Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Pining for the Fjords

For the last few of days I felt as though I was going the way of the Norwegian Blue.

I was just resting. A lot.

See You in the Not So Funny Pages

I read this comic strip via a link from Instapundit.

It made my eyes tear up.

Refusing Aid

Yesterday I read and added a comment to the post "Iran Just Says "No" to Aid From Israel" at The Command Post.

I was thinking about it again this morning. My head still hurts and I'm too brain-fogged by my cold to research this, but maybe someone else has the time and interest. Are there people in Israel who are protesting the offer of aid? The reason I ask is this made me think of the complaints in the U.S. about American Christian groups offering aid earlier this year. I can't remember,and am too lazy to look to see, if the aid was to go to Afghanistan or Iraq. I just remember accusations that the aid was a cover for the Christian groups to evangelize.

As far as I know, neither the Christian groups nor the Israelis have, nor plan to, use aid as a way of spreading their religious beliefs. Christians and Jews both believe that they have been instructed to give to those in need. There is no post script saying, "By the way, use charity as a lure to convert others." It seems that those in the U.S. and in Iran who believe that everything should come through a government do not understand the true nature of charity. It must be difficult for them to understand that there are times when gifts are given with no strings attached and no underlying agenda.

Off on a semi-related tangent, remember the scene in Gone With the Wind where Belle Watling gave some money to support the Confederacy? She gave the money to Melanie Hamilton/Wilkes after being unable to get anyone else to accept it. Melanie understood the value of charity, both in the giving and in the acceptance. Note, I am not comparing Christian and Jewish groups to Atlanta's town madam in anyway except to say that charity is something that can be separated from the giver's other beliefs and actions and it certainly shouldn't be up to the ones who don't need the aid to decide to reject it for those who do.

Candy is Dandy

You're Skittles!!! You have a very interesting
personality, you're so unique. You're the kind
of person who always thinks outside of the box.
You're also a very accepting individual, and
believe in inner beauty.


Which kind of candy are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

But Liquor is Quicker

Congratulations! You're a Long Island Iced Tea!


What Drink Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

After Dinner Whine

My husband (aka the germ-spreader) was sick over Christmas. Now I'm coughing and my head aches. My powers of concentration, which were pretty much shot after three kids anyway, are now non-existant.

I have to read posts and comments a few times before the meaning sinks in and when I try to write, I spend as much time hitting the backspace key to correct typos as I do typing. Did I mention I can't concentrate?

From what I've read as I've been browsing blogs today, I'm not the only one feeling this way. I just hope my kids don't get this too. I hate to think of them coughing and complaining, expecting me to wait on them hand and foot feeling this terrible.

Louisville Stuns No. 2 Kentucky 65-56

First the football game (40 - 24), now the basketball game.

Go Cards!

Christmas Passed

The cookies were baked and shared with friends, family, co-workers, and Santa. Now there are just crumbs left.

The tree was selected, brought home, decorated (the cats "helped", one likes chewing on the lights), and surrounded by presents. With this began the hourly litany, "Can we open just one now?" Now it looks as though the tree barfed up a toy store (specializing in video games).

The turkey was roasted and picked to the bone.

As the excitement wears off and total exhaustion sets in, all that is left is the eternal question that echoes throughout households across the country...why doesn't the liquor store deliver?

Ours to Fight For

The Government Publications Department at Northwestern University Library has a comprehensive collection of over 300 posters issued by U.S. Federal agencies from the onset of war through 1945.

More selections are in the "Continue Reading..."

Safe sex is for losers and Republicans

An article by Ashley Nimmo in the University of Maryland's wonderfully named humor newspaper, The Mayland Cow Nipple.

The cow's name is Lulu.

They also have something the world needs more of...reviews of publicly-accessible bathrooms on campus.

PETA wants dissection out of Hall County schools

PETA wants schools in Hall County, Georgia to do away away with disection in biology classes.

PETA spokesperson Sangeeta Kumar says there are other means of teaching the classes.

PETA claims there is a correlation between dissection of animals in biology classes and abuse of animals by young people.

