The Logic of Heaven and Hell

On Dennis Prager's radio show today, he invited comment on his axiom: "If there is a God, and if He is just, then of course there is both heaven and hell (or if you prefer, ultimate reward and ultimate punishment)."

One caller said his position is that even the "bad" stuff that happens is, in fact, good. So Dennis offered him a hypothetical. "Let's say a family is burned to death in their home by some monster of a human being, that would be good?"

The guy said, "Yes, because they pay in this life for their sins of their previous life." He believes in reincarnation.

Dennis suggested that this perspective would prevent people from being sympathetic to human suffering, and then it was time for the commercials.

He's right, and then some. If you take the view that the burned-up people deserved what they got, then why would we bother to have firefighters? Shouldn't we let the people burn? Wouldn't the firefighters just get in the way of these people getting what they should? If the people are saved from the fire, calamity would just have to come their way on another day.

And shouldn't we get rid of the police and the military too, and let chaos run rampant, because wouldn't that be the best way to make sure everyone pays for their sins?

Let's pretend this caller decides one day to beat up his wife. Did she deserve it because of her past life? If she did, how did he know? How is he able to decide what punishment other people should get? But if she didn't deserve it, then he's going to be punished in his next life for having beat her up. But how is it "good" for her in this life?

This guy's point of view is, as Prager said, an excuse for a lack of compassion. We can look the other way when people suffer, because it's forging better things for their future, and the more they suffer now, the better off they'll be in the long run.

It's disgusting. I'm so glad I believe in the simplicity and logic of heaven and hell.

Environmental News

Time for another round-up of environmental and global warming news, because there's just too much for separate posts.

Sheryl Crow on Reality:

Sheryl "One Square of Toilet Paper" Crow wrote a column for the Huffington Post Friday, and in it she said:

However, what terrifies me is not what we are ignoring about the state of our planet but the fact that we seem to have lost touch with our connection to the earth. We have risen to great heights of arrogance in our refusal to acknowledge that the earth is changing. We hold steadfast to our belief that nothing can happen to us as a people. We get into our oversized, war-machine-like vehicles, get on our cell phones and blackberries, and avoid having human contact all day long.

I have not lost my connection to earth. I walk on it every day. I fall down on it. I drive on it (is a Corolla a "war-machine-like vehicle"?). Yes, I keep my gravity bill paid.

Oh, she says the toilet paper thing was pulled out of context from a comedy routine.

Children are a scourge on the earth:

The Australian reported yesterday that, far from being a blessing from God, children are a bad thing.

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

"The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child."

They're already doing that, except for their immigrants, who will eventually have Britain to themselves.

Mankind as Virus:

This is related to the previous one. Dan Gainor's column Sunday for the Business & Media Institute criticized an environmentalist's views.

Apparently, saving the whales is more important than saving 5.5 billion people. Paul Watson, founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and famous for militant intervention to stop whalers, now warns mankind is “acting like a virus” and is harming Mother Earth.

Watson’s May 4 editorial asked the question “The Beginning of the End for Life as We Know it on Planet Earth?” Then he left no doubt about the answer. “We are killing our host the planet Earth,” he claimed and called for a population drop to less than 1 billion.

I'm surprised at the 1 billion figure. The earth's carrying capacity used to be proclaimed as 2.2 billion. Still, these guys always want you to be the one who is eliminated, not them. Never them. They're too important to be sacrificed for that cause.

Global Warming Is Confusing Migratory Birds:

Reuters reported yesterday that migratory birds are having troubles.

Birds, whales and other migratory creatures are suffering from global warming that puts them in the wrong place at the wrong time, a U.N. official told 166-nation climate talks on Monday.

A warmer climate disrupts the biological clocks of migratory species including bats, dolphins, antelopes or turtles, said Lahcen el Kabiri, deputy head of the U.N.'s Bonn-based Convention on Migratory Species.

Birds are sometimes hatching early in a warmer climate, but sometimes insect food can flourish even earlier. Pied flycatcher birds in Europe, for instance, have suffered from a lack of caterpillars for their chicks.

Why aren't the scientists glad for the caterpillars who don't get eaten by the flycatchers?

El Kabiri said governments should cooperate more to create and protect international migration corridors.

