New to the "Blogroll" Wow

New to the "Blogroll"

Wow - no creative spirit. Sorry. I'll take a few minutes to point out the new blogs on my left-hand panel and then likely call it a night. My PETA link doesn't seem to want to give me the story I'm so desperately craving.

My most recent add is The Spoons Experience. I've been following this blog intermittently for a couple of weeks, sometimes even commenting, and, well, it's just time to give it some permanence.

Prior to that, I found Master of None, although I don't remember how. I read it, liked it, linked to it, and, amazingly, it linked back. Nice! Share the hits!

Earlier still, The Meatriarchy found one of my esteemed spouse's posts, and I sent a self plug and somehow got us both blogrolled. Nice, eh? She shoots; she scores.

Adam (in the spirit of Ogden Nash's poem, Fleas) is my former roommate (Amanda to my grandmother). Gotta link to Adam. He and his wife are also kind enough to let me crash at their home for the evenings before and during the MS 150.

Advanced Combo Tricks, Jen's History and Stuff, and Mike Courtney are all bloggers I found from IMAO. I have a boatload of other blogs to review from the same posting, but it's not going anywhere; I'm just awaiting the time to do the research/reading.

And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. My list of blogs is young and fresh. Many thanks to the few of you who've added me to yours. (I now have greater than three readers (so proud, so proud)).

Good night.

hln

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What's in a Name?

Ask the man formerly named Prince. Ask anyone named Spike. And I'd suggest you not use Cher and Madonna - precautionary.

But Tony Twist?

Okay, it's illiterative. But, that alone and its use in a bad light in a comic book shouldn't make it worth TWENTY-FOUR MILLION DOLLARS, should it? The judge in the lawsuit(0) didn't think so, either. I mean, that's a lotta Macaroni and Cheese!

But, now that the lawsuit is not centered in Twist's beloved St. Louis, where he crashes his motorcyle and supports the Gateway Locomotives, perhaps the thing will go from ridiculous to merely a short post on Overlawyered.com

hln

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Has No One Figured This Out?

Three weeks ago, Kraft Foods decided to throw its imaginary gauntlet into the ring of the War on Fat.

My beloved had one humorous thought about it. I have one more.

You know that little nutrition label on every package of processed food? Yeah - the one that says there are four or however many servings in the frozen pizza. Well, Billy, with our magic ink, we can make that same-sized pizza pie (or less, as Brian points out) into SIX lovely servings by using the tools of 4th grade math! Yes, indeed. Lower the ounces/grams in a serving, and you lower the calories.

Nice, eh? We'll all be eating things by the 3/4 ounce now.

hln

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Oracle - in the Dark?

Oracle - in the Dark?

I found this article about Oracle and sexual harrassment especially interesting. I'll just give you the high points; you can read the whole thing.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - An Indian programmer at Oracle Corp. (ORCL.O) has sued her Indian male supervisor and the world's No. 2 software maker for sexual harassment, claiming the man forced her into sex by telling her she needed to "learn the art of pleasing the American manager."

Hmm, I just turn my work in on time.

In the lawsuit filed July 18 in California's Alameda County Superior Court, the plaintiff charged that her supervisor, Mahesh Anand, forced her to perform oral sex in Oracle's San Mateo, California offices, in his car and at her home when her husband was away. Anand has since left the company.

Wow, that's at least three occasions, no?

And the kicker.

The lawsuit said that Oracle knew or should have known of the different cultural and legal context in which Anand was used to working in India, where managers can often exert unfettered power over their female subordinates.

Um, no. What could Oracle have done, anyway? If it, as an entity, was unaware of said manager's particular behavior, what could it have done?

Oh, I get it. Predict the future and stop it from happening. Oracle...yeah.

My bad.

hln

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Look, Ma (er, Hans), Hand-Built RSS

So, Blogger, you think you're so smart, eh? No RSS feeds for the masses. Well, I have ten fingers, and I can type (could code this into an automatic thing, too, if I were not so lazy and hosted this elsewhere). Behold the Clunky RSS!

My boss made me do it. Really.

hln

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About the Kobe Bryant Thing

I give you lyrics from Dog's Eye View, a song called Bulletproof and Bleeding:

Everybody loves the man on a cliff
Some hope for heroes
Most of us beg for blood

We all stay to see if he falls
No one stays to pick him up
Much too busy for his rapture
We can catch it on the news tonight instead, yea

So, now, do all you hypocritical adulterers feel better about yourselves? Surveys state there are a large number of you.

Part two:

More lyrics - just for fun. Harry Connick, Jr. Also fitting. From Last Payday:

That line about luck just can`t be bought
You`re always lucky `til you get caught
Trouble will find you, no need to look
And luck won`t help when they close the book

It's all about the consequences, man, personal and financial. Shoulda thought of that; everything carries a price.

hln

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Oooh, More, More, More on

Oooh, More, More, More on the TVC

Now it's a SCANDAL. I missed this afternoon update yesterday from the NRO on the pharmaceutical bill, but I just found it, so I'll be a nice human and share.

