PSoTD

Or maybe one of those fruity drinks with umbrellas in them!

I like it.

Last year I asked my blogroll this question:

What does the federal holiday, "Labor Day", really mean to you?

A lot of you posted. But now I want to ask you all a slightly different question to consider in the next week.

What should the federal holiday, "Labor Day", mean to America? And how should we appropriately honor the day?

If you choose to post on this question, let me know and I'll link to it next week.

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Do you want to know why people want the wealthy taxed at a higher percentage? And inheritance taxes? Maybe things like this are part of it...

Leona Helmsley's decision to leave $12 million to her dog so it could live out its life in luxury proved once and for all that she was not one of the little people.

It's because the middle class, and the poor, see lots and lots of examples where the super-wealthy have no freaking clue how to wisely spend their money after they're not around to spend it. 12 million could do a lot of good, and maybe it eventually will after this dog dies, but not due to Leona Helmsley's vision.

From Hampden Township

Trick-or-Treat night will be held Thursday October 25th from 6 to 8 p.m.

Good grief. That's almost a week from the real Halloween. What is the possible difference between holding it on a Thursday and holding it on a Wednesday. The artificial need for consistency on this is watering down the holiday.

There's a real reason for the township to avoid holding trick-or-treat on a Friday or Saturday night - the theory being that kids are less watched on weekend nights, can stay up later, parents hire babysitters, etc., so there's more opportunity for kids to create mischief. Better to hold it on a school night.

But I absolutely don't understand the theory of taking it from a Wednesday night and moving it almost a week prior.

Have you ever noticed that in the technology world, product being "agnostic" is considered a good thing?

Even Milton does.

There may be a lot of reasons to ensure the date for school opening in Pennsylvania is after Labor Day, but I'm very sure that the reason for it shouldn't be that amusement parks need cheap labor.

Most school boards, for now, prefer a pre-Labor Day start, which gives schools greater flexibility to make up any time lost to snow days or other reasons. Public schools must provide 180 days of instruction by June 30, so the school boards association and the Pennsylvania State Education Association -- the state's largest teachers' union -- oppose a mandate.

The House's education and tourism committees, however, have endorsed legislation requiring school to start after Labor Day, saying a mandate would help Pennsylvania's economy.

A study released in September by a bipartisan legislative panel found that starting school after Labor Day statewide would add $378 million annually to the state's economy, including $164 million in direct travel and tourism spending.

Amusement parks are a big attraction, for example, and they rely on teen labor.

Kennywood Park's parent company employs about 3,000 high school and college students at its three parks in western Pennsylvania.

Hersheypark is another large employer of young people and a big tourist attraction.

First of all, I hate these state vapor factoids of how much a policy change may increase or decrease the economy, particularly when it is dependent on so much policy from other states (hint to PA: if schools in states surrounding Pennsylvania start in August, then those kids won't be part of this perceived tourism push). Of course, if these are Pennsylvanians spending this money, then I'm confused how this really adds to the state's economy. The money was already here. It adds to the tourism economy. But it may be removing from a different economy.

Secondly, what about the costs (as opposed to the revenues) of kids being home for summer? Ask many employers, and one of the reasons that less gets done in summer is because parents have to be home more for their kids, who aren't in school. Was that included in their factoring? I have no clue what that cost is, but I know it has to be a real cost.

I will admit, I'm not the biggest fan of school starting before Labor Day in our district, but I do believe that the school board is making that decision based on the needs of the educational community - kids and teachers - that improve the bottom line of educating for our kids. I do not trust the tourism industry, or the Tourism committee, to do the same, and I don't want education policy driven by tourism needs unless they can prove a greater good beyond invented dollar totals.

Strange concept.

Restaurants are not only places to enjoy a good meal, but they can also be places to entertain yourself and blow off steam from the pressures of daily life.

In China, various themed restaurants and bars are booming in major cities. The Whale Inside is one of several "dark" themed restaurants - aimed at stress reduction and anger release.

The restaurant's original concept was to provide a dining experience in total darkness, thus allowing customers to relax. But the restaurant also offers a number of anger-releasing options. These include punching a sandbag and the restaurant's star attraction - smashing porcelain against the wall. The restaurant's manager says that the sensation and smashing noise help people let go of their aggression and prevent depression.

