron microscopes.

The article carried this headline:

'Nanobama' makes Obama's likeness microscopic

Now, if someone creates an image of him on a banana, we might see this headline:

'Bananobama' makes Obama's likeness appetizing when split in half and placed on either side of several scoops of ice cream.

What Color is America's Original Sin?

I often declare myself to be studiously apolitical, but perhaps I'm really more selectively political. I've certainly posted more political stuff on this blog than I ever thought I would. So why stop now?

In March, Barack Obama made this statement in a speech delivered at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia:

The document (The US Constitution) they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

In Abraham Lincoln's words, "... our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Whatever his reasons for doing so, Lincoln certainly led the US away from legalized slavery. And in my mind, every step we take in that direction is a good one.

And now our president-elect seeks to bring about an America where slavery's extended family of descendants - racism, discrimination and marginalization directed toward blacks - become as much a thing of the past as their ancestral sin. I sincerely hope he can do so. It belongs to another discussion to talk about whether or not this is possible.

But, it seems to me that the descendants of those who lived on this continent prior to the establishment of "America" might have a different view of "America's original sin." The "old nations" that were on this continent prior to Lincoln's "new nation" might think that America's "original sin" is more along the lines of "culture-cide" and outright genocide. It began the moment Europeans first set foot in the "New World." And it includes Thomas Jefferson's (one of those "forefathers" Lincoln spoke of) deceitful and systematic (and chillingly successful) plan to conquer, subjugate, and if necessary, exterminate "the noble Red Man."

Makes me think our point of view (or the color of our skin) tints the lenses through which we view the world.

Even President-elect Obama...

Ann Coulter on the President - Elect

Ann Coulter sums up her thoughts on Obama's victory (and McCain's loss) thus : "For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president."

----The Reign of Lame Falls Mainly on McCain by Ann Coulter 11/05/2008 : http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29385

I love reading Ann Coulter's commentaries. Her writing is funny, biting, intelligent, and insightful - much the way I like to fancy my own. But if we both were baseball players, her skills might take her to the World Series. On a really good day, with a little luck, and a sufficient monetary contribution, mine could get me into the bleachers. Where I might have a chance to catch a stray ball...

So I don't lightly take on the task of disagreeing with her conclusion. Certainly it would be easy, natural, expected, and even totally in-bounds-fair to follow her advice. To make fun of President-elect Obama's lips in the same way that so many have laughed at President Bush's ears, for instance. To mercilessly caricature his mannerisms. To blame him for everything from the economy to immigration issues to Misty May Treanor's injury in Dancing With The Stars. To wait expectantly in ambush, ready to fire mercilessly upon him at his first, inevitable misstep.

I'm not suggesting that everyone has to agree with Obama's policies and programs. I'm just saying that we can disagree in a respectful manner, and on points that matter.

So, to those who believe that Conservatism is somehow more "American" than Liberalism, I say, "Prove it." I say, treat Obama with the respect and loyalty you wish the Democrats had shown George W. Bush. I hope Conservatives can prove that America's strength and identity is not the sum of its elected leaders, but of the people who live, work, and die here. That Conservatives can take the high road they castigate the Liberals for avoiding.

But I'm not holding my breath.

When does baseball season start?

Fried-News-Day

It's been a good news week...

AP reports a new inductee into the Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York. The stick. Yes, the lowly stick. Curators praised its all-purpose, all-natural, no-cost qualities, along with its ability to serve either as raw material or an appendage transformed by a child's imagination.

On the whole I applaud the recognition finally given to the stick, although I must wonder how the stone will feel. Not to mention mud.

On the downside, I can see Congress passing legislation taxing all sticks, and requiring a warning label to be affixed to each stick advising of the potential dangers of playing with the stick. Additional legislation might restrict stick play to children above a certain, as yet undetermined, age.

California, of course, will be the first state in the nation to ban all sticks because of the inordinate number of injuries sustained by children playing with them.

Cheap knock-offs of sticks will crop up at swap meets everywhere. They will bear such labels as "Stik," "Ztick," "tickS," and so on.

I see an ecological catastrophe of global proportions brewing. First, the US will run out of domestic sticks. Congress will prohibit the harvesting of sticks in national parks. We'll start importing sticks from every nation on earth. Rich families will demand sticks made of rare woods. Forests will be stripped bare of sticks.

Children in poor nations will have no sticks, while their American counterparts will have five or six sticks apiece. Charities nationwide will mobilize to collect used sticks for distribution to needy children overseas who have no sticks of their own.

Thanks a lot, Toy Hall of Fame...
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AP also published a story with this headline - International Tongue Twister contest held Saturday.

I don't know if this is a good idea. Playing Twister with your tongue sounds really dangerous. What if someone steps on it?
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Again from AP - one Colorado senate race ended with Democrat incumbent Bob Bacon defeating Republican challenger Matt Fries.

