weight 11/24/11

255.5

Still heading down.

weight 11/13/11

259.5.  Going down.

weight log 11/5/11

262.  Going down Sloowly.

Diet 10/15

266.5.  Moving down.  Slowly.

diet 10/6

269.5

Broke 270.  Treadmill 3.3 mph, 60 min.  Dr. scale 5lbs lower than mine. 
Cholesterol 185, unchanged since I started Atkins.  (Lipitor dose unchanged)

diet 9/26

271.5 .  Sloooow loss.

Diet 9/15

273.  moving down again.

Diet 9/1/11

279.  Nothing in the last month.  Achilles pain so I haven't done any walking.  Back to the drawing board

diet 8/5

279
Been bouncing between 279-280.  Regular workouts on treadmill, 3.2 mph 60 min and, I think, calorie count average about 1700/day. Carbs up to 25-30.  Slow going

Letters to Senators

Wrote Webb and Warner about the charade that passes for this debt limit debate and no budget for over two years.  Willing to bet that I get the standard non-response.

Diet 7/31

279.  Holding.  Didn't walk last night.  Nice fresh corn so my carbs were at least 130.  If atkins can't take a weekly excess when fresh corn is available, then I need another diet.  Stopped taking ibuprofen at night and went to actaminophen when needed.  Doesn't do much, but I seem to have broken the plateau not eating ibuprofen or asprin.

Diet 729

279.5   Been dropping a bit over the last week.  First time below 280 this morning.  Stopped taking ibuprofen at night and switched to acetominaphen.  Not sure if that makes a difference but it is the only real change in the diet.

Diet 723

283.5 morning weight
Not moving real fast.
Doint 60 min on treadmill at 3 mph, 1.5% slope.  Pretty much 5 times/week. 
Food intake ~21g carbs, 1600-2000 calories.

Diet 7-18

284
Off the treadmill for 2 days because of achilles pain.
Sloooow weight loss but seemingly going down  (20-25g carb, 1700 cal/day)
Into the old 44 pants so all is not bad

Diet

Weight 288
Treadmill 3 mph, 1 hr
Upped carbs slightly.
Water retention or actually lost a little?

Diet

Weight 290 (fluid retention bounce?)
Treadmill up to 60 minutes @ 2.7 mph
Average calorie deficit slightly under 1800 cal/day.  Theoretically, that means the weight loss should be ~3.5 lbs/week.  Ain't happening. 

Diet Progress

40 minutes at 2.2-2.3 mph each day on the treadmill.
Carbs ~17-20g/day
Calories 1300-1600 /day
Net calorific load ~-1700 per day
Weight 292  I've gained 3 pounds in the last week.  Go figure.

Diet Progress

289.5 today.  Bouncing around with water retention.  Essentially no loss in two weeks and based on a calorie deficit of ~1700/day, I should be losing 2.5 lbs/week.  Have to do some rethinking.

Just started back on the treadmill.  2 mph/flat for 20 min.  70 cal burn.  My achilles starts to twitch at just under 20 minutes.

Atkins Progress

289.  This is going very slowly.  I believe calorie intake is around 1500/day and carbs <20 grams/day

Atkins Diet

290 lbs.  Big time hunger pangs on Saturday until after a salad, steak and chicken breast dinner.  Not sure why, but I was in full starvation mode.

Atkins

290.5  lost about 12-13 since 5/4.  Rate is about 2.5 lbs/week, in keeping with a diet that is about 1400 calories/day.  Carbs at 14-20 range daily.  A tad high for Atkins.  Looks like most of the weight loss is calories (as atkins says) not carbs.  Looks like the 200-lb goal is next May.  Long time to spend on this funky diet.

Good news.  Smaller clothes fit.  Suspenders aren't as needed.  Easier to tie shoes and other bendy things.
Bad news.  I haven't been on the treadmill for a couple weeks.  Achilles tear(?).  still a bit twingy.