This makes as much sense as any other form of gambling... From Belize

With an increase in celebrity sightings and television reviews, San Pedro is fast becoming a hot spot for film crews. This time around, a film crew from the PBS Channel was on our island jewel filming a segment about San Pedro and its world famous Chicken Drop at the Pier Lounge Bar.

PBS, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is a non-profit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation's 355 public television stations. A trusted community resource, PBS uses the power of noncommercial television, the Internet and other media to enrich the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services that inform inspire and delight. PBS features television's best children's, cultural, educational, history, nature, news, public affairs and science programming. The film crew was on hand to catch footage of the Pier Lounge's local cultural event, the Chicken Drop.

How the game works? The proprietor sells you a numbered square for $1.00. At the announced moment, an assistant appears with a large wicker basket containing one or more live chickens. The basket is opened up, and one of the participants is assigned the task of grabbing a chicken, gently shaking it, blowing on its rear end, and tossing the jostled bird onto the numbered squares. Herein begins much shouting and verbal encouragement in hopes that said chicken, after strutting about, will eventually elect to "drop" upon the numbered square that you have previously purchased. The winner receives a $100, but has the task of cleaning up after the chicken. With the Travel Channel having a segment and the PBS channel filming the Chicken Drop it is without a doubt the most popular filmed event in San Pedro.

Here's a funny thing about those conservative bloggers actually attacking the police for the arrest: Larry Craig pled guilty.

As for this thought:

Perhaps we should get rid of the fools in the party.

Maybe you should start with Larry Craig.

I swear, Bush comes off as a stooge, even on the White House web site. He does not, and can not, lead, even his own administration. About the Gonzales resignation:

After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.

Never mind the whinyass crying about "politics" from a guy who pushed for the most politicized administration ever - Mr. 50% plus 1 can pout all he wants about that. No, it's this part:

"created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department"

we should really focus on. Bush knew this? And refused to do anything about it. And would have kept on allowing it to happen unless Gonzales quit? Who thinks that is leadership?

Following an idiot doesn't make the idiot a leader. It just proves the followers are stupid.

There's a lot of negativity to the term "hippie" these days, and negativity to whoever may be perceived to have been one at one time. Kids tend to define hippies with one visible trait - long hair. Long-haired males are/were hippies, long-haired women could have been. Kids today aren't aware of many other visible possibilities, such as bell bottom jeans and flower power shirts, and are definitely not really aware of some subcultural aspects, such as drug experimentation and opposition to war.

I heard my six year old negatively talking about hippies earlier in the summer, and I tried to find out where he got this talk from. Not from us. Kindergarten? Friends? Neighbor kids? He seemed to have just absorbed it from the attitudes of some in Central Pennsylvania, with no specific authorship. A few weeks ago I had to pull out some photos, me and some friends when I was in high school and in college. Long hair. Facial hair.

"Dad was a hippie" he laughed.

I explained to him that there was nothing wrong about being a hippie. Some people might call me a hippie, some might not. I was a long-hair for a while. I wore jeans with holes in them before they sold them like that. People can call me a hippie if they want. I don't see it as a bad thing. Hippies did a lot of good things - they helped raise the nation's understanding to stop an awful war, they worked to make things more fair for people. They promoted love. They sought new solutions. There's a lot to respect about what the "hippies" of the 1960s and 1970s did.

I haven't heard him talk negatively about hippies since then. I can't be sure that I made a point, or if he just is smart enough to avoid the topic so he doesn't have to look at those old photos again. But I think it's time that parents quit allowing the bashing of hippies by those ignorant of the time period. And kids ought to know that having long hair certainly isn't something that should be disparaged.

From Alberto Gonzales' resignation statement:

Even my worst days as Attorney General have been better than my father’s best days.

I wonder what his father would think about that. Wedding day, birth of kids, graduations... better than all that? Wow, Alberto must really think his father's life sucked.

The Moderate Voice has more.

Literally... there seems to be a rash of "anti-sagging" ordinances around the country.

Sure seems like a lot of noticeable changes happening in my tiny view of the business world recently.

Somebody finally is taking over the space that used to be Good's Furniture on the Carlisle Pike. Has it been empty for two, or three, years?

