• Fun with physiology

    One of the cool things about fingernails… they grow. Evidence of this phenomenon can be had by cutting a notch in the nail with an ordinary pair of household scissors. You can kill two birds with one stone by using the scissors to trim unsightly cuticles. Simply open the scissors and use the leading edge of the scissor blade as a makeshift knife. In most cases the blade is not sharp enough to cut through the nail, but just sharp enough to cut through the cuticle. (I considered a witty Geraldo Rivera reference for this spot, but I reconsidered… hasn’t he been picked on enough?) A few extra passes with the scissors will leave you with a notch suitable for displaying the wonder of human nail growth.

    (Note: the author wishes to advise his readers that they should never use a pair of scissors on themselves without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball.)

  • A date which has lived in infamy

    This afternoon on my way home from work I was listening to Bush 43 give a speech about Iraq. It was the standard White House fare… Iraq is the most important front in the War on Terror… we remain firm in our commitment to supporting freedom in Iraq… blah, blah, blah. I was settling in for a nice bout of day dreaming when Bush switched metaphorical gears on me. In honor of Pearl Harbor, he compared 9/11 to the attack by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I got to thinking about the years following Pearl Harbor (from what I’ve read, not from life experience), and how it might have compared to post-9/11 America. To be fair, the “good ‘ole days” had their share of questionable actions in the name of “security” too. As many Americans of Japanese decent can attest, Bush 43 didn’t invent the term “internment.”

    Say what you will about how WWII ended, but there was a pretty clear connection between the attackers at Pearl Harbor and the Empire of Japan (those big red “zeros” painted on the planes was a subtle hint). It wasn’t like we were attacked by a bunch of Saudis, went over there looking for a little “pay back,” flew north to Mecca, turned right and kept going until we got to the Euphrates, attacking the next country over. No, wait…

    Lets review some recent history: 9/11 = terrorism. Saddam Hussein = very bad guy. However…. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq may have had fewer ties to terrorism than almost every other middle-eastern country. Iraq had no W.M.D.’s for it’s own use, let alone to sell to terrorists. There were no ties between Iraq and the planning/execution of the terrorist’s plans for 9/11. Therefore, Iraq does not equal 9/11, and does not equal a War on Terrorism.

    Bush hasn’t exactly built on the principles of “honest Abe” in Lincoln’s Grand Old Party. A recent Gallop Poll (11/14/2005) served up a delicious slice of irony for the man who promised to “return honesty and integrity to the White House.” By a margin of 53% to 30%, American adults indicated they trusted what Bill Clinton said while he was president more than what George Bush has said while he has been president (16% thought their word was equally worthless, and 1% had no opinion).

    Pearl Harbor… 9/11… Pearl Harbor… 9/11… Both were terrible. Both will live on as turning points in American history. Both justified swift, military reactions. But will both be viewed by history as the catalyst for America’s prolonged AND justified involvement in armed conflict?

    If the President wants to address his poll numbers, a good start would be to cease the disingenuous and dishonest connections between 9/11 and the conflict in Iraq. It would appear that the American public is slow, but it’s gradually catching on.

  • Mr. and Mrs. Smith

    Since Cheryl and I have scaled back our Netflix subscription, movies at the Kauffman house have been rare. We’ve watched plenty of DVDs… like Lost and Oz, but few movies. With two kids whipping around the house, adult time has been at a premium… and rarely can be culled into a two hour block.

    So I’ve been choosy about the movies we get. I thought this movie was just original enough, just witty enough, and just gritty enough to overcome my recently obtained, entertainment “news” induced, Pitt/Jolie bias. (Frankly, I’m sick of seeing both faces… and I don’t even read entertainment “news.”) I wasn’t crazy about how it ended, but there was enough glow left over from the rest of the movie to overcome the last couple of sequences.

    I’m considering giving it five stars (out of five, on the Netflix rating scale), but I’m teetering on the 4-5 fence. Agh, maybe four… a bias is a terrible thing to waste.