Atkins

292 morning weight

Atkins progress

293.5 morning weight

Arnold

Cable news seems to be really excited about Scharzenegger's pecaddilos.  Who cares?

Das Boot

Decided to have carb problems from age and bad gas.  1 carb per cylinder, 3 carbs.  Looks like fun.

Atkins update 2

296.5 Morning weight

Atkins update

300.  Lost ~45lbs

Atkins

303-304

Seems to be picking up in drop speed.  Still slow

A Crappie Day

First time this year fishing. Absolutely gorgeous, sunny day. Light winds and high about 70. Found one pod of crappies and had a blast with a couple about 10-11" hitting on an ultralight. Fished with a Berkely minnow-looking plastic on a 1/16" oz jig. When they hit it, they were mad at it. The boat had been under a tarp since last year. Didn't fish much last year because of the heat and my achy tennis elbow. Learned a few things this weekend: 1. Start the boat before you take it out the first time. That way you can drive over to NAPA and get a fuel line to replace the one in the boat leaking from two mysterious wear spots. 2. If you look into the storage compartments the day before you get to take care of the ant colony that decided to take residence in the life preservers. 3. Covering a boat with a tarp that doesn't completely cover the transom and storing the boat under loblolly pines makes for yellow carpet with lots of needles and catkins. But most of them go away if you tow the boat 70 mph. 4. Stabil and sea foam don't do much for last summer's gas. 5. The new starting battery will die 5 miles from the launch because you cleaned the wiring connectors instead of cutting the wire back and replacing the connectors, you dummy. 6. You can find out how out shape you are trying to pull start a 40hp merc with old gas. 7. A three-year-old trolling motor that has been run off-and-on for 3 hours will get you the first 1.5 miles toward the launch. 8. When you waive at passing boats, they wave back and accelerate, even if you have the engine up and are paddling the boat. 200 hp bass boats pass by but two big guys in a little jon boat with a little motor will stop and tow you. 9. The shortest distance by trolling motor has no fish. 10. If you take I295 rather than I64 to avoid traffic, you will find that I295 is backed up for miles. You will also really, really appreciate that coffee you've been sipping on all day. Can't wait until next weekend so I can do this all over again.

Home Repair Rules

1. Estimate the project time. To get the real number multiply by 5 and add 10. A ten-minute project will take at least 60 minutes.
2. They quit making that 20 years ago.
3. They quit making the easy adapter for fixing #2 10 years ago.
4. The last guy who remembered the easy work-around retired 5 years ago.
5. You don't have the tool, so you need to make a special trip to get one. It is a limited use or one-time tool. So, after you use it, you will put it away in a place you won't forget until after you can't find it next time and buy its replacement.
6. If you need a helping hand, no one will be in earshot, especially if you have finally wedged yourself under a sink or some uncomfortable place.
7. You have to make at least 3 trips to the hardware store/Lowe's/Home Depot to get a $1 part. You get the wrong part; Larry puts the wrong sizes in the bag; and, after you've spent $20 and two trips, someone suddenly remembers that THIS transition piece is the one that works.
8. No plan is good unless it changes 3 times during execution.
9. It takes at least an hour to pick out the perfect paint color. Once on the wall, it will be absolutely wrong.
10. Buy Ibuprofen stocks. Sales will dramatically increase.
11. The new product is 0.5" bigger or smaller than the hole it's going in and won't fit without extra effort. For example, a 60" shower, bought to go into a 60" opening, is really 60.5".
12. It's never in an easy place to get to.
13.  We had those last year, but we don't know where they are.

Two days in the bathroom

Made progress on the bath.  Finally picked out vanity and new top,so I got's another trip to the dump to get rid of the old top.

Major effort on getting the drain line to meet.  Three trips to Lowe's/home depot trying to get a transition piece from 1 1/2 to 1 1/4 and finally, the guy at Lowe's Broad Street said use one of these.  Next time I'll go to Pleasants.  Together, no leaks.

Toilet

Easy installation.  No leaks, I hope.