<cackle>Scurrilous!<cackle>

hln

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But Is He Really Dead?

You can never be too cautious, but the missing arms expert's body's been found near London.

Hmm.

hln

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No More Programming in France,

Okay, so the French nixed the word e-mail. Silly as can be, but okay. If they want to spend their citizens' money to find proper "terms" for the language, I really have no beef with that.

But what's next? Are the French going to discover/create a new programming language? Last I checked (being a web developer), all of the software languages I use are chock full o' lovely English words.

Hmmm. Lots of assembly code. Ick.

hln

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You Can Have Your Cake

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American children are fatter than ever before, but they are far less violent and far less likely to get pregnant than most people think, according to a government report issued on Friday.

Yahoo and CNN both have stories about our portly youth and their tendencies.

And what else do you get when you research kids and obesity? Video games and television. Here's what I've concluded from these three articles(just for fun). It may be true; it's most likely heinous fallacy. Aren't statistics great?

1) America's children are more concerned with food than sex. (Teen pregnancy down; weight up).
2) Video games decrease both actual sex and actual violence in our children's lives.
3) Kids are still drinking an alarming amount of alcohol (but only while playing video games), but the smoking rate has declined. This is probably because they have to go outside to perform this activity, but drinking can take place around the console.
4) Violent crime is down because children never leave their homes, and they're more knowledgeable about firearms (because of video games?) that they don't accidentally shoot themselves (or others) with the family gun(s).

Everybody! Buy six copies of Vice City, and shove those kids toward the console! Fat's in vogue, don't you know? I saw a man last night at Old Spaghetti Factory who sported a t-shirt proclaiming his pride in his body size. Your kid could be THAT GUY!

I'll probably expand this after work...

hln

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Traditional Values Coalition, meet the

Todd Akin, Jo Ann Davis, Randy Forbes, Virgil Goode, Jim Demint, John Shadegg, Pat Toomey, Tom Tancredo: All of these congressmen had 100-percent ratings from the National Right to Life Committee for the last Congress. They have something else in common, too: They're the targets of a direct-mail campaign by the Traditional Values Coalition that questions their commitment to the unborn. That campaign has other social conservatives questioning the TVC's motives.

Brian read the NRO today before I did, and he pointed this out to me for review and further commentary.

The TVC is target more than Uncle Todd, I see. I blogged about this a few days ago, having received the mailing. Ponnuru obviously spent more time on his piece than I on my basic surface criticism, and it's quite a good read.

hln

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Now That We've Given Up

Now that we've given up cable, there's this.

Figures.

hln

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Pat Robertson and Prayer Wow,

Wow, Pat Robertson must know something the rest of us mere mortals do not. He's delivered some pretty specific prayer requests to God, and, I'm sure will become very critical if he does not receive the answers he desires.

"We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club."

Robertson has launched a 21-day "prayer offensive" directed at the Supreme Court in the wake of its 6-3 June vote that decriminalized sodomy. Robertson said in a letter on the CBN Web site that the ruling "has opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest."

Woohoo! Prayer Wars.

And, wary public, rest not your vigilant watch, lest this public prayer trend become a weekly feature for CNN. Soon, soon, I say, Reverend Robertson will need to beseech the Lord to put an end to Jerry Springer's senate campaign.

And, if he asks for a Segway (new or used), I'm going to have to decry him some more.

I'll keep my prayers private, thanks.

hln

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Scrappleface says it better I

I got an "URGH!" from reading this, (the "bad-blood-shrug-it-off murderer") so I set it aside at lunch to blog about it later.

But that Scott Ott of Scrappleface does a far better job than my ugly rant, so I'll read more this evening and write less.

hln

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No Rant

I've been ranting too much of late. Yesterday, I checked myself - almost blogged about crazy Susan Smith and her desire for prison pen pals. I refrained. Good Heather. I guess I could've varied my style and written her an open letter, but I'll save that for someone worth my time.

A couple of reflections here today, that's all.

One, have you noticed how often conjoined twins are in the news now? I swear, they're EVERYWHERE. While it's obviously very sad that Laleh and Ladan lost their battle to live separate lives (and life at all), now conjoined twins are all the rage. We've got a new pair in Greece. And before that we had an interview with other conjoined twins - joined at the stomach- who would not attempt separation surgery. We have doctors in Dallas readying themselves to separate another pair.

I'm certain there have always been conjoined twins and surgeries - but Ladan and Laleh's journey in adulthood to lead separate lives seems to really have led the media to near frenzy about this topic. And, truly, it is fascinating. It's something most of us will never see or come into contact with without he media. And we humans are certainly fascinated by things we do not understand.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Yeah, go Lance. It's almost anticlimactic, isn't it? I mean, in the background of the Tour de France, behind Lance and all of the hubbub, you have Tyler Hamilton, who is riding nearly the entire race with a FRACTURED COLLARBONE. Everyone, as a chorus, please exclaim, "OUCH!" and shudder in horror.