The former West Shore Health Club, after thirty plus years, disappeared from their location on St. John's Church Road. They've been replaced, I guess, as Planet Fitness, in the Hampden Center. Bumble Bee Hollow West - where we had our son's birthday party just a year ago - is closing their doors after Labor Day, having sold their land for residential development.

These are all pretty noticeable landmarks on the West Shore. The landscape changes.

Whoever Larry Craig really is, it's apparent that he's not able to stand up for the important decisions he's actually making for himself. Which makes him pretty sad.

Here's their list of the top albums from 30 years ago. Doesn't even matter what their criteria is - what stands out as either great or suckage to you?

United Mine Workers of America sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, calling on Congress to appoint "an independent, bi-partisan committee of coal mine safety experts to investigate the Crandall Canyon disaster."

And it's going to happen...

The House Labor Committee chairman on Monday asked Murray Energy Corp. to turn over a slew of documents related to the Crandall Canyon mine, saying the recent tragic events there "raise many troubling questions."

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who heads the committee with oversight of federal mine regulators, requested the company produce 13 different categories of internal documents, including any complaints or transfer requests by miners, engineering studies and even pre-shift and on-shift exam books regarding the safety of the mine.

"Specifically, I am concerned about the safety of the mining operation at Crandall Canyon and the stewardship of mine operations" by Murray Energy and it's subsidiary, UtahAmerica Energy Inc., leading up to the mine accident that has cost three rescuers lives and possibly six more feared dead, Miller wrote to the company's legal counsel Monday.

Some blog posts you may have missed:

100,000,000 blogs. Really?

BlueGrassRoots moved. Everyone seems to be moving. Have you moved?

Congrats, GeekyMom and husband, on 13 years. Next year R and I celebrate 15 years. And it is still surprising in some ways that after so many years we still like being around each other. How many other non-blood relatives can you say that about?

What a great idea: Audubon has launched a new addition to their Audubon at Home web section called Birds to Help.

What the hell is going on with the Metro system in DC?

A bigger threat than terrorism.

If someone you knew drank several pots of coffee a day, would you think they knew much personally about the nuances of flavor? How could they, with their mouth completely and constantly coated in coffee?

And yet, there's Rachael Ray.

Q. You must drink a ton of coffee.

A. It's several pots a day. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. And I can't make coffee, that's the hysterical part. That cranky girl I was telling you about, while she was writing this book she was getting her husband out of bed at 3 in the morning to make the coffee. I just can't get it right. I can't bake and I can't make coffee.

First of all, people really need to start defining what they mean by "winning the war".

And they need to quit moving the goalposts. Be honest. Here's how America is going to decide on the Iraq War: they will assess the real costs of "winning the war" versus the real costs of "losing the war" and they'll vote accordingly. Right now, it looks to me that most Americans think the cost, in blood, money, future status of the American military AND the American reputation, is much higher to "win the war" than it is to "lose the war", however defined. That's why people polled wanted us to get out of Iraq. They've made a gut level decision.

Why gut level? Because that's really all they have. Most of what they get from the Bush Administration and conservative pundits looks like pie-in-the-sky fantasy, and they're not willing to bet on that when they're getting rising death totals and stories about a depleted military and bubbling questions about reinstating the draft. They get platitudes from the Republicans, not much more from the Democrats, and statistics in the news media.

Statistics mean more than platitudes to Americans. A realistic longterm game plan means more than platitudes to Americans. Be honest, quit talking in terms of September 2007 and start talking in terms of September 2017 if you're interested in convincing Americans about "winning the war". Because 2006 showed that they're going to vote against who they think are more platitudinous for the war.

I'm not quite sure that's enough at this point (for him). Actions should have consequences.

Definitely not enough for this administration.

As a Chicago Bears fan, I'm getting a little concerned that he's not going to pan out as well as expected this year.

From PennLive:

The midstate senior high schools that are projected to have the greatest enrollment growth and the greatest enrollment decline in 10 years, according to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Education:

GROWTH

1. Palmyra+27.0%
2. Lebanon+14.9%
3. Hershey+13.0%
4. Waynesboro+11.4%
5. Cumberland Valley+11.3%
6. Mechanicsburg+11.2%
7. Chambersburg+9.7%
8. Camp Hill+9.4%
9. Susquehanna Twp.+9.4%
10. Greencastle-Antrim+8.8%

Here's a little known fact about me - when I was 11 and 12, I delivered TV Guides. They didn't use to mail them, and I think they cost more in the store. They would rely on a delivery system similar to the newspaper kid delivery system, or at least did so to a point.