I'm not sure how protecting a migration corridor will help the migratory species to use them, when they think it's plenty warm where they happen to be at the time.

Expert Climatologist Calls Global Warming Fears Absurd:

Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News reported yesterday on climatologist Reid Bryson, age 86.

Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate.

“I was laughed off the platform for saying that,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News.

In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom.

“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

Indeed.

Roundaboutation

Roundaboutation is an archaic word, not used much anymore except in historical romance novels, but it fits. For those of you not familiar with British roads, a roundabout is the British name for a traffic circle, the kind where you can get stuck going in circles forever and ever.

One of the people in my Anatomy class has been looking around for another Allied Health school that doesn't have waiting lists for the desirable programs. She found one, and today was the day for the Radiologic Technology and Ultrasound introduction seminars, so I went (my fellow student couldn't go, because tonight was her Lab night).

The school is 70 miles from home (the one where I'm taking Anatomy & Physiology is 55 miles away). Both programs at the 70-mile school admit people by a point system based on GPA for the prerequisite classes, and that's good for me because (like my dad) I was born to be a student.

But it's bad for me, because this school has a couple prerequisites specific to their programs that have to be taken on campus before they'll accept you into the program, and I'll be on the road all that time. So I couldn't get in to either program when I want to (Fall 2008).

The ultrasound seminar pointed out something about the nature of sonography work that I've been trying to ignore: You have to have full use of your shoulder. And I do, almost all the time, but not right now. My bursitis has flared up again, and this time my anti-inflammatory prescription doesn't seem to be doing a thing.

Maybe I'm being a scaredy cat, worrying too much over something that's no big deal. But maybe I'm not.

Radiology is a perfectly good option, and it's a foot in the door for other areas I might be interested in, like MRI, Nuclear Medicine, and Mammography. Ultrasound isn't a foot in the door for anything but more ultrasound techniques.

In the seminar, the lady said Rad Techs get paid less to start than sonographers, but my internet job searches (the results that list salaries) have said Rad Techs get more, with higher demand.

It's all getting so frustrating. My hopes for a quick start with in-state tuition have been re-dashed, and the online program in Michigan, which would cost a small fortune in out-of-state tuition, is even longer for Rad Tech (2 years) than Ultrasound (15 months), so the fortune for school would get even bigger.

I like it when I've made a decision and I know where I'm going, and then I can focus on going there. I'm no longer in that position, and all this going in circles is driving me nuts.

I'm praying about it, but so far I don't have any answers.

My Son the Emmy Nominee

Yes, it's true! My son, along with his movie-making partners, has been nominated for an Emmy in the category, "Outstanding Student Achievement: Program."

Here are the nominees for the Pacific Southwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. My son's category is way down at the very bottom. His program is "Commander Cosmos" (I blogged about it last year when it premiered), and my son is Eric McGill.

I'm not proud or anything!!!

Overpriced or Affordable

Forbes reported Friday (HT: WorldNetDaily) on the most overpriced and least overpriced housing markets in the country.

No matter the locale, its denizens almost always gripe about the stiff cost of living, housing and doing business. But in some places the financial pain is clearly more acute than others.

Take San Diego. A slumping housing market, where only 5% of residents can afford the median home, and a high price-to-earnings ratio made the oceanfront city our most overpriced real estate market. Had weather been included as a statistical measurement, there's no doubt San Diego would have avoided our list of top 10 most overpriced cities--but we didn't factor in sunshine.

So, San Diego is the big loser as the Number 1 Most Overpriced Real Estate Market. Here's the slideshow of the Top Ten offending markets. For those who don't have time to view the slideshow, the top five are:

1. San Diego, CA
2. Miami, FL
3. Sacramento, CA
4. San Francisco, CA
5. Washington, DC

Forbes also ranked the Top Ten Least Overpriced Real Estates Markets, but that must not be headline material. Here's the slideshow for the Top Ten best markets. The top five are:

1. Charlotte, NC
2. Austin, TX
3. Raleigh, NC
4. Detroit, MI
5. St. Louis, MO

In addition to the overpriced factor, the report also looks at affordability, though Forbes didn't give a tidy list for this factor.