I would bet that there's a greater correlation between under-educated ignorance and animal abuse. I'll also hazard a guess that lethal abuse is less likely to be done by people who have experience with the life and death of animals whether it be on a farm where they have seen or helped in slaughter, have owned a pet, or just learning about the amazing ingenuity of the construction of an animal body by dissecting it in Biology class than by those who haven't come any closer to it than through "CD Roms, virtual dissection, videos, models...."

Technologically Advanced Dinosaurs

Discover Magazine:

On October 23, a team of paleontologists and pathologists announced that they had discovered a massive, possibly lethal brain tumor in the fossilized skull of a Gorgosaurus, a 25-foot-long relative of Tyrannosaurus rex that lived 72 million years ago.

The tumor, possibly an unusual type of bone-forming cancer called an extraskeletal osteosarcoma, filled nearly the entire area formerly occupied by the cerebellum and brainstem and probably impaired the cerebrum, the part of the brain that controls thought and memory. “As the tumor grew, the dinosaur—a female perhaps three years old— would have forgotten where she left her last kill, and then she would have forgotten to go to the bathroom,” says paleontologist Peter Larson of the Black Hills Institute in Hill City, South Dakota.

Dinosaurs had bathrooms?

Plush Bugs

Magnified 1 million times, these Giant Microbes™ are great learning tools for kids, parents and educators. This set includes: The Flu, The Common Cold, Stomach Ache, and Sore Throat. Each one is accompanied by an image of, and information about, the real microbe it represents. Approximately 4” made of soft poly-filled plush.

They aren't any odder than some of the Pokémon plush toys my kids have but wouldn't you just know it, they're on backorder.

Cookies

I spent yesterday baking cookies and will do the same for most of today along with fixing a side dish to take to the Christmas festivies with my husband's side of the family so it will be a light blogging day.

See "Continue reading..." for the list of cookies I've made. I'll add to it as I make more.

Cookies I've made so far include:
M&M Cookies
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
Pumpkin Bars
Tiny Holiday Tarts
Fudge Ecstacies
Cookies 'n' Cream Brownies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Pecan Tassies
Molasses Sugar Cookies

Person of the Year

Time Magazine's Person of the Year - The American Soldier

For uncommon skills and service, for the choices each one of them has made and the ones still ahead, for the challenge of defending not only our freedoms but those barely stirring half a world away, the American soldier is TIME's Person of the Year.

In Time

Time Magazine has an exclusive report that says, "As soldiers were handcuffing him after he was extracted from his "spider hole," these sources say, Saddam spit on his captor.

As the incident was reported by the military, according to a U.S. source, a soldier promptly slugged the old tyrant -- probably the first time in more than two decades that Saddam was powerless to exact lethal revenge on someone who stood up to him. "

I can fully understand the impulse to hit Saddam, but after the restraint that was shown by not shooting him when they found him, it surprised me a bit that a soldier would react to spitting. Even though I think Saddam got better treatment than he deserved and I have doubts about the truth of this incident, watch for (more) complaints that he was mistreated.

The article also says that there are doubts about whether someone actually said, "Regards from President Bush." It is a good line and we all have had those "I should have said ____" times when we think of a snappy comment after the chance to use it has passed. Those times happen, though, when we are caught by surprise by an event or comment someone else makes. These soldiers have known for a long time that one of their goals is to capture Saddam. Just as Neil Armstrong had time to come up with his "One small step for (a) man..." remark, the soldiers have had time to think what they want to say. It could also be that one of the soldiers there is good at off the cuff witty remarks. Regardless, as far as I'm concerned, "Regards from President Bush." is a part of what happened. It was the message that Saddam was given whether it was spoken aloud or not.

Link to the Time.com report found via Aaron's Rantblog.

Ninjas!

Yesterday Paul wrote about ninjas in the Congo. They aren't real ninja-ninjas, rather they are self-named ninjas.

If callng oneself a ninja is all it takes to get major media sources to do the same, I'm there. I can be stealthy and I look good in black. Maybe I should add some items from here to my Christmas list.

I took their ninja test, I'm a bad ninja.

Happy Meal

A mother of three got a lot more than she ordered at a McDonald's drive-thru. Janice Meissner ordered a bagel and a Diet Coke for breakfast last week, but when she got her food bag it seemed "super heavy."

That was because it had hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in a sealed plastic bag - money that turned out to be the restaurant's bank deposit.