This was the late 1960s, of course. I had at my biggest point perhaps 20 customers. You had to have 15 as a minimum to keep a route, and I was always at risk of dropping below that. TV Guides cost 15 cents in those days, and I would keep 4 cents of every sale. Woo hoo! 60 to 80 cents a week for an hour's work (except it was always a pain each month to collect, because you'd inevitably have to keep going back to the same houses for the money).

I know they scrapped that system a few years after I did it, and went directly to mail and raised their prices. Didn't seem to hurt them, I guess, although we don't subscribe. There aren't many self-professed ex TV Guide delivery folks on the Internet - I guess the subject just doesn't come up.

For David Broder to go home. He's earned his retirement. He needs to quit squatting on a fable of a reputation, and enjoy his remaining years doing something more beneficial for society, something recreational that will no longer force him to find sillier and sillier ways to trumpet his Broderisms.

I'm all for people working as long as they can do their job usefully and credibly, but Broder seems to be beyond that point. Today's column is just a case in point. Broder seems to believe that a third party candidate for President should exist because people don't want to vote for Democrats or Republicans. That is a worthless position. It is a wasteful position. If, if, if... if Broder were even correct that Americans want a third party candidate, that choice would be driven by policy plans, and not because they were a third party candidate. We want health insurance fixed and reasonably priced. We want out of the Iraq War. We want responsible politicians that work in a more clear environment. We want those things.

David Broder doesn't do anything to try to help Americans resolve these wants, in one way or another. He simply writes about diversions. He's cooked, he's done, and it's time for him to go home.

Who would buy this?

Playboy bobbleheads...

Some things can still surprise me on the web, such as "Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke".

The windmills of Central PA.

(from the account of sokref1)

I must drive the fetid spirit of Gary Wright from this blog!!

Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo actually said that no one saw the current financial turmoil coming. Shouldn't that be grounds for firing?

Unfortunately, this really is too close to the truth to be funny.

At 12 deaths per 1,000, the maternal mortality rate is near third-world levels. Heckuva job, America.

Okay, what is SWBMNS, anyway?

The Lady Speaks posted a little late, but pretty accurately, IMHO, about Joe Lieberman.

My wife naked? WHAAAAA?!?!?

Stitch for the Senate. A different way to voice your opinion of the war.

Whatever happened to Gary Wright, anyway?

You have to give him credit - of all the songs that incorporate all those now keyboard cliches, he actually used them to some mood effect.

So what's the union going to do about the Federal Government disappearing behind the mine owner for all things public in the Utah Mine tragedy?

One of the things that comes out of the Bush Administration on a pretty regular basis is the practice of discounting. What's the true cost of the Iraq War? They won't give us the cost, in casualties, in money, without a discount - it's always the lowest number they can try to force on the public.

When you have to sell crap, you have to discount. Sure, it's crap, but it's half off, or a third of the price, etc. You can never go beyond platitudes to describe your crap, but you can always keep cutting the cost. "It makes your life better, and at half the price of the other guys!" It's still crap not worth even close to the price, but it's cheaper than what the other guy is pushing.

Bush treats the Iraq War like something sold in a dollar store, and unfortunately, that's actually an insult to those stores.

Mid-Atlantic weather blogging. Kinda cool!

I must admit, I've built a life where I, personally, don't have to deal much with traffic. I live in Central Pennsylvania, not an area with problems in general concerning traffic. Oh yeah, we may complain about the Carlisle Pike, but c'mon.

Yesterday my daughter and I went to the Phillies-Dodgers game, a businessperson's special. The game ended shortly after 4 PM.

We returned home around 9 PM. Traffic... everywhere. It really took a lot of the enjoyment of the game away.

I'm a big boy, I know that big cities have big traffic, but you tend to forget the scope of it when you're as spoiled as I am about traffic. Hell, I work at home. I, personally, probably drive less than 10 miles per day 4 days a week.

It's not like I'm not used to traffic. I learned to drive in California's Bay Area. Back in my previous job incarnation, I had to go to DC and Philadelphia semi-regularly. I've driven in traffic jams a lot, but now I'm completely out of practice.