[T]he affordability score is the percent of the population who can afford to buy the median-priced home, assuming a 6% mortgage rate. In a city like Los Angeles, No. 4 on the list [of house price-to-earnings ratio], a wee 2% of homes are affordable for residents pulling down a median income.

That makes Los Angeles (Number 8 on the Most Overpriced list) the least affordable place to live in the country.

The most affordable? That would be Indianapolis (Number 9 on the Least Overpriced list).

I've been thinking about where I'll look for a job, once I finish training for a medical career, and my plan to look outside California has been bolstered by this list. Every major metropolitan area in California is on the Worst list.

Orphaned Owls Get A Mom

The Daily Mail (UK) reported Friday on four orphaned baby owls being cared for at a wildlife park.

A group of orphaned baby owls snuggle up to a cuddly toy which has become their surrogate mum after they were found on the brink of death in the wild.

The tiny tawny owl chicks burrow in under the fluffy toy's wings to keep warm after they were separated from their own mothers.

The chicks, all aged between just four and eight weeks, faced certain death as they fended for themselves alone in the wild but are now recovering in an animal hospital.

All four of the nocturnal creatures are now being cared for by experts at the New Forest Otter, Owl & Wildlife Park at Longdown in the New Forest, Hants.

After a tough start in life, they are being fed up to full strength in the park's hospital quarters, where they crave love from their surrogate mum.

The park's animal manager, John Crooks, said the little chicks may have got lost from their mums in the Hampshire countryside after wandering off before they could fly.

Or they may also have been forced out of the nest by their parents if they were the youngest of a large brood to hatch.

He said: "There's a lot of misinformation about tawny owls.

"They're perceived to be very wise animals because of their appearance but really they're not very bright at all.

That may be true, but these little guys are absolutely adorable.

Survey of Political Beliefs

WorldNetDaily reported today on a new Rasmussen poll on beliefs about 9/11.

Five-and-a-half years after al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four U.S. airliners, crashing them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, Democrats find themselves evenly divided as to whether President George Bush knew in advance the attacks were coming.

According to a national telephone survey of 1,000 adults, conducted by Rasmussen Reports from April 30 to May 1, 2007, 35 percent of Democrats believe Bush knew, 39 percent believe he didn't and 26 percent say they aren't sure.

While 61 percent of Democrats either believed or weren't sure 9/11 occurred with the administration's foreknowledge, Republicans rejected the theory of passive complicity by a 7-to-1 margin. For those with no major party affiliation, the idea Bush knew was held by only 18 percent. Fifty-seven percent rejected it.

Overall, 22 percent of voters believe the president knew in advance.

Over and over we see evidence of the Great Divide in our country between Democrats and Republicans, between liberals and conservatives. It's not just a simple disagreement over policy or priorities. It has become visceral.

Over a third of Democrats believe in their gut that President Bush not only knew about the attacks on 9/11 ahead of time but he allowed them to happen. And more than half of the remaining Democrats are willing to at least entertain the idea.

To believe evil intent on the part of the President is incomprehensible to me. Even during the Clinton administration, when he was at his most disgusting, I never believed he was capable of wanton destruction of American lives. I believed that many of his policies would lead to misery for some people, but not that their misery was his plan.

It's hard to know what made things change. Was it like this during the Reagan era? I wasn't paying a lot of attention then. Or, is this the result of Democrat resentment over having lost the White House after eight years of being in charge?

I couldn't say. I just know it doesn't bode well for us as a nation if things stay the way they are.

Identical Twin Premies

The Daily Mail (UK) reported yesterday about a set of identical twins born eleven weeks prematurely.

Here is one pair of twin brothers that few will have any difficulty telling apart.

For although Byron and Lincoln Ryman were born within a minute of each other, firstborn Byron - at 3lb 6oz a small baby himself - was precisely three times bigger than his sibling.

Eleven weeks premature, both boys were given a slim chance of survival - particularly Lincoln, weighing only 1lb 2oz at birth.

But yesterday the pair, now just over five weeks old, were doing well, thanks to the dedicated staff at the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney.

Neo-natalist Dr Parag Mishra said Mrs Ryman was induced to give birth at 29 weeks because it was seen as giving the babies the best chance of survival after complications arose.

"Nicole was 15 weeks along when the medical staff detected twin-to-twin transfusion, a type of problem that occurs sometimes with twin babies when blood flows from one twin to another.