Bath Mirror

Not bad and not hard to install.  Sits on a mounting bracket and two brackets to hold it on if you want to surface mount.  I can't recess mount this because other bath shares the wall.

Progress on New Bath

Painted yellow walls with Behr Premium Ultra.  One coat didn't cover the yellow.  Took two coats and I have some touch up to do.  Using the Allure vinyl planking.  The floor is in.  I may be sloppy, but I make up for it by being slow.

Electronics recycling

10+ years of computer junk and other electronics off to recycling.  Rainy so I used the Tahoe.  Took about 2 hours to drag it out of the eave storage and get it downstairs.

Took 3 minutes to empty the car

New Tub

A real plumber does it faster than I could

Atkins Diet

Started the Atkins Diet about two months ago.  Weight today was 310.  I started somewhere around 340.  Slow

Cheap Reciprocating Saw

I had a Black and Decker recip saw.  Used it twice for two bathroom renovations.  This saw quit moving the blade toward the end.  Wouldn't recommend getting one of those.

Second Bath Project

Doing the second bath.  I'm removing the old tub and having the new one professionally installed.  Starting, above.
Current look

Climate Change Predictions

They haven't been all that accurate, but the believers don't seem to mind.

Paint the World White

In a 2009 speech.  DOE Secretary Chu wants to paint rooftops white or some lighter color to save the planet.  Not one mention of the $$$ to do this or the environmental damage to get that much TiO2, if there is that much TIO2 or the economic cost of that much displacement.  Truly, getting a Nobel in one area doesn't prevent you from being a total idiot in another.

More news about a Green

This one seems to be a family tragedy.  You wonder why no one noticed anything if the power had been off for two months.

greeners in the news

Alvin is running for senate.  No relation.  Well, if he does well we might do some creative genealogy.  He has a few "famous" news encounters.

Bunny Ears

Night Walk

At 10pm in Anchorage it's still light. Pretty neat

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.5

Anchorage

Made it

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.4

Amazing tale of incompetence

The News and Observer's series on the NC SBI is an amazing tale of absolute incompetence.  Intentionally incompetent, it seems.  I read it with great disbelief.  The folks mentioned in this series had one thing in common, none had science degrees.

Unbelievable

Droid App

Blogger for Droid seems to work pretty well.  Comes up with the last on you used.  Will how it works.

Droid app

Checking Droid

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.4

Bath Project

The new toilet is in.  The new vanity is in.  Had a bear of a time getting the drain in so it didn't leak.  Bought a Price Pfister Avalon kit.  The cheap plastic drain and pop up assembly was beyond my ability to install so it didn't leak.  I had to buy a steel ($25) assembly to get it to work. 

Demel Multi Max

I bought a Dremel Multimax     for a flooring replacement project, largely because the ads looked pretty neat and I needed a saw for door jambs.  The tool worked as advertised.  When I did my part, it cut neatly, quickly and accurately.  Looks like a good tool to have around for home projects.

Sustainable Biomass?

This article   
from the NYT on sustainable electricity from burning trees points out a bunch of problems with this whole green concept and leaves a few out.  It takes 20 years of tree growth to produce pines that might be usable.  The amount of land for growing trees to sustain one 47 mW plant is huge.  Pine is not as good as the slower growing hardwoods.  Pine is more polluting.  In fact, wood is as, if not more, polluting than hard coal.  Emissions controls would need to be as, or more stringent, than coal plants.  The high moisture content makes the fuel less efficient.  Bark and chip burning plants generally die pretty quickly based strictly on economics.  The article certainly doesn't mention the cost of the electricity produced or how much of the cost in the form of price and subsidies the public gets to pay.  Not a good idea

HT Instapundit 

Obama's Expensive 10 minutes

The presidential desparation to sell the stimulus as working was estimated to cost $500,000 to $1,000,000 for a 10-minute speech.  In honor of the presidential speech, construction workers were laid off with no pay for the day. 

It's time for real results and not fluff and nonsense.