She backed up and returned the deposit before the employees noticed it was missing. McDonald's says they plan on sending her a thank you note and $50 in gift certificates. I want to add my congratulations to her on doing the right thing. Her kids are lucky to have an honest mom.

Party Time

Today I went to two school winter parties, one with Conor's class and one with Emma's class. In Emma's class, the kids decorated cookies with frosting and sprinkles.

I brought cookies to share with Conor's class. All treats we bring in have to be store-bought with ingredient labels. I miss the time when we could bake our own things to bring in but they are worried about allergic reactions.

In the evening we all went to the high school to hear the band concert. My oldest son, Trevor, plays in the band. One of the pieces that the wind ensemble preformed was "Ode to Greensleeves". I guess it's called "Greensleeves" instead of "What Child is This?" since it's a winter concert rather than a Christmas concert. You can bet that when I sang along (in my head, I wouldn't subject the people around me to my off-key singing), I was not thinking, "Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off discourteously. For I have loved you well and long, delighting in your company."

Both schools have Christmas trees, the high school (picture at left) also has a table of Chanukah items. For some reason the whole thing is roped off. At first I thought that might be to keep rowdy students from messing with the stuff there but the rope is close enough that you could reach over it and touch anything there. Now I suspect that the rope is there to make it look more like a display and less like an endorsement of any religion or religions. The tree at the grade school isn't called a Christmas tree, it's an Angel Tree because the classes take part in the Salvation Army's Angel Tree project.

While the schools call their parties winter parties, the company for which my husband works calls their annual party a Christmas party. The work party is always in January because December is too busy a month to take any time for it. They could just as easily call it a New Year's party but since it's a retail company, I imagine it's called a Christmas party in honor of the best retail season of the year. As far as I know, no one has objected to it being called that. The store employees are probably too happy with their higher than usual commission pay to complain.

Is it just me or does "winter party" sound vaguely like some pagan seasonal celebration?

Cat Washing

LeeAnn has instructions on how to wash a cat.

Our youngest and dumbest most naive cat practically volunteered for this type of washing.

Note that the description for how to wash a cat comes from "The Dog". This is just a bit exceedingly more reasonable than U.N.'s ideas of how to handle Iraq.

LOTR Tips

SpaceKicker has a list of survival tips for people planning on seeing LOTR at the theater. Found via Ipse Dixit.

Number 15 is my favorite.

Getting More Elvish

Legolas Greenleaf If I were a character in The Lord of the Rings, I would be Legolas, Elf, a son of the King of Mirkwood. In the movie, I am played by Orlando Bloom. Who would you be? Zovakware Lord of the Rings Test with Perseus Web Survey Software

First I'm Elrond, now I'm Legolas.

What 60s Persona Would You Be?

The Traditionalist

You look past your white picket fence to see a
group of loud, angry, unhappy people and you
just don't get it. The way you see it,
everything is fine the way it is; there's no
need for radical change. Traditions and morals
never change, and as long as people anchor
themselves to true values, they are secure. You
realize the value of the past and of etiquette
and rules set in stone, knowing these are the
only things that never waver.


What 60s Persona Would You Be?
brought to you by Quizilla

I bet no one saw that coming.

Help Military Pets

Found via Defend America

Dear Santa

I would be happy to find some of these goodies under my tree.

A new tape deck. A bit different from the old CoCo tape decks.
There's nothing wrong with my desktop or my laptop, but this computer would be nice...the monitor too.
A new digital camera.
An Ambient Orb. Wow...the colors!
A TV or maybe this one.
Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me. I hate cold weather. I might change my mind if I had this. I might even want snow in summer.
I could use a new car too. The kids will just have to get used to staying home.
Something to help me keep track of the kids.
A Pig Catapult, (No actual pigs are harmed) and a devil duck.

I really like that devil duck. Maybe a whole flock of them?

Excuses, Excuses

Excuses and other weaseling...
I mailed the check, the post office must have lost it.
The dog ate my homework.
I had a flat tire.
My cell phone battery died.
This isn't my department.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman...Ms. Lewinsky"

and now...
How can I when my people are in bondage?

Miserable Failure

Hillary Clinton

Image deleted due to bandwidth theft.