"Lincoln's chances of survival, I considered, were less than 30 per cent because he was so small."

But after their birth, both brothers showed an "exceptional will to live," said Dr Mishra.

That diaper on Lincoln has to be the smallest they can get, and it's nearly as big as he is.

I can't get over what neonatologists are able to do these days. Two pounds used to be the lower limit of the babies who could be saved. Now it's down to almost a pound. Amazing.

KFC Trans-Fat Lawsuit Dropped

The AP reported yesterday on a victory for common sense.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that had been brought by a doctor who accused the KFC fast foods restaurant chain of failing to tell customers that it used trans fats to fry its chicken.

In an occasionally sarcastic opinion, U.S. District Judge James Robertson said Dr. Arthur Hoyte could not show that he was harmed by KFC 's use of the artery-clogging fats.

And in response to Hoyte's claim that customers have a growing understanding of the dangers of trans fats, Robertson wrote: "If consumers are increasingly aware of trans fat, where do they expect to find it if not in fast food restaurants?"

Nonetheless, customers will no longer consume trans fats with KFC's chicken, according to the restaurant chain.

KFC's parent company, Kentucky-based Yum Brands Inc. (YUM), announced Monday that all 5,500 of its U.S. restaurants have stopped frying chicken in trans fat. The company had said in October that it was switching to a new soybean oil believed to be less likely to cause heart disease. The lawsuit was filed last year, before the change.

Finally we have a judge who doesn't treat the general public as though we're too stupid to be able to think and decide for ourselves. Without judges like Judge Robertson, the health police would be the death of us.

Destroy Al Qaeda

There was a Japanese movie released in the US in 1971 as Destroy All Monsters. I saw it on TV sometime after that. It was cheesy, the ultimate Japanese monster movie. The plot summary in IMDB says:

Aliens have released all the giant monsters from their imprisonment on Monster Island and are using them to destroy all major cities on the planet. It is up to the daring crew of the super rocket ship X-2 to infiltrate the aliens' headquarters before the Earth monsters and King Ghidrah annihilate the planet.

There are times when life imitates art, though usually it's the other way around. But Destroy All Monsters is more a case of art predicting life. Al Qaeda is the alien group releasing all the monsters and using them to destroy all major cities on the planet, and it's up to the daring US military and its willing partners to infiltrate and destroy al Qaeda before that group of aliens and their monsters annihilate the planet.

Larry Kudlow agrees with me. In his column yesterday in the Washington Times, he makes the case against al Qaeda.

Our last, best hope in Iraq -- Gen. David Petraeus -- reminded Pentagon reporters last week of a critically important fact long forgotten by most observers: Our real enemy in Iraq, the true source of all the murders, mayhem and instability, is not sectarian strife. And it's not the Sunnis or the Shi'ites, either. The real enemy we face in Iraq is al Qaeda.

According to the top American commander in Iraq, al Qaeda's No. 1 priority is defeating the United States in Iraq. The general called this organization "public enemy No. 1," adding that "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign."

He takes Senate Majority Leader Harry "Loser" Reid to task for failing to grasp this simple concept, and then Kudlow highlights a senator who gets it.

In contrast to the blind Harry Reid contingent, I'd like to highlight one remarkably clear thinker who does get what's going on in this war -- someone who recognizes the true enemy and is able to articulate his position in breathtaking clarity. I'm talking about Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Frankly, no public official understands what's at play better than Mr. Lieberman.

Mr. Lieberman forcefully stated that "al Qaeda, after all, isn't carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn't to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table -- along with everyone seated at it."

The Harry Reids in Washington don't get it. They fail to see the terrorist fingerprints. But when you look at Iraq through the Lieberman lens, the dust settles. The task before us becomes clearer. Why are we in Iraq? We are fighting al Qaeda. Period.

We must fight them until we have destroyed all the al Qaeda monsters. Until we win. No other option will do.

Birthday Presents

These are the presents my kids gave me for my birthday yesterday (click on it to enlarge). My daughter gave me the photos (she conspired with my mom for that and got some help from her brother), and my son gave me the books.

The photos include some I don't remember, even though I've looked through my mom's photo albums a million times. The third row down, third picture from the left is the three of us kids with my dad's dad in front of his house, and Grandpa has his perpetual cigar in his mouth. He had a permanent dent in his lower lip from keeping a cigar there all the time.