Inexcusable Federal Obstruction

The oil-sucking barges work and the Coast Guard shuts it down. The Feds are bound and determined to make this tragedy worse than it has to be.  It is past time folks started getting fired.

hat tip Drudge

Obama Plan

Obama's plan is BP bad, BP gonna pay.  Tonight he did little to assure me that there was any real plan to protect the coasts and restoration.  Cap and Tax, stopping drilling, and beating up BP will destroy the country.  Just how many gallons of oil does a lawyer suck up?


We have been had by absolute lack of experience.

Good bye Merc

Cute article from Time on the demise of the Mercury.  I guess I never saw much difference, except price, between the Mercury and the comparable Ford model, so I never owned a Merc. 

Federal Response to the Oil Spill

I watched the joint press conference today. Napolitano and Salazar said the same thing: 1. BP is responsible; 2. We will hold them responsible; 3. We are making it a priority mission for a group of government scientists to figure out just how much oil is spilled; 4. We've been on it since day one and have been to the coast 4 times; and 5. BP will pay.

This is about the dumbest conference I've heard. The Feds have no plan, no ideas and are doing nothing to move things along. The only plan they have is fixing the blame. Why do either Napalitano or Salazar have jobs with any responsibility?

Show me your papers

Rather bad press by the President and others. As a US citizen I carry and, depending on the situation, can be expected to show: driver's license, retired military ID, voter registration card, car registration, car insurance, fishing license, boat and trailer registrations and others. If I were illegal, could I get by with less?

Graduation

Last child graduated.  Absolutely beautiful, sunny day to enjoy the show.

A minivan trumps anything

But a ragtop of any kind. Car lust is a great website

Car Lust

Really neat blog on cars

Nelson on Greta

Listened to the interview with Nelson from Nebraska.  Either he is the dumbest senator who ever broke bread or his is the worst liar.  He apparently didn't know about the kickback, then said it was a placeholder because they didn't have time to score it.  Asked about the rush and he just didn't know.

The US would be better off if the good folks in Nebraska elected him but then requested he not go to work.  Absolutely disgusting.

Half the Bathroom is coming together

Walls painted, shower in and hardware in.  Shower doors will be added tomorrow.  Just too lazy to drag them up the stairs tonight.

Peace in Our Time

Chamberlain's quote is about all that is missing from the current strategy of apology, discussion, deferring to our avowed enemies, kicking our friends and the newly announced nuclear policy. 

Pine Pollen

The season started late Friday.  Very nice yellow-green dust by Monday.  I discovered the windshield washer fluid pump on the Camry didn't work yesterday when I tried to remove the dew and pollen with the wipers.  Nice mess on the windshield.  If you a prone to pollen allergies, this is not the greatest place to be.  Bit of a thunderstorm this morning will bring some, temporary, relief.

Widget « Watts Up With That?

Widget « Watts Up With That?

Wallboard in the Bath

Wall board is in. Going green. Better if I replaced the wallboard. Not all that hard with new board. Now for the fun of mudding the board.

Go Spartans

Great game against Tennessee today.  Of course, you gotta love Butler.

Earth Hour

I guess I'm just too far right and have spent too much time doing things environmental to get caught up in the Earth Day or Earth Hour feel good, enviro stuff.  My favorite eldest child put out a Facebook request for all her followers to turn out the lights for Earth hour.  I turned on extra lights between 8:30 and 9:30. 

Unlike most of the left, I don't have the arrogance to believe I can change the climate.

More Bath Remodeling

Problems encountered
1.  The premolded 34" shower wall is really 36" and extends into the drywall on the perpendicular wall face.  My solution was to cut the overhang from the drywall.  I'll install the wall then cover with a small strip of drywall and the metal corner edge

I decided it would be easier and look better if I didn't try to cut mounted drywall and patch it.  The drywall on the back wall was removed.

The rear of the pan was 1/8" inch too far back and the wall didn't fit into the mounting slots on the pan.  A bit of removing subflooring and moving the pan solved that.  Took about an hour to figure that out.
The shower  faucet is nice.  Just takes a while to figure out the set up. 