And I prefer to be out of practice. The worst thing about traffic isn't the crappy behavior you see from other drivers, but the crappy feelings I find in myself. I feel ugly driving in that stuff, emotionally ugly. Frustrated. Judging people because of their lack of "fair play" in driving. Judging them because of their lack of attentiveness on the road. Judging them because they choose to live bunched together, yet with enough spread, that it creates such traffic.

Yep, I get ugly. It's not for me.

This isn't a rant about Philadelphia. I've been in worse traffic backups - I still have bad memories of an experience in Los Angeles, and yesterday seemed pretty similar to something we went through once in going from San Francisco to Livermore. This is just an acknowledgement - I hate this kind of traffic enough that I choose to live away from it, and plan to always live away from it. I have to dip in once in a while, but I just can't make it part of my everyday life.

That's what this "surge is working" chant really is. Here's some actual metrics to judge the surge by.

It's just a matter of time now for Technorati, unless somebody with deep pockets wants to buy them.

I thought this was pretty sound advice.

According to this article, public nudity is losing its power to shock.

The practice has seemed to be overused the past few years. More importantly, maybe we shouldn't find the naked body as shocking anyway - so maybe this is a good thing in a way.

On the other hand, I shudder to think what kind of natural things protesters might find to use for "shock value" in the future. Poop ins?

George W. Bush hopes to rig federal regulations to prevent children and low income families from getting health insurance.

In order to keep the program focused on low-income children, the Bush administration has notified state officials that before they can enroll children from families earning above 250 percent of the federal poverty level — $51,625 for a family of four — states must first enroll at least 95 percent of children from families earning below twice the poverty level.

Dennis Smith, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, said the new requirement is "aggressive, but doable."

State officials and Congressional Democrats such as Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., disagreed.

"There aren't any states that are going to get 95 percent of people signed into these programs," Stark said. "They have set a hurdle that's impossible. They might as well just come out and say let's kick kids off the rolls."

Catherine Hess, senior program director at the National Academy for State Health Policy, said Vermont has the nation's highest enrollment rate at roughly 92 percent.

Another new requirement calls for new enrollees above 250 percent of poverty to go without insurance for a year before they can enroll in SCHIP. The new rules also require the new higher income enrollees to pay co-payments or premiums that are roughly what they'd pay in the private market.

In 2006, the average premium for health insurance for a family of four was $11,500. - and increasing nearly ten percent a year. Good luck fitting that into a $60,000 family budget.

Why does George Bush hate poor kids?

Yeah, I know this is a Republican trick to increase votes for their guy in the general election, but it's also a great way to water down the importance of California as a Presidential battleground, too.

California voters are inclined to support a proposed ballot initiative that would change how the Golden State allocates its electoral votes in presidential campaigns, but they're not yet sold on the idea, a Field Poll released today showed.

Currently, California employs a winner-take-all system that awards the state's entire 55 electoral votes to the winner of the state's popular vote.

Under the proposed measure, which could be on the June 2008 ballot, the presidential election would become, in essence, a congressional district-by-congressional district contest. The winner of the statewide popular vote would receive two electoral votes, but the remaining votes would go to the winner in each of the 53 congressional districts.

Let's just say, for argument's sakes, that this change might create a split, such as 33 votes for the Democrat, and 22 votes for the Republican. That's a difference of 11 votes.

That's Tennessee. That's Indiana. California will be lessening their importance, in the overall scheme of total votes, to the value of those states. If that's what they want to do, they'll be regretting their loss of power in Presidential politics.

I'm a sucker for a good backscratch, and I suppose there's many, many of us out there like that. Not a backrub, mind you - but the actual use of nails, gently, to scratch my back. Of course, finding volunteers to do such a thing is pretty near impossible, since you really can't ask but those who are the very closest to you in today's society. I guess it's like personal grooming in other primates - there's a familiarity and a personal ranking requirement involved at some level.

Earlier this year I thought (and I still do) that a series of "backscratching" tee-shirts could sell well on CafePress. And maybe, just maybe, it would bring the practice of backscratching into a more publicly appreciated thinking. I even talked to a local artist about designing the shirts, but she ended up working some other gig and kind of dropped off the radar. Design, and language, are the keys to making a t-shirt actually sell. Here were some of my lame word ideas at that time:

Help.
I Need My Back Scratched.

I'm Ready For My Back To Be Scratched Now.