The bottom row, second from the right is the three of us in the bathtub (I remember that one). My mom wanted to use that picture for their Christmas cards that year (looks like 1960), but my dad put his foot down.

Anyway, I love it!

The bigger book is the National Geographic Road Atlas: RV & Camping Edition, for the US & Canada. Really cool. It even lists, for the town of Hartland, New Brunswick, the world's longest covered bridge, which my mom and I intend to drive across (with my car, not the motorhome) in the fall. Hopefully before the snow comes to Eastern Canada.

The other book is The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants, published 1967. My son got it at the community college during one of those special events where different individuals set up booths and sell stuff. It has chapters like, "The Fierce Spirit of Resistance," "The Canadian Campaigns," and, "Spies, Treason, and Mutiny." Looks really good. I'll have to read it when I get some time, but that won't be for a while.

Thank you, son and daughter of mine! I love you!!!

SkyePuppy Turns 50

It's my birthday, and it's a milestone that seems to need more to come with it than just an invitation to join the AARP. I'm still too young to start getting a senior discount anywhere, although I got one shortly after I turned 40.

Ten years ago on my birthday, my son told me I was old. Gee thanks! A couple days later, when I was at a shoe store, I noticed a sign on the wall that said, "Ask about our senior discount." So I asked if I got the discount, since I just turned 40 and my son said I'm old. The lady and I laughed, and then she said, "Oh, why not?" and gave me a discount. Gee! Thanks!

This time around, I'm celebrating the milestone by flying home from Texas and hopefully arriving just in time to take my Anatomy Lecture Exam IV, on the circulatory and lymphatic systems. Do I know how to party, or what?

Update:

The connecting plane in Salt Lake City was an hour and a half late getting there, so I didn't make it to class on time. But I got there before it was over, when the rest of the class was finishing the test, so the instructor let me take the test in a back room while she finished up the class time with a lecture on the respiratory system. I finished the test about when she finished the lecture and only had to guess on a few items. I'm SO GLAD that's over.

My daughter left me a message on my cell phone not to look in the freezer or her bedroom, so I'm home now, waiting for her to get here and show me her surprises. Happy birthday to me!

Man Arrested for Abortion Clinic Bomb

Reuters reported Friday about an arrest in the most recent abortion clinic bomb case.

A 27-year-old Austin man was arrested on Friday and charged with placing an unexploded bomb containing some 2,000 nails outside an abortion clinic in the state's capital.

The explosive device also included a propane tank and a mechanism "akin to a rocket," Austin Police Commander David Carter said.

The device was discovered on Wednesday in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center, police said.

The Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force -- made up of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities -- arrested Paul Ross Evans, who authorities said was on parole for an unspecified crime.

It's creeps like this who give pro-life people a bad name. This guy is not pro-life. He's a criminal. Homicidal. Nothing more.

I hope they throw the book at him and lock him away for a very long time.

Trip Planning

This is my mom's little dog Scooter, and he'll be traveling with us. He's a bit chubbier than he was when I was here last year for Memorial Day. My mom thinks it's because her fence is solid, so Scooter can't see anything to run around and bark at. When she was in Montana, the fence was see-through, so Scooter had countless numbers of deer and neighbor dogs to get excited about. We'll have to see what kind of exercise opportunities we can give him on our trip.


And this will be our home away from home. I'm going to have to do some serious downsizing of my clothes and books and paper supplies and all the rest.


Inside the motorhome, part of the living room.



And the bedroom, one of the twin beds. Since the bed is attached to the wall, there's no room for a bedspread to hang down the backside of the bed, so my mom took a queen-size bedspread and cut it in half and then sewed it up so it will fit properly and hang only on the frontside of each bed.



This is the decal-map my mom ordered. We'll stick it somewhere on the outside of the motorhome and fill in the states as we travel through them.



We started making plans for where to go and when to go there. My sister's schedule is the tightest, since she works at the Junior College and is tied to the school calendar. She has to be back to work by the end of June for some special events they'll be having over the summer. That means our trip to the Four Corners area has to be finished by then, which means I've got to be leaving for Texas in the first few days of June.