Shower surround

Partially installed but not with caulking. The back piece was loads of fun for two old folks to get up the stairs.

More Bathroom Plumbing

Delta R10000 faucet, CPVC piping.

Bathroom Plumbing

Needed to do some additional cutting to get the drain to fit. Then replumbed the drain piping. Not much of a job, but I'm slow. The empty hole is where the tub drain was located.

Shower base going in

Stirling (Koehler) 60"x34" shower going in. The base is a very tight fit. More drywall gets removed. Can only find these in center drain. Took a couple cuts to get the drain opening in the subfloor big enough. Next step will be do rough in the plumbing.

Bathroom, a bit more progress.

Old Tub out.

Redoing the batchroom

Lot's of fun just cutting out the old one. A bit more stuck under the drywall than I thought.

Notice the really professional shower head attachment.

None of his business

Now the lord, high Obama is going to fix the BCS What absolute arrogance.

Upgrading Computers

Bought computers to upgrade what we had. Came with Vista and a free upgrade to Win7. Vista isn't great. W7 seems to be better. They still did a fine job of renaming everything. Probably would have been better if I had stayed with XP

Follow Haskall

Sure looks like the government is doing its best to cover up flight 253.

Haskell, sure sounds like he has them running.

Good Job Brownie was better

This thing gets stranger as it goes along. Amsterdam has the toughest security around, they missed him. However Somolia caught one trying the same thing. So Somolia is better than Denmark.

Both kick our buts. Nepalitano says everything worked, well, except the part about the guy in a plane with a bomb over Detroit or Windsor. His Dad turned him in, but we ignored it. And, oh, by the way, seems like he should have been detained in Yemen because his visa had expired.

However, Janet and the gov had a solution, go after bloggers who might embarrass the administration.

US Apologies are needed for these

Each time the Liberal-in-chief goes out to apologize for the US to Europe, he should consider these:

66,000 graves of American Servicemen in France
$288,000,000 cost of WWII for US
$115.3 Billion (cost adjusted) for the Marshall Plan ($12.7 Billion actual)
~$20 trillion for keeping the Soviet Union out of Europe after WWII

The US spent lives and treasure in a war that an inept France and England allowed to happen. We then spent over 40 years making sure they were not part of the USSR.

What we have to apologize for is saving a bunch of European ingrates.

Let's hope hopes are fading

The best hope is that no deal is struck at Copenhagen. I'm sure as "developing nations" China and India would like to see the developed west pass out money while committing economic suicide. The rest are there to see how much free money they can get.

I never could quite understand why liberals want to commit economic suicide.

Justice

I'm on the fence concerning capital punishment. But in Muhammad's case, it was justified. I'm glad Kaine didn't follow his inclinations and apply clemency. Time to forget about this monster.

Richmond Area Murders

The Richmond Times Dispatch put up a database with area murders. 167 out of 232 were by gunshot over the past 3 years.

And you believe they are going to soak the rich

Politico says that there are 237 millionaires in the Congress. Seems that most of the wealthier ones are Democrats. Remember, the Dems are the folks who are out to get those evil millionaires. And folks believe that a bunch of millionaires are (a) going to contribute heavily to a party that is going to get into their pockets and (b) are going to vote to decrease their wealth.

A record?

It seems that Mr. Owens, NY-23 Democrat may have set a record in renegging on campaign promises. He was pretty much against the House Health Care "reform" bill when it served to get him elected. On being sworn in he was all of a sudden for it. File under lying politician, lying Democrat or who calls his dog?

Regulatory Mind, updated

The last email exchange was interesting. I've said that siloxane removal for low-medium Btu landfill gas to energy projects was not good enough to make it technically feasible for SCR because the silicon would degrade an poison the catalyst. Florida DEP is, because someone else did, requiring a cost analysis. The example sent said they wouldn't do it and, if it were a requirement for the project, they wouldn't do the project because it would be too costly. So, he made my case. I guess my definition of technically feasible is the catalyst will be poisoned quickly, therefore making it impractical to do this. I guess we just write the cost up, making it too costly.

Blogging again?

New gadget may make it simpler

The Regulatory Mind

Had a discussion with a Florida air permit writer about the type of equipment used by a landfill gas to electricity plant in Seattle. He had it wrong. When I corrected him, he didn't believe me, even when I told him that the plant was built, owned and operated by my company. He would have to "look into what I said."

Election Ploy or Just Absolutely Confident?

This story from the AP has the Dems doing a post-election session to pass legislation containing their new stimulus, additional food stamps and other give-aways. They are also having an "economic" forum next week to "help" wth the crisis. Maybe I'm a cynic, but the last "stimulus" package didn't seem to work. This is just more "government" giveaways. I find the timing just a bit suspicious, since it is being announced less than a month before the election. This sounds like nothing more that a vote grab with more bread and circuses.

I didn't see any mention that Pelosi and the other rich, Democratic fat cats in the Congress plan to divest any of their fortunes into this giveaway program.

Found on Drudge

Stealing an Election

The continued and growing reports of fraudulent voter registrations by "activist" groups clearly indicates that the Democratic Party will stop at nothing to steal the election. Obama, if elected, will be there solely by fraud.

Obama's Treason?

The Washington Times confirms earlier reports that Senator Obama elected to conduct foreign policy with Iraq, specifically to delay any agreement on status of forces. This is done only for political gain. Obviously, if the Bush administration couldn't get an agreement with Iraq, then the Democrats would benefit by saying he couldn't end the the war. Obama obviously will do anything to get elected and very cynically elected to conduct his own foreign policy. The McCain campaign should make great political hay out of this treasonous act by a presidential candidate. My bet is they won't.

Obama continues to demonstrate he is not qualified for the office he seeks. One wonders how much interference in US foreign policy has been going on by the likes of Pelosi, Reid and other Democrats. They will undercut the Bush administration for pure politics.

Planet Green

The Discovery Channel has made itself over into something called "Planet Green." It is nothing more than a continuous stream of self-congratulatory newly green getting all warm and tingly about being green and propaganda. I've watched a few minutes and found nothing but the continuous stream of propaganda.

Well, we have an actor who just wants to be as green as green can be. At least Begely's show is done with a bit of humor. Then we have Hollywood Green where rich actors seem to talk about just how wonderful and green they are. Why, I was just beside myself with pride, when they "greened" up their country club.

Ad after ad on being green. Break after break on being green. Comment after comment on just how wonderful it is to be green.

It's down right sickening drivel and propaganda. It's enough to make me to want to change my last name.

No Choice In November

Gas is $4/gallon and going up. The dollar is going in the toilet. Crazy because the US is rich in energy that we refuse to get or use. I really like the Republican attack on the Democrats over energy policy. The crazy thing is McCain is wholeheartedly in the Liberal camp. Refusal to pursue drilling for oil in the US. The "pristine" 1% of ANWAR that will NOT be destroyed. Fears over the global warming scam. I strongly believe both McCain and the Democrats are out to wreck the US economy. The public has no choice.

If McCain believes he must court the liberals and blow off the conservative base because they have no choice really, he is sadly mistaken. I will vote my conscience, which could well be libertarian. I think they are a bit stupid, but, by gosh, they really aren't out to ruin the country. Can't say that about RINO and Democratic candidates.

Going Green

Seems like every time you turn on the television, you find a channel trying to out-green another. You also can't listen to the Discovery Channel, HGTV or, lately, even Fox without getting the green message. It's either a fad or concerted propagands. It's getting a bit old. I really wonder if most folks tune out the message when the sales pitch is endlessly repeated.