I've Got Back Scratch Fever.
(nuh nuh nuh)

Clearly, I don't have the words yet, and I've realized that I'm really never going to get this done. Plus, somebody's thinking along the same lines - and more power to them. Hell, I'm probably going to buy this one.

Wishing for high speed access to the Internet be available everywhere in Pennsylvania won't get it done. Neither will goofy legislation mandating that cable companies provide it.

This whole legislative idea seems to me to be some sort of cross between pandering to voters complaining about access and finding additional revenue sources through a statewide cable television franchise law.

Here's an idea - how about wireless?

Philadelphia has it all.

Yeah, really. 30 years ago, Sebastian Cabot, who portrayed the character Mr. French, died. Surprisingly, Mr. French was a very enduring character on a fairly uneventful show, at least for my generation. This clip is interesting, if only because it serves as a time capsule of what seems to me to be a very long time ago.

(The saddest thing about "Family Affair" was that the second best character, sadly, was Mrs. Beasley...)

I wish I could say otherwise, but this doesn't seem to me to be a surprising situation for the mine owner/miner families/government to find themselves in at this point.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, at least publicly, it seems that Bob Murray has been a big problem. I won't argue his motivations since I can't know them. But he has come across terribly on television, and done so rather continually. Whether he's doing so or not, he's appeared to be inaccurate and perhaps dissembling. In addition, he's really made little public effort towards "expectation management" - he's built up this possibility all this time that the miners were alive, even though there was no evidence indicating such. He also built up an expectation of a "rescue" that would come sooner than this. We can all be hopeful and optimistic, but it has to be tempered officially with a grimmer potential reality.

But Bob Murray isn't necessarily trained to do these things, and really shouldn't have been the public spokesperson for rescue efforts after the first day or two. There needed to be a dispassionate, focused, believable, trusted voice for this effort, one with nothing other than mine safety in general as a priority, speaking to the public. This did not happen, for reasons that are beyond me. If this had been an airline crash, we'd see NTSB or FBI taking the lead with information to the public - not an airline CEO. If this had been a sinking cruise ship at sea, we'd hear from the Coast Guard, not the cruise line. The government would take charge, privately and publicly. This has not happened here, at least on the public side, and that's been a problem since the beginning.

I know, I have the worst title lines in the biz. That's my schtick.

But really, I'm here to help. Rox at Rox Populi commented, on a post containing a photo of Ann Althouse that remained front and center just WAY TOO LONG...

Okay, you need to mosey Ms. Egg Salad along...-

Posted by: PSoTD | Aug 20, 2007 11:58:46 AM

Yeah, can't seem to get back into the groove.

Posted by: Roxanne | Aug 21, 2007 6:46:11 AM

So I'm asking you - help her get her groove thing back.

Our newest member of the household, a sweetie with laser eyes!

Anyone else think that Comcast is doing a crappy job of spamfiltering - by blocking legitimate emails?

That are worth reading...

A note to the Berks County Democrats.

Rick Klau has put together a site of interest for those of us with young families: SaferToys.org.

Every once in a while we all are reminded why Oliver North is a Traitor.

MadKane wants to know your opinion: What’s the real reason Karl Rove resigned?

All the good bloggers are dropping the pseudonyms these days. Pretty soon it'll just be the riffraff like me still clinging to them. But then it'll be retro...

When is a FedEx employee not a FedEx employee?

Sure seems like someone could write a big hit song called "Obesity in the U.S.A."

I don't understand why upscale, million dollar homes would be built without fire hydrants in the neighborhood.

Note to Hillary, as the frontrunner, and to any other candidate who is thinking about the calculations involved in selecting a Vice Presidential candidate: I don't care about geography, and I don't care about gender or race. I care about the direction of this country. I do not want to see a repeat of the mistake made by Gore and the Democrats in 2000 with the Lieberman selection, because whoever is selected is likely to be (eventually) a heavyweight candidate in a Presidential election, and their opinions and policy choices matter. A LOT. Selecting a Vice Presidential candidate should be more about what Democrats hope to pursue as policy in the next open party nomination process, and less about "the math", because people really don't vote for a candidate based on the Vice Presidential nominee.

And that is exactly what I'm going to read into it. This is a policy decision. And if a politician is picked with some difficult policy preferences to stomach simply because of "the math", I'm going to have some serious problems going forward with this party.