So much work, so little time!

I've Been Had!

I should know better than to believe a story that's just too good to be true.

Yesterday I posted about the Poodle Scam in Japan, only to be informed by Charlie at AnotherThink that he was informed by one of his readers that the story IS NOT TRUE!

Apparently even city-bred people in Japan can tell the difference between a sheep and a poodle and are not as gullible as we're gullible enough to believe they are.

Here's the Snopes page debunking the story.

My only consolation is that otherwise-legitimate news sources believed the story too.

Festival Day in Cisco

I got to Cisco, Texas, just in time for their Folklife Festival. It started this morning with a parade. The people in the cars or on the floats throw candy to the kids, so it's always a well-attended event.



My sister's youngest is in the Cisco High School marching band, which was the first band in the parade.


After the parade the festivities moved to Cisco Junior College. The high school band gave a concert of three or four songs. The first was a Gustav Holst piece (not from The Planets), and when the band director announced it, one of the guys in the back asked, "Is this the hard one?" Yes, it was. They followed it with "The Curse of Tutankhamun," my niece's favorite of the set.

The food booths were all together under the shade between the buildings, and we checked them all out before buying lunch. One special treat I saw was deep-fried Snickers and other candy bars. I'd heard about them on Hugh Hewitt's radio show when he broadcast from the Minnesota State Fair in the past, but had never seen one in the flesh. It looked more like a skinny Monte Cristo sandwich covered in powdered sugar than a Snickers bar.

We looked at all the crafts and the stuff people were selling. I didn't make any purchases, because I'd just have to carry it home with me. Some of the people knew my mom--her church friends and the mechanic she found for her motorhome--and a lot of people knew my sister, who has lived in Cisco for years and years.

Almost everyone was talking Texan. "Y'all" was everywhere. A few people even noticed that I wasn't from around there. When one man found out I was from California, he said, "I'm surprised y'all didn't bring her in under dark of night." My sister said, "We did!"

As we left the festival, these two gents were taking a well-deserved break after spending most of the day on their feet, collecting entrance fees and stamping the backs of hands (admission is free tomorrow with a handstamp from today).


Cisco is NOT the home of the Cisco Kid. He was from somewhere else. What Cisco does have is Conrad Hilton's first hotel. He purchased the Mobley Hotel in 1919 and went on to make a name for himself in fine destinations around the world. The hotel is now a museum, but it isn't open on weekends, so we'll try to see it Monday.

Yesterday's Trip to Texas

When I left California, I saw someone stuffing a little white dog into a carrier, and then I heard the dog woof a few times when we took off. In Salt Lake City we had a layover before heading to Dallas, and I spotted the dog again, helping his owner with her multitasking. I couldn't resist getting their picture (and her permission to post the photo).

On the flight out of Salt Lake City, the guy a couple rows ahead of mine and across the aisle was reading the men's magazine, Maxim. I wasn't exactly reading over his shoulder, more like reading over his wrist, and all I could read was article headings. A couple of them caught my eye.

Now, when I'm in the checkout line at the grocery store, the women's magazines, like Cosmopolitan, have cover headines that say things like, "How to please your man." I guess that's the kind of thing a woman with a man to please worries about. But this guy's Maxim gave me a glimpse into the male mind.

The first headline, partway down the left column of the page, said, "What Can I Do To Get A Woman To Stop Crying?"

I have no idea what Maxim's advice was, but a couple answers came to mind. First, get used to it. It's what they do. Women cry. You'll ask her what's wrong, and she'll say one of two things: "I don't know," or "Nothing...." She is not lying to you. If she knew what was wrong, she'd tell you. Sometimes she just needs to cry.

Second, don't try to fix whatever is wrong. Just offer her your shoulder to cry on, and if she accepts, put your arms around her. DO NOT try to touch her intimately. That is the worst possible course of action at this time. Just let her finish, and when she's done, go from there.

After the guy on the plane turned the page, there was another article, partway down the left column of the page, and the headline said, "How Can I Survive A Mountain Lion Attack?"

I find it very telling that these two articles had the same question format, the same font, and the same placement on the page. I can only surmise that these two questions address the same level of trauma in the eyes of a man.

Poodle Scam in Japan

Japan has really had it tough lately. First it was the burning bidets, and now it's a poodle scam.