If you have not been on a bike lately, I'd like to remind you of a few biking things. One, your hands FEEL the road - every pothole, every pebble, every bit of gravel - they all jar the bike. If your hands feel the road, and you're on the bike for several hours a day, I can assure you, your collarbone FEELS the road.

This man has grit. What's the press say? I searched CNN for him. Nada. Piffle. I'll not bother with all that - what's he have to say?

You can always leave him a note.

hln

Posted by: hln at 10:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The consequences are threatening

The consequences are threatening

So says the one-page glossy sent to me from Traditional Values Coalition. Actually, it was sent to my address but listed a person named "King" as its intended recipient. Not me.

No website on the mailing, but, being the deviously clever human I am with Google access and a bit of deductive reasoning, I soon found it.

The subject of the mailing? Stop Todd Akin from voting for H.R. 2427. (Your mission, should you choose to accept it...).

The sideshows? Baby chewing on toy looking like, well, a baby; young woman eyeing a pack of pills as though she has a difficult decision to make. Baby in white light. Woman in brown light. Caption? "If H.R. 2427 becomes law, RU-486, the "abortion pill," may become as easy to get as aspirin.

Ooh, not shocking. This is a religious right (read faaaaaaaaaaaar right) organization that has the audacity to quote Jerry Falwell on its mailing as an expert about prescription drugs? I think that's like a walrus endorsing Frosted Flakes, no? Oh, goody, and my friend Tommy Thompson, the most rational human in the government health sector. His argument?

Opening our borders to reimported drugs potentially could increase the flow of conterfeit drugs, cheap foreign copies of FDA approved drugs, expired and contaminated drugs, and drugs stored under inappropriate and unsafe conditions.

Could not you people find someone who could proffer an argument stronger that "potentially could?"

And Falwell.

Drug importation is about much more than getting cheap prescriptions. It's also partially about easing access to abortion drugs like RU-486, euthanasia drugs, and "life extension" drugs of questionable merit and potentially harmful effect.

And what's this bill about really, you ask? Its true name is the Pharmaceutal Market Access Act of 2003. Funny, on a full-text search of the bill, the only time I see the letters "ru" are contained within the word drug.

The bill is not exceptionally interesting, as bills go. I read it all.

The far right scares me about as much as the far left. Both seem far too interested in saving Americans from themselves, vast conspiracies for or against [insert cause here] and achieving their agendas through means other than reason. And I just don't buy in.

hln

Posted by: hln at 10:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Obligatory Link to IMAO, July 9, 2003

Yes, here it is, just as requested.

Please visit IMAO today. It's Frank J's one-year anniversary of posting. I can only hope to be a quarter as popular as he on my one-year...not that I know when it is...

hln

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A Love Story

Since I'm getting a lot of hits from my husband's post on IMAO about dating, I thought I'd share this with the curious.

This is how I found him.

I liked the poem, and, since I posted quite a bit on rec.arts.poems back in the day, I ran across this poem a few days after it was posted. (The day I found it happened to be Brian's 25th birthday). I saw the stlbrianj@aol.com (now defunct, btw - so go ahead and spam it), and I sent him an e-mail asking about reading poetry in St. Louis, something in which I was interested at the time. I signed it hli, my initials at the time. The e-mail address from which it originated was c674496@missouri.edu, so it was hardly a pick-up e-mail, not divulging my gender.

And he wrote back! It was a nice, witty, lengthy piece answering exactly what I asked. And I wrote back a thank you, and, well, you get the picture.

He printed and saved all of these e-mails.

We were friends. And then we were more, and then we married on May 22, 1999.

So, there it is. Not Internet dating on purpose, but certainly a good story with a happy ending. We lived in our separate cities for just over a year after beginning dating, and eventually we decided it'd be best for me to move from Columbia, MO to St. Louis because the job opportunities were much greater. During that year in separate cities, though, Brian was working in O'Fallon, MO as a printer, and this was on the way to Columbia. So, on Wednesdays, he'd pop into town and we'd spend some time together. I fixed him lunch for the next day and made rhubarb pies (my favorite - so selfish) and left napkins with little love notes in his lunch.

He saved these.

Anecdotal: I have a spouse who can beat me at Scrabble pretty handily. (We keep all of our scores...how...geeky!). I believe his high score is over 500, and mine a paltry 470 or some such (not the same game). If ever I need to restore my self-esteem from a Scrabble beating, well, there's always Boggle.

Where he doesn't stand a chance. Buhahahahah.

hln

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I'd like Prison for Life for $1400, Plesae, Alex

Wow. Nobody likes a wife-beater (even an alleged one), but there's extreme, and then there's EXTREME.

While the article does note the action was not Mr. Marquez's first offense, whoop-di-damned-do. Please note the word "possibility" in the first paragraph.

I'd hate to see what they'd have done to him if he'd sneezed.

hln

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Ah, So THAT's what it is

CNN today told me about Octopus Giganteus. Tim Blair has identified it more quickly than the Chilean scientists, though.

hln

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