Global Warming Challenge 2

The saviors of the environment want 50% reductions in CO2. I challenge anyone to do this. Cut your electrical use by 50-80%, cut your fuel consumption by 50-80%, cut the energy into products you use by 50-80%. You can handle the first two by personally doing it. Thermostat settings just to prevent your house from freezing (no AC) should allow you to keep food cold and cook. You can do without electrical lighting most of the time. If not, take your chances on food poisoning. It is darned easy to cut fuel consumption. Just don't drive. Cuts in product carbon footprint are harder. You just may have to give up getting stuff until you can be assured of its low-carbon value.

Think it's silly? The saviors of the planet are always demanding someone else do it. Don't see any of them trying that life-style themselves.

Global Warming Challenge 1

If global warming is "settled science" why are there no predictions, save AlGore's, for near-term effects. You can get all kinds of predictions for 2050 and 2100, but none for 2010. Ballistics is "settled" science. Propel an object weighing X grams with Y force at Z angle and you can predict very accurately the trajectory of that object. For us expert high school physics students it was always done in a vacuum to eliminate the complications of air resistance, wind speed and the like. For the settled science of AGW predictions are always made so far in the future that no one will remember the prediction.

AlGore is the only one who has made a short term prediction. He has predicted total meltdown of the Artic in 5 years. Year one ended up with 20% more ice than the previous year. Must be going to start next year. He didn't say if it was going to loose 20% per year or just do it all in one year.

So, here's the challenge. Predict the annual, semidecadal and decadal temperature change. If the predictions fail, they your settled science may not be all that settled.

Too Bad it Wasn't Going to Fight Global Warming

The story about a 777 flight with 5 passengers creating an "eco uproar" would have been a story about how the greedy airlines stranding people if they had done what the enviros wanted or it would have been a glowing story if it had been 5 campaigners against global warming flying to some tropical isle to further the cause.

Silly Season?

I started the morning rounds of reading the Drudge report and was struck by a couple of the Environmental links. The first is a Daily Mail piece on an "eco warrior" who spent years trying to get sterilized so she couldn't have children and, thereby, "ruin the planet". Quite a puff-piece from the Mail going into "pressure" to have children from parents and in-laws, a bit of how man is destroying the planet. You just have to wonder if these people think that man is not a natural part of the earth's environment. Silly, but you can make reproductive choices for any number of reasons. Celebration of an 8-year search for sterilization as an environmental cause is just downright silly. Nice to see that this bit of lunacy has been removed from the gene pool.

The other article, again from Drudge is how man is shortening the life the universe. Seems that by measuring light from supernovae we can increase the rate that dark energy destroys all matter. This is by two supposedly reputable scientists and was not published on April 1. I'm not sure how the non-destructive measurement of something will result in increased destruction rate of matter hundreds of light-years away. But then I took only one course in quantum mechanics and that course didn't cover cosmology. Again, man, not satisfied with a single planet, has now set his sights on the universe.

Getting sillier and sillier.

Pain at the Pump

Taking a trip from Virginia to Michigan the week before Memorial Day is guaranteed to end up with expensive gas prices. Prices along the way on Sunday, 5/20 were $3 in Richmond, $3 on the PA Turnpike, $3.29 to $3.49 in Ohio and Michigan. Prices in Lansing jumped $.20 to $.30 overnight on Monday. I'm not much of a conspiracy believer, but the Standard Michigan $0.30 price jumps really make one wonder. This has been going on since before I moved in 2001. I've never really understood how this works here.

Duke "Rape" Case

Although it is hard to ignore if you watch the news, I tried. But this "case" is stranger than strange. It seems that there was no rape, the witness' (victim?) story keeps changing and the DA didn't bother to do basic interviews. Yet in all of this, the three young men have been punished. First by Duke University, then one by the City of Washington and, most of all, by the press. A poor choice of parties ended up ruining several lives. Yet, how many of us didn't attend some event that we wouldn't go to on a bet in later years? It is beginning to look as though these young men will have the opportunity to become rich at tax-payer's expense. Although I am not a big fan of law-suits, I believe the City of Durham and Duke University owe these kids more than "Never mind."

Anyone taking bets on when Reverend Jackson and the Black Panther Party will issue apologies?