The Brisbane Times (Australia) reported yesterday about a scam perpetrated on the poodle-purchasing public.

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles, The Sun newspaper reported today.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

You can't make this up.

Teamsters Sue the Feds

WorldNetDaily reported today that the Teamsters have filed suit against the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in an attempt to stop a new pilot program from taking effect. The program would open up the US highway system to Mexican trucking companies.

As WND has reported, the government will have no access to whether those truckers have any criminal records, and the system is being set up to allow those trucks loaded with goods to cross the border in as little as 15 seconds.

The action was filed Monday in federal court in California, alleging the Bush administration's program failed to publish proper, advance notice of the pilot plan and failed to allow an opportunity for public comment before the program takes effect.

The Bush administration is ignoring the American people in its zeal to open our borders to unsafe Mexican trucks," said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters general president. "This reckless pilot program must be stopped and the driving public protected."

Congress already has begun a move to close down the program, but legislation may not be quick enough, the plaintiffs said. Under a 2001 NAFTA order, the proposal, scheduled to take effect within days, authorizes up to 100 Mexico-based trucking companies to operate beyond a narrow border zone.

WND reported the Department of Transportation plans to certify the first participating Mexican trucking company as early as the end of April or the beginning of May.

Have you ever driven in Mexico? In the cities, like Tijuana and Mexicali, the "rules of the road" seem to be more like recommendations. Lanes become fluid. Alto (Stop) signs are frequently ignored (oh, wait, that's California too), and it can get downright hair-raising to drive there.

Our president wants to let really big trucks, driven by people who are accustomed to Mexican driving, onto our interstate system. Do these drivers even know that, in California anyway, they're only allowed to drive in the two right-most lanes? Are their trucks equipped with the right smog reduction and safety equipment?

Probably for the first time in my life, I actually agree with a union. I drive on the most likely highway the Mexican trucks will be using, and I'm concerned for my life.

"The Bush administration is trying to circumvent safety requirements by repackaging this plan as an illegal pilot program," Hoffa said. "Inspectors can't enforce truck safety in the United States, let alone south of the border."

I dated a guy for a while who drove box trucks (slightly smaller than semis) locally, taking wholesale plants to grocery chain warehouses. Every year the drivers had to take training on how to safely transport and handle Hazardous Materials, or they could lose their licenses. Will the Mexican drivers be taking this training before the end of April?

I'm so frustrated with President Bush's headlong rush to surgically join America and Mexico at the hip in some sort of freakish Siamese Twin Reattachment operation. This is only the latest procedure in his grand scheme.

I hope the Teamsters win. Soon!

Waiting for Godot

I'm sitting here waiting for the plumber to arrive. He should be here sometime between 1 and 3pm to install the two new toilets. He has less than 25 minutes left to get here on time.

The minute he leaves (if it's not too late), I'll be heading back up to school, where they're celebrating Earth Day by showing two movies and having a lecture, all on Global Warming. I'd get 5 extra credit points for Anatomy class for each one of the three events I attend. But I can't leave until the toilets are installed, and it takes just over an hour to get there, so if he's still here after 4:00, I'm going to have to forget the whole idea and just get the rest of my extra credit points (up to a maximum of 50 pts--I have 30 right now) from Reggie-Lab assignments.

I'm in the middle of painting the master bedroom (very light yellow, like pale butter, with an accent wall of light yellow, like butter), but I changed out of my painting clothes around noon, so I could get a couple errands done before toilet-man arrived. I have two walls finished with the first coat. I can see where the brush strokes and roller marks are, so it's going to need a second coat.

I might not have painted, but the previous owners patched a couple holes in the walls with a really lousy job of spackling. The same thing happened with the house I owned before this one. What's with people who can't figure out to use sandpaper on their dried spackle before they paint? Spackle globs are unsightly.

By painting my bedroom, I can repair the bad patch job and spiff up some other spots, and it shouldn't be so noticeable. Besides, it's a cheery color.

Four minutes to three. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Maybe I'll start some laundry and then work on some Sudoku puzzles...

Update:

They arrived after 4:00 and didn't leave until after 5:00, the start time for the last of the Global Warming movies. Looks like I'm stuck with Reggie-Lab.

But the toilets work!