Based upon the election results, at least three fast-food chains have moved to substitute bacon in place of fries in combo meals at all their Colorado locations.
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And yet another AP story tells that Galen Winchell, of Coweta County, Georgia, set fire to his home while cleaning cobwebs from exterior eaves with a blowtorch.

I guess if the only tool you have is a blow-torch, you tend to see every problem as a crack-pipe...
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Rumor has it that the November 5th Pick-3 Lottery results in Barack Obama's home state of Illinois came up 666.

Coincidence?

Hell, yes!

At least, I think so. But, we'll have to wait for analysis by the theological heavyweights of the righter-than-right extreme...
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And finally, a jogger near Prescott, Arizona was attacked by a rabid fox. The critter bit into her arm, and she ran a mile to her car with its teeth buried in her flesh. Once she arrived at her vehicle, she was able to pry open its jaws, wrap it in a sweat shirt and toss it into the trunk.

As if the rabies vaccination weren't bad enough, PETA members deluged her with paint in protest of her treatment of the fox. Not the part about wrapping it in a sweatshirt and throwing it in her trunk. What really made them angry was her choice of wearing real fox-fur on her arm while jogging back to her car.

Campaign 2008

Campaign 2008 ended yesterday!

It's the morning after Election Day. I'm sure the blogosphere is thundering with the sound of frantic keyboard-tapping. Naturally I plan to add a few electrons to the storm.

The swooning extremes of Obama supporters would have us believe that once he takes office, he'll raise Muhammad from the dead and ask him to help smooth things over with Islamic nations. The very power of the Messiobamic Words will light and heat our homes and run our factories, with no need for coal, oil, nuclear, water, solar or wind sources. His mighty intellect will become the motivating force that will move mountains - not to mention cars, trains, boats and airplanes, eliminating the need for fossil fuels. His unprecedented coolness will put an end to global warming. The gold-encrusted gems of his boundless wisdom will become riches in all of our pockets, and fall like a rain of endless wealth upon the land.

Meanwhile, at the other rabid extreme, the Obama opposition will wail and tear their garments. Casting ashes upon their heads they will mourn the rise to power of the Antichrist. He will make bargains with Satan, and even with terrorists. He will gather all the nation's money by taxation and then spend it on studying how it should best be spent. He will outlaw guns, knives, camping equipment, white people and apple pie. Basketball will replace baseball as the "American pastime." We will descend into a pit of socialistic hell from which there will be no hope of redemption. They will continue to assert that everything was fine in America until "them Democrats took over Congress" and ran the economy into the ground. Serious students of conspiracy theory (OK, serious inventors of conspiracy theory!) will go so far as to hint that the Democrats deliberately sabotaged the economy so they could blame it on George W. Bush and give Obama a boost.

There will be (as there have already been) accusations that black voters chose Obama solely because of his race. Of course, had McCain won, the charges from the other side would have been that white voters refused to vote for a black man. I'm still waiting to hear someone assert that Irish Americans refused to vote for "that Scotsman, McCain," choosing instead "that good Irishman, O'Bama."

The fear of rampant socialism is many, many years too late. The "dirty little secret" (as Ed Chinn has called it) of American politics is that the bulk of the population votes for the candidate and/or Party they believe will hand them the most money. Thus, our great Republic is in many ways nothing more than a mechanism engineered to periodically allow either the wealthy socialists or the poor socialists to gain power.

I think the aftermath of this election will follow a path similar to every other election I can remember. The winners will find that things don't turn out as well as they had hoped, and the losers will discover that things turn out not as badly as they feared. In truth, Democrats will probably be overjoyed if Obama does nothing more than pull off the same trick that Bill Clinton achieved (the first Democratic President since FDR to do so), and win a second term.

I hope that Obama will be able to overcome the inevitable stumbles in his administration. The skeletons that come dancing out of his closet when the Republican pipers play. The bad decision that results in a negative outcome. The "contradiction" in which he gets caught. The realization by his voters that he has more than once promised mutually-exclusive courses of action to sub-groups in his Party, in order to garner votes. The outrageous statement made by an associate, maybe even the one he's married to.

In a way I'm happy that McCain lost the election. I think that at heart he is a brave man and a man of integrity. I would hate to see him reduced to repaying the influence that won him the election, instead of leading this country. I'm afraid that no matter how much a President may wish to shop at a farmer's market, he ends up owing his soul to the company store. I'm also glad that I don't have to spend the next four years with Sarah Palin one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Disclaimer - I'm not suggesting that Barack Obama is any less of a man of truth and valor than John McCain (I don't know), nor do I want to see him forced into the same inevitable trap.

My candidate, the proponent of literal near-anarchy, did not win. I did not think he would. In fact, I'm not sure anyone will know how he fared, as I am not sure that anyone reports write-in votes. I simply voted my belief in the words spoken by Gerald Ford in 1974, and often (apparently without grounds) attributed to Thomas Jefferson - "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."

But I have saved the worst political news for last. In my opinion, this is the most depressing reality of all:

Campaign 2012 begins today!