I suspect this is a story we won't hear after Hurricane Dean gets through the Cayman Islands, but...

Dean was expected to pass to the south of the Caymans but the government said it still posed a "significant threat" to the islands. Forecasters said the islands could receive up to 12 inches of rain.

Hundreds of frantic vacationers lined up at ticket counters for special flights home, and many slept on the airport floor. Cayman Islands Gov. Stuart Jack said all but 1,500 tourists had been evacuated from the British territory by Sunday afternoon.

So... did all the tourists get out, or were some stuck there because of airline issues?

Here's some Cayman webcams to check out, if you're curious.

Well, at least one.

They sure love the film, "The Blob".

Does Tom Friedman read blogs? One of the beauties of blogging is that a writer's work can be treated as a reflection of how he or she thinks, and some analysis can be made of how they come to conclusions.

One of the weaknesses of newspapers is that they treat a writer's work much more as a transitory experience. This is a major flaw in the editorial room, and it allows for writers to continue writing - and being clearly wrongheaded - for years and years and years, because each written exercise in boneheadedness is seen separately and not as part of a flotilla of feebleism.

Really, it is time for newspapers to review their columnists, and the ones that have been grossly and constantly proven wrong about the most important items of the day, such as Iraq, should be dropped. Particularly in light of analysis, readily available, that shows an inept kind of determination process. Keeping them on just is more editorial crapping into the pool of information the newspaper is supposedly trying to maintain.

And it's one of the most tense non-life-threatening things I've experienced, particularly when you don't know if you're going to get on a plane.

Farther west, the low-lying Cayman Islands are expected to take a direct hit on Monday. Tourists there jammed Owens International Airport in snaking lines that stretched outside onto a lawn. A police officer with a bullhorn kept order. Under still-sunny skies, many tourists flopped under the shade of a tree outside, surrounded by their luggage.

Cayman Airways added 15 flights to Florida from the wealthy British territory, and they were quickly sold out.

Two years ago our family was in the Caymans when a hurricane threatened the island, and we had to leave early with a throng of others that wanted out, also. Two years before, the island was devastated by a hurricane, a fact that is still visible on the island today. You do NOT want to be on the Cayman Islands during a hurricane.

Cayman Airways seems to be pretty responsible about adding flights to get folks out. But I have to ask - what about the other airlines that fly people in and out every week? I think that most airlines, such as US Air and Continental, fly once a week into the Caymans on Saturday, and hopefully they didn't fly any tourists in today just in time for this hurricane.

I'm sure we'll be able to read about some tourists that were on the Caymans when Hurricane Dean hits, but the question will be whether it was by choice or by airline logistics.

Last night when I returned from walking our dog, there was a hawk standing in the middle of our street. A biker had stopped to check it out as well, and we thought it was hurt and couldn't fly. I called the police to find out where I should report it, but as I was talking to the police, the hawk flew up to a nearby tree. It was dusk, and we couldn't tell if he was injured or bleeding, but since he could fly, I told the police everything seemed okay.

This morning we woke to the hawk hanging out under one of our pine trees in the back yard. This seems to be pretty odd behavior for the hawk, since we have them all over the place around here and this is the first time I can remember one hanging out on the ground. I took the fuzzy photo below just before he flew off again, for another close tree. He can take off and fly, but I can't tell how well, since he doesn't fly for long.

I read this article about a locality trying to put McMansion construction under additional review, and a sentence popped out at me:

"The market is saying young people want larger homes and they're putting them on the lots we have," Russell Dennis, a builder and Wellesley resident, told the board. "You're looking to change the game."

McMansions are usually something of the 6 bedroom, 6 bathroom variety - one of the things I've noticed when reading about them is the ridiculous number of bathrooms they have.

So why do young people need them? Do they have huge families? Expecting to have a huge family? U.S. trends on birthrates point to parenting later, rather than earlier, and smaller families. So, who are these people?

More importantly than that, however, is this - have they thought how their house may be used in 30 years, assuming it stands that long? My house is over 40 years old, and with proper maintenance can serve AT LEAST that long again, barring unexpected acts of God or man. It's a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom home with a good sized lot and lots of flexibility in remodeling - I know, we just went through a big remodel job. It's considerably lower priced in the marketplace than a McMansion, i