Chutzpah

OPEC wants aid if world shifts to renewable energies

Delegates said that Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, wanted promises of aid if Kyoto spurs a shift to renewable energies like tidal, solar or wind energy at the expense of fossil fuels.

Indubitably.

Quotations

"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. "The tyrant is a prisoner." - Paul Bremer, Coalition Administrator

"Where his rule meant terror and division and brutality, let his capture bring about unity, reconciliation and peace between all the people of Iraq." - Tony Blair

"Today is a great day for Iraq and the Iraqi people. This success brings closure to the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein will never return to a position of power from which he can punish, terrorize, intimidate and exploit the Iraqi people as the did for more than 35 years." - Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top American general in Iraq

"Saddam will stand a public trial so that the Iraqi people will know his crimes. He was arrested without resistance and there was enough time for him before that to commit suicide if he wanted but he did not." - Ahmad Chalabi, member of Iraq's Governing Council (Originally a trial in absentia was being considered. It would have been mostly to give "the Iraqi people the ultimate accounting for three decades of violence and repression" and Saddam would have had to be retried when he was caught.)

"With the arrest of Saddam, the source financing terrorists has been destroyed and terrorist attacks will come to an end. Now we can establish a durable stability and security in Iraq." - Jalal Talabani, (optimistic) council member

"I am overwhelmed with happiness and congratulate the Iraqi people" - Adnan Pachachi, member of the council

"I would like to congratulate the Iraqi people, the American people, the people of the world that this terrorist, Saddam Hussein the biggest terrorist on earth has been arrested, and he's behind bars. And he will be tried before a special court in Iraq soon, and a new beginning in Iraq with his arrest, the Iraqi people will begin a new life, and, hopefully, they will have a democratic and pluralistic system and no more mass graves, no more Saddam Hussein, and no more terrorism." - Hamid Ali Alkifaey, journalist

"We lost our only hope and now we are stuck with the Americans." - Abil Daoud, asshole security guard employed by U.S. troops

"I would have liked Iraqi police to get him." - Hussein Jassem Gebara, Tikrit governor

"Things will be better for my son. My son now has a future." - Ayet Bassem, mother of six-year-old Zenalbadin

"I'm very happy. Life is going to be safer now. Now we can start a new beginning." - Yehya Hasson, Baghdad resident

''We are celebrating like it's a wedding. ''We are finally rid of that criminal.'' - '' Mustapha Sheriff, a resident of Kirkuk

''This is the joy of a lifetime. I am speaking on behalf of all the people that suffered under his rule.'' - Ali Al-Bashiri, Kirkuk resident

"Death to Saddam!" - Iraqi journalists

"There will be a reduction in operations sponsored by former regime loyalists, but this is not the full story because they are not the only group
involved. It's an intelligence prize because they can get information from him about cells working now. And it's a huge victory because he was the
head of the regime and not like anyone else on the list of 55 most wanted" - Mustafa Alani, Iraq analyst at London's Royal United Services Institute.

"It really destroys forever the idea of a return to Saddam for many who thought he was a kind of legend capable of resistance and carrying
the Iraqi flag again. Most important it will be an opportunity politically as he was caught alive to put him on trial and all the atrocities of this regime will be in the
open." - Abdel-Monem Said, director of Egypt's Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies

"Yaaah! He's the evil one." - Emma Buckner (age 7), my daughter

Sources include:
SFGate
Boston Globe
Fox News
The Guardian
SwissPolitics.org
Newsday
CNN
Hindustan Times

Saddam Captured

When I heard the news*, my first question was "what now"? Will he be tried in Iraq? In the Hague? In the U.S.? Will he die of some disease (bullet-in-brain-syndrome) before he can be tried?

According to Tony Blair, it looks as though Saddam will be tried by the Iraqis.

*If you're wondering what is going on in the second picture that is shown with the news article, they are taking a DNA swab.

ABC News has more information about the capture.

C*A*R*D*S

U of L beat Florida 73 to 65 today, earning Rick Pitino his 400th career win. Francisco Garcia scored 21 points in today's game. His brother, Hector Lopez, was murdered earlier this week and Garcia has dedicated "everything to him - my life, my season, everything," Garcia said. "He was my blood, my best friend."

Which Biological Molecule Are You?

You are mRNA. You're brilliant, full of important,
interesting information and you're a great
friend to the people you care about. You may
have sides to you that no one understands. But
while you understand more than most people,
you're only half-there most of the time.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Found via LeeAnn.

Prime Time

On November 17, 2003 the 40th known Mersenne Prime number was found. It has 6,320,430 decimal digits. The discovery was made by a computer that is taking part in GIMPS, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

A prime number is a positive number divisible only by itself and one: 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on. Mersenne primes are a special category, expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, where "p" also is a prime number.

This doesn't mean much to most of us...unless you're looking for an excuse to have a party....

Prime number drinking games:

Thirty-one or if you are a real math geek, sit everyone in a circle and play Buzz. The object is to get shit-faced drunk to count up from one to whatever number you can reach before everyone falls on the floor. Whenever your number is a prime number, you say "buzz" instead of the number. The first person says, "one", the next says, "buzz" (1, buzz, buzz, four, buzz, six, buzz, eight, nine, ten, buzz...thirty-six, buzz, thirty-eight, thirty-nine...) When someone messes up, everyone drinks.

(Obligatory note: Drink responsibly, have a designated driver, don't drink alcohol if you aren't old enough to do so legally in your area.)

Prometheus Wanna Be

People who live with cats know that our feline masters friends think that they are deities. Yesterday, one of our cats picked the wrong role model for this.

One of our cats went into my sons' room and knocked over a lamp that had been left on. Not only knocking it onto the floor (on top of a pile of magazines) but also managing to remove the lamp shade. By the time I found the lamp on the floor it had been there long enough to heat up the magazines several deep. It was already beginning to smell toasty in there. I'm sure it wouldn't have been much longer before the magazines would have caught fire.

I don't know for sure which cat it was, but I have my suspicions....

Zippy, suspected of attempted arson.

"When you don't have opposable thumbs, lighters and matches are out of the question. You just have to make do with what's available."

Lasto Beth Nîn

Congratulations! You're Elrond!


Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Dômo Arigatô Gozaimasu

Japan Approves Troop Dispatch to Iraq

"America has made many sacrifices to create a viable democracy in Iraq," he (Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi) said. "Japan must be a trustworthy ally for the United States."

There Goes My GPA

I woke up in a panic early this morning. I had suddenly realized that it was December and I hadn't been to any of my classes since the first day. I didn't know what I was going to do. It's too late to make up the work and past the deadline for dropping the classes.

I'm not registered for any classes. I graduated from U. of L. almost twenty years ago.

Flashback, the onset of senility, or a side effect of my cold medication?

"The Right Policy"

Iraq the Model has a post giving an Iraqi perspective on which U.
S. presidential candidate would be the best choice for Iraq's future.

Plain English?

By now I'm sure that you have heard that Donald Rumsfeld was named as the Foot in Mouth award winner for this statement:

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.

This makes perfect sense to me but that isn't the problem that I have with this award. It's the name of the award. The idiom, putting your foot in your mouth, means to say something that causes embarassment. For example, let's say we're at a party. We have just been introduced. On the other side of the room is some woman making a fool of herself. I make some catty comment about her (remember this is hypothetical, you know I would never do that) only to find out that she is your girlfriend/sister/best friend/whatever. I have just put my foot in my mouth.

So why is the Plain English Campaign calling this a foot in mouth statement? If a speaker assumes you are able to follow a logical statement and don't need to be talked down to then the embarassment should be yours, not his.

Who's the Real Philistine?

I was reading Julie Burchill's column about her leaving the Guardian. It's a good article, go ahead and read it if you haven't already done so.

As you might have heard, I'm leaving the Guardian next year for the Times, having finally been convinced that my evil populist philistinism has no place in a publication read by so many all-round, top-drawer plaster saints. (emphasis mine.)

...if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel.

An I the only one who thinks this is an ironic choice of words? (Hint: Palestine is the Greek form of the word Philistine.)

There may be is philistinism at the Guardian, but it wasn't coming from her.

Brain Fog

I have a cold. With or without cold medicine, my brain feels foggy. I can't think of anything to write about (other than whining about feeling horrible). Even my comments on other blogs are terse because I can't think of much to say.

So Long, Mickey!

Things don't look good in the Magic Kingdom. First Roy Disney resigned, now Stanley Gold has turned in his